Clinton rips Bush’s ‘right to rise’

Hillary Clinton lit into her GOP rival Jeb Bush as the two presidential contenders gave dueling speeches at the National Urban League’s annual conference on Friday.

Clinton, speaking first, threw Bush’s “Right to Rise” campaign slogan back at him to paint the former Florida governor as hypocritical on issues important to the black community.

“Too often we see a mismatch between what some candidates say in venues like this and what they actually do when they are elected,” she said.

{mosads}“I don’t think you can credibly say that everybody has a right to rise and then say you are for phasing out Medicare or for repealing Obamacare.”

Right to Rise is the name of the leading super-PAC backing the Republican’s candidacy.

Clinton’s tone turned fiery as she continued the barbs at Bush. 

“People can’t rise if they can’t afford healthcare, they can’t rise if the minimum wage is too low to live on, they can’t rise if their governor makes it harder for them to get a college education and you can’t seriously talk about the right to rise and support laws that deny the right to vote,” she said.

Allie Brandenburger, a Bush spokeswoman, panned the criticism in a statement to The Hill, where she touted Bush’s record of job and economic growth in Florida.

Bush is scheduled to speak later on Friday morning. He will argue that the nation’s war on poverty has largely been a failure, according to excerpts from his remarks.  

The majority of Clinton’s speech focused on the systemic inequalities in income and opportunity that black Americans face.

She noted that African-Americans are three times as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage, the median income of a white family in 2013 was more than $100,000 higher than that of a black family and that “schools are more segregated today than they were in 1968.”

“I’m not saying anything you don’t already know, you understand this better than I do, better than anyone, but I want to say it anyway because I’m planning to be president and anyone who seeks that office has a responsibility to say,” she said.

“The racial disparities you work hard every day to overcome go against everything I believe in and everything I want to help America achieve.”

She also evoked the names of a handful of black Americans who have died after altercations with police officers or other confrontations, including Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Walter Scott and, most recently, Sandra Bland, who died this month in a jail cell after being pulled over for a failure to signal.

“Too many times, Americans have come together in shock and horror to process a violent, senseless tragedy,” she said.

“These names are emblazoned on our hearts.”

Republican Ben Carson spoke earlier Friday morning.

Marc Morial, the Urban League’s president, noted that he invited all 21 presidential candidates. He criticized those who didn’t respond to the invitation, specifically Carly Fiorina, former New York Gov. George Pataki (R), former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (D), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and Donald Trump. 

Morial specifically shamed those candidates from the podium to kick off the presidential forum, noting “we believe in transparency.” 

“Perhaps we will hear from them in the future,” he said.

Jesse Byrnes contributed to this story.

—Last updated at 10:34 a.m.