Women Who Commands A Room

July 04, 2020

Women Who Commands A Room

Donald Trump - Hilary Clinton Presidential Debate

History was in the making. It has been more than a decade ago since U.S. elected its first African American president. And his name was Barack Obama. Obama set the precedence as the first African American and the 44^th president of the U.S. Once America, whose system was founded in a co-existence of "Blacks" residing with “Whites,” however separately and not much freedom of their own, blacks had been shackled down by their “masters” who owned them. Thus African Americans or blacks lived in bondage under a small stipend that accrues to a mere piddling for a massive labor. However, President Abraham Lincoln’s signature on the Emancipation of Proclamation and the passage of the 14^th Amendment unanimously freed slaves, giving them freedom rights as African Americans to live out their lives with liberty and pursuit of happiness —and a new beginning on a bedrock which lies on a newfound freedom. It has been more than 130 years since. And we have come a long way since then. During the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the Supreme Court interpreted the 14^th Amendment again, declaring racial segregation at schools unconstitutional in Brown vs Board of Ed. The 14th amendment gives citizens their inalienable rights and freedom.

But just how far have we come? Can a woman ever become the president of the U.S.? The 19^th Amendment enfranchised women’s right to vote—women entered the work force, women were given jobs in times of war—at mills and factories. And women wore pants. And then, finally, women were elected to congressional seats and even nominated to the judicial system. But has any woman run for president? It has been more than thirty years since Geraldine Ferraro had been nominated as the first women in the nation’s political office. And now, yes, one woman has done so and within a major party also, and she is none other than Hilary Clinton.

Hilary Clinton was the first women to run for U.S. presidency and came so far as to debate against Barack Obama at the Democratic primaries. Obama won the presidential debate and was subsequently elected president. The nation was ready for a man not of white skin color, but a background from a racial minority to take office. And Obama, whose words painted a vivid picture for millions of watching viewers and voters, an experienced orator and a natural people-person, undoubtedly won the majority of the country's votes. Indeed Hilary had an uphill climb in front of her.

Now a decade has passed. Clinton has come back again, and this time against another running mate, Donald Trump. Her second presidential debate and her contender were tough as ever. Oh boy, aren’t they always like that! These men do not play it soft. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite. The men's debating styles are as follows: hard-hitting, aggressive, and not a hint on backing-off. It is definitely not for the soft-hearted. Hilary’s leadership style is logical and supportive. Her speech and her argument is logical. Her manner in which she supports her arguments is supportive. But most of all, Hilary has two integral leadership experiences in politics to back up her claims: Secretary of State and New York Senate.

The president of the U.S. as our nation's leader has to command. She must command the room. She also has a commanding presence. Not demand—order someone to do such-and-such like an insolent child would, nor plead—asking meekly like a street peddler or a favor receiver could; no, she commands her circle of people and subordinates. Obama speaks with audible authority; thus his voice resounds in a firm thick pitch. Authority does not equate to shouting or to alarmingly raising your voice. It is to speak clearly and loudly for everyone else in the room to hear. The president of U.S., after all, is the commander-in-chief and has to be quick and decisive, especially in times of war and in times of tension. No time to pander around a subject for this role.

Hilary has come a long way since her role next to Bill Clinton, as an acting governor and next as president. She has changed her appearance to the public’s criticism thereof, responding to viewer's feedback because the average viewers simply fussed not on her qualifications, but on her hair. Her Yale education did not matter, nor her J.D., or her law degree. When T.V. audiences watched her, the next day, female viewers mostly talked of her hair. So here she faces her contender again at the presidential race. So here is the big question for U. S. voters: When will U.S. accept a woman as president?

Women’s role in politics differs across the globe. U.S. has been moderate compared to developed countries in Europe, where the Gross National Product (GNP) had been higher for decades in political and in economic history. You may find higher proportion of women in legislative seats, more so than European countries like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, where we import fine cheese and luxury cars. Nordic countries have larger percentage of women in the lower houses (Inter-Parliamentary Union 1994)—Sweden in 1994 had 140 women out of 349 seats, 40.3%; Norway in 1993 had 65 women out of 165 seats, 39.4%; Finland had 76 women out of 200 women in legislature, 39%; Denmark in 1990 had 59 out of 179, 33%; Netherlands in 1994 had 47 women out of 150 seats, 31.3%; Germany in 1994 had 177 women out of 672 seats, 26.3%; while U.S. in 1994 had 47 women out of 435 seats, a mere 10.8%. In addition, Great Britain, for example, elected Margaret Thatcher as their prime minister for their Conservative Party. So why has women not stepped up to U.S. politics? Sure, we’re younger than the aforementioned countries, and by that our independence was declared somewhere in the 18^th century. Comparatively, U.S. is younger than the northern European regions. Sure, our population adds up to a much larger figure than the smaller countries. Attribute it to the birth of our nation, attribute it to our population, (whatever the reason) women in legislative seats are proportionately fewer in U.S than European countries.

But that’s beside the point. Let’s look at the Trump/Clinton debate. Fifteen minutes into the debate, Trump interrupts. He interrupts with commonly used words and phrases: “no,” “wrong,” “why didn’t you do it?” His choice of words discredits Clinton’s work, her tenures as the First Lady, New York Senate, and Secretary of State. And he does so again and again. Repeating the same kinds of rhetoric lets in on the audience’s ears and consequently convinces them so. Only a connoisseur knows better. But this continues . . . throughout the whole night. He is essentially stealing her air time with or without her consent.

Men are far more likely to interrupt and be aggressive in debates, in meetings, and in board rooms. And it is socially acceptable for them to do so because of our societal definition of masculine trait. On the other hand, women are discouraged and conditioned not to speak up on their accord. If a woman is outspoken or voices her opinions, she is judged not as feminine, but as an aberrant to a woman’s gender role. Societal gender roles condition our attitudes and expectation of another man and woman. Clinton, who has a logical supportive leadership style, fails to dismiss Trump’s accusatory claims, and by that, I refer to his slicing words. Not enough for the audience to get it. Any women in a situation like this would refute his claims strongly, so the audience nulls and voids out everything he has said. This is where she or any other upcoming female candidate has to command. Say it loud and clear: “I am speaking here,” “it is my turn to speak,” “this is not your time,” “be quiet.” (Margaret Thatcher commanded the floor as prime minister.) Perhaps she could have used some humor by the way in which she commands, getting the audience to applaud her. Steal the attention away from him and back to her, playing up to the audience that way. Obama was good at addressing American voters, the T.V. audience, in his message to them in their own words, what is in it for them. Address viewers and audiences what you can do for them. They are your voters. So give them a reason not to vote for him, but to vote for you.

Trump goes “up” mostly during the debate, making an “up” move, which equates to his taking of a higher ground by talking down and sometimes challenging the opponent. An example of Hilary going down during the debate: “I have a feeling by the end of the evening, I am going to get blamed for everything.” That is a “down” statement with a bit of humor I might add. But Hilary does not lose her power. Never have I yet seen her become overly defensive, which is often incurred by someone who makes the “wrong” up move. Wrong, because it looks unprofessional. Trump seizes his chance and responds with an “up” move again, saying “why not?” She does not have anything to respond to that and merely repeats what he has said, “why not.” She could have made a smart aleck statement: “Why makes you say that?”

How do you make a strong rebuttal without sabotaging the connection during the debate? Some men can and will shut you up this way. Because Hilary had not been held accountable, she should have gone “up.” The point is this: Saying certain things without strategically thinking it beforehand, especially in a debate can make an “open-door policy” for future comments, leaving little to no rebuttals on your end. The female candidate has to respond as a debater and an experienced politician. Take note of his moves during the debate and make a decision on what to say next, so his “up” moves can be met by her refute of his argument. Think 10 steps ahead (play it over in your mind) what can I say now that helps me win in the near future.

Hilary can make a “down” statement when Donald goes up, posing a question like, “You have any ideas?” On the other hand, if Hilary goes “up,” as Donald goes “up,” two parties cancels each other out. The debate turns into a nonsensical feud, where audiences stop watching and listening to their talking all together. (It turns into a trashy talk show vibe.) The room gets too heated. So when someone goes “up,” you, the receiver, can go down and pose a question like, “what ideas do you have in mind?” Go across by saying a neutral comment like, “interesting way to put it.” Go down by simply answering his smart aleck remarks. Most inexperienced managers often fail to go “down,” or “across,” because they are afraid of giving up control. But that is why we have to surround ourselves with colleagues we trust and support us. But in the end, we grow to trust our own selves and rely on ourselves.

In any group interaction (business or recreational) human engineering determines the success of its outcome. It is not what you know but how you know to deal with others.

Here is the original script on a portion of their debate, noted with “up” moves in parenthesis on the right. At the bottom, take a look at a note of Hilary’s leadership style based on her debating style.

Trump: So is it president Obama’s fault? (Up)

Clinton: Before you even announce

Trump: Secretary, is it President Obama’s fault? Because he’s pushing it. (Up)

Clinton: There are different views about our country, our economy, and our leadership in the world. (logical argument) And I think it’s important to look at what we need to do to make the economy going again, that’s why I said new jobs with rising incomes, investments, not in more tax cuts that would add $5 trillion to the debt. (supports logic) (Up)

Trump: But you have no plan. (Up)

Clinton: Oh, I do. (Up)

Trump: Secretary you have no plan. (Up)

Clinton: I wrote a book about it, it’s called Stronger Together you can pick it up (Up)

= Clinton responds in logical leadership style. She points out the logic in analytical manner. On the contrary, commanding styles have different parts: direct, brief, and to-the-point.

Now look at the same debate, but little change to dialogue with Downs, Across, Ups.

Trump: So is it president Obama’s fault? (Up)

Clinton: ~~Before you even announce~~ Why would you blame this on anyone?

Trump: Secretary, is it President Obama’s fault? Because he’s pushing it. (Up)

Clinton: Interesting you think of Obama, I have not thought of anyone to blame. (Across) What makes it Obama’s? (down) Leaders take accountability, not blame onto anyone. (Up) Really, as president, you have to take accountability for yourself and your administration. The real issue here is ~~There are~~ different views about our country, our economy, and our leadership in the world. ~~And I think it’s important to~~ What we can do is this: First look at ~~what we need to do to make~~ the economy, make it going again, ~~that’s why I said~~, and ask, how are we going to create new jobs with rising incomes, investments, not in more tax cuts that would add $5 trillion to the debt. [Points out things to be done w/more commanding style: imperative —i.e. “look at,” “make it,” “ask,” makes speech more commanding.)

Trump: But you have no plan. (Up)

Clinton: You say that a lot, but Oh, I do. (Across, Up)

Trump: Secretary you have no plan. (Up)

Clinton: I wrote a book about it, it’s called Stronger Together you can pick it up (Up)

Hilary’s speech has been changed to a commanding style, voicing her more as a commanding leader. Two debaters or two parties going up incoherently together in a meeting, in a conference room, in the board room leave them at a gridlock—like U.S. Congress in a divided government of Congress and Presidential seat. It takes a mature leader who properly uses the up, down, and across moves to efficiently attain good results. An immature person would go “up,” and distastefully so, out on his own agenda.

Years ago, Barack Obama’s has made a clear, concise argument during his final presidential debate against Mitt Romney. Because of his clear argument, I use his as a model. He makes to-the-point statements in which he states clearly his findings, support it with facts, and concludes with his plans for U.S’s future. The “cheat sheet” for Hilary’s revised statements.

In this debate also, Hilary reveals her personal stories—her granddaughter’s birthday, her father’s work as a small business owner—helping viewers identify her as a person they can relate to, that is, not as another running candidate, (a rising decline in trust for politicians), but as a person who is “one of us,” one of everybody in U.S. who works and who votes. I expand on her personal appeal for the audience. It helps Hilary in making audiences relate to her. Personal statements connect audiences—the viewers and the voters—to running candidates. Connecting with audiences is essential in winning their votes.

Barack Obama: “As long as I’m president of the United States, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. I made that clear when I came into office. We then organized the strongest coalition and strongest sanction against Iran in history. And it is crippling their economy. Their currency has dropped 80%. Their oil production has plunged, to the lowest level since they were fighting their war with Iraq 20 years ago. So their economy is in the shambles. And the reason we do this is because the nuclear Iran is a threat to our national security, and it’s a threat to Israel’s security. We cannot afford to have a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world. Iran is the state sponsor of terrorism, and for them, to be able to provide nuclear, that’s unacceptable. And they have said they want to see Israel wiped off the map. So the work that we’ve done in respect to sanctions, now offers Iran a choice—they can take the diplomatic route and end their nuclear program or they will have to face a united world and United States’ president, me, who said we’re not going to take any option off the table. The disagreement that I had with governor Romney is that during course of the campaign, he’s often talked as if we should take premature military action. I think that would be a mistake because when I’m sending women and men in harm’s way, I understand that is the last resort, not the first resort.”

Two running candidates discuss domestic and foreign economic policies like employment and foreign trade relations; rising environmental concerns are also discussed like climate change and social issues like racial profiling. Hilary is a Democratic running candidate and Democrats have polar opposite views respective to Republicans, especially in the subject of the economy. Democrats are for the welfare state and government hands-on, whereas the Republicans believe in self-initiative and the free-market for businesses. Republicans have business owners’ interest, and rightfully so, they are the ones with money. Republican parties and business owners have built a relationship spanning decades. Not advocates for government intervention, Republicans advocate for the free market. On the other hand, Democrats address employment. Republicans are primarily concerned with inflation and interest rates. One of the reasons the Conservative Party during Margaret Thatcher’s term had not been blamed for Great Britain’s economy even at the face of declining employment. More than one factor is responsible for the prosperity of a country’s economy. Not only employment but inflation and interest rates. How is our money distributed?

Trump criticized Bill Clinton’s presidency and some viewers that do not know Clinton’s term may not be aware of its mark by a divided government: Democratic president and Republic majority in the House. In a divided government, the public has no persons to blame for the state of their economy. And in political science theories, people vote according to their “pocketbook” or “sociotropic.” Pocketbook voting has voters look at how well they are doing, how much money they are making—it is personal. Sociotropic voters look at how well the economy is doing overall—the country as a whole. And retrospective voters look at the president’s past term and how well he has done. Prospective voters look to the future and how well he will do in his term. But most voters have shown to vote for the now, here in the present.

Environment is a new political issue. Climate change has become a main environmental concern. New political issues address the following: nuclear arms, humane society, the environment, and women’s rights. Democrats have been more open to new political issues and works with them, whereas the Republicans have not. Environment, for example, has its founding roots that date back to Nixon’s presidency (he approved for the EPA), but had been ignored throughout Reagan and Bush’s administration. So it has become Democrats’ interests. Trump’s rhetoric shifts to a slightly genteel note towards the end of the debate, he says, “I agree with you on that,” on watching out for foreign nuclear armaments. What political scientist will get a kick out of is Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign slogan. Reforming our country has become the main stream and has made its way into the latest political campaigns; therefore it had been widely employed as a political maneuver for decades. New political issues have been addressed during the debate.

