09 Oct 2016

Ladies and gentlemen the Republican nominee for president, Donald J. Trump, and the Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton.

Thank you, and good evening. The last debate could have been rated as MA, mature audiences, per TV parental guidelines. Knowing that educators assign viewing the presidential debates as students’ homework, do you feel you’re modeling appropriate and positive behavior for today’s youth?

Secretary Clinton, thank you. Mr. Trump, you have two minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Trump. The question from Patrice was about are you both modeling positive and appropriate behavior for today’s youth? We received a lot of questions online, Mr. Trump, about the tape that was released on Friday, as you can imagine. You called what you said locker room banter. You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals. That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?

So, Mr. Trump...

Just for the record, though, are you saying that what you said on that bus 11 years ago that you did not actually kiss women without consent or grope women without consent?

So, for the record, you’re saying you never did that?

Have you ever done those things?

Thank you, Mr. Trump.

Thank you, Mr. Trump.

Secretary Clinton, do you want to respond?

And we want to get to some questions from online...

Yes, you can respond to that.

Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump — I want to get to audience questions and online questions.

You’re going to have — you’re going to get to respond right now.

This tape is generating intense interest. In just 48 hours, it’s become the single most talked about story of the entire 2016 election on Facebook, with millions and millions of people discussing it on the social network. As we said a moment ago, we do want to bring in questions from voters around country via social media, and our first stays on this topic. Jeff from Ohio asks on Facebook, “Trump says the campaign has changed him. When did that happen?” So, Mr. Trump, let me add to that. When you walked off that bus at age 59, were you a different man or did that behavior continue until just recently? And you have two minutes for this.

Can we please hold the applause? Secretary Clinton, you have two minutes.

nan

Well, you owe the president an apology, because as you know very well, your campaign, Sidney Blumenthal — he’s another real winner that you have — and he’s the one that got this started, along with your campaign manager, and they were on television just two weeks ago, she was, saying exactly that. So you really owe him an apology. You’re the one that sent the pictures around your campaign, sent the pictures around with President Obama in a certain garb. That was long before I was ever involved, so you actually owe an apology.

... because everything he just said is absolutely false, but I’m not surprised.

In the first debate...

... I told people that it would be impossible to be fact-checking Donald all the time. I’d never get to talk about anything I want to do and how we’re going to really make lives better for people.

Secretary Clinton...

And, Secretary Clinton, I do want to follow up on e- mails. You’ve said your handing of your e-mails was a mistake. You disagreed with FBI Director James Comey, calling your handling of classified information, quote, “extremely careless.” The FBI said that there were 110 classified e-mails that were exchanged, eight of which were top secret, and that it was possible hostile actors did gain access to those e-mails. You don’t call that extremely careless? CLINTON: Well, Martha, first, let me say — and I’ve said before, but I’ll repeat it, because I want everyone to hear it — that was a mistake, and I take responsibility for using a personal e-mail account. Obviously, if I were to do it over again, I would not. I’m not making any excuses. It was a mistake. And I am very sorry about that.

OK, we’re going to move on.

We have to move on.

Secretary Clinton, you can respond, and then we got to move on.

If you did that in the private sector, you’d be put in jail, let alone after getting a subpoena from the United States Congress.

Look, it’s just not true. And so please, go to...

Allow her to respond, please.

Oh, 33,000? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. What about the other 15,000?

Yes, that’s true, I didn’t.

Because you have nothing to say.

Get off this question.

Let’s see what happens...

... on some of the issues that people care about tonight. Let’s get to their questions.

I’d like to know, Anderson, why aren’t you bringing up the e-mails? I’d like to know. Why aren’t you bringing...

No, it hasn’t. It hasn’t. And it hasn’t been finished at all.

It’s nice to — one on three.

That first one goes to Secretary Clinton, because you started out the last one to the audience.

No, I’m a gentlemen, Hillary. Go ahead.

Well, I think Donald was about to say he’s going to solve it by repealing it and getting rid of the Affordable Care Act. And I’m going to fix it, because I agree with you. Premiums have gotten too high. Copays, deductibles, prescription drug costs, and I’ve laid out a series of actions that we can take to try to get those costs down.

So I want us to get to 100 percent, but get costs down and keep quality up.

