While campaigning for his wife in Philadelphia yesterday, Clinton vigorously defended both his crime bill and welfare reform when interrupted by activists. According to MSNBC reporter Alex Seitz-Wald, today Clinton said the following:

Clinton was also less defensive about his policies, saying that the crime bill, in particular, “led to some people going to jail for too long, in ways that cannot be justified.” It seems that Clinton has learned that to enact welfare reform and the crime bill in the context of the 1990s is one thing—to defend them today is quite another. So he split the difference, in true Clinton fashion, with that “almost.”

My favorite part is the guy who gives her the side eye. Or maybe the cop in the background who decides he definitely doesn’t want to be in the shot. Or Bachmann herself mocking Clinton for not knowing “how to do the subway system.” Or the fact that none of this makes sense because there probably isn’t a political figure less associated with New York than Michele Bachmann (was Giuliani busy?). 

Sanders is headed to the Vatican next week to talk about what he and Pope Francis like to talk about: income inequality and climate change. Sanders announced that he’ll be speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences conference about “an issue that is very dear to my heart, which is how we create a moral economy that works for all of the people rather than just the top one percent.” He will also be discussing “the planetary crisis of climate change and the moral imperative to make sure we leave this planet in a way that is healthy and habitable for future generations.”

Sanders will also meet with Francis, whom he seems to adore. “I’m a big, big fan of the Pope,” he said in an appearance Friday morning on Morning Joe. “He has played an unbelievable role, an unbelievable role of injecting a moral consequence into the economy. He is talking about the idolatry of money, the worship of money, the greed that’s out there, how our whole culture is based on: ‘I need more and more and more. And, I don’t have to worry about veterans sleeping out on the street or elderly people who can’t afford their prescriptions.’”

In other papal news, Francis released documents today arguing that, while divorce is “still an evil,” Catholics should help divorcees “find in the Eucharist the nourish­ment they need to sustain them in their present state of life.” The documents also reinforce the Catholic Church’s strong stance against same-sex marriage. 

Republican chatter about a brokered convention leading to Paul Ryan being brought in as a compromise candidate seems farfetched. After all, such a scenario would require the party to sidestep not just the front-runner Donald Trump, but also the number two candidate Ted Cruz, who has an ample base of support inside the party. 

A video released yesterday, however, opens up the possibility that it’s not just the donor class that longs for a President Ryan, but that the Speaker of the House entertains such fantasies himself. 

For the last few months, Ryan has been releasing a series of unusual vanity videos on his Youtube channel. The most recent looks very much like an ad a presidential candidate would run. Titled “Politics These Days,” the video shows Ryan speaking grandly as a unifying figure, somewhat reminiscent of Barack Obama in the heady days of 2008. One aspect of the video is off: in decrying “identity politics” Ryan shouldn’t have been addressing an audience that is nearly all white. 

Is the video part of a gambit to convince delegates that Ryan is the sensible (and winning) alternative to Trump and Cruz? Perhaps. And even if it doesn’t succeed, it does indicate what a Ryan run in 2020 would look like. 

The Times columnist’s latest broadside against Sanders makes a mountain out of a molehill, i.e. Sanders’s claim that Hillary Clinton isn’t “qualified” to run for office. Krugman says Sanders, like a typical Bernie bro, is “imposing a standard of purity” on Clinton that is unreasonable. Krugman then suggests Sanders may be up to something more nefarious:

Is Mr. Sanders positioning himself to join the “Bernie or bust” crowd, walking away if he can’t pull off an extraordinary upset, and possibly helping put Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in the White House? If not, what does he think he’s doing?

As I have argued, the “qualified” controversy has been blown way out of proportion by the media and Clinton’s supporters. It makes sense for official backers like Claire McCaskill or Dianne Feinstein to complain to the press that Sanders is doing lasting damage to the Democratic Party, even if he isn’t, since that is their job. But does Krugman truly believe that Sanders is even thinking about not supporting Clinton if she’s the nominee? It’s hard to follow the logic here. (For what it’s worth, Sanders has unequivocally stated that he would support Clinton.)

Both The New York Times and The Washington Post are reporting this morning that there is “widespread concern” (the Post) among Democratic officials that a “fractious turn” (the Times) in the “increasingly nasty” (the Post) primary race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton could “leave scars” (the Times) that will make it impossible for the party to unite once Clinton wins the nomination, er, once a winner emerges from the nomination contest. The problem with this narrative is that it’s not close to being true.

The source of the supposed conflict is Sanders’s assertion this week that Clinton isn’t “qualified” to be president. The Clintonistas are pretending this is a deeply upsetting and condescending remark, but it’s really not all that different from what Sanders has been saying all campaign: that Clinton’s wealth of government experience is undercut by her lousy judgment. (“I don’t think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq. I don’t think you are qualified if you supported almost every disastrous trade agreement.” Etc.) It’s pure rhetoric. Even Clinton herself has deemed this controversy “silly.”

More to the point, it’s not that cutting an insult. Remember when Clinton suggested back in 2008 that John McCain might be more qualified than Barack Obama to be president? That was cold! Remember when Clinton accused Barack Obama of getting his back rubbed by a slum lord? That was nasty! Remember when Clinton’s most valuable surrogate wrote Barack Obama off as a “fantasy” because he was, basically, black? That was just so messed up! 

In contrast, the 2016 primary is genial, less dramatic, and a little boring. Somehow I think the Democratic Party will survive the “qualified” controversy.

Today, while campaigning for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia, the former president was interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters who challenged him on his crime bill and welfare reform. 

Hillary has tread carefully with these policies, acknowledging that the welfare bill had its shortcomings and that parts of the crime bill were a mistake, and apologizing for calling black children “superpredators.” Today, Bill defended these policies vehemently, condescendingly telling protesters:

I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack and sent them out on the street to murder other African-American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens… You are defending the people who kill the people whose lives you say matter!

He then went on to defend the low crime and murder rates during his tenure. However, political scientists have found that these laws had only a modest effect on the decrease in crime rates; rather, the drop in crime fit into a general trend that was already occurring. And, as Michelle Alexander has noted, while not all of his own doing, Clinton “presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history,” which disparately impacted black Americans. 

On welfare reform, Bill stated, “We left [states] with enough money to take care of all the poor people who couldn’t go to work, on welfare.” But as Sam Adler-Bell and I have noted, studies show that the number of children living in extreme poverty—$2 a day—has risen from 1.4 million to 3.5 million since welfare was gutted. Today it is evident that welfare reform has left the poorest, notably single black mothers and their children, worse off.

The neoconservative realdoll and former mayor of New York City told the New York Post that he’ll vote for Trump in New York’s Republican primary, but stopped short of a formal endorsement. “I support Trump. I’m gonna vote for Trump,” he said.  

Speaking to the New York Times, Giuliani admitted that he “didn’t like” Trump’s retweet of a sexist picture comparing his wife to Ted Cruz’s. But he said Trump’s personality—the biggest source of his appeal to voters—is different when he’s off-camera or offstage. “The man that I know is not the man you see on television. He’s a gentleman, he’s a good father.”

Giuliani also undermined Trump’s entire negotiation strategy, at least when it comes to NATO. While Trump’s vision of foreign and domestic politics as a series of zero-sum deals has won over some voters and terrified many abroad, Giuliani essentially admitted that Trump is bluffing. “Trump is a negotiator. He negotiates from a high bar to get people’s attention. Threatening to withdraw from NATO will get a better deal with NATO.” You hear that NATO? Trump’s only saying he’ll leave to get a better deal. Call his bluff.