Rights or the Conservatives have differing ideologies compared to the Left or the Liberals. On the “Far Left” are these groups: the feminists, environmentalists, Labor Unions, Democrats, the Hispanics or Latinos and Blacks. On the Right form these groups: religious fundamental groups, businesses, and Republicans. Notice the difference on the make-up of these groups. And subsequently, their ideologies differ in advocating their interests. This is also addressed during the debate. Hilary’s concerns are wage and employment, whereas Donald’s are businesses and interest rates. Democrats advocate for creating a welfare state—the government gives out hand to the public; on the contrary, Republicans advocate for free market and believe in self-initiative than any social or welfare programs.

Here is the transcript of the first presidential debate, Clinton’s dialogue revised:

Lester Holt: Achieving prosperity. And central to that are jobs. There are 2 economic realities in America today. There’s been a record 6 year straight of job growth and new census numbers show incomes of increase at record rate after years of stagnation. However, income inequality remains significant. Nearly half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Beginning with you, Secretary, why are you a better choice than your opponent to create the kinds of jobs that will put money into the pockets of American workers?

Clinton: Thank you Lester and thank you Hofstra for hosting us. I would like to start by saying, America’s future will be taken by my hand. And I ask you, America, to change the attention to this nation—and together, what you would like this nation to be, and together, what you would like to build for your future. Today is my granddaughter’s 2^ndbirthday, so I think about our future more so now than before. What kind of a future will my granddaughter face when she grows up?

So I have plans for America. Firstly, I promise to build an economy that works, not only for those at the top, but for everyone else. We need to create new jobs and good jobs, with rising incomes, because I am investing in you, America and your future. I will create jobs in the following sectors: infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, innovation and technology, clean renewable energy, and small businesses. New jobs will come for small businesses. Secondly, I will promote a fairer economy. How do we do this? Start by raising the national minimum wage and equal pay for women’s work. Additionally, companies will do more profit sharing. Not only for the executives at the top, but by creating profits, middle-class owners would also share in the profit sharing. Thirdly, I will do more to support struggling families, who juggle their family and work all together. I’ve heard from so many of you about the difficult straits you face and the tribulations you undergo, so let us have a paid-family leave, sick days, let us be sure to have affordable child care and debt-free college. How are we going to do it? By having the wealthy pay their fair share, slimming down, then closing up the corporate loopholes. Finally, we tonight, are on the stage together, Donald Trump and I. Donald, it’s good to be with you. We’re going to have a debate where we are talking about important issues facing our country. You have to judge us, who can motivate the American people in creating a new future during our presidency. Who can put into action the plans that will fare your life for the better. I will work to earn your vote on November 8^th.

Lester Holt: Secretary Clinton, thank you. Mr. Trump, the same question to you. It’s about putting money, more money in pockets of American workers. You have 2 minutes.

Donald Trump: Thank you Lester. Our jobs are fleeing the country. They’re going to Mexico, they’re going to many other countries. You look at what China is doing to our country, in terms of making our product. They’re devaluing their currency and there’s nobody in our government to fight them. And we have a very good fight, and we have a winning fight. Because they’re using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China, and many other countries are doing the same thing. So we’re losing our good jobs, so many of them. When you look at what’s happening in Mexico, a friend of mine who builds plants said it’s the 8^th wonder of the world. They’re building some of the biggest plants, anywhere in the world, some of the most sophisticated, some of the best plants. With the United States, as you said not so much. So Florida is leaving, thousands of jobs, leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio, they’re all leaving. And we cannot allow it to happen anymore. As far as child care is concerned, and so many other things, I think Hilary and I agree on that. We probably disagree as to the numbers, and amounts, and what we’re going to do, but perhaps we’ll be talking about that later. But we have to stop our jobs from being stolen from us, we have to stop our companies from leaving the United States, and with it firing all of the people. All you have to do is take a look at Carrier Air Conditioning in Indianapolis, they left fire 1400 people, they’re going to Mexico. So many, hundreds and hundreds of companies are doing this, we cannot let it happen. Under my plan, I’ll be reducing taxes tremendously, from 35% to 15% for companies —small and big businesses. That’s going to be a job creator like we haven’t seen since Ronald Reagan. It’s going to be a beautiful thing to watch. Companies will come, they will build, they will expand new companies will start, and I will look very very much forward to doing it. We have to renegotiate our trade deals, we have to stop these countries from stealing our companies and our jobs.

Lester: Secretary Clinton, would you like to respond?

Clinton: Trade is an issue, an important issue. And considering, of course, we are 5% of the world’s population, we have to trade with the other 95%. And we need to have smart, fair trade deals. Not just financial transactions, but a tax system that rewards work. Donald Trump’s plan would only retry trickle-down-economics, which has failed decades ago all over again. His plan would only descend our system down. As a matter of fact, it results in the biggest tax cuts for the top percent of the people in this country which we’ve seen. I call it, “Trumped-up trickle-down.” Because that’s exactly what it is. That’s who it would serve. The economy does not grow that way. No, the economy does not grow from top-down. It has not before—not 40 years ago—and it won’t again. Trump’s campaign focuses on America’s debt, yet our debt, including that big deficit from the “trickle-down” theory we implemented decades ago, failed. [Pause] It failed. In fact, by the end of the 1980s, U.S. tipped over in $220 billion in debt. Why do over a system that has failed?

Hear me when I say that I have a different plan for what’s best for economic growth, and investments that can produce jobs and raise incomes. Donald and I have different perspectives. Our ideologies differ greatly because of our differing views. Donald comes from a different background than most of us, including you. He had been fortunate in his life and that’s all to his benefit. He started his business with $14 million borrowed from his father and he believes that the more you help the wealthy, the better off the rest of the society—the middle-class, the working-class—will be, and everything else falls in place from there. No, it does not. Contrary to his plan, you cannot foresee his plan realizing your future. Your future, your children’s, and your grandchildren’s future are at stake. I have a different experience from Donald. Much like yours, my father was a small businessman who worked really hard. Much like yours, he printed drapery fabrics on long tables where he pulled out those fabrics and he went down with a silk-screen and poured the paint in, and took it and kept going. And so what I believe, the more I can do for the middle-class, the better we’ll grow as a country. That’s the kind of economy I want us to see again. That’s the economy I will work for—for you and me, for the middle-class, for the working class, for the people at large—and for small business owners out there, like my father, and like yours, who works hard for his family and for his paycheck.

Trump: Well for one thing, before we start on that, my father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and I built it into a company that’s worth many, many billions of dollars with some of the greatest asset in the world, and I say that only b/c that’s the kind of thinking our country needs. Our country is in trouble, we don’t know what we’re doing when it comes to devaluation. And all of these countries all over the world, especially China, they’re the best, the best ever at it. What they’re doing to us is a very, very sad thing so we have to do that. We have to renegotiate our trade deal, and Lester, they’re taking our jobs and they’re giving it incentives, they’re doing things, frankly, we don’t do. Let me give you an example of Mexico. They have a VAT tax. We’re on a different system. When we sell into Mexico, there’s a tax, when they sell automatic, 16% approximately. When they sell into us, there’s no tax. It’s a defective agreement. It’s been defective for a long time for many years. But the politicians haven’t done anything about it. To Secretary Clinton, yes? Is that okay? I want you to be very happy. It’s very important to me. But in all fairness to Secretary Clinton, when she started talking about this, it was really very recently. She’s been doing this for 30 years. And why hasn’t she made the agreements better? The NAFTA Agreement is defective. Just because of the tax and many other reason. Secretary Clinton and others, politicians, should have been doing this for years. Not right now. because of the fact that we created a movement, they should’ve been doing this for years. What’s happened to our jobs, our country, and our economy, generally, is look, we owe $20 trillion. We cannot do it any longer.

Lester: Back to the question though, how do you bring back, specifically bring back jobs—American manufacturers, how do you make them bring the jobs back?

Trump: First thing you do is don’t let the jobs leave. The companies are leaving. I could name —there are thousands of them—they are leaving, and they’re leaving in bigger numbers than ever. And what you do is you say fine, you want to go to Mexico or some other country, good luck. We wish you a lot of work. But if you think you’re going to make your air conditioners or your cars or your cookies or whatever you make and bring them into our country without attacks, you’re wrong. And once you said you’re going to have to tax them, coming in, and our politicians never do this, because they have special interests and special interests want those companies to leave. Because in many cases, they own the companies. So what I’m saying is, we can stop them from leaving. We have to stop them from leaving. And that’s a big, big factor.

Lester: Secretary Clinton

Clinton: First, stop for a second. Stop and go back—take a look at where we were 8 years ago. We were once at the pitfalls of the financial crisis. Not since the 1930s, have we seen such a great recession. Second, that drop was in large part because of tax policies that slashed taxes on the wealthy, and failed to invest in the middle-class. By not taking their eyes off Wall Street, we consequently created a perfect storm. Then, ask yourselves Donald’s whereabouts during this crisis? Hauntingly, Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. Back in 2006, he said, I hope it does collapse because I can go in and buy some and make some money. Well it did collapse. Not what a future leader of America would say.

Trump: That’s called business —

Clinton: No, it was not lucrative business for rest of us. A poor business plan. The results show 900 million people lost their jobs; 5 million lost their homes, wiping out $13 trillion in family wealth. Now, we have come back from that abyss and it has been excruciating climb up for everyone. So we’re on the precipice to better the economy, but the last thing we need to do is go back to the policies that failed us. So what do we do now?

Take another point of view. A group of third party independent experts looked at what I’ve and what Donald proposed and they said this—Donald’s tax plan would blow up the debt by more than $5 trillion, disadvantage the middle-class families than the wealthy, and incur a loss of 3.5 million jobs. And that drives us further into another recession. The same group looked at my plans, okay, we can do this, and I intend to get it done—my plan will create new jobs by 10 million more, by creating investments that grow the economy. Take clean energy, for example, some country is going to be the clean energy supply of the 20^th century. Donald says that climate change is a hoax, but it has been a main issue in the environment for decades. A real political issue and it is important we grip this and address it at both home and abroad.

Climate change has been the third generation’s environmental concern. Going back in the early 1970s, the first generation’s mainly targeted 2 topics: air and water pollution. After that, in the late 1970s, second generation of environmental concern shifted to toxic waste and hazardous materials. Now one of the main concerns in the third generation of environmental issues has changed to climate change. It has been a big concern for a while now. What does this mean for you?

Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has looked at climate change, like my independent experts who looked at Donald’s plans, and they found that fossil fuel emission and other greenhouse gases can effect climate change. Since the early 20^th century, along with U.S. and the world’s population and industrial production, fossil fuel has increased drastically—more than 50 times-fold. Fossil fuel emission doubles the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, and combination of other greenhouse gases cause temperature to go up by 3 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit. Other green house gases include chloroflourocarbons (CFCs). CFC can damage our atmosphere, depleting our ozone layers. When activated, it wipes out 100,000 carbons in the ozone layer, allowing harmful ultraviolet radiation to enter earth’s stratosphere, and thereby effecting climate change. Climate change also shorten rainfalls. So how do we prepare for this?

Start by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we use. U.S. emits the greatest amount of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels compared to other countries. As I’ve said earlier, U.S. makes up 5% of the world’s population, but also emits more than 18% of greenhouse gases, largely effecting climate change. We use more than 5.2 metric tons of fossil fuels, more so than Germany and Japan— two countries we mainly import cars—combined. Fossil fuels are emitted to power cars and make electricity for industrial production and heating up your homes. Coal, oil, and natural gas, make up fossil fuel emission. And by its emissions only result in more carbon dioxide in our environment. Scientists have seen changes in the ozone layer, starting in the North and South Pole. They’ve seen it in Antarctica since the late 1980s. For every 1% of ozone layer depletion in the stratosphere, 2% of ultraviolet B has been emitted. And that has been more evident in the North and South Pole. Greenhouse gases damage our plant life, our animal life, our oceans and the climate in the oceans, and consequently our marine food chains.

Another way you can help is by deploying half a billion more solar panels, so clean energy powers every home by building a new modern electric grid. A lot of jobs, a lot of new economic activity. So my plans are structured specifically because I am determined to get the economy rolling again. We’re going to build on the progress we’ve made for the past 8 years, but I insist, we’re not going back to what lagged us behind in the rat race.

Trump: She talks about solar panels. We invested in the solar company, our company that was a disaster; they lost plenty of money on that one. Now look, I’m a great believer in all forms of energy. But we’re putting a lot of people out of work—our energy policies are a disaster, our country is losing so much in terms of energy, in terms of paying off our debt. You can’t do what you’re looking to do with $20 trillion a day. The Obama administration from the time they come in is over 230 years worth of debt and he’s topped it, he’s doubled it, in the course of almost 8 years, 7¹/₂ years to be semi-exact. So I will tell you this—we have to do a much better job at keeping our job, and we have to a much better job at giving companies incentive to build new companies to expand because they’re not doing, and all you have to do is look at Michigan, and look at Ohio, and look at all of these places where so many of their jobs, their companies are leaving. And Hilary, I just ask you this, you’ve been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about the solutions right now? For 30 years you’ve been doing it, and now you’re just starting to think of solutions —I will bring back jobs. You can’t bring back jobs.

Clinton: Well, actually I have thought about this quite a bit. And I have, well, not quite that long. My husband Bill had done a good job in the 1990s. When Bill took the oath in January 1993, deficits rose in the U.S., he had planned to settle $500 billion of those debts within the next 5 years.

Firstly, Bill proposed a reconciliation bill in 1993. Donald talked of rising deficits and budgets. Well, our country had been in deficit, partly from increased budget in health care plans for the elderly and the poor. So Bill created Medicare and Medicaid, which helped millions of citizens afford health care. The Democrats in 1993 planned to raise taxes in lowering the annual deficit, cutting down on the budget in domestic policies and defense, and lowering the debt ceiling. However, our country has been structured to work in a system where Congress objects or approves the President’s bill. During Bill’s presidency and the 104^th congress, Republicans Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the House and Bob Dole, the Senate Majority Leader, by their differing ideologies alone as Republicans had different plans.

At a cross roads of a divided government, we had a Democratic president while the Republicans controlled the congress. The Republicans objected to the original bill proposed by Bill, because not aligning with their interests. The Republicans simply ignored his bill. They had their own budget and spending in mind. In 1995, the Republicans set out to change the budget and spending, firstly, by aiming to reduce the debt ceiling to $245 billion than the initial $500 billion, and secondly, by cutting 3 of our departments—Department of Education, Commerce, Energy—and also aimed at lowering regulations for environmental policies, cutting back on welfare and health care. Then Bill vetoed the bill proposed by the Republicans. And spanning for months, they went to create short-term resolutions for the budget. And so we stood at a gridlock. Finally, they agreed on a budget plan. Seven months late, but an agreement had finally reached between the two parties. Next, Bill created an economic stimulus plan. And check your facts, people saw profits. Incomes went up for everybody, manufacturing jobs went up also in the 1990s.