It is such a great question and it’s maybe the question I get almost more than anything else, outside of defense. Obamacare is a disaster. You know it. We all know it. It’s going up at numbers that nobody’s ever seen worldwide. Nobody’s ever seen numbers like this for health care.

It is a disastrous plan, and it has to be repealed and replaced.

No, I mean, he clarified what he meant. And it’s very clear. Look, we are in a situation in our country where if we were to start all over again, we might come up with a different system. But we have an employer-based system. That’s where the vast majority of people get their health care.

... get to do pretty much whatever they want, including saying, look, I’m sorry, you’ve got diabetes, you had cancer, your child has asthma...

... you may not be able to have insurance because you can’t afford it. So let’s fix what’s broken about it, but let’s not throw it away and give it all back to the insurance companies and the drug companies. That’s not going to work.

By the way...

We’re going to be able to. You’re going to have plans...

Well, I’ll tell you what it means. You’re going to have plans that are so good, because we’re going to have so much competition in the insurance industry. Once we break out — once we break out the lines and allow the competition to come...

President Obama — Anderson, excuse me. President Obama, by keeping those lines, the boundary lines around each state, it was almost gone until just very toward the end of the passage of Obamacare, which, by the way, was a fraud. You know that, because Jonathan Gruber, the architect of Obamacare, was said — he said it was a great lie, it was a big lie. President Obama said you keep your doctor, you keep your plan. The whole thing was a fraud, and it doesn’t work.

... so that we will be able to take care of people without the necessary funds to take care of themselves.

We now go to Gorbah Hamed with a question for both candidates.

Mr. Trump, you’re first.

Secretary Clinton?

Thank you, Secretary Clinton.

And why did it morph into that? No, did you — no, answer the question. Do you still believe...

I do.

Would you please explain whether or not the Muslim ban still stands?

And, Secretary Clinton, let me ask you about that, because you have asked for an increase from 10,000 to 65,000 Syrian refugees. We know you want tougher vetting. That’s not a perfect system. So why take the risk of having those refugees come into the country?

That’s not been debunked.

That has not been debunked.

I was against — I was against the war in Iraq. Has not been debunked. And you voted for it. And you shouldn’t have. Well, I just want to say...

Excuse me. She just went about 25 seconds over her time.

Could I just respond to this, please?

Hillary Clinton, in terms of having people come into our country, we have many criminal illegal aliens. When we want to send them back to their country, their country says we don’t want them. In some cases, they’re murderers, drug lords, drug problems. And they don’t want them.

Well, right. As I recall, that was something I said about Abraham Lincoln after having seen the wonderful Steven Spielberg movie called “Lincoln.” It was a master class watching President Lincoln get the Congress to approve the 13th Amendment. It was principled, and it was strategic.

Now, maybe because he has praised Putin, maybe because he says he agrees with a lot of what Putin wants to do, maybe because he wants to do business in Moscow, I don’t know the reasons. But we deserve answers. And we should demand that Donald release all of his tax returns so that people can see what are the entanglements and the financial relationships that he has...

... with the Russians and other foreign powers.

Well, I think I should respond, because — so ridiculous. Look, now she’s blaming — she got caught in a total lie. Her papers went out to all her friends at the banks, Goldman Sachs and everybody else, and she said things — WikiLeaks that just came out. And she lied. Now she’s blaming the lie on the late, great Abraham Lincoln. That’s one that I haven’t...

We want to turn, actually, to the topic of taxes. We have a question from Spencer Maass. Spencer?

Mr. Trump, you have two minutes.

Secretary Clinton, you have two minutes. The question was, what specific tax provisions will you change to ensure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes?

Thank you, Secretary.

Thank you. I want to give you — Mr. Trump, I want to give you the chance to respond. I just wanted to tell our viewers what she’s referring to. In the last month, taxes were the number-one issue on Facebook for the first time in the campaign. The New York Times published three pages of your 1995 tax returns. They show you claimed a $916 million loss, which means you could have avoided paying personal federal income taxes for years. You’ve said you pay state taxes, employee taxes, real estate taxes, property taxes. You have not answered, though, a simple question. Did you use that $916 million loss to avoid paying personal federal income taxes for years?

So have you (inaudible) personal federal income tax?

So can you — can you say how many years you have avoided paying personal federal income taxes?

In the past...

Secretary — I want you to be able to respond, Secretary Clinton.

