Clinton, Sanders avoid scandal talk, woo Latino voters in debate

Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., faced off on the debate stage once again Wednesday night in Miami, just 24 hours after Sanders’ primary victory in Michigan, which helped to keep his White House hopes alive.

Clinton seemed nonplussed when moderator Jorge Ramos opened the debate with a question about the FBI’s investigation of her use of a personal email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Ramos asked if she would drop out of the presidential race if she were indicted.

“Oh for goodness—that is not happening. I’m not even going to answer that question,” Clinton responded. Sanders didn’t take the scandal bait, either, saying, “The process will take its course.” He said he’d rather talk about the issues of wealth and income inequality.

Clinton was also grilled about Benghazi. The crowd booed when Ramos asked about the discrepancies in her accounts of what caused the 2012 terrorist attack: “The night of the attacks in Benghazi, you sent an email to your daughter Chelsea saying an al-Qaeda group was responsible for the killing of the Americans. However, some of the families claim that you lied to them.”

Clinton defended her actions.

“We have captured one of those terrorists, and he admits it was both a terrorist attack and it was influenced by the video,” she said. “This was fog of war. This was complicated.”

The debate, sponsored by the Spanish language network Univision, focused largely on issues the moderators felt were important to Latino voters. On immigration, Sanders told the audience he would double down on President Barack Obama’s unilateral executive actions.

“If the Congress does not do its job, as president of the United States I will use the executive powers of that office to do what has to be done—to do what President Obama did—and expand on that,” Sanders said.

Sanders chided Clinton for her big money speeches to Wall Street clients. Clinton, meanwhile, hit Sanders for his glowing comments about Communist leader Fidel Castro in years past. But both agreed on their opposition to Donald Trump, who Sanders said has resorted to “racism and xenophobia and bigotry” in the immigration debate.

Florida holds its primary in six days, along with Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio.

WORLD Radio’s Mary Reichard and The Associated Press contributed to this report.