During my senate term, I had numbers of trade deals that came before me and I held them all to the same test. Will they create jobs in America? Will they raise incomes in America? And are they good for our national security? Some of them I voted for—the biggest one—a multi-national known I voted against, and I hold the same standards as I look at all of these trade deals. But let’s not assume that trade is the only challenge we have in the economy. I think it is a part of the pie and I said what I’m going to do—we’re going to enforce trade deals we have and hold people accountable. When I served as Secretary of State, we actually increased American exports globally—by 30%. We increased them to China also—by 50%. So I know how to really work getting new jobs, getting exports that help in creating new jobs.

Trump: You haven’t done it in 30 years or 26 years. You haven’t done it. You haven’t done it.

Clinton: You are mistaken, I have done it.

Trump: Your husband signed NAFTA, which was one of the worst things that ever happened in manufacturing industry. You go to New England, Ohio, Pennsylvania, you go anywhere you want Secretary Clinton, and you will see devastation—manufacturing is down 40, 50, sometimes 60%, NAFTA is the worst trade deal, maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly signed in this country. Now you want to approve transpacific partnership, you are totally in favor of it, than you heard what I was saying, how bad it is, and I can’t win that debate. But you know if you did win, you would approve that and that would be almost as bad as NAFTA. Nothing will ever top NAFTA.

Clinton: You make these claims, but they don’t hold a candle to what has happened. I was against it once, it had finally been negotiated. And the terms had been laid out—I wrote about that in

Trump: You called that the gold standard trade deals, you said it was the finest deal you’ve ever seen

Clinton: Donald, I know you like to make these false claims, but what he’s really trying to do is forge fables that ring far from the truth. Like his tax returns, it proves to be false. I did say it would be a good deal but as it had been negotiated, I was not responsible for and I concluded it wasn’t, I wrote about that—

Trump: So is it president Obama’s fault?

Clinton: Why would you blame this on anyone?

Trump: Secretary, is it President Obama’s fault? Because he’s pushing it.

Clinton: Interesting you say Obama, because I have not thought of anyone to blame. What makes it Obama’s? You see, leaders do not leave room to blame anyone, but they take accountability for their actions. Really, as president, you take accountability for your administration. The real issue here is different view about our country, our economy, and our leadership in the world. It’s important to look at what we need to do in making the economy positively going again, that’s why I said and what we should ask—how we are going to create new jobs, raise incomes and investments, not amassing more tax cuts which can only add $5 trillion to the debt.

Trump: But you have no plan.

Clinton: You say that a lot, but Oh, I do.

Trump: Secretary you have no plan.

Clinton: I have devised a plan and wrote a book about it, it’s called Stronger Together you can pick it up—

Trump: That’s all about

Clinton: I will have us lead into a future which finds its roots from my vision for our country. Firstly, we plan for strong growth, and secondly, plan for fair growth, and thirdly, plan for sustained growth. Finally, we have to address helping families balance—their responsibilities at homes and businesses. We have a very robust set of plan and people independent of our work have looked at both of our plans, and have concluded that mine would help in creating 10 million jobs, and yours on the other extreme would have us lose 3.5 million jobs.

Trump: You are going to approve the biggest tax increases in history. You are going to drive business out, your regulations are a disaster and you’re going to increase regulations all over the place, and by the way, my tax cut is the biggest since Ronald Reagan, it will create tremendous numbers of jobs. But regulations, you are going to regulate these businesses out of existence. When I go around, Lester, I tell you this because I’ve been all over, when I go around, despite the tax cuts, the thing that business and people like the most is the fact that I’m cutting regulations. You have regulations on top of regulations, and new companies cannot form and old companies are going out of business, and you want to increase regulations and make them even worse. I’m going to cut regulations. I’m going to cut taxes, big league, and you’re gonna raise taxes, big league, end of story.

Lester: We’re going to take pause right there, move onto the next segment.

Clinton: That can’t be leveraged—I assumed Donald would make charges and claims, so we had taken the home page of my website, HilaryClinton.com, and turned it into a fact-checker, so if you want to see what the facts are—go and take a look. My plan would not allow a penny to the debt and Donald’s would only worsen it, adding another $5 trillion to the debt. What I have proposed gives small business owners to freely manage their businesses independently by cutting, loosening, and reducing government’s grip on them and its control over businesses, by foregoing things that can only deter them from faster processes, and small business owners, by that, the middle-class income earners will thrive and do better. And my proposal will be financed by raising taxes on the wealthy because they have made all the gains in the economy and it is time (wouldn’t you all agree with me here), it is the right time for the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share to support—

Lester: We’ll go to the next segment—

Trump: She’s going to raise taxes $1.2 trillion

Clinton: Only differing stance from the Left, and the Right, Donald. What I can say is, unlike Trump, I have a plan for ISIS.

Trump: No, you’re telling the enemy everything you want to do. No wonder you’ve been fighting ISIS your entire adult life.

Clinton: You direct it to that route, but it is not for them, but for the people in this country—who really matters and have the right to know.

Lester: Secretary Clinton, you’re calling for a tax increase on the wealthiest of Americans, I’d like you to further defend that, and Mr. Trump, you’re calling for the tax cuts for the wealthy, I’d like you to defend that. Next 2 minute answer goes to you Mr. Trump.

Trump: I’m really calling for major jobs because the wealthy are going to create tremendous jobs, they’re gonna expand their companies, they’re going to do a tremendous job. I’m getting ready to order the carried interest provision and if you really look, it’s not a great thing for the wealthy, it’s a great thing for middle-class, it’s a great thing for the companies to expand. And when these people, companies are going to put billions and billions of dollars into companies, and when they’re going to bring $2.5 trillion back from overseas from when they can’t bring their money back because politicians like Secretary Clinton won’t allow them to bring the money back because the taxes are so onorous and the bureaucratic red tape, is so bad. So what they’re doing is they’re leaving out country, and believe it or not, leaving because taxes are too high, and because some of them have lots of money outside of our country and instead of bringing it back and putting our money to work because they can’t work out a deal, and everybody agrees it should be brought back, and instead of that, they’re leaving our country to get their money because they can’t bring their money back into our country because of bureaucratic red tape, because they can’t get together. We have a president that can sit them around a table and get them to approve something, and here’s the thing, Republicans and Democrats agree that this should be done—$2.5 trillion. I happen to think it’s double that. It’s probably $5 trillion, that we can bring into our country, Lester, and with a little leadership, you get it in here very quickly and it could be put to use in the inner cities and lots of other things and it would be beautiful. But we have no leadership and honestly, that starts with Secretary Clinton.

Lester: All right, you have 2 minutes. The same question, to defend tax increases on the wealthiest of Americans, Secretary Clinton.

Clinton: I have a feeling by the end of this evening, I’m going to be blamed for everything that’s ever happened.

Trump: Why not?

[audience laughs]

Clinton: No, that would be the easy way out. Just join the debate by saying more crazy things. Now let me say this—

Trump: There’s nothing crazy about not letting our companies bring back our money to the country.

Lester: You have 2 minutes Secretary Clinton.

Clinton: Let’s start the clock again. Let me speak my 2 minutes without interruptions. We’ve looked at your tax proposals, and I don’t see changes in tax rates or the proposals you’re referring to that causes repatriation—bringing back money that’s stranded overseas. I support that would work to our benefit.

Trump: [interrupts, nods, looks down]

Clinton: Let us go ahead and take a look at “Trump loophole” because that’s what he is really proposing to American citizens. It’s a loophole—as it sounds, leaving a gaping hole for everyone else. Only Trump and his business associates would advantage from his proposal. Not your everyday citizens, everyday families here in America. You’ve proposed —

Trump: [interrupts]

Clinton: A $4 billion tax benefit for your family. That’s what it is actually doing. And when you look at, it is as I said, a “trump-ed up” trickle-down plan. Trickle-down did not work. It got us into the mess we were in 2008-9. Slashing taxes on the wealthy had not worked and a lot of really smart wealthy people know that and they are saying, hey, we need to do more to make the contributions we should be making, rebuilding the middle-class. Top-down has not worked in America. And so, I have our nation set in a plan for every man’s future, every woman’s, and our nation’s future—the kids in America, by my building up the middle-class, I have our nation set in a plan for every man’s, every woman’s, and their kids by my investing in the middle-class, I have our nation set in a plan for every man’s, every woman’s, and their kids by my making college debt-free because it is important that young people attain the value of an education. I have our nation set in a plan for every man’s, every woman’s, and their kids by my helping of people to refinance their debts from colleges —at a lower rate. Not only advantage the very top, but the bulk, broad-based inclusive growth that is what I want for America, the kinds that would really boost the economy—

Trump: Typical politician. All Talk. No action. Sounds good. Doesn’t work. Never going to happen. Our country is suffering because people like Secretary Clinton have made such bad decisions, in terms of our jobs and in terms of what’s going on. Now look, we have the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression. And believe me, we’re in a bubble right now. And the only thing that looks good is the stock market but if you raise the interest rates even a little bit, that’s going to come crashing down. We are in a big, fat, ugly bubble and we better be careful, and we have a Fed that’s doing political things, the Fed is doing political by keeping the interest rate in this level, and believe me, the day Obama goes off and he leaves, and he goes out to the golf course for the rest of his life to play golf. When they raise interest rates, you’re gonna see some very bad things happen. Because the Fed is not doing their job, the Fed is being more political than Secretary Clinton.

Lester: Mr. Trump, we’re talking about the burden the Americans have to pay, yet you have not released your tax returns and the reason the nominees have released their returns for decades is that voters will know if their potential president owes money, who he owes it to, and any business conflicts. Don’t Americans have the right to know if there are any conflicts of interests?

Trump: I don’t mind releasing. I’m under a routine audit and it will be released. And as soon as the audit is finished, it will be released. But you will learn more about Donald Trump by going down to the federal elections where I filed a 104-page essentially financial statement of such, the forms that they have, it shows income, in fact, the income —I just looked today—the income is filed at $694 million for this past year. $694 million. If you would’ve told me I was going to make that 15 or 20 years ago, I would’ve been very surprised. But that’s the kind of thinking our country needs. When we have a country that’s doing so badly, that’s being ripped off by every single country in the world, it’s a kind of thinking our country needs because everybody, Lester, we have a trade deficit with all of the countries we do business with, of almost $800 billion a year. You know what that is? Who’s negotiating these trade deals? We have people that are political hacks that are negotiating the trade deals.

Lester: The IRS says that—

Trump: Excuse me,

Lester: You’re perfectly free to release your taxes during the audit. The question is does the public’s right to know outweigh your personal —

Trump: I told you, I will release them as soon as the audit. I’ve been under audit almost for 15 years. I know a lot of wealthy people that have never been audited. I said, ‘you get audited?’ I get audited almost every year, and in a way, I should be complaining. I don’t mind complaining, it’s almost become a way of life, I get audited by the IRS, but other people don’t. I will say this, we have a situation in this country that has to be taken care of. I will release my tax return against my lawyer’s wishes when she releases her 33,000 emails that have been deleted. As soon as she releases them, I will release my tax returns and that’s against—my lawyers says don’t do it—I will tell you this, no, in fact, watching the shows, reading the papers, almost everyone says you don’t release the returns until the audit is complete. When the audit is complete, I will do them. But I will go against them if she releases her emails.

Lester: So it’s negotiable?

Trump: It’s not. Why did she delete her 33,000 emails?

Lester: Let me just admonish the audience 1 more time. There was the agreement, we did ask you to be silent, so it would be helpful for us, Secretary Clinton.

Clinton: The real question is not my emails, but ask yourselves what you really want for yourself and your country. [pause] Never mind what Donald had said. None of it he intends to do. I wouldn’t bet on it. [pause]

Donald dresses up his daubs for duping all of us—not only while wearing a disguise which deceives us all—but also dousing us down by the dozens. What it really amounts to is just another example of bait-and-switch. For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see nearly—39-40 years of our tax returns. Everyone has done it. And just how long does it really take to conduct an audit? Companies’ tax audit does not take that long. So the question you should ask is, why the stall? We know the IRS has made clear no prohibition exists on releasing when you’re under audit. So you’ve got to ask yourselves, why won’t he release his tax returns? Let us speculate on a couple.

Firstly, I have no doubt that he is not as rich as he said he is. Secondly, no doubt in my mind that he is not as charitable as he claims. Thirdly, without fail, even though we don’t know all of his business dealings, we had been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. You can bet on all of the reasons. I can assure you —it is all of the above. I can assure you that he doesn’t want the American people—all of you voters watching tonight to know he has paid nothing—and I have my words carved out for you, so yes, zero, in federal taxes because the only years that anyone has seen is couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he had been trying to get a casino license and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax. So if he’s paid zero—that goes down to zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools, zero for health —and he’s refusing to disclose to the rest of our country. They cannot see for themselves and fully realize what his real situation lies. But it must be something really important even disastrous that he’s trying to hide. And the financial disclosure statement do not release the tax rates in giving you all the details that tax returns would, and anyone would logically conclude that this has to be something the American people deserve to see. Don’t you all agree? And I have no reason to believe that he is ever going to release his tax returns because there is something in it which disproves his feigned image. And we can only keep on guessing. We’ll keep on guessing what it might be he does not want us to know which may ultimately forsake him. But the question is, were he ever to get near the White House, what would be those conflicts? Who does he owe money to? Well, he owes you the money—the hard-working tax-paying citizens, all of you. That is the answers to that and so he should provide them to you.

Lester: So he also raised the issues of your emails, do you want to respond to that?

Clinton: I do. You know, I made a mistake using a private email and if I had to do it over again, I would obviously do it differently. But I’m not going to make any excuses, it was a mistake and I take responsibility for that.

Trump: That was more than a mistake. That was done purposely. When you have your staff taking the 5^th Amendment, taking the 5^th_,so they’re not prosecuted. You have the man that set up the illegal server, taking the 5^th, I think it’s disgraceful and believe me, this country thinks it’s disgraceful. As far as my tax returns, you don’t learn that much from tax returns. You learn a lot from financial disclosure and you should go down and take a look at that. The other thing I’m extremely underleveraged, the report that 650 which by the way a lot of friends of mine that know my business said, boy, that’s not a lot of money, it’s not a lot of money, relative to what I had. The buildings that were in question, they said in the same report, which was, actually, it wasn’t even a bad story to be honest with you, but the buildings were $3.9 billion. And 650 isn’t even on that. But it’s not 650, it’s much less than that. But I could give you a list of banks, if that would help you. I would give you a list of banks, these are very fine institutions, fine banks, I could do that very quickly. I am very underleveraged, I have a great company, I have a tremendous income, and the reason I say that is not in a braggadocious way, it’s because it’s about time that this country has somebody running it that has an idea about money. When we have $20 trillion in debt, and our country is a mess, you know, it’s one thing to have $20 trillion a day, and our roads are good, and our bridges are good, everything is in great shape, our airports are from a third world country. You land in LaGuardia, you land in Kennedy, you land in LAX, you land at Newark, you come in from Dubai and Qatar, and you see these incredible, you come in from China, you see these incredible airports, and you land. We’ve become a Third World country. So the worst of all thing has happened. We owe $20 trillion and we’re a mess. We haven’t even started. And we spent $6 trillion in the middle east, according to a report that I just saw, whether it’s 6 or 5, but it looks like it’s 6. $6 trillion in the Middle East, we could’ve rebuilt our country twice, and it’s really a shame. And it’s politicians like Secretary Clinton that have caused this problem. Our country has tremendous problems. We’re a debtor nation, we’re a serious debtor nation, and we have a country that these new roads, new airport, new bridges, new schools, new hospitals, and we don’t have the money because it’s been squandered on so many of your ideas.

