Bill Clinton said Friday that he “almost want[s] to apologize for” his remarks against Black Lives Matters protesters. During a Thursday rally in Philadelphia, the former president defended his 1994 crime bill from activists arguing the legislation disproportionately targeted black people for minor drug offenses. “You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter,” Clinton told the hecklers. On Friday afternoon, however, Clinton walked back his remarks slightly, telling an Erie, Pennsylvania, rally that certain parts of his crime bill “cannot be justified.” He added: “It is true it had longer sentence provisions. It is true that they led to some people going to jail for too long in ways that cannot be justified. And I went to the NAACP convention last year and said that and said it was way past time to change.”
