Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got into a fiesty argument on Monday with an audience member at a panel at Columbia University’s Insitute of Global Politics.
Video of the incident shows the attendee and Clinton trying to talk over one another as the audience member decried “the hypocrisy of this speech.”
“Can you please make a statement about President Joe Biden’s speech? This is a clearly warmongering speech,” the audience member said. “President Joe Biden is calling for $100 billion of funding for Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine and we’re supposed to just bundle these together and pretend we’re going to rush to World War III and we’re all just going to let Hillary Rodham Clinton sit here.”
Clinton hit back that “this is not the way to have a conversation” and offered to speak with him afterward
“You’re going to wait for me, right? Please. I do not believe you. I do not believe you. Respectfully, I do not believe you,” the man retorted. “And the fact of the matter is that the American people’s voice are what need to be heard because our president is not speaking for the American people and neither are you.”
“Well, that’s your opinion,” Clinton then said.
“Yes, that’s my opinion,” the man replied.
“Well then sit down, we’ve heard your opinion thank you very much,” Clinton said.
The man then became more agitated, refusing to sit down and saying he was exercising his right to free speech. He went on to note random historical examples, such as that “John Foster Dulles was involved with the CIA.” (Dulles served as Secretary of State while his brother was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.)
Clinton retorted: “Well you’re brilliant in your historical cherry-picking.”
Event security then approached the man as he continued to go off, saying, “It’s not about Israel and Palestine, this isn’t football, it’s not Team America.”
“Well I’m sorry but some of us are on Team America despite our flaws and problems,” Clinton replied, drawing applause.
The man was then arguing with security when another panelist—historian Allida Black—jumped in to say that “every person on this stage has risked their life, their income, their reputation, their careers,” asking “what have you done other than stand up and disrupt?”
“What I have done is asked Hillary Rodham Clinton to denounce the president’s openly warmongering, suicidal, idiotic speech,” the man replied.
Clinton then finished the testy exchange, stating: “And I have given my answer: I will not do that, so that’s the end of our conversation but I’ll still meet you outside but you’re done.”
