Clinton Calls for 2016 Presidential Debate in Flint

Campaigning in Iowa Saturday two days before the Iowa Caucuses, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign called for a debate in crisis-stricken Flint, where children were exposed to lead poisoning after the city switched its water to the Flint River in a money-saving move.

In a statement, Clinton campaign chair John Podesta said Clinton and her chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, had already agreed to four additional debates, BuzzFeed News reports.

“We think one of them should be in Flint,” Podesta said. “We should use the spotlight of the presidential campaign to keep the focus on Flint, and to lift up the historic underlying issues that Flint and too many other predominantly low income communities of color across America are struggling with every day.”

Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said in a statement Saturday the campaign would accept the invitation to debate March 3 in Michigan, but only if Clinton agrees to debate in Brooklyn, NY.

Michigan’s presidential primary is March 8.

“The Clinton campaign, after not accepting Michigan, now says they want it,” Weaver said. “We are pleased to do it on March 3 before the Michigan primary provided the Clinton campaign will agree to Brooklyn, New York, on April 14.”

“Why won’t they debate in Brooklyn?” Weaver asked in the statement “What’s the matter with Brooklyn?”

The Clinton and Sanders campaigns have already agreed to debates in Wisconsin and Florida on Feb. 11 and March 9, respectively. The campaigns tentatively agreed to debate next week in New Hampshire in advance of that state’s first-in-the-nation primary on Tuesday, Feb. 9.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who is running a distant third in the Democratic race, has said he will debate Clinton and Sanders any time, anywhere, BuzzFeed said.

Clinton, Sanders Both Focus on Flint

Flint turned off the taps to water from Detroit, which gets its supply from Lake Huron, and switched to water from the more Flint River in a money-saving move while under the control of an emergency manager in 2014. The corrosive water caused lead in aging pipes to leach into Flint’s water supply, poisoning thousands and exposing children to irreversible neurological damage.

The city switched back to water from Lake Huron in October, a month after a blistering report showed the proportion of Flint children with above-average levels of lead in their blood had nearly doubled since switch.

Fixing the problem could cost more than $1.5 billion, according to some reports.

The Flint water catastrophe has dogged Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who on Friday signed a $28 million supplemental appropriations bill to deal with the crisis.

Clinton aimed searing criticism at the Michigan Republican governor’s handling of the crisis during a debate earlier this month when she said “every single American should be outraged” and asserted that “if the kids in a rich suburb of Detroit had been drinking contaminated water and being bathed in it, there would have been action.”

Snyder retorted that Clinton is politicizing the crisis to improve her poll numbers. “People can draw their own conclusions, but that’s what it appears to me,” Snyder told The Detroit News.

Sanders has also called on Snyder to resign over “his administration’s failure to deal with the lead-poisoning that has sickened thousands of children in Flint.”

In a statement released Jan 16, Sanders said Snyder knew about the lead in Flint’s water, but did nothing to implement corrosion controls that would have stopped toxic lead metal from leaching into the drinking water supply.

He went on to say the problems with Flint’s water date to a decision nearly two years ago by the Snyder-appointed emergency manager.

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