Clinton: And because you have not paid federal income taxes for consecutive years. And the other thing that is important is, if your main claim to be president of United States is your business, than we should talk about that. Let me make it clear that your campaign manager said you built a lot of businesses in the backs of little guys, and indeed I have met a lot of the people who were stiffed by you and your businesses, Donald. I’ve met dishwashers, painters, architects, glass installers, marble installers, drapery installers like my dad had been, who you denied pay when they finished the work that you asked them to do. We have an architect in the audience who designed one of your clubhouses, one of your golf courses, a beautiful facility, it was immediately put to use, but you denied him payment, what he needed to be paid, what he was charging you. Is that what you call business?!

At any rate, Republicans are not interested in employment for the working class. No, they are not. They are concerned with interest rates and prices. It goes back to the 2 differing ideologies I mentioned earlier, and in macroeconomic policies in U.S, they stand apart as ever. Donald talks about economic depression in the 1980s, and part of the economic recession derived from unemployment. The 2 polar views lies like this: fiscal vs monetary policies, money supply vs interest rates, tax cuts vs higher public spending, employment vs interest rates. Democrats are interested in the welfare state and employment, whereas the Republicans advocate for free market for businesses. That is the reason why Donald criticizes our public spending when Democratic candidates took office; meanwhile well that is what we Democrats believe in. Donald’s primary interest lies in businesses, not small business owners like my father who worked with draperies like yours would, or your cousin, your uncle, any of your family member or friend has.

Trump: Maybe he didn’t do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work which our country should do too.

Clinton: Thousands of people you have stiffed over the course of your businesses deserve an apology for their labor which was forsaken—taking the very goods they produced and then consequently denied pay. I have only my words showing how relieved I am that my late father never had done business with you. He provided a good middle-class life for us but the people he worked for expected their side of the bargain kept—on both sides. And when we talk about your business, you have filed for business bankruptcy—six times! A lot of great businessmen have never taken bankruptcy once. You call yourself the king of debt, you talk about leverage, you even at one time suggested you tried to negotiate down the national debt of the United States, when there’s not a direct transfer of skills from business to government, but let us acknowledge what is good for business can be bad for government.

Lester: Mr. Trump

Trump: Look, it’s all words, all sound bites, I built an unbelievable company, some of the greatest asset anywhere in the world—real estate assets—anywhere in the world, beyond United States, Europe, lots of different places. It’s an unbelievable company, but on occasion, four times, we used certain laws that were there, and when Secretary Clinton talks about people that didn’t get paid, first of all, they did get paid a lot, but taking advantage of the laws of the nation. Now, if you want to change the laws, you’ve been there a long time, change the laws. I take advantage of the laws of the nation because I’m running a company, my obligation right now is to do well for myself, my family, my employees, for my companies. And that’s what I do. But what she doesn’t say is that tens of thousands of people that are unbelievably happy would love me. I’ll give you an example. We’re just opening up on Pennsylvania Avenue, right next to the White House. So if I don’t get there in one way, I’m gonna get to Pennsylvania Avenue or nothing. But we’re opening the old post office: under budget, ahead of schedule, same tremendous money. I’m a year ahead of schedule and that’s what this country should be doing. We build roads and it costs two and three and four times more than what they’re supposed to cost. We buy products for our military and they come in at costs that are so far above what they’re supposed to be because we don’t have people that know what they’re doing. When we look at the budget, the budget is bad to a large extent because we have people that have no idea as to what to do and how to buy. The Trump International is way under budget, and way ahead of schedule, and we should be able to do that, for our country.

Lester: We’re well behind schedule, so I’m going to move to our next segment. We move into our next segment, talking about America’s direction, and let’s start by talking about race. Share of Americans say race relations are bad in this country, it’s been highest in decades, much of it amplified by shootings of African Americans by police. As we’ve seen recently, as we’ve seen recently in Charlotte and Tulsa. Race has been a big issue in this campaign, and one of you is going to have to bury very wide and bitter gap. So how do you heal the divide? Secretary Clinton, you get two minutes on this.

Clinton: I have to comment this is a good point. Race has been a significant factor in how people live their lives in our country. Unfortunately, race still determines too much for some, often determining where people live, the kinds of education their public schools get, and yes, it determines how they are treated in our criminal justice system. We have seen two tragic examples in both Tulsa and Charlotte, and we have work to do in several matters. We have communities that need to be newly restored from declining trust between them and the police; we have to ensure that our police use the best training, the best technique, and become well-prepared to use force when necessary. Everyone has the right to be respected by law, and everyone has to respect the law. But right now, that is not the case in a lot of our neighborhoods.

So I have, since the first day of my campaign called for a criminal justice reform. I’ve laid out a platform that remedies the problems we face in the criminal justice system. But we also have to recognize in addition to the challenges that we face in the policing—many good, brave police officers who have to be equally reformed. So as a mutual goal, in working on that, we have to bring communities together. And guns have to be taken out of the hands of people who are not licensed to have them. The gun epidemic is the leading cause of death, especially young African American men greater than the next nine causes put together. So we have to do 2 things as I said: restore trust and work with the police. Let us help motivate them to respect the communities, and motivate the communities to respect them also; moreover, let us help tackle the plague of gun violence, a big factor in a lot of the problems we face today.

Lester: Mr. Trump, you have 2 minutes: How do you heal the divide?

Trump: First of all, Secretary Clinton doesn’t want to use a couple of words. And that’s law and order. And we need law and order. If we don’t have it, we’re not gonna have a country. And when I look at what’s going on in Charlotte, the city I love, the city where I have investments, when I look at what’s going on throughout various parts of our country, I mean I can—just keep naming them all day long, we need law and order in our country. And I just got today the endorsement of the fraternal order of police, we just came in, we have endorsements from every police group, very, I mean, large percentage of them in the United States. We have a situation where we have our inner cities —African Americans, Hispanics—are living in hell, because it’s so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot. In Chicago, they’ve had thousands and thousands since January 1^st. Thousands of hunics, and I say, where is this, is this a war-torn country? What are we doing? And we have to stop the violence, we have to bring back law and order, in a place like Chicago where thousands and thousands of people have been killed. Thousands over the last number of years. In fact, almost 4,000 have been killed since Barack Obama became president. Almost 4,000 people in Chicago have been killed. We have to bring back law and order. Now whether or not in a place like Chicago, you do stop-and-frisk, which worked very well, Mayor Giuliani is here, worked very well in New York, it brought the crime rate way down. But you take the gun away from criminals that shouldn’t be having it. We have gangs roaming the streets, and in many cases, they’re illegally here. They’re illegal immigrants. And they have guns, and they shoot people, and we have to be very strong. And we have to be very vigilant. We have to know what we’re doing. Right now, our police in many cases are afraid to do anything. We have to protect our inner cities, because African American communities are being decimated by crime.

Lester: Your 2 minutes are expired. But I do want to follow up. Stop-and-frisk has been ruled unconstitutional in New York because of it largely singled out blacks and Hispanics young men.

Trump: You’re wrong. It went before a judge who was a very against police judge. It was taken away from her and our mayor, our new mayor refused to go forward with the case, they would’ve won a bill, if you look at it, throughout the country, there are many places —

Lester: The argument is that it’s a form of racial profile.

Trump: No, the argument is that we have to take the guns away from these people that have them and that are bad people, they shouldn’t have them. These are felons, these are bad people that shouldn’t be—when you have 3,000 shootings in Chicago, from January 1. When you have 4,000 people killed in Chicago, from the beginning of the guns of the presidency of Barack Obama, his home town. You have to have stop-and-frisk. You need more police, you need better community relations, and you don’t have good community relations in Chicago. It’s terrible, I have property there, and it’s terrible what’s going on in Chicago. But when you look at —Chicago is not the only one, you go to Ferguson, you go to so many different places, you need better relationships, I agree with Secretary Clinton on this, you need better relationships between the communities and the police, because in some cases, it’s not good. But you look at Dallas where the relationships were really studied, relationships were really a beautiful thing, and then, 5 police officers were killed. One night, very violently. So there are some bad things going on. There are really bad things. Lester, we need law and order. We need law and order in the inner cities because the people that are most affected by what’s happening are African American and Hispanic people and its very unfair to them, what our politicians are allowing to happen.

Lester: Secretary Clinton.

Clinton: I have the black communities’ interest when I say I’ve heard Donald’s insights at his rallies, and I’ll have his negative picture disproven for their best interest from what I have seen and visited in theirs. Make this fact known: The vibrancy of our black churches and black businesses that employs people and the opportunities that many families work to provide their kids—is something we should be proud of and support. But we have to ensure keeping our people safe. On the one hand, there is the right way to do it and ways which turns out ineffectual. Stop-and-frisk has been ruled unconstitutional. And it is n part because it had been ineffective. It had not done what it should do.

Now I believe in community policing, and in fact, violent crime is one-half of what it had been in 1991. Property crime has dropped down by 40%. We do not want to see it creep back up again. We have had 25 years of good cooperation but problems have arisen along with unintended consequences. Too many young African Americans and Latino men ended up in jail for non-violent offenses, and it is just a fact that fewer young African American man, and you do the same thing as a young white man, you are more likely to be arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated. So let us address succinctly the systemic racism which lies still heavily in our criminal justice system. Not just by law and order, but a plan that diverts people from the criminal justice system, reducing mandatory minimum sentences that have put too many people away for too long for doing too little. Let them have second chance programs. I’m glad that we’re ending private prisons in the federal system because I want them to close at the state system. A profit as a motivating factor in filling prison cells with young Americans does no justice.

Positively we can work on gun safety measures that change and help us and our commities. And this is something that Donald has supported with the gun law. But right now, we’ve got too many military style weapons on the street and places like our police that are outgunned. We need comprehensive background checks, keep guns of the hands of those who will do harm, and pass a prohibition onto anyone that’s on the terrorist watch list, preventing them from buying guns in our country. If you’re too dangerous to fly, then you are too dangerous to buy a gun. So help us do things in a bipartisan way.

Lester: Secretary Clinton, last week you said we got to do everything possible to improve policing to go right at implicit bias. Do you believe that police are implicitly biased against black people?

Clinton: Lester, implicit bias has not only been a problem for the police, but it is a problem for everyone also. Unfortunately too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions in our assessment of each other. And we have ourselves asking hard questions such as, ‘why am I feeling this way?’ Policing can be fatal. My first budget that I have put money in, prevents implicit bias by taking the step to retrain our police officers. I met groups of distinguished and experienced police chiefs just even few weeks ago. They admit acknowledging it as an issue and one of their many concerns is mental health. Police agree to handle difficult mental health problems on the street. Let them ask for your support, training, and assistance; also the federal government is in the position to help and provide it.

Trump: First of all, I agree, and a lot of people in my own party want to give certain rights to people on watch list and no-fly list, I agree with you. When a person is on a watch list or an open fly list and I have the endorsement of the NRA, watch out, these are very very good people and they’re protecting the Second amendment but I think we have to look very strongly at no-fly lists, and watch lists, and people are on there, even when they shouldn’t be on there, will help them, will help them legally, will help them get off, but I tend to agree with that quite strongly. But I do want to bring up the fact that you were the one that bring up the word, ‘super-predator,’ about young black youth, and that’s a term that’s horribly met as you know it, you apologized for it, but I think it was a terrible thing to say. And when it comes to stop-and-frisk, you talk about taking the guns away, while I’m talking about taking guns away from gangs and from people that use them, and I really don’t think you disagree with me on this, if you want to know the truth, I think maybe there’s a political reason you can’t say it, but I really don’t believe, in New York city, stop-and-frisk, we have 2,200 murders and stop-and-frisk brought it down to 500 murders, 500 murders is a lot of murders. Hard to believe, 500 is like supposed to be good, but we went from 2,200 to 500, and it was continued on by Mayor Bloomberg, and it was terminated by our current mayor. But stop-and-frisk had a tremendous impact on the safety of New York City, tremendous beyond belief, so when you say it has no impact, it really did. It had a very very big impact.

Clinton: Well, it’s also fair to say since we are in the subject of mayors. Under our current mayor, our crime rate has continuously dropped including murders. So there is—

Trump: You’re wrong, you’re wrong.

Clinton: No, as it pertains to our cities and crimes, I am certain. New York has done an excellent job and I give credit across the board—dating back to our mayors and police chiefs that has since worked; so next in line are other communities that come together also. What I have found is this: One murder is too many. Let me say how important it is that we not revert to things that only sound good, but learn effective means which impacts our streets. Who argues to keeping our neighborhoods safe? No one, I mean, no one should argue against respecting the rights of young men in those neighborhoods. Finally, we have to help improve our communities — faith and business communities—and the police also in reducing and attenuating this problem.

Lester: This conversation is about race, so Mr. Trump, I have to ask you,

Trump: I’d like to respond if you don’t mind

Lester: Respond and we’ll go to

Trump: Look, the African American community has been let down by our politicians. They talk good around election time like right now, and after the election, they say, ‘see you later,’ ‘I’ll see you in four years.’ The African American community, the community within the inner cities has been so badly treated, they’ve been abused and used in order to get votes by Democrat politicians because that’s’ where it is, they controlled these communities up to a hundred years.

Lester: Mr. Trump

Trump: And I will tell you, you look at the inner cities, and I just left Philadelphia, I mean you’ve seen, we have been all over the place, decided to stay home, and that’s okay. And I will tell you, all over, and I’ve met some of the greatest people I’ll ever meet within these communities and they are very very upset with what their politicians have told them, and what their politicians have done.

Clinton: Donald has criticized me for preparing the debate. Yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president, and I make my country my priority in bringing about change to us all.

Lester: Mr. Trump for 5 years, you perpetuated a false claim of the nation’s first black president was not a natural born citizen, you questioned his legitimacy, the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans have accepted for years, the president was born in the United States. Can you tell us what took you so long?

Trump: I’ll tell you, simple thing to say. Sydney Bloomingthal who works for the campaign and very close friend of Secretary Clinton and her campaign manager, Patty Dole, went to, during her campaign against president Obama worked very hard, and you can go look it up, you can look at CNN, this past week, Patty was on Wolf Blitzer saying this all happened. Bloomingthal and McClatchy, respected reporter at McClatchy, to Kenya to find about it, they were pressing it very hard, she failed. When I got involved, I didn’t fail. I got him to give the birth certificate so I’m satisfied with it, and I’ll tell you why I’m satisfied with it, because I want to get on to defeating ISIS, because I want to get on in creating jobs, because I want to get on to get on a strong border, because I want to get on to things that are very important to me and that are important to the country.

