6 Moments That Mattered at the Democratic Debate in Brooklyn

Brooklyn, New York -- Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders met Thursday night in Brooklyn ahead of the state’s primary on April 19 for their ninth presidential primary debate, hosted by CNN, and the exchanges between the two Democratic candidates got fiery.

Sanders and Clinton, who both have ties to New York, sparred on various topics including minimum wage, gun control, national security and Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street companies.

Here are the moments that mattered at Thursday night’s debate:

1. Talk About Judgment

Hillary Clinton wasted no time to launch assaults on Sanders. Just minutes in to the debate, she hammered her opponent hard for his recent botched interview with the New York Daily News.

“If you go and read, which I hope all of you will before Tuesday, Senator Sanders' long interview with The New York Daily News, talk about judgment,” she said, “And talk about the kinds of problems he had answering questions about even his core issue: breaking up the banks.”

“When asked he could not explain how that would be done, and when asked about a number of foreign policy issues, he could not answer about Afghanistan, about Israel, about counter-terrorism,” she added. “Except to say if he had some paper in front of him, maybe he could.”

Earlier, Sanders said that while he believes Clinton has “the experience and intelligence to be a president,” he does question her judgment, noting her Iraq War vote, her record on trade and her campaign’s Super PACs.

2. Speech Transcripts Vs. Tax Returns

Clinton has been asked repeatedly to release the transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street firms. During the debate she again stressed she "did stand up to the banks," but would not commit to releasing them. She did however turn the tables back on to Sanders.

"I have said, look--there are certain expectations when you run for president. This is a new one, and I've said, if everybody agrees to do it, because there are speeches for money on the other side. I know that," Clinton said before pivoting to tax returns calling on both Sanders and Donald Trump to release their tax returns, as she has, but refusing to release her speech transcripts.

"Let's set the same standard for everybody," Clinton said about the speech transcripts. "When everybody does it, okay, I will do it, but let's set and expect the same standard on tax returns. Everybody does it, and then we move forward.”

Sanders pledged to release last year's tax return tomorrow, but would only say the rest of his returns would come out soon.

"Look, I don't want to get anybody very excited," Sanders said. "They are very boring tax returns. No big money from speeches, no major investments. Unfortunately -- unfortunately I remain one of the poorer members of the United States senate. That's what that will show."

3. Unintended Consequences

Another contentious issue tonight was the 1994 crime bill that former President Bill Clinton passed. The Clintons have repeatedly come under fire during this campaign for the legislation, which many say led to the high mass incarceration rate among African-Americans seen today.

Just last week, Bill Clinton got into a fiery exchange with Black Lives Matters protesters in Philadelphia over the bill. In that exchange, Clinton defended his wife's 1996 use of the word "super-predator" and tonight Sanders called it "racist."

Clinton apologized for the consequences of the bill tonight when asked if she regretted her advocacy of the legislation.