On Monday’s edition of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, the Comedy Central host couldn’t get through a rant against Bill and Hillary Clinton without taking a cheap shot at GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz.
In a segment that was critical of the Clintons for not being sensitive enough towards the Black Lives Matter movement, Larry Wilmore noted the former First Lady used the politically incorrect term “super-predators” when she was promoting her husband’s crime bill back in the nineties. Wilmore reported that even the criminologist who coined the term had disavowed it: “He’s ashamed of his creation, like Dr. Frankenstein or Ted Cruz’s parents.”
The following is a transcript of the relevant segment as it was aired on the April 11 edition of Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore:
LARRY WILMORE, HOST: I’m not sure what the proper etiquette for Black Lives Matter protesters, but when your wife who is running for president is having issues with them, you probably shouldn’t answer like this.
BILL CLINTON: 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 into the street to murder other African-American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She didn’t. She didn’t.
WILMORE: “She didn’t, she didn’t.” I like it when Bill Clinton’s voice gets all bubba raspy. Right? That’s when that bile is coming up in his throat. Right? “How dare you confront me with the truth?” Well here’s why this is so heated. So back in ‘94, Bill Clinton passed a crime bill that a lot of people in the black community feel led to the current state of mass incarceration of blacks. Now as First Lady, Hillary didn’t vote on the bill, but she did stump for it, and she‘s still criticized for what she said in a speech.
HILLARY CLINTON IN 1996: They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called super-predators No conscience, no empathy.
WILMORE: Okay a little context here. The term super-predator was all the rage in the nineties you guys. Okay? You know like how white people had “The Rachel” right? Right? And black people had the high-top fade. You remember that? Yeah! Exactly! Yeah, yeah. And like the high-top fade, it turned out to be something that now brings a lot of shame 20 years later. In fact, here’s John Diulio the criminologist who coined the term “super-predator,” backing away from how he characterized the supposed onslaught of teen crime.”
JOHN DIULIO: The super-predator idea was wrong. Predictions were off by a factor of four. That’s about as far off as one can possibly get.
WILMORE: Okay that’s how wrong the idea of these ‘super-predator’s was — the person who created it wants nothing to do with it. He’s ashamed of his creation, like Dr. Frankenstein or Ted Cruz’s parents.
