DONALD TRUMP: Nobody knows the system better than me. I alone can fix it.
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: I'm going to close my campaign focused on opportunities for kids
and fairness for families.
DONALD TRUMP: Hillary failed on the economy. Everything she touched didn't work out, nothing.
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Even if you're totally opposed to Donald Trump, you may still have
some questions about me.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening. I'm Judy Woodruff.
GWEN IFILL: And I'm Gwen Ifill.
Welcome to this "PBS NewsHour" special coverage of the first debate between the two major-party
presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
The stage is set at Hofstra University on Long Island, New York. With the election 43
days away the race tightening, a lot is on the line tonight, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It certainly is, Gwen, and given that this is the first time these two
have faced each other one on one.
Lester Holt of NBC News will be moderating.
Joining us at the table are our regular contributors, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York
Times columnist David Brooks, and from The Cook Political Report, Amy Walter.
We welcome all you have here for the next two hours.
Amy, let's start with you.
What are you looking for?
AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Each of these candidates has an enthusiasm gap
problem within their own party. So, they have got to get their partisans fired up.
For Hillary Clinton, it's young people. For Donald Trump, he's got to get those white
college-educated voters back into the Republican fold, where they have been. And then they
have got to get those voters, both of them, who are torn, don't like either choice they
have in front of them, to pick them.
GWEN IFILL: Mark Shields, what would you -- surprise you the most of what these candidates might
or might not do tonight?
MARK SHIELDS: Does Donald Trump dare to be boring? Does he come out sedated/presidential?
And can Hillary Clinton, who is a marvelous and superior deliverer of information, make
an emotional connection with American voters?
JUDY WOODRUFF: David, what are you on the edge of your seat looking for?
DAVID BROOKS: We have been around each other too long. I wrote down emotional connection.
(LAUGHTER)
MARK SHIELDS: Did you?
DAVID BROOKS: This is not a cognitive night.
This is not philosophy. This is not grand strategy. It's moment of intimacy, that unscripted
moment when the unconscious is revealed that will be replayed on YouTube over and over
and over again.
And so it's just, is he commanding or is he cruel? Is she relatable and does she seem
calmly smart? And it's whether people get that vibe, the first they vibe, that will
determine the night.
GWEN IFILL: Is this about what they know or who they are?
AMY WALTER: Well, I think it's mostly about who they are.
For voters at this stage of the game, they are looking up on that dais to see who they
can spend the next four years with, who they want to invite into their homes moment after
moment.
Many voters say, I don't want either one of them in there.
GWEN IFILL: A lot of them.
AMY WALTER: A lot of voters are saying that.
But this is the one maybe that they're not going to like, but they will feel comfortable
enough.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But, Mark, people are going to be fact-checking this debate. They're going
to be raising questions about whether what either one of them said was correct or not.
MARK SHIELDS: No, you're right, Judy.
And if it's what they know, it will be a short evening...
(LAUGHTER)
MARK SHIELDS: ... for the Republican nominee, whose knowledge bank has been overdrawn.
And I think it's about, more than anything else, each case, what does he know, his command
of it, is he comfortable with it, and who she is. And I think that is really the question.
DAVID BROOKS: And there is the gender politics.
GWEN IFILL: OK.
Well, we're turning now to Lester Holt of NBC News.
TRANSCRIPT START
HOLT: Good evening from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. I'm Lester Holt, anchor
of "NBC Nightly News." I want to welcome you to the first presidential debate.
The participants tonight are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. This debate is sponsored
by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. The
commission drafted tonight's format, and the rules have been agreed to by the campaigns.
The 90-minute debate is divided into six segments, each 15 minutes long. We'll explore three
topic areas tonight: Achieving prosperity; America's direction; and securing America.
At the start of each segment, I will ask the same lead-off question to both candidates,
and they will each have up to two minutes to respond. From that point until the end
of the segment, we'll have an open discussion.
The questions are mine and have not been shared with the commission or the campaigns. The
audience here in the room has agreed to remain silent so that we can focus on what the candidates
are saying.
I will invite you to applaud, however, at this moment, as we welcome the candidates:
Democratic nominee for president of the United States, Hillary Clinton, and Republican nominee
for president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: How are you, Donald?
(APPLAUSE)
HOLT: Good luck to you.
(APPLAUSE)
Well, I don't expect us to cover all the issues of this campaign tonight, but I remind everyone,
there are two more presidential debates scheduled. We are going to focus on many of the issues
that voters tell us are most important, and we're going to press for specifics. I am honored
to have this role, but this evening belongs to the candidates and, just as important,
to the American people.
Candidates, we look forward to hearing you articulate your policies and your positions,
as well as your visions and your values. So, let's begin.
We're calling this opening segment "Achieving Prosperity." And central to that is jobs.
There are two economic realities in America today. There's been a record six straight
years of job growth, and new census numbers show incomes have increased at a record rate
after years of stagnation. However, income inequality remains significant, and nearly
half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
Beginning with you, Secretary Clinton, why are you a better choice than your opponent
to create the kinds of jobs that will put more money into the pockets of American works?
CLINTON: Well, thank you, Lester, and thanks to Hofstra for hosting us.
The central question in this election is really what kind of country we want to be and what
kind of future we'll build together. Today is my granddaughter's second birthday, so
I think about this a lot. First, we have to build an economy that works for everyone,
not just those at the top. That means we need new jobs, good jobs, with rising incomes.
I want us to invest in you. I want us to invest in your future. That means jobs in infrastructure,
in advanced manufacturing, innovation and technology, clean, renewable energy, and small
business, because most of the new jobs will come from small business. We also have to
make the economy fairer. That starts with raising the national minimum wage and also
guarantee, finally, equal pay for women's work.
CLINTON: I also want to see more companies do profit-sharing. If you help create the
profits, you should be able to share in them, not just the executives at the top.
And I want us to do more to support people who are struggling to balance family and work.
I've heard from so many of you about the difficult choices you face and the stresses that you're
under. So let's have paid family leave, earned sick days. Let's be sure 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 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 the important issues
facing our country. You have to judge us, who can shoulder the immense, awesome responsibilities
of the presidency, who can put into action the plans that will make your life better.
I hope that I will be able to earn your vote on November 8th.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton, thank you.
Mr. Trump, the same question to you. It's about putting money -- more money into the
pockets of American workers. You have up to two minutes.
TRUMP: 21:08:32 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 eighth 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 he said, not so much.
So Ford is leaving. You see that, their small car division leaving. Thousands of jobs leaving
Michigan, leaving Ohio. They're all leaving. And we can't allow it to happen anymore. As
far as child care is concerned and so many other things, I think Hillary and I agree
on that. We probably disagree a little bit as to 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 their people. All you have to do is
take a look at Carrier air conditioning in Indianapolis. They left -- fired 1,400 people.
They're going to Mexico. So many hundreds and hundreds of companies are doing this.
TRUMP: We cannot let it happen. Under my plan, I'll be reducing taxes tremendously, from
35 percent to 15 percent 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 look very, very much forward to doing it. We have to renegotiate our trade deals, and
we have to stop these countries from stealing our companies and our jobs.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton, would you like to respond?
CLINTON: Well, I think that trade is an important issue. Of course, we are 5 percent of the
world's population; we have to trade with the other 95 percent. And we need to have
smart, fair trade deals.
We also, though, need to have a tax system that rewards work and not just financial transactions.
And the kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle-down economics all over again.
In fact, it would be the most extreme version, the biggest tax cuts for the top percent of
the people in this country than we've ever had.
I call it trumped-up trickle-down, because that's exactly what it would be. That is not
how we grow the economy.
We just have a different view about what's best for growing the economy, how we make
investments that will actually produce jobs and rising incomes.
I think we come at it from somewhat different perspectives. I understand that. You know,
Donald was very 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 be and that everything will work out from
there.
I don't buy that. I have a different experience. My father was a small-businessman. He worked
really hard. He printed drapery fabrics on long tables, where he pulled out those fabrics
and he went down with a silkscreen and dumped the paint in and took the squeegee and kept
going.
And so what I believe is 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 will be off and the
better we'll grow. That's the kind of economy I want us to see again. 21:12:21
HOLT: Let me follow up with Mr. Trump, if you can. You've talked about creating 25 million
jobs, and you've promised to bring back millions of jobs for Americans. How are you going to
bring back the industries that have left this country for cheaper labor overseas? How, specifically,
are you going to tell American manufacturers that you have to come back?
TRUMP: Well, for one thing -- and 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 assets in the world, and I say that only because
that's the kind of thinking that our country needs.
Our country's in deep trouble. We don't know what we're doing when it comes to devaluations
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 deals. And, Lester, they're taking
our jobs, they're giving incentives, they're doing things that, frankly, we don't do.
Let me give you the 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 in -- automatic, 16 percent, approximately.
When they sell into us, there's no tax. It's a defective agreement. It's been defective
for a long time, many years, but the politicians haven't done anything about it.
Now, in all fairness to Secretary Clinton -- yes, is that OK? Good. 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 reasons, but just because of the fact...
HOLT: Let me interrupt just a moment, but...
TRUMP: Secretary Clinton and others, politicians, should have been doing this for years, not
right now, because of the fact that we've created a movement. They should have been
doing this for years. What's happened to our jobs and our country and our economy generally
is -- look, we owe $20 trillion. We cannot do it any longer, Lester.
HOLT: 21:14:28 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: Well, the first thing you do is don't let the jobs leave. The companies are leaving.
I could name, I mean, there are thousands of them. They're 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 luck. 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
a tax, you're wrong.
And once you say you're going to have to tax them coming in, and our politicians never
do this, because they have special interests and the 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.
HOLT: Let me let Secretary Clinton get in here.
CLINTON: 21:15:19 Well, let's stop for a second and remember where we were eight years ago.
We had the worst financial crisis, the Great Recession, the worst since the 1930s. That
was in large part because of tax policies that slashed taxes on the wealthy, failed
to invest in the middle class, took their eyes off of Wall Street, and created a perfect
storm.
In fact, Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. He said, back
in 2006, "Gee, I hope it does collapse, because then I can go in and buy some and make some
money." Well, it did collapse.
TRUMP: 21:16:02 That's called business, by the way.
CLINTON: Nine million people -- nine million people lost their jobs. Five million people
lost their homes. And $13 trillion in family wealth was wiped out.
Now, we have come back from that abyss. And it has not been easy. So we're now on the
precipice of having a potentially much better economy, but the last thing we need to do
is to go back to the policies that failed us in the first place.
Independent experts have looked at what I've proposed and looked at what Donald's proposed,
and basically they've said this, that if his tax plan, which would blow up the debt by
over $5 trillion and would in some instances disadvantage middle-class families compared
to the wealthy, were to go into effect, we would lose 3.5 million jobs and maybe have
another recession.
They've looked at my plans and they've said, OK, if we can do this, and I intend to get
it done, we will have 10 million more new 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 superpower of the 21st century. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated
by the Chinese. I think it's real.
TRUMP: I did not. I did not. I do not say that.
CLINTON: I think science is real.
TRUMP: I do not say that.
CLINTON: And I think it's important that we grip this and deal with it, both at home and
abroad. And here's what we can do. We can deploy a 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 eight years, but never going back to what got us in trouble in the
first place.
HOLT: Mr. Trump?
TRUMP: She talks about solar panels. We invested in a solar company, our country. 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 in debt.
