Bill Clinton on Confronting Protesters: ‘We Got to Listen Again’

— -- On the campaign trail today in Erie, Pennsylvania, former President Bill Clinton addressed yesterday’s heated confrontation with Black Lives Matter protesters at a Philadelphia campaign event.

“I did something yesterday in Philadelphia. I almost want to apologize for it, but I want to use it as an example of the danger threatening our country because the founders set this country up so that we could keep growing and being bigger and including more people,” he said.

Clinton explained that he wanted to have a conversation with the protesters and acknowledged that he should have responded differently.

"I rather vigorously defended my wife, as I am wont to do, and I realized finally I was talking past [a protester] the way she was talking past me," said Clinton. "We gotta stop that in this country. We gotta listen to each other again."

He continued: "I like and believe in protests. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't because I engaged in some when I was a kid. But I never thought I should drown anybody else out. And I confess, maybe it's just a sign of old age, but it bothers me now when that happens."During Thursday's campaign event, Clinton became involved in a heated exchange with activists protesting his 1994 crime bill. He fired back at them saying, "You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter."