Bill Clinton berates TV reporter after question about Nevada caucuses

OAKLAND, Calif. — A heated exchange between former President Clinton and a television news reporter circulated on the Internet Thursday.

During a campaign stop for his wife in Oakland a day earlier, Clinton became visibly annoyed when KGO-TV reporter Mark Mathews asked him whether Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign should take a stronger stand against a union's lawsuit to keep casino workers from caucusing at special precincts in Nevada.

"I had nothing to do with that lawsuit and you know it," said Bill Clinton, who had been in the Bay Area talking to residents and real estate professionals about home foreclosures.

"Get on your television station and say, 'I don't care about the home mortgage crisis,"' he berated Mathews.

On Thursday, a federal judge threw out the lawsuit. A union with ties to Hillary Clinton had tried to prevent casino workers from caucusing at special precincts on the Las Vegas strip.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Mahan was presumed to be a boost for Clinton rival Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential caucuses Saturday because he has been endorsed by the union representing many of the shift workers who will be able to use the precincts.

Clinton's campaign has said it was not involved in the lawsuit.