The Obama administration, from the time they've come in, is over 230 years' worth of debt,
and he's topped it. He's doubled it in a course of almost eight years, seven-and-a-half years,
to be semi- exact.
So I will tell you this. We have to do a much better job at keeping our jobs. And we have
to do a much better job at giving companies incentives to build new companies or to expand,
because they're not doing it.
21:18:59 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 and their companies are just leaving, they're
gone.
And, Hillary, I'd just ask you this. You've been doing this for 30 years. Why are you
just thinking about these solutions right now? For 30 years, you've been doing it, and
now you're just starting to think of solutions.
CLINTON: Well, actually...
TRUMP: I will bring -- excuse me. I will bring back jobs. You can't bring back jobs.
CLINTON: Well, actually, I have thought about this quite a bit.
TRUMP: Yeah, for 30 years.
CLINTON: And I have -- well, not quite that long. I think my husband did a pretty good
job in the 1990s. I think a lot about what worked and how we can make it work again...
TRUMP: Well, he approved NAFTA...
(CROSSTALK)
CLINTON: ... million new jobs, a balanced budget...
TRUMP: He approved NAFTA, which is the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country.
CLINTON: Incomes went up for everybody. Manufacturing jobs went up also in the 1990s, if we're actually
going to 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 multinational one known as CAFTA, 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've 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 percent.
We increased them to China 50 percent. So I know how to really work to get new jobs
and to get exports that helped to create more new jobs.
HOLT: Very quickly...
TRUMP: But you haven't done it in 30 years or 26 years or any number you want to...
CLINTON: Well, I've been a senator, Donald...
TRUMP: You haven't done it. You haven't done it.
CLINTON: And I have been a secretary of state...
TRUMP: Excuse me.
CLINTON: And I have done a lot...
TRUMP: Your husband signed NAFTA, which was one of the worst things that ever happened
to the manufacturing industry.
CLINTON: Well, that's your opinion. That is your opinion.
TRUMP: You go to New England, you go to Ohio, Pennsylvania, you go anywhere you want, Secretary
Clinton, and you will see devastation where manufacture is down 30, 40, sometimes 50 percent.
NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this
country.
And now you want to approve Trans-Pacific Partnership. You were totally in favor of
it. Then you heard what I was saying, how bad it is, and you said, I can't win that
debate. But you know that if you did win, you would approve that, and that will be almost
as bad as NAFTA. Nothing will ever top NAFTA.
CLINTON: Well, 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...
TRUMP: You called it the gold standard.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: You called it the gold standard of trade deals. You said it's the finest deal
you've ever seen.
CLINTON: No.
TRUMP: And then you heard what I said about it, and all of a sudden you were against it.
CLINTON: Well, Donald, I know you live in your own reality, but that is not the facts.
The facts are -- I did say I hoped it would be a good deal, but when it was negotiated...
TRUMP: Not.
CLINTON: ... which I was not responsible for, I concluded it wasn't. I wrote about that
in my book...
TRUMP: So is it President Obama's fault?
CLINTON: ... before you even announced.
TRUMP: Is it President Obama's fault?
CLINTON: Look, there are differences...
TRUMP: Secretary, is it President Obama's fault?
CLINTON: There are...
TRUMP: Because he's pushing it.
CLINTON: There are different views about what's good for 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
get 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.
TRUMP: But you have no plan.
CLINTON: But in -- oh, but I do.
TRUMP: Secretary, you have no plan.
CLINTON: In fact, I have written a book about it. It's called "Stronger Together." You can
pick it up tomorrow at a bookstore...
TRUMP: That's about all you've...
(CROSSTALK)
HOLT: Folks, we're going to...
CLINTON: ... or at an airport near you.
HOLT: We're going to move to...
CLINTON: But it's because I see this -- we need to have strong growth, fair growth, sustained
growth. We also have to look at how we help families balance the responsibilities at home
and the responsibilities at business.
