Bernie Sanders apologized to Hillary Clinton and his own supporters Saturday night for a breach of her campaign's valuable voter data, seeking to put the controversy to rest in a debate that quickly moved on to national security concerns and Americans' heightened fear of terrorism.
Clinton, the Democratic front-runner who kept an eye on the general election, was also sharply critical of Donald Trump's plan to ban Muslims from entering the United States, calling the leader of the GOP race the Islamic State's "best recruiter."
"Mr. Trump has a great capacity to use bluster and bigotry to inflame people," said Clinton, the former secretary of state.
Clinton and Sanders, her closest challenger, entered Saturday night's debate in the midst of one of their fiercest fights - about the campaign itself rather than a national or international issue. Clinton's campaign accused Sanders' team of stealing information used to target voters and anticipate what issues might motivate them. In response to the breach, the Democratic National Committee temporarily cut off Sanders' team's access to its own data, a move the Vermont senator said Saturday was an "egregious act."
Still, Sanders said his staff had acted improperly.