Lester: I’ll let you respond but I want to get some answer here. The birth certificate was produced in 2011, I mean you continued to tell the story, question the president’s legitimacy, in 2012, 13, 14, 15, as recently as January, so the question is what changed your mind?

Trump: Well, nobody was pressing it, nobody was caring much about it, I figured you’d ask the question tonight, of course. I was the one that got them to produce the birth certificate and I think I did a good job. Secretary Clinton also fought it, everybody in main stream is going to say, that’s not true, Sydney Bloomingthal said to reporter, you just have to take a look at CNN, last week the interview with your former campaign manager, and she was involved, but just like she can’t bring back jobs, she can’t produce.

Lester: I’m sorry I will let you respond, there’s talk about racial healing in this segment, what do you say to Americans—

Trump: What do you say to Americans because I was able produce it, you should’ve produced it long time before, I say nothing. But let me just tell you when you talk about healing, I think I developed a very good relationship over the last, a little while, with the African American community, I think you can see that. And I feel that they really wanted me to come to that conclusion. And I think I did a great job and a great service, not only for the country but even for the president in getting him to produce as president.

Lester: Secretary Clinton

Clinton: Well, just listen to what you heard. Clearly Donald admits knowing that standing on this debate stage comes with Lester Holt’s questions, and so he tries putting the whole racist bertha lie to bed. But you cannot dismiss it so easily. He has started his political activity based on a racist lie. First of them was that black president had not been an American citizen. Yet no evidence proves his point, but he persists and persists—year after year—for some of his supporters. And I must remind you, Donald’s career dates back to 1973, in which he had been sued by the justice department for racial discrimination for not renting out apartments in one of his developments to African Americans; moreover, he made it clear for the people who worked for him that he knew its policy. He had been sued twice by the Justice Department. Indeed we are looking at a man with a long record of racist behaviors. And to add to that, the bertha lie is hurtful, and I can vouch for Barack Obama’s as a man of great dignity, and I would say it bothered him that this has been touted and used against him, and I like to put our attention back to what Michelle Obama said in her amazing speech for our democratic national convention. When they go low, we go high. Certainly Barack Obama had gone high, despite Donald Trump’s best efforts in pulling him down.

Lester: Mr. Trump, you can respond and we’re going to move on to secretary.

Trump: I’d like to respond. First of all I got to watch some of your debates against Barack Obama, you treated him with terrible disrespect. And I watched the way you talk now how lovely everything is, and how wonderful you are, doesn’t work that way. You were after him, you were trying to, you even sent out, your campaign sent out pictures of him in a certain garb, very famous pictures, I don’t think you can deny that, but just last week, your campaign manager said it was true. So when you tried to act holier than thou, it really doesn’t work. Now as far as the lawsuit, I wanted to have my father’s company, real estate company in Brooklyn and we along with many, many other companies throughout the country through federal lawsuits, were sued. We settled the lawsuit with zero, with no admission of guilt. It was very easy to do. But they sued many people. I noticed you bring that up a lot, I also noticed the very nasty commercials you do on me in so many different ways which I do on you, maybe I’m trying to save the money. But frankly, I look at that and I say, isn’t that amazing because I settled that lawsuit with no admission of guilt. But that was a lawsuit brought against many real estate firms and it’s just one of those things. I’ll go on one step further, in Palm Beach, Florida, tough community, a brilliant community, wealthy community, probably the wealthiest there is in the world, I opened a club and really got great credit for it. No discrimination against African Americans, against Muslims, against anybody, and it’s a tremendously successful club and I’m so glad I did it and I have been given great credit for what I did and I’m very, very proud of it and that’s the way I feel, that is the true way I feel.

Lester: Allright, the next segment is called securing America. We want to start with 21^stcentury war happening everyday in our country—our institutions are under cyber attack, and our secrets are being stolen. So my question is, who’s behind it and how do we find it? Secretary Clinton, this answer goes to you.

Clinton: Make note of this big challenge facing the next presidency: cyber security and cyber warfare. Independent hacking groups do it for commercial reasons, stealing information that uses to make money, and we have seen cyber attacks increasingly from states and organs of states. The most recent, troubling has been Russia —no doubt Russia’s cyber attacks against organizations and our country. I am deeply concerned about this. Donald is praiseworthy of Vladimir Putin but Putin plays tough. He has let loose — allowing cyber attackers to hack, hacking into government files, hacking into personal files — to the Democratic National Committee and we have learned that this has been their preferred methods in wreaking havoc by collecting information. We have to make it clear whether it’s Russia, China, Iran, or anybody else. The United States has a greater capacity —we are not going to sit idly by, permitting state actors in going after our information—more specifically, our private sector information and our public sector information. And we don’t want to use the kinds of tools and engage in kinds of warfare, but defend the citizens of this country. Russians have to understand that. They have treated it as nearly approbate— how much we have to go, how much to do—all the reason more I was shocked when Donald publicly invited Putin to hack into America. I have my country’s best interest when I say this is unacceptable. It is one of the main reasons 50 national security officials who serve Republican information in administration has said: Donald is unfit as commander-in-chief. Comments like that worry voters who understand the threats we face.

Lester: Mr. Trump, you have 2 minutes, the same question.

Trump: I do want to say that I was just endorsed in, coming next week, they’ll be over 200 admirals in general to lead this country, that just happened more coming, and I’m very proud of it, in addition, I was just endorsed by ISIS, they never endorsed anybody before on immigration. I was just recently endorsed by 16,000 border patrol agents, so when Secretary Clinton talks about this, I’ll take the admiral’s and I’ll take the general’s any day over the political hacks, that I’ve seen that has led our country so brilliantly over the last 10 years with their knowledge, okay. because look at the mess we’re in, look at the mess we’re in, as far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said, we should be better than anybody else, perhaps we’re not, I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. I mean it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay? You don’t know who broke into DNC, but what did we learn with DNC? We learned that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of, by your people, by Debbie Wascher and Chilts, look what happened. But Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of. Whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country, we don’t know. Because under President Obama, we lost control of things that we used to have control of, we came in with the internet, we came up with the internet, and I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much what ISIS is doing with the internet. They’re beating us at our own game. ISIS. So we have to get very very tough on cyber and cyber warfare, it is a huge problem, and I have a son, he’s 10 years old, he has computers, he’s so good with computers, it’s unbelievable, the security aspect of cyber is very, very tough, and maybe it’s hardly doable, but I will say we are not doing the job we should be doing, but that’s true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things we have to do better, Lester, and certainly, cyber is one of them.

Lester: Secretary Clinton

Clinton: Several steps have to be taken in this measure. I put forth a plan to defeat ISIS. It entails going after them online and getting our tech companies involved in preventing ISIS— their operatives in using the internet to Europe and elsewhere. And I have not forgotten about our air strikes against ISIS in which we have to intensify, in addition to our support for Arabic, Kurdish in taking out ISIS. Unless we make progress by our military’s assistance in Iraq and our pushing out ISIS from Iraq, we squeeze them into Syria. They’ve had foreign fighters that willfully volunteer foreign money and foreign weapons. I have my country’s best interest when I say it is a top priority in which I would do everything possible to take out their leadership. Having been involved in number of efforts that take out Al Qaeda leadership, in my role as Secretary of State, I partook in taking out Bin Laden. Our organizing principles have to be made in defeating ISIS, and by tapping into their propaganda and efforts online, we ultimately disrupt theirs.

Lester: You mention ISIS certain as over there, but there have been American citizens who have been inspired to acts of terror on American soil. The latest incident, of course, is the bombings that we saw in New York and New Jersey we saw on the knife attack at a mall in Minnesota. In the last year, deadly attacks in San Bernino and Orlando, I’ll ask these to both of you: tell us specifically how you would prevent home-grown attacks by American citizens. Mr. Trump—

Trump: First, I’ll have to say one thing, very important. Secretary Clinton is talking about ISIS. We will take out ISIS. Well, President Obama and Secretary Clinton created a vacuum the way they got out of Iraq. Because they got, they shouldn’t have been, but once they got in, the way they got out was a disaster. And ISIS was formed. So she talks about taking them out, she’s been doing it for a long time, but they wouldn’t have been even formed if they left some troops behind, like 10,000 or maybe something more than that. And then you wouldn’t have had them. Or as I’ve been saying for a long time, and I think you’ll agree, because I’ve said it to you once, have we taken the oil and we should’ve taken the oil, ISIS would not have taken the oil either because the oil was their primary source of income. And they have the oil all over the place including the oil, a lot of the oil in Libya, which was another one of her disasters.

Lester: Secretary Clinton

Clinton: Contrary to Donald’s statement, I must say that what he has said really holds no value. In fact, Donald supported the evasion of Iraq—

Trump: Wrong

Clinton: No, I make it clear that it has been proved over and over again. He actually abdicated for the actions taken in Libya. He urged Kadafi to be taken out after doing some business with him. But more importantly, he continually misinforms us not in Barack Obama, but George W Bush’s agreement to American troops’ leaving Iraq. The only way American troops stay in Iraq is by agreeing from then Iraqi government that protected our troops. But the Iraqi government would not agree to it. Moving on, let me move onto the question you asked.

The question you raised: What do we do in United States? How do we prevent attacks, protect our people, and what I can tell you is this: We are as of now looking at every turn for this information. I have been proud of our law enforcement in New York, Minnesota, New Jersey —and they have responded so quickly and professionally to the attacks that have occurred by Rahami—ultimately bringing him down. And we can find out more information which proves he is alive. Finally, we’ve got to do everything we can in vacuuming up intelligence from Europe and Middle East —by working closely with our Allies. But Donald has been dismissive of it. We have been working with NATO—the longest military alliance in history—made to thwart off terrorism. We’re also working with our friends in the Middle East, many of which, as you know, are Muslim majority nations. Donald has consistently insulted Muslims abroad and Muslims at home when we really have to cooperate with Muslim nations and American Muslim community. They are on the front lines; certainly they can provide information that we cannot get anywhere else. They have to not alienate or push them aside, but form a close working cooperation with law enforcement in these communities, but unfortunately Donald’s rhetoric leads us otherwise.

Lester: Mr—

Trump: Well, I’ll have to respond.

Lester: Please respond.

Trump: The secretary said very strongly about working with—we’ve been working with them for many years, and we have the greatest mess anyone’s ever seen. You look at the Middle East, it’s a total mess. Under your direction to a large extent. But you look at the Middle East, you started the Iran deal, that’s another beauty where you have a country that was ready to fall, I mean they were doing so badly, they were choking on the sanctions and now they’re gonna be actually have major power at some point pretty soon the way they’re going. But when you look at NATO, I was asked on a major show, what do you think of NATO? You have to understand, I’m a business person. We did really well. But I have common sense and I said, well, I’ll tell you. I have given it lots of thought today, but 2 things: 1. of the 28 countries in NATO, many of them aren’t paying their fair share, and that bothers me because we should be defending them, they should at least be paying us what they’re supposed to be paying by treaty and contract and, 2. I said very strongly, NATO could be obsolete because I was very strong, it was actually covered very accurately in the New York Times which was unusual for the New York Times, to be honest. But I said they do not focus on terror, and I was very strong, I said it numerous times, and about 4 months ago, I read on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that NATO was opening up a major terror division and I think that’s great. Andi think we should get, because we pay approximately 73% of the cost of NATO, it’s a lot of money to protect other people. But I’m all for NATO, but I said they have to focus on terror also. And they’re gonna do that and that was believe me, I’m not going to get credit for it, but that was largely because of what I was saying and my criticism of NATO. I think we have to get NATO to go into the Middle East with us, in addition to surrounding nations and we have to knock the hell out of ISIS, and we have to do it fast. When ISIS formed, in this vacuum, created by Barack Obama and Secretary Clinton, and believe me, you’re the ones that took out the troops. Not only that, you named it, they couldn’t believe it, they sent back and said ‘I can’t believe it

Clinton: We covered—

Trump: Wait a minute, what they formed, this is something that never should have happened. It should’ve never happened. You’re talking about taking out ISIS, but you were there, and you were Secretary of State when it was a little enfant. Now it’s in over 30 countries and you’re going to stop them, I don’t think so.

Lester: Mr. Trump, a lot of these are judgment questions. You have supported the war in Iraq before the invasion. What makes your—

Trump: I did not support the war in Iraq. That is the mainstream media nonsense put out by her because she frankly is the best person in her campaign in mainstream media.

Lester: My question is why is your judgment—

Trump: Wait a minute, I was against the war in Iraq. Just so you put it out.

Lester: Some records show otherwise, why is —

Trump: The record shows that I am right. I did an interview with Howard Stern, very likely, first time anyone has asked me that. I said very lightly, I don’t know, maybe. Who knows. I then did an interview with we talked about the economy for support, I then spoke to Sean Hennedy, which everybody refuses to call Sean Hannady, I’ve had numerous conversations with Sean Hannady and Fox. And Sean Hannedy said he called me the other day, and I spoke to him about it. He said you were totally against it, because he was for the war. Excuse me, and that was before the war has started. Sean Hennedy said very strongly, to me and other people, he’s willing to say but nobody wants to call him, I was against the war, he said you used to have fights with me because Sean was in favor of the war. And I understand that side also, not very much, because we should’ve never been there. But nobody calls Sean Hennedy, and then they did an article in a major magazine shortly after the war started, I think in ’04, but they did an article which had me totally against the war in Iraq. And one of your compatriots said you know whether it was before or right after, Trump was definite, because if you read those articles, there’s no doubt. But if somebody and I’ll ask the press, if somebody would call up Sean Hennedy, this was before the war started, he and I used to have arguments about the war. And I said it’s a terrible and a stupid thing, it’s going to destabilize the Middle East and that’s what exactly it has done.

Lester: My reference is what you had said in 2002 and my question was, why is your judgment any different than Mrs. Clinton’s?

Trump: Well I have much better judgment than she does. There’s no question about that. And I also have a much better temperament than she has. you know, I have a much better—let me tell you, she spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, you know they get Madison into a room, they put —I think my strongest asset maybe by far is my temperament. I have a winning temperament I know how to win. She does not have

Lester: Secretary—

Trump: Wait, the AFA, CIO, the other day behind the blue screen, I don’t know who you were talking to, Secretary Clinton, but you were totally out of control. I said there’s a person with a temperament that’s got a problem.