So we have a very robust set of plans. And people have looked at both of our plans, have
concluded that mine would create 10 million jobs and yours would lose us 3.5 million jobs,
and explode the debt which would have a recession.
TRUMP: You are going to approve one of the biggest tax cuts in history. 21:23:20 You
are going to approve one of 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. I'm very proud of it.
It will create tremendous numbers of new jobs. But regulations, you are going to regulate
these businesses out of existence.
When I go around -- Lester, I tell you this, I've been all over. And when I go around,
despite the tax cut, the thing -- the things that business as in people like the most is
the fact that I'm cutting regulation. 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 the regulations and make them even worse.
I'm going to cut regulations. I'm going to cut taxes big league, and you're going to
raise taxes big league, end of story.
HOLT: Let me get you to pause right there, because we're going to move into -- we're
going to move into the next segment. We're going to talk taxes...
CLINTON: That can't -- that can't be left to stand.
HOLT: Please just take 30 seconds and then we're going to go on.
CLINTON: I kind of assumed that there would be a lot of these charges and claims, and
so...
TRUMP: Facts.
CLINTON: So we have taken the home page of my website, HillaryClinton.com, and we've
turned it into a fact-checker. So if you want to see in real-time what the facts are, please
go and take a look. Because what I have proposed...
TRUMP: And take a look at mine, also, and you'll see.
CLINTON: ... would not add a penny to the debt, and your plans would add $5 trillion
to the debt. What I have proposed would cut regulations and streamline them for small
businesses. What I have proposed 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 that the wealthy
and corporations paid their fair share to support this country.
HOLT: Well, you just opened the next segment.
TRUMP: Well, could I just finish -- I think I...
(CROSSTALK)
HOLT: I'm going to give you a chance right here...
TRUMP: I think I should -- you go to her website, and you take a look at her website.
HOLT: ... with a new 15-minute segment...
TRUMP: She's going to raise taxes $1.3 trillion.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, I'm going to...
TRUMP: And look at her website. You know what? It's no difference than this. She's telling
us how to fight ISIS. Just go to her website. She tells you how to fight ISIS on her website.
I don't think General Douglas MacArthur would like that too much.
HOLT: The next segment, we're continuing...
CLINTON: Well, at least I have a plan to fight ISIS.
HOLT: ... achieving prosperity...
TRUMP: No, no, you're telling the enemy everything you want to do.
CLINTON: No, we're not. No, we're not.
TRUMP: See, you're telling the enemy everything you want to do. No wonder you've been fighting
-- no wonder you've been fighting ISIS your entire adult life.
CLINTON: That's a -- that's -- go to the -- please, fact checkers, get to work.
HOLT: OK, you are unpacking a lot here. And we're still on the issue of achieving prosperity.
And I want to talk about taxes. The fundamental difference between the two of you concerns
the wealthy.
Secretary Clinton, you're calling for a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans. I'd
like you to further defend that. And, Mr. Trump, you're calling for tax cuts for the
wealthy. I'd like you to defend that. And this next two-minute answer goes to you, Mr.
Trump.
TRUMP: Well, I'm really calling for major jobs, because the wealthy are going create
tremendous jobs. They're going to expand their companies. They're going to do a tremendous
job.
I'm getting rid of the carried interest provision. And if you really look, it's not a tax -- it's
really not a great thing for the wealthy. It's a great thing for the middle class. It's
a great thing for companies to expand.
And when these people are going to put billions and billions of dollars into companies, and
when they're going to bring $2.5 trillion back from overseas, where they can't bring
the money back, because politicians like Secretary Clinton won't allow them to bring the money
back, because the taxes are so onerous, and the bureaucratic red tape, so what -- is so
bad.
So what they're doing is they're leaving our country, and they're, 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 the money to work, because they can't
work out a deal to -- and everybody agrees it should be brought back.
