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Bill Clinton speaks while campaigning for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on May 13, 2016, at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, N.J. Bill Clinton gets into combative exchange over crime bill

Bill Clinton on Friday was forced — once again — to defend the 1994 crime bill he signed into law that has stoked the ire of protesters and dogged him and Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail.

The former president, out stumping for his wife in Paterson, New Jersey, launched into a combative back-and-forth with an audience member, who pointedly asked Clinton, "Why did you put more people in prison?"

Clinton challenged the questioner about whether he really knew the ins and outs of the now-controversial law, noting that the crime bill included a provision that exempted first-time drug offenders from being covered under the excessive sentencing laws.

“Did you know that? I bet you didn’t,” Clinton matter-of-factly told the audience member, who was eventually escorted out of the rally.

He continued his defense, adding that 100,000 police officers were placed on the streets and an assault weapons ban with a clip limit was passed that, coupled with a background check law, led to a 25-year low in crime, 33-year low in murder and 46-year low in illegal gun deaths.

“We could not pass that bill without the higher sentencing. More than a year ago, I went to the NAACP and I said that the sentencing laws were way overdone and we needed to lower them,” Clinton said, noting that before the end of his administration he began a process to pardon and commute sentences that President Barack Obama has finished. “I am all for this. We overdid the sentencing in the ‘90s. We need to reverse it.”

But the suggestion that the mass incarceration was an intended consequence is a mistake, Clinton argued before making the case that both Democratic presidential candidates have ties to the legislation.

“You don’t have anybody you can vote for who didn’t have anything to do with this,” Clinton said, noting that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders voted for the bill. “You can write your own name in, but the question is what are we gonna do? Now, I still think, whether we like it or not, you gotta elect a president who can get something done with Republicans. Whether you like it or not, you do, because they have the Congress and because they have most of the legislatures and they have redrawn most of these congressional district lines.”

Clinton has clashed with protesters before, most notably at a rally in April, when several protesters heckled him for the bill that some have blamed for sharp increases in incarceration levels and brutal crackdowns by police. At that event, Clinton spent more than 10 minutes sparring with a group that heckled the former president and held signs accusing him of destroying communities.

On Friday, Clinton quieted the crowd from chanting “Hillary” at the event, insisting that drowning out voices with differing viewpoints is a key problem in the U.S. before criticizing the man who was escorted out.

“Let me tell you something, I think one of the biggest problems in this country, one of the biggest problems we’ve got is that we are free of almost all of our bigotries — we are less sexist, racist and homophobic than we used to be. That’s the good news,” he said. “We don’t care what your religion is or background is near as much as we used to. That’s good. We just don’t wanna be around anybody that disagrees with us, and everybody’s a victim of this.”

“As a result, how are we ever gonna learn anything?” Clinton continued. “So, you know, look, he went off mad because I told him the truth. That’s not good for any of us. Nobody’s right all the time. Nobody.”