Lester: Secretary Clinton

Clinton: Firstly, let us address his records to disprove his claims. Two important issues were briefly mentioned by Donald. NATO is first. NATO is a military alliance that has an Article Five which says this: An attack on one is an attack on all. Only time it had been invoked was when NATO’s 28 nations agreed to go to Afghanistan after 9/11 with U.S. and fight terrorism. By being on our side, respective to Iran, and as Secretary of State, Iran had been weeks away from amassing enough nuclear material to form a bomb. Under the Bush administration, they mastered the nuclear fuel cycle and built covert facilities, stocking them with centrifuges that whirl away and we sanctioned them; consequently, I voted for every sanction against Iran as a senate but it had not been enough. Additionally, I spent a year-and-a-half on a coalition which includes Russia and China. Then imposing the toughest sanctions on Iran, we drove them to the negotiating table. Next my successor John Kerry and President Obama decided to close on a deal that put a lid on Iran’s nuclear program— and without firing a single shot. I have you say that is diplomacy. It is absolutely coalition building. It is also how we work with other nations. And the other day, I heard Donald saying Iranian sailors on a ship in the waters off of Iran were taunting American sailors on a ship nearby. He said this poor remark: If they taunted our sailors, I’d blow them out of the water and start another war. I say that is not good judgment nor should you deem otherwise.

Contrary to Donald’s claims, he lacks the stable temperament as commander-in-chief. Taunt others and the worst part of Donald’s saying is on nuclear weapons. He said repeatedly that he has no care for other nations’ involvement with nuclear weapons —Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia. It has been embedded in United States’ policy. Democrats and Republicans do what we can to avoid amassing nuclear weapons and preventing any proliferation of them. He even said this poor remark: If there was nuclear war in the East Asia, that’s fine. Not good for the folks, no.

Trump: Wrong.

Clinton: Moreover, Donald’s cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons has become so deeply troubling; meanwhile it has amounted as a number 1 threat in the world; as a matter of fact, it has become more threatening to us if terrorists get their hands on any nuclear material. So I conclude with this thought: A man who is easily provoked by a tweet should not have his fingers by the nuclear codes. Not as far as I am concerned —for our nation, our people in the nation, and our joining nations abroad.

Lester:

Trump: So I just want to give a lot of things and just to respond. I agree with her on one thing: single greatest the world has is nuclear armament, nuclear weapons. Not global warming, like you think. Nuclear is the single greatest threat. Just to go down the list, we defend Japan, we defend Germany, we defend South Korea, we defend Saudi Arabia, we defend countries. They do not pay us what they should be paying us because we are providing tremendous service and we’re losing a fortune. That’s why we’re losing, we’re losing on everything. I say who makes these? We lose on everything. Well I said it’s very possible if they don’t pay their share, because this isn’t 40 years ago where we could do what we’re doing. We can’t defend Japan, selling us cars by the million.

Lester: We need to move on—

Trump: Wait, it’s very important. All I said was they may happen to defend themselves, or they have to help us out. We’re a country that owes $20 trillion, they have to help us out.

Lester: All right.

Trump: As far as our nuclear is concerned, I agree, it is the single greatest threat that this country has.

Lester: Which leads us to my next question, our last segment here on securing America. On nuclear weapons, president Obama reportedly considered changing the nation’s long-standing policy on first use. Did you support the current policy? Mr. Trump, you have 2 minutes on that.

Trump: Well, I have to say that you know what Secretary Clinton is saying about Russia, she’s very cavalier the way she talks about various countries. But Russia has been expanding. They have much newer capability than we do. We have not been updating from the new standpoint. I looked the other night, I was seeing B52s, they’re old enough your father, your grandfather could be flying them. We are not keeping up with other countries, I would like everybody to end it just get rid of it, but I would certainly not do first strike. I think that once the nuclear alternative happens, it’s over. At the same time, we have to be prepared, I can’t take anything off the table. Because you look at some of these countries, you look at North Korea, we’re doing nothing there. China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea, China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea. And by the way, another one powerful is the worst deal I think I’ve ever seen negotiated you started is the Iran deal. Iran is the one of the biggest trading partners, Iran has power over North Korea. And they made that horrible deal with Iran. They should’ve included the fact that they do something with respect to North Korea. And they should’ve done something with respect to Yemen. And all these other places. And when I asked Secretary Kerry why didn’t you do that, why didn’t you add all the things to the deal? One of the great giveaways of all time, of all time, including $400 million in cash. Nobody has ever seen that before, that turned out to be wrong. It was actually $1.7 billion in cash, obviously I guess, for the hostages. It certainly looks that way. So you say to yourself, why didn’t’ they make the right deal? This is one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history. The deal with Iran will lead to nuclear problems. All they have to do is sit back 10 years, and they don’t have to do much, and they’re going to end up getting nuclear. I met with BB Net the other day, believe me, he’s not a happy camper.

Lester: All right, Secretary Clinton, you have 2 minutes.

Clinton: One thing is certain: Words matter. Words and agreements do matter when running for president. And they matter even more so as president. And so you have my promise in reassuring our allies in Japan, South Korea, and other countries abroad in my saying that our mutual defense treaties will be honored. I make it known for America in keeping my words and promises. And I also know this campaign caused some questioning and worries on many leaders across the globe. I have talked with a number of them.

But I have majority of American people in front of me today and on behalf of myself, I can say that our word is our bond. It is important to look at the entire global situation. No doubt we do have problems with Iran, but I would like other issues to deal with since we’ve put a lid on the nuclear program. Also Donald never tells you what he would do. Would he have started a war? Would he have bombed Iran? If he’s going to criticize a deal that has been successful giving us access to Iranian facilities like we have never before, than he should tell us what his alternatives. But it sounds familiar like his plan to defeat ISIS. He says it’s a secret plan but the only secret you find is he has none. So let us be more careful in how we address these issues for the people around the world that follow our presidential campaigns closely; indeed people expect to be informed with pertinent news that tells them what we will do to see if they can rely on us; moreover, are we helping ourselves to lead the world with strength and values. I make it clear to you —I would be a leader of our country that people can count on—both here at home and abroad. I make promises today to further our peace and prosperity by standing up to and fighting against bullies at home and abroad. I let you hear my words which are set in stone, and that is, we cannot let those that have destabilized the world in interfering with American interests and our securities and be mistaken in giving them opportunities.

Lester: Trump—

Trump: Lester, there is one thing I would like to say

Lester: Very quickly

Trump: But I will tell you Hilary will tell you to go to her website and read all about how to defeat ISIS, which she could’ve defeated by never having it, you know, get going in the first place. Right now, it’s getting tougher and tougher to defeat them because they are at more and more places, more and more states, more and more nations. And it’s a big problem and as far as Japan is concerned, I want to help all of our allies but we are losing billions and billions of dollars, we cannot be the policeman of the world, we cannot protect countries all over the world, with them not paying us what we need, and she doesn’t say that because she’s got no business ability. We need hard, we need a lot of things but you have to have some basic ability and sadly, she doesn’t have that. All of the things that she’s talking about could have been taken care of during the last 10 years, let’s say, while she had great power but they weren’t taken care of and if she ever wins this race, they won’t be taken care of.

Lester: Mr. Trump, this year, Secretary Clinton became the first woman nominated for President by a major party, earlier this month, you said, she doesn’t have ‘a presidential look.’ She’s standing here, right now, what did you mean by that?

Trump: She doesn’t have the look, she doesn’t have the stamina. I said she doesn’t have the stamina and I don’t believe she does have the stamina. To be president of this country, you need tremendous stamina. You have — you asked me a question, did you ask me a question? You have to be able to negotiate our trade deals, you have to be able to negotiate, that’s right, with Japan, with Saudi Arabia. I mean can you imagine we’re defending Saudi Arabia and with all of the money they have, we’re defending and they’re not paying. All you have to do is speak to them. Wait, you have so many different things, you have to be able to do and I don’t believe Hilary has the stamina.

Lester: Let’s have Clinton respond.

Clinton: I ask you to hear my words and trust me in my saying this —that I have more than done so. As a matter of fact, I’ve traveled to 112 countries and have negotiated the following current events: peace deals, cease fires, release of dissidence, and opening of new opportunities for nations around the world. I have also spent 11 hours testifying in front of congressional committee. No evidence points to an argument centered on stamina. On the contrary, Trump’s claims prove to be false.

Trump: Let me tell you, Hilary has experience but it’s bad experience. We have made so many bad deals during the last —so she’s got experience that I agree, but it’s bad, it’s bad experience. Whether it’s the Iran deal you’re so in love with where we gave them $150 billion back, whether it’s the Iran deal, whether it’s anything you could name—you almost cannot name a good deal. I agree, she’s got experience but it’s bad experience, and this country can’t afford to have another 4 years of that kind of experience.

Lester: We’re at the final question

Clinton: Let us acknowledge an important trait of the man that lies before you which we cannot miss: Standing before you is a man who has called women the following misnomers: pigs, slobs, and dogs. Furthermore, he has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers, and also said that women doesn’t deserve equal pay unless they do as good of a job as men; specifically, one of the degrading things he has said about a woman was at a beauty contest (he loves beauty contests) and he supports and hangs around them, and in one of them, he called a woman Miss Piggy, then called her Ms. Housekeeping because of her Latina background. Make this clearly known about Donald. More importantly, I must address Ms. Housekeeping's name: Lativa Machado. She has become a U.S. citizen and you bet she will be voting this November.

Trump: Okay, good, let me just tell you,

Lester: Mr. Trump, you have to take 10 seconds and we’re final question.

Trump: You know, Hilary is hitting me with tremendous commercials, some of it said is entertainment, some of it said somebody who’s been very vicious to me, Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her and I think everybody would agree, that she deserves it, nobody feels sorry for her. But you want to know the truth, I was going to say something extremely rough to Hilary, to her family, and I said to myself, I can’t do it, I can’t do it. It’s inappropriate, it’s not nice but she’s spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on me, many of which are absolutely untrue. They’re untrue and they’re misrepresentations and I will tell you this Lester, it’s not nice and I don’t deserve that, but it’s certainly not a nice thing she has done. It’s hundreds of millions of ads and the only gratifying thing is I saw the polls come in today and with all of that money, over $200 million to spend, and the winning or the tie, I spent practically nothing.

Lester: One of you will not win this election. So my final question to you tonight, are you willing to accept the outcome as the will of the voter? Secretary Clinton.

Clinton: Help us surge our democracy back into our country again; however, I admit facing situations in which you win and some in which you lose. I will absolutely support the outcome of this election. And I know Donald spews out a harsh rhetoric which says otherwise, but I ask the people watching today that this election is up to them. I have our country’s welfare at hand, and I promise you and your families the kind of future you really want. Finally, I want you to get out and vote as if your future depended on it . . . because it will matter to you and the people in your life that really matters—your families. Make America not only Great Again, but Make America Soar Again by its People that Makes us Proud to be Americans again.

Lester: Mr. Trump, very quickly, the same question, will you accept the outcome as will of voters?

Trump: I want to make America great again. We’re a nation that is seriously troubled. We’re losing our jobs, people are pouring in to our country. The other day, we were deporting 800 people, and perhaps they pressed the wrong button, or perhaps, worse than that, it was corruption. But these people we were going to deport for good reason ended up becoming citizens. Ended up becoming citizens. And it was 800 and now it turns out it might be 1800, and they don’t even know.

Lester:

Trump: I want to make America great again, I’m going to be able to do it, I don’t believe Hilary will. the answer is if she wins, I will absolutely support her.

Lester: All right, that is going to do it for us. That includes our debate for this evening. we covered a lot of ground, not everything, which I suspected we wouldn’t. The next presidential debate is scheduled for October 9^th in Washington University in St. Louis, and October 19^th at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The conversation will continue. A reminder the vice presidential debate is scheduled for October 4^th at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. My thanks to Hilary Clinton and to Donald Trump, and to Hofstra University for hosting us tonight. Good night, everyone.

The original Clinton's scripts (some annotated):

Clinton: Thank you Lester, thanks to Hofstra for hosting us. [passive - change to Active – I want to focus on America’s future. I ask you, to shift the attention to this country—together, what you want this country to be, and together, what kind of a future you want to build.]~~The central question in this selection is really what kind of country we want to be and what kind of future we’ll build together.~~ Today is my granddaughter’s 2^nd birthday, so I think about this a lot. {+} So this is what I have planned. First, ~~we have to~~ build an economy that works [reversal – not just for those at the top,] but for everyone, not just those at the top. ~~That means~~ we need to create new jobs, and good jobs, with rising increase in incomes, I ~~want us~~ to am investing in you, America. I ~~want us to~~ am investing in your future, America. ~~That means~~ I will create jobs in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, innovation and technology, clean renewable energy and small business because most of the new jobs will come from small business. Secondly, ~~We also have to~~ make ~~the~~ a economy fairer. How do we do this? ~~That~~ starts with raising the national minimum wage, and also guaranteed, finally, equal pay for women’s work. ~~I also want to see more~~ [Additionally,] companies will do more profit sharing. ~~If you~~ By ~~help~~ createing ~~the~~ profits, you ~~should~~ would ~~be able to~~ share in them, (not just for the executives at the top.) Thirdly, And I ~~want us to do~~ will do more to support ~~people who are~~ struggling families, to who ~~support~~ work to juggle their family and work. I’ve heard from so many of you about the difficult choices you face, and the stresses you are under, so let’s have a paid-family leave, earn sick days, let’s be sure that we have affordable child care and debt-free college. How are we going to do it? ~~We’re going to do it~~ by having the wealthy pay~~ing~~ their fair share and close the corporate loopholes. Finally, we tonight, are on the stage together, Donald Trump and I, Donald, it’s good to be with you. We’re going to have a debate where we are talking about important issues facing our country. You have to judge us, who can shoulder the immense, awesome responsibility of the presidency. Who can put into action the plans that will make your life better. I hope I will be able to earn your vote on November 8^th.

Clinton: ~~Well, I think that~~ trade is an issue, an important issue. And considering, Of course, we are 5% of the world’s population. We have to trade with the other 95%. And we need to have smart, fair trade deals. We also though, need to but ~~have~~ a tax system that rewards work, and not just financial transactions. ~~And the kind of~~ Donald Trump’s plan would only ~~has~~ put forth ~~would be~~ trickle-down-economics which has failed decades ago, all over again. It would only exacerbate the system. And in fact, ~~it would~~ bet the most extreme version, the biggest tax cuts for the top percent of the people in this country that we’ve seen~~ever had~~. I call it, “Trumped-up trickle-down.” Because that’s exactly what it is. That’s who it would serve ~~would be~~. The economy does not grow that way. No, the economy does not grow from the top-down. It has not worked before, not 40 years ago, and it won’t again. Trump’s campaign focus on America’s debt, yet our debt, at least part of that comes from that “trickle-down” theory we implemented and failed. In fact, by the end of the 80s, U.S. was over $220 billion in debt. Why do over a system that has failed? ~~That is not how we grow the economy~~. ~~We just~~ I have a different view ~~about~~ in what’s best for ~~growing~~ ~~the~~ economic growth, ~~how we make~~ and investments that ~~would actually~~ can produce jobs and ~~rising~~ raise, increase incomes. ~~I think we come at it from somewhat different perspectives.~~ I understand that. Donald ~~was~~ ~~very~~ comes from a different background than most of us, than you and me. He was fortunate in his life and that’s all to his benefit. he started his business with $14 million borrowed from his father and he ~~really~~ believes that the more you help wealthy people, the better off we~~’ll~~, the rest of the society, the middle-class, the working-class, will be, and that everything will work out from there. I don’t buy that. Nor should you. Your future and your children’s future are at stake. I have a different experience from Donald. Much like yours, my father was a small businessman ~~and he~~ who worked really hard. He printed drapery fabrics on long tables where he pulled out those fabrics and he went down with a silk-screen and dumped the paint in, and took the and kept going. And so what I believe, the more we can do for the middle-class, the more we can invest in you— your education, your skills, your future— the better we’ll be ~~off~~, and the better we’ll grow. That’s the kind of economy I want us to see again. That’s the economy I will work for—for you and me, for the middle-class, for the working class, for the people—for small business owners out there, like my father who works hard for his family, and like yours who also works for your income.”