Why didn’t you do it? Why didn’t you do it?

Because I was a senator with a Republican president.

I will be the president and we will get it done. That’s exactly right.

Please allow her to respond. She didn’t interrupt you.

Thank you, secretary.

Thank you, secretary.

She said a lot of things that were false. I mean, I think we should be allowed to maybe...

Excuse me. Because she has been a disaster as a senator. A disaster.

Well, the situation in Syria is catastrophic. And every day that goes by, we see the results of the regime by Assad in partnership with the Iranians on the ground, the Russians in the air, bombarding places, in particular Aleppo, where there are hundreds of thousands of people, probably about 250,000 still left. And there is a determined effort by the Russian air force to destroy Aleppo in order to eliminate the last of the Syrian rebels who are really holding out against the Assad regime.

First of all, she was there as secretary of state with the so-called line in the sand, which...

OK. But you were in contact — excuse me. You were...

You were in total contact with the White House, and perhaps, sadly, Obama probably still listened to you. I don’t think he would be listening to you very much anymore.

And one thing I have to say.

I don’t like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. And Iran is killing ISIS. And those three have now lined up because of our weak foreign policy.

OK. He and I haven’t spoken, and I disagree. I disagree.

I think you have to knock out ISIS. Right now, Syria is fighting ISIS. We have people that want to fight both at the same time. But Syria is no longer Syria. Syria is Russia and it’s Iran, who she made strong and Kerry and Obama made into a very powerful nation and a very rich nation, very, very quickly, very, very quickly.

I think Aleppo is a disaster, humanitarian-wise.

I think that it basically has fallen. OK? It basically has fallen. Let me tell you something. You take a look at Mosul. The biggest problem I have with the stupidity of our foreign policy, we have Mosul. They think a lot of the ISIS leaders are in Mosul. So we have announcements coming out of Washington and coming out of Iraq, we will be attacking Mosul in three weeks or four weeks. Well, all of these bad leaders from ISIS are leaving Mosul. Why can’t they do it quietly? Why can’t they do the attack, make it a sneak attack, and after the attack is made, inform the American public that we’ve knocked out the leaders, we’ve had a tremendous success? People leave. Why do they have to say we’re going to be attacking Mosul within the next four to six weeks, which is what they’re saying? How stupid is our country? RADDATZ: There are sometimes reasons the military does that. Psychological warfare.

I can’t think of any. I can’t think of any. And I’m pretty good at it.

And we have General Flynn. And we have — look, I have 200 generals and admirals who endorsed me. I have 21 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients who endorsed me. We talk about it all the time. They understand, why can’t they do something secretively, where they go in and they knock out the leadership? How — why would these people stay there? I’ve been reading now...

... for weeks — I’ve been reading now for weeks about Mosul, that it’s the harbor of where — you know, between Raqqa and Mosul, this is where they think the ISIS leaders are. Why would they be saying — they’re not staying there anymore. They’re gone. Because everybody’s talking about how Iraq, which is us with our leadership, goes in to fight Mosul.

I would not use American ground forces in Syria. I think that would be a very serious mistake. I don’t think American troops should be holding territory, which is what they would have to do as an occupying force. I don’t think that is a smart strategy.

Well, Martha, I hope that by the time I — if I’m fortunate...

I hope by the time I am president that we will have pushed ISIS out of Iraq. I do think that there is a good chance that we can take Mosul. And, you know, Donald says he knows more about ISIS than the generals. No, he doesn’t. I would go after Baghdadi. I would specifically target Baghdadi, because I think our targeting of Al Qaida leaders — and I was involved in a lot of those operations, highly classified ones — made a difference. So I think that could help.

You know what’s funny? She went over a minute over, and you don’t stop her. When I go one second over, it’s like a big deal.

It’s really — it’s really very interesting.

My question is, do you believe you can be a devoted president to all the people in the United States?

Absolutely. I mean, she calls our people deplorable, a large group, and irredeemable. I will be a president for all of our people. And I’ll be a president that will turn our inner cities around and will give strength to people and will give economics to people and will bring jobs back.

I would be a president for all of the people, African- Americans, the inner cities. Devastating what’s happening to our inner cities. She’s been talking about it for years. As usual, she talks about it, nothing happens. She doesn’t get it done.