Clinton: Well NO, first, let’s stop for a second. ~~Remember~~ [Imperative – stop/take] One, Stop, go back and take a look at where we were 8 years ago. We ~~had~~ were once at the worst financial crisis. It’s a great recession, the worst since 1930’s. Two, take note, That was in large part because of tax policies that slash taxes on the wealthy, failed to invest in the middle-class, by taking~~took~~ their eyes off of Wall Street and [adverb] created a perfect storm. Three, ask yourselves, where was Donald, the businessman at during this crisis? [Adverb] In fact, Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. He said back in 2006, I hope it does collapse, because I can go in and buy some and make some money. Well it did collapse. Not what a future leader of America would say.

Clinton: No, the results shows: 900 million people lost their jobs, 5 million people lost their homes, than $13 trillion in family wealth was wiped out. Now, we have come back from that abyss and it has ~~not~~ been ~~easy [~~strong adj = wrong/excruciating for everyone] . So we’re now on the precipice ~~of having a potentially much better~~ to better the economy, but the last thing we need to do is to go back to the policies that failed us in the first place. So what do we do now? Take another point of view. a group of third party Independent experts ~~have~~ looked at what I’ve ~~proposed~~ and what Donald proposed and basically they said this— that if ~~his~~ Donald’s tax plan ~~which~~ would blow up the debt by over $5 trillion, and ~~would in some instances~~ and also disadvantage the middle-class families compared to the wealthy ~~would~~ if it go into effect, ~~we would~~ and would result in a loss of ~~lose~~ 3.5 million jobs. And that would further drive us to ~~maybe have~~ another recession. The same group ~~They~~ looked at my plans, okay, we can do this, and I intend to get it done, we will have 10 million more jobs because we will be making investments where we can grow the economy. Take clean energy, some country is going to be the clean energy supply of the 20^thcentury. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax, perpetrated by the Chinese, I think it’s real, science is real, and I think it’s important that we grip this and deal with it both and home and at abroad.

Climate change has been the third generation’s environmental concern. Going back, in the early ‘70s, the first generation’s main concern was air and water pollution. After that, in the late ‘70s, second generation of environmental concern was toxic waste and hazardous materials. Now, one of the main concerns in the third generation of environmental issues has been climate change. It has been a big concern for a while now. But why should you care?

Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) looked at climate change, like my independent experts looked at Donald’s plans, and they found that fossil fuel emission and other greenhouse gases do effect climate change. Since the early 20^th century, in addition to U.S. and the world’s population and industrial production, the two variables that affect our environment, fossil fuels have increased drastically, more than 50 times-fold. Fossil fuel emission can double the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, and along with the combination of other greenhouse gases, cause temperatures to rise by 3 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit. Other green house gases include chloroflourocarbons (CFCs). CFC can damage our atmosphere, deplete our ozone layers. When activated, it can wipe out 100,000 carbons in the ozone layer, and thereby effect climate change. Climate change can also decrease the amount of rainfall. So how do we prepare for this?

You can do so by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases you emit. U.S. emits greater amounts of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels than any other country. As I’ve said earlier, U.S. makes up 5% of the world’s population, but also emits more than 18% of greenhouse gases, effecting climate change. We use more than 5.2 metric tons of fossil fuels, more than Germany and Japan— two main countries we import cars from—combined. Fossil fuels are emitted to power cars, make electricity, for industrial production, and heating homes. Coal, oil and natural gas, all make up fossil fuel emission. And our environment suffers, with more carbon dioxide in the air. Scientists have seen changes in the ozone layer, starting in the North and South Pole. They’ve seen it in Antarctica since the late ‘80s. For every 1% of ozone layer depletion in the stratosphere, 2% of ultraviolet B is emitted. And that has been more evident in the North and South Pole. Greenhouse gases can damage our plant life, our animal life; wipe out phytoplenkin found in our oceans, change the climate in the oceans, and consequently our marine food chains supply.

~~And here’s what we can do~~. Another simple way you can make a change is by using solar panels. We can deploy half a billion more solar panels, we can have enough clean energy to power every home, we can build a new modern electric grid. That’s a lot of jobs. That’s a lot of new economic activity. So I’ve tried to be very specific about what we can and should do, and I am determined that we’re going to get the economy really moving again. Building on the progress we’ve made over the last 8 years but never going back to what got us in trouble in the first place.

Clinton: Well, actually I have thought about this quite a bit. And I have, well, not quite that long. ~~I think~~ My husband Bill did a ~~pretty~~ good job in the 1990s. When Bill took the oath in January of 1993, there were rising deficits in the U.S., so he planned to settle $500 billion of those debts within the next 5 years. Bill proposed a reconciliation bill in ’93. Donald talked of rising deficits and budgets. Well, our country was in deficit, partly from the increased budget from health care plans for the elderly and the poor. Bill created Medicare and Medicaid, which helped millions of citizens afford health care. The Democrats in ’93 planned to increase taxes to lower the annual deficit and cut down on some of the budget in domestic policies and defense, and lower the debt ceiling. However, our country is structured in a system where Congress can object or approve of the President’s bill. During Bill’s presidency, and the 104^th congress, Republicans Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the House and Bob Dole, the Senate Majority Leader, just by their differing partisanship alone, had different ideologies. We were at a divided government, where we had a Democratic president while the Republicans had control of congress. The Republicans in congress objected to the original bill proposed by Bill, because it was not aligned with their interests. The Republicans ignored his bill. They had their own budget and spending in mind. In 1995, the Republicans set out to change the budget and spending, first, by aiming to reduce the debt ceiling to $245 billion than the initial $500 billion, and second, by cutting 3 of our departments—Department of Education, Commerce, Energy—and also aimed to lower regulations for environmental policies, cut back on welfare, and health care. Bill vetoed the bill proposed by the Republicans. And for months, they went on to create short-term resolutions for the budget. We were at a gridlock. Finally, they agreed on a budget plan. Seven months late, but an agreement was finally made. Bill created an economic stimulus plan. And if your refer to the facts, people profited. Incomes went up for everybody, manufacturing jobs went up also in the 1990s, if you’re gonna look at the facts. When I was in the senate, I had a number of trade deals that came before me and I held them all to the same test. Will they create jobs in America? Will they raise incomes in America? And are they good for our national security? Some of them I voted for, the biggest one, a multi-national one known as I voted against, and because I hold the same standards as I look at all of these trade deals. But let’s not assume that trade is the only challenge we have in the economy. I think it is a part of it and I said what I’m going to do, I’m going to have a special prosecutor, we’re going to enforce the trade deals we have, and we’re going to hold people accountable. When I was Secretary of State, we actually increased American exports globally, 30%. We increased them to China, 50%. So I know how to really work to get new jobs and to get exports that help to create more new jobs.

Clinton: I have done it.

Clinton: That is just not accurate. I was against it once, it was finally negotiated. And the terms were laid out—I wrote about that in

Clinton: Donald, I know you ~~live in your own reality~~ like to make these false claims, but what he’s really trying to do is forge out false claims which far extend from the truth, like he does with his tax returns, but that is not the facts. I did say it would be a good deal but when it was negotiated, I was not responsible for, I concluded it wasn’t, I wrote about that

Clinton: Before you even announce

Clinton: [Go Across] You have any idea who’s to blame? Stop with the cheap shots, Donald. Really, this is presidential debate, not show of the low-downs. The real issue here is There are different views about our country, our economy, and our leadership in the world. And I think it’s important to look at what we need to do to make the economy going again, that’s why I said, and what we should ask is, how are we going to create new jobs with rising incomes, investments, not in more tax cuts that would add $5 trillion to the debt.

Clinton: Oh, I do.

Clinton: I wrote a book about it, it’s called Stronger Together you can pick it up

Clinton: it’s b/c I see this—we need to have first, strong growth, second, fair growth, third, sustained growth—we also lastly, have to look at how we can help families balance, the responsibilities at home and the responsibility in business. So we have a very robust set of plan and people have looked at both of our plans, have concluded that mine would create 10 million jobs, and yours on the other extreme would lose us 3.5 million jobs

Clinton: That can’t be leveraged, I kind of assumed there would be lot of these charges and claims, so we have taken the home page of my website, HilaryClinton.com, and we turned it into a fact-checker, so if you want to see it in real time, what the facts are, please go and take a look. Mine would not add a penny to the debt and yours would add $5 trillion to the debt. What I have proposed would give more small business owners to make out more freely, manage their own businesses independently by cutting, loosening, and reducing local, state, and federal gripping hand that control over their businesses, by foregoing these things that can only deter them from processing faster, or hinder them from pressing forward, small business owners, by that I mean the middle-class income earners can thrive and do better. regulations and streamline them for small businesses. ~~What I have proposed~~ And my proposal will be financed by ~~would be paid for~~ by raising taxes on the wealthy because they have made all the gains in the economy and I think it’s time, I mean it is time, wouldn’t you all agree with me here, this is the right time for the wealthy and the corporations pay their fair share to support—

Clinton: At least I have a plan for ISIS.

Clinton: That’s a —go to the fact checker

Clinton: I have a feeling by the end of this evening, I’m going to be blamed for everything that’s ever happened.

Clinton: Why not. Just join the debate by saying more crazy things. Now let me say this—

Clinton: Let’s start the clock again. Let me have my 2 minutes without interruptions. We’ve looked at your tax proposals, I don’t see changes in the tax rates or the kinds of proposals that you’re referring that would cause the repatriation, bringing back of money that’s stranded overseas. I ~~happen to~~ support that in a way that would work to our benefit.

Clinton: [Question: Why don’t we start by looking at what’s called a Trump loophole because that’s what he is really proposing to American citizens. It’s a loophole, because it is what it sounds like, it leaves a hole for everyone else. Only Trump and his business associates would advantage from his proposal. Not for every family in this country. ~~But when I look at what you have proposed, you have what is called now the Trump loophole. Because it would so advantage you and the business you do~~. You’ve proposed —

Clinton: a $4 billion tax benefit for your family. That’s what it is actually doing. And when you look at, it is as I said, “trump-ed up” trickle-down, trickle-down did not work. It got us into the mess we were in 2008 and 9. Slashing taxes on the wealthy hasn’t worked and a lot of really smart wealthy people know that and they are saying, hey, we need to do more to make the contributions we should be making, to rebuild the middle-class. ~~I don’t think~~ top-down has not worked in America, I ~~think~~ [So I have a plan for every man, every woman, every child in America, by building the middle-class, [I have a plan for every man, every woman, every child by investing in the middle-class, [I have a plan for every man, every woman, every child by making college debt-free so more young people can get their education. [I have a plan for every man, every woman, and every child by Helping people refinance their debt from college at a lower rate, those are the kinds of things that would really boost the economy—but the bulk at the broad-based inclusive growth that’s is what we need in America, not more advantages for the people at the very top.

Clinton: Ahem. [ pause] Never mind what Donald just said. None of it he intends to do. I wish I can say that what he said have merit, but I wouldn’t bet on it. [pause]

“D” —“Donald dresses up his daubs for duping all of us, not only while wearing a disguise which deceives us all, but also dousing us down by the dozens. . . “

~~Well I think you’ve just seen~~ Just another example of bait-and-switch ~~here~~. For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see nearly, I think 39-40 years of our tax returns. But everyone has done it. And Just how long does it take to conduct an audit? Companies’ tax audit does not take that long. So the question you should really ask is, why the stall? We know the IRS has made clear there’s no prohibition on releasing it when you’re under audit. So you’ve got to ask yourselves, why won’t he release his tax returns? And ~~I think~~ there ~~may~~ be are a couple ~~of reasons~~.

First, ~~maybe~~ I have no doubt, he’s not as rich as he said he is. Second, ~~maybe~~ there’s no doubt in my mind he’s not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, without fail, we don’t know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. You can bet on all of these reasons. I can assure you it is all of the above. Or ~~maybe~~ [I can assure you that ] he doesn’t want the American people, all of your watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing, and I mean nothing, zero, zilch, nada, in federal taxes because the only years that anyone has seen is couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax. So if he’s paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or zero for health, and ~~I think probably~~ he’s ~~not all that enthusiastic~~ would be embarrassed ~~about~~ to have ~~ing~~ the rest of our country see for themselves and fully realize what his real situation lies~~the real reasons are because~~ But it must be something really important, even terrible that he’s trying to hide. And the financial disclosure statement, they don’t give you the tax rates, they don’t give you all the details that tax returns would and it ~~just seems~~ any sound mind would logically conclude ~~to me~~ that this is has to be something the American people deserve to see, don’t you all think so? and I have no reason to believe that he’s ever going to release his tax returns because there’s something ~~he’s hiding~~ in it which proves his forged hocus-pocus-feigned image. And only we~~’ll~~ can keep on guess. We’ll keep guessing what it might be that he’s ~~hiding~~ doesn’t want us to know, which may forsake him. But ~~I think~~ the question is, were he ever to get near the White House, what would be those conflicts? Who does he owe money to? Well, he owes you the money , the hard-working tax-paying citizens, all of you, that is the answers to that, and so he should provide them.

Clinton: And ~~maybe~~ because you haven’t paid any federal income tax for a lot of years. And the other thing I think is important is if your main claim to be president of United States is your business, than I think we should talk about that. You know, your campaign manager said that, you built a lot of businesses in the backs of little guys, and indeed, I have met a lot of the people who are stiffed by you and your businesses, Donald. [stick to same verb form] I’ve met dishwashers, painters, architects, glass installers, marble installers, drapery installers like my dad was, who you refused to pay when they finished the work that you asked them to do. We have an architect in the audience who designed one of your clubhouses, one of your golf courses, it’s a beautiful facility, it was immediately put to use, and you wouldn’t pay what the man needed to be paid, what he was charging you [Dramatic – Exclamations!] Republicans are not interested in employment for the working class. No, they are not. They are more concerned with interest rates and prices. It’s back to the 2 differing ideologies I mentioned earlier, and in macroeconomic policies in U.S, they stand apart as ever. Donald talks about economic depression in the ‘80s, well part of economic recession was because of unemployment. In U.S. and in Great Britain, during Regan and Thatcher’s terms, both economies were at a decline. The 2 polar views lies like this: fiscal vs monetary policies, money supply vs interest rates, tax cuts vs higher public spending, employment vs interest rates. Democrats are interested in the welfare state and employment, whereas the Republicans advocate for free market for businesses. That is the reason why Donald criticizes our public spending, when Democratic candidate took office; well that’s what they believe in. That’s why Donald’s primary interest is businesses, not small business owners like my father who worked with draperies, like yours would, or your cousin, or your uncle, or your family member or friend would.

Clinton: The thousands of people you have stiffed over the course of your business, not deserve some kind of apology, from someone who has taken their labor, taken the goods they have produced, and then refused to pay them. I can only that I’m certainly relieved that my late father never did business with you. He provided a good middle-class life for us but the people he worked for, he expected the bargain to be kept on both sides. And when we talk about your business, you’ve taken business bankruptcy six times. There are a lot of great business people that have never taken bankruptcy once. You call yourself the king of debt, you talk about leverage, you even one time suggested that you had tried to negotiate down the national debt of the United States, when there’s sometimes not a direct transfer of skills from business to government, but sometimes what happened in business would be really bad for government.

Clinton: Well, you’re right. Race remains a significant challenge in our country. Unfortunately, race still determines too much, often determines where people live, determines what kind of education in their public schools they can get, and yes, it can determine how they’re treated in the criminal justice system. We’ve just seen those two tragic examples in both Tulsa and Charlotte, and we’ve got to do several things, at the same time. We have to restore trust, between communities and the police, we have to work to make sure that our police are using the best training, the best technique, that they’re well prepared, to use force only when necessary. Everyone should be respected by the law, and everyone should respect the law. Right now, that’s not the case in a lot of our neighborhoods. So I have, ever since the first day of my campaign, called for criminal justice reform. I’ve laid out a platform that I think would begin to remedy some of the problems we have in the criminal justice system. But we also have to recognize, in addition to the challenges that we face in the policing, there are so many good, brave police officers, who equally want reform. So we have to bring communities together, in order to begin working on that, as a mutual goal. And we gotta get guns out of the hands of people who should not have them. The gun epidemic is the leading cause of death, of young African American men, more than the next nine causes put together. So we have to do 2 things as I said: we have to restore trust, we have to work with the police, we have to make sure that they respect the communities, the communities respect them, and we have to tackle plague of gun violence, which is a big contributor to a lot of the problems we’re seeing today.

Clinton: Well, I heard Donald say this, at his rallies and it’s really unfortunate that he paid such a dire negative picture of black communities in our country. You know the vibrancy of the black church, the black businesses that employs so many people, ah the opportunities that so many families are working to provide for their kids—there’s a lot that we should be proud of and we should be supporting and lifting up. But we do always have to make sure we keep people safe. There are the right ways of doing it and then there are ways that are ineffective. Stop-and-frisk was found to be unconstitutional. And in part, because it was ineffective. It did not do what it needed to do. Now I believe in community policing, and in fact, violent crime is one-half of what it was 1991. Property crime is down 40%. We just don’t want to see it creep back up. We’ve had 25 years of very good cooperation but there were some problems, some unintended consequences. Too many young African Americans and Latino men ended up in jail for non-violent offenses, and it’s just a fact that fewer young African American man, and you do the same thing as a young white man, you are more likely to be arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated. So we’ve got to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system. We cannot just say law and order, we have to say, we have to come forward with a plan that is going to divert people from the criminal justice system, deal with mandatory minimum sentences, which have put too many people away for too long, for doing too little. We need to have more second chance programs. I’m glad that we’re ending private prisons in the federal system, I want to see them ended in the state system. You shouldn’t have a profit motivation to fill prison cells with young Americans. So there are some positive ways we can work on this and I believe strongly, that common sense gun safety measure would assist us right now and this is something that Donald has supported along with the gun law. Right now, we’ve got too many military style weapons on the streets and a lot of places, our police are outgunned. We need comprehensive background checks, and we need to keep guns out of the hands of those who will do harm and we finally need to pass a prohibition on anyone that’s on the terrorist watch list from being able to buy a gun in our country. If you’re too dangerous to fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun. So there are thing we could do and we ought to do it in a bipartisan way.

Clinton: Lester, I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police. I think unfortunately too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other. And therefore, I think we need all of us to be asking hard questions about ‘why am I feeling this way?’ but when it comes to policing since it can have literally fatal consequences, I have said in my first budget, we would put money into that budget, to help us deal with implicit bias by retraining a lot of our police officers. I met with a lot of group of very distinguished experienced police chiefs a few weeks ago. They admit it’s an issue, they’ve got a lot of concerns, mental health is one of the biggest concerns because police are happy to handle a lot of really difficult mental health problems on the street. They want support, they want more training, they want more assistance, and I think the federal government could be in a position where we would offer and provide that.

Clinton: Well, it’s also fair to say if we’re going to talk about mayors. Under the current mayor, crime has continued to drop including murders. So there is—

Clinton: No, I’m not. New York has an excellent job, and I give credit across the board, going back to mayors, to police chiefs because it has worked and other communities need to come together to do what will work as well. Look, one murder is too many. But it is important that we learn about what has been effective and not go to things that sound good, that really did not have the kind of impact that we would want. Who disagrees with keeping neighborhoods safe? But let’s also add no one should disagree about respecting the rights of young men who live in those neighborhoods. And so we need to do a better job of working again with the communities—faith communities, business communities— as well as the police to try to deal with this problem.

Clinton: I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. Yes I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared for to be president and I think that’s a good thing.

Clinton: Well just listen to what you heard. And clearly as Donald just admitted, he knew he was gonna stand on this debate stage and Lester Holt was gonna be asking us questions, so he tried to put the whole racist bertha lie to bed. but it can’t be dismissed that easily. He has really started his political activity based on this racist lie. First black president was not an American citizen. There was absolutely no evidence for it, but he persisted, he persisted, year after year because some of his supporters, people that he was trying to bring it to his fold, apparently believed in or wanted to believe in. But remember, Donald started his career back in 1973 being sued by the justice department for racial discrimination, because he would not rent apartments in one of his developments to African Americans, and he made sure that the people who worked for him understood that was the policy. He actually was sued twice by the Justice Department. So he has a long record of engaging in racist behavior. And the bertha lie was a very hurtful one, you know Barack Obama is a man of great dignity, and I could tell how much it bothered him and annoyed him that this was, being touted and used against him, but I like to remember what Michelle Obama said in her amazing speech in our democratic national convention. When they go low, we go high. And Barack Obama went high despite Donald Trump’s best efforts to bring him down.

Clinton: Well I think cyber security, cyber warfare, will be one of the biggest challenges facing the next president because clearly, we’re facing at this point, two different kinds of adversaries. There are the independent hacking groups that do it mostly for commercial reasons, to try to steal information that they can use to make money, but increasingly, we are seeing cyber attacks coming, from states, organs of states. The most recent and troubling of these has been Russia, there’s no doubt now Russia has used cyber attacks against all kinds of organizations, and our country. And I am deeply concerned about this. I know Donald is very praiseworthy of Vladimir Putin but Putin is playing a tough long game here. And one of the things he’s done is to let loose, cyber attackers to hack in, to government files to hack in, to personal files to hack in to the Democratic National Committee, and we recently have learned that you know, this is one of their preferred methods of trying to wreak havoc and collect information. We need to make it very clear whether it’s Russia, China, Iran, or anybody else. The United States has, much greater capacity we are not going to sit idly by and permit state actors to go after our information—our private sector information, or our public sector information. And we’re going to have to make it clear that we don’t want to use the kinds of tools we have, we don’t want to engage in different kind of warfare, but we will defend the citizens of this country. And Russians need to understand that. I think they’ve been treating it as almost approbate, how much do we have to go, how much we do, that’s why I was so shocked when Donald publicly invited Putin to hack into America. That is just unacceptable, it’s one of the reasons why 50 national security officials who serve Republican information in administration has said that Donald is unfit to be commander-in-chief. It’s comments like that really worry people who understand the threats that we face.

Clinton: Well I think there are number of issues that we should be addressing. I have put forth a plan to defeat ISIS. It does involve going after them online, I think we need to do much more with our tech companies to prevent ISIS and their operatives, from being able to use the internet, to Europe and elsewhere. But we also have to intensify our air strikes, against ISIS and eventually support our Arabic, Kurdish, partners to be able to actually take out ISIS, in their claim of being accountable. We’re making progress, our military is assisting in Iraq, and we’re hoping that within the year, we’ll be able to push ISIS out for Iraq and then really squeeze them in Syria. But we have to be cognizant of the fact that they’ve had foreign fighters coming to volunteer foreign money, foreign weapons, so we have to make this a top priority and I would also do everything possible to take out their leadership. I was involved in number of efforts to take out Al Quaeda leadership when I was Secretary of State, including of course, taking out Bin Laden, and I would think we need to go after as well, make them one of our organizing principles because we’ve got to defeat ISIS, and we’ve got to we can to disrupt their propaganda and efforts online.

Clinton: Well I hope the fact-checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard. Donald supported the evasion of Iraq—

Clinton: That is absolutely proved over and over again. He actually abdicated for the actions we took in Libya. And urged that Kadafi be taken out, after doing some business with him one time. But the larger point, he tells us constantly, George W Bush made the agreement about when American troops would leave Iraq, not Barack Obama. And the only way that American troops could have stayed in Iraq is to get an agreement from the then Iraqi government that would’ve protected our troops. And the Iraqi government would not give that. But let’s talk about the question you asked. The question you asked is what do we do here in the United States, that’s the most important part of this. How do we prevent attacks, how do we protect our people, and I think we got to have an intelligent surge where we are looking for every scrap of information. I was so proud of law enforcement in New York, in Minnesota, in New Jersey, you know, they responded so quickly, so professionally to the attacks that occurred by Rahami and they brought him down. And we may find out more information because he is still alive which may prove to be an intelligence benefit. So we got to do everything we can to vacuum up intelligence from Europe, from Middle East, then that means we’ve got to work more closely with our Allies. And that’s something Donald has been very dismissive of. We’re working with NATO, the longest military alliance in history of the world, to really turn our attention to terrorism. We’re working with our friends in the Middle East, many of which, as you know, are Muslim majority nations. Donald has consistently insulted Muslims abroad, Muslims at home, when we need to be cooperating with Muslim nations and with the American Muslim community. They’re on the front lines; they can provide information to us that we might not get anywhere else. They need to have close working cooperation with law enforcement in these communities, not be alienated and pushed away, as some of Donald’s rhetoric, unfortunately has led to.

Clinton: We covered—

Clinton: Oooph, okay. Let’s talk about 2 important issues that were briefly mentioned by Donald. First, is NATO. You know, NATO as a military alliance has something called Article 5 and basically it says this: an attack on one is an attack on all. And you know the only time it’s ever been invoked after 9/11 when the 28 nations of NATO said that they would go to Afghanistan with us to fight terrorism. Something they still are doing by our side, with respect to Iran, when I became Secretary of State, Iran was weeks away from having enough nuclear material to form a bomb. They had mastered the nuclear fuel cycle under the Bush administration, they had built covert facilities, they had stocked them with centrifuges that were whirling away, and we had sanctioned them, I voted for every sanction against Iran when I was in the senate, but it wasn’t enough. So I spent a year-and-a-half a coalition that included Russia and China. To impose the toughest sanctions on Iran, and we did drive them to the negotiating table. And my successor, John Kerry, President Obama got a deal that put a lid on Iran’s nuclear program, without firing a single shot. That’s diplomacy. That’s coalition building. That’s working with other nations. The other day, I saw Donald saying that there were some Iranian sailors on a ship in the waters off of Iran and they were taunting American sailors who were on a nearby ship. He said, you know if they taunted our sailors, I’d blow them out of the water, and start another war. That’s not good judgment.

That is not the right temperament to be commander-in-chief. To be taunted, and the worst part of what I heard Donald say has been about nuclear weapons. He has said repeated that he didn’t care if other nations got nuclear weapons. Japan, South Korea, even Saudi Arabia. It has been the policy of the United States. Democrats and Republicans to do everything we could to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons. He even said, well, you know if there were nuclear war in the East Asia, well, you know, that’s fine. You know, have a good time, folks.

Clinton: And in fact his cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons is so deeply troubling, that is the number 1 threat we face in the world and it becomes particularly threatening if terrorists ever get their hands on any nuclear material. So a man who can be provoked by a tweet shouldn’t have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes, as far as I am concerned for anyone with anything about this should be concerned.

Clinton: Well, let me start by saying words matter, words matter when you run for president. And they really matter when you are president. And I want to reassure our allies in Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere, that we have mutual defense treaties and we will honor them. It is essential that America’s word be good. And so I know that this campaign has caused some questioning and some worries on the part of many leaders across the globe. I’ve talked with a number of them. but I want to, on behalf of myself, and I think on behalf of majority of the American people, say that our word is good. It’s also important that we look at the entire global situation. There’s no doubt that we have other problems with Iran but personally I would rather deal with other problems having put that lid on that nuclear program than still to be facing that. And Donald never tells you what he would do. Would he have started a war? Would he have bombed Iran? If he’s going to criticize a deal that has been very successful in giving us access to Iranian facilities that we never had before, than he should tell us what his alternative would be. But it’s like his plan to defeat ISIS. He says it’s a secret plan but the only secret is that he has no plan. So we need to be more precise, in how we talk about these issues, people around the world follow our presidential campaigns so closely, trying to get hints about what we will do, can they rely on us, are we going to lead the world with strength, and in accordance with our values, that’s what I intend to do. I intend to be leader of our country that people can count on, both here at home and around the world. To make decisions that will further peace and prosperity, but stand up to bullies whether they’re abroad or at home. We cannot let those that has tried to destabilize the world to interfere with American interests and securities, to be given any opportunities at all.

Clinton: Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease fire, a release of dissidence, and opening of new opportunities and nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of congressional committee he could talk to me about stamina.

Clinton: One thing Lester, you know, he tries to switch from looks to stamina, but this is a man who has called woman pigs, slobs and dogs. And someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers, who has said women doesn’t deserve equal pay unless they do as good job as men, and one of the worst thing he has said was about a woman in a beauty contest, he loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them, and he called this woman Miss Piggy, then he called her Ms. Housekeeping, because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name. Her name is Lativa Machado and she has become a U.S. citizen and you could bet she’s going to vote this November.

Clinton: Well, I support our democracy, and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But I will certainly support the outcome of this election. And I know Donald is trying very hard to plant doubts about it but I hope the people out there really understands, this election is really up to you. It’s not about us, it’s so much about you and your families and the kind of country your future you want. So I sure hope you will get out and vote as though your future depended on it because I think it does.

Search This Blog

Luulilai's Niche of Prose, Poetry, and Verse

Women Who Commands A Room

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Leih's Cosmetic Sampler's Close Look: Bobbi Brown's Vitamin Enriched Face Base Moisturizer

Song for the Holidays