But I will tell you, she’s all talk. It doesn’t get done. All you have to do is take a look at her Senate run. Take a look at upstate New York.

It turned out to be a disaster.

Well, 67 percent of the people voted to re-elect me when I ran for my second term, and I was very proud and very humbled by that.

Democrats, Republicans, independents, people across our country. If you don’t vote for me, I still want to be your president.

I want to be the best president I can be for every American.

Well, within hours I said that I was sorry about the way I talked about that, because my argument is not with his supporters. It’s with him and with the hateful and divisive campaign that he has run, and the inciting of violence at his rallies, and the very brutal kinds of comments about not just women, but all Americans, all kinds of Americans.

Because we talked about what we wanted to do. We might have had some differences, and we had a lot of debates...

... but we believed that we could make the country better. And I was proud of that.

We have a divided nation. We have a very divided nation. You look at Charlotte. You look at Baltimore. You look at the violence that’s taking place in the inner cities, Chicago, you take a look at Washington, D.C.

She’s got tremendous — she’s got tremendous hatred. And this country cannot take another four years of Barack Obama, and that’s what you’re getting with her.

No, there wasn’t check out a sex tape. It was just take a look at the person that she built up to be this wonderful Girl Scout who was no Girl Scout.

By the way, just so you understand, when she said 3 o’clock in the morning, take a look at Benghazi. She said who is going to answer the call at 3 o’clock in the morning? Guess what? She didn’t answer it, because when Ambassador Stevens...

... 600 — wait a minute, Anderson, 600 times. Well, she said she was awake at 3 o’clock in the morning, and she also sent a tweet out at 3 o’clock in the morning, but I won’t even mention that. But she said she’ll be awake. Who’s going — the famous thing, we’re going to answer our call at 3 o’clock in the morning. Guess what happened? Ambassador Stevens — Ambassador Stevens sent 600 requests for help. And the only one she talked to was Sidney Blumenthal, who’s her friend and not a good guy, by the way. So, you know, she shouldn’t be talking about that.

No.

Well, it’s not only my opinion. It’s the opinion of many others, national security experts, Republicans, former Republican members of Congress. But it’s in part because those of us who have had the great privilege of seeing this job up close and know how difficult it is, and it’s not just because I watched my husband take a $300 billion deficit and turn it into a $200 billion surplus, and 23 million new jobs were created, and incomes went up for everybody. Everybody. African-American incomes went up 33 percent.

Nine million people lost their jobs.

Five million homes were lost.

And $13 trillion in family wealth was wiped out. We are back on the right track. He would send us back into recession with his tax plans that benefit the wealthiest of Americans.

We have the slowest growth since 1929.

It is — our country has the slowest growth and jobs are a disaster.

Good evening. Perhaps the most important aspect of this election is the Supreme Court justice. What would you prioritize as the most important aspect of selecting a Supreme Court justice?

Thank you. Well, you’re right. This is one of the most important issues in this election. I want to appoint Supreme Court justices who understand the way the world really works, who have real-life experience, who have not just been in a big law firm and maybe clerked for a judge and then gotten on the bench, but, you know, maybe they tried some more cases, they actually understand what people are up against.

Justice Scalia, great judge, died recently. And we have a vacancy. I am looking to appoint judges very much in the mold of Justice Scalia. I’m looking for judges — and I’ve actually picked 20 of them so that people would see, highly respected, highly thought of, and actually very beautifully reviewed by just about everybody.

Thank you very much. We’re going to get on to one more question.

We have — we have one more question, Mrs. Clinton.

We have one more question from Ken Bone about energy policy. Ken?

Mr. Trump, two minutes?

Your time is up. Thank you.

And actually — well, that was very interesting. First of all, China is illegally dumping steel in the United States and Donald Trump is buying it to build his buildings, putting steelworkers and American steel plants out of business. That’s something that I fought against as a senator and that I would have a trade prosecutor to make sure that we don’t get taken advantage of by China on steel or anything else.

But the price of coal is down worldwide. So we have to look at this comprehensively.

And that’s exactly what I have proposed. I hope you will go to HillaryClinton.com and look at my entire policy.

We have...

We’ve sneaked in one more question, and it comes from Karl Becker.

Mr. Trump, would you like to go first?

Mr. Trump?

Thanks to both of you.

Please tune in on October 19th for the final presidential debate that will take place at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Good night, everyone.