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. Because we have -- we have a president that can't 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't bring into our country,
Lester. And with a little leadership, you'd get it in here very quickly, and it could
be put to use on 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. 21:28:01
HOLT: All right. You have two minutes of the same question to defend tax increases on the
wealthiest Americans, Secretary Clinton.
CLINTON: I have a feeling that by, the end of this evening, I'm going to be blamed for
everything that's ever happened.
TRUMP: Why not?
CLINTON: Why not? Yeah, why not?
(LAUGHTER)
You know, just join the debate by saying more crazy things. Now, let me say this, it is
absolutely the case...
TRUMP: There's nothing crazy about not letting our companies bring their money back into
their country.
HOLT: This is -- this is Secretary Clinton's two minutes, please.
TRUMP: Yes.
CLINTON: Yeah, well, let's start the clock again, Lester. We've looked at your tax proposals.
I don't see changes in the corporate tax rates or the kinds of proposals you're referring
to that would cause the repatriation, bringing back of money that's stranded overseas. I
happen to support that.
TRUMP: Then you didn't read it.
CLINTON: I happen to -- I happen to support that in a way that will actually work to our
benefit. But when I look at what you have proposed, you have what is called now the
21:29:01 Trump loophole, because it would so advantage you and the business you do.
You've proposed an approach that has a...
TRUMP: Who gave it that name? The first I've -- who gave it that name?
(CROSSTALK)
HOLT: Mr. Trump, this is Secretary Clinton's two minutes.
CLINTON: ... $4 billion tax benefit for your family. And when you look at what you are
proposing...
TRUMP: How much? How much for my family?
CLINTON: ... it is...
TRUMP: Lester, how much?
CLINTON: ... as I said, trumped-up trickle-down. Trickle-down did not work. It got us into
the mess we were in, in 2008 and 2009. 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.
CLINTON: I don't think top-down works in America. I think building the middle class, investing
in the middle class, making college debt-free so more young people can get their education,
helping people refinance their -- their debt from college at a lower rate. Those are the
kinds of things that will really boost the economy. Broad-based, inclusive growth is
what we need in America, not more advantages for people at the very top.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, we're...
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 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 awfully careful. And we have a Fed
that's doing political things. This Janet Yellen of the Fed. The Fed is doing political
-- by keeping the interest rates at this level. And believe me: The day Obama goes off, and
he leaves, and goes out to the golf course for the rest of his life to play golf 21:31:00,
when they raise interest rates, you're going to see some very bad things happen, because
the Fed is not doing their job. The Fed is being more political than Secretary Clinton.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, we're talking about the burden that Americans have to pay, yet you have not
released your tax returns. And the reason nominees have released their returns for decades
is so that voters will know if their potential president owes money to -- who he owes it
to and any business conflicts. Don't Americans have a right to know if there are any conflicts
of interest?
TRUMP: I don't mind releasing -- I'm under a routine audit. And it'll be released. And
-- as soon as the audit's 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 sorts, 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 have told me I was going to make that 15 or
20 years ago, I would have been very surprised.
But that's the kind of thinking that 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 the kind
of thinking that our country needs, because everybody -- Lester, we have a trade deficit
with all of the countries that we do business with, of almost $800 billion a year. You know
what that is? That means, who's negotiating these trade deals?
We have people that are political hacks negotiating our trade deals.
HOLT: The IRS says an audit...
TRUMP: Excuse me.
HOLT: ... of your taxes -- you're perfectly free to release your taxes during an audit.
And so the question, does the public's right to know outweigh your personal...
TRUMP: Well, I told you, I will release them as soon as the audit. Look, I've been under
audit almost for 15 years. 21:33:00 I know a lot of wealthy people that have never been
audited. I said, do you get audited? I get audited almost every year.
And in a way, I should be complaining. I'm not even complaining. I don't mind it. 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 returns -- against my lawyer's wishes -- when she releases her 33,000 e-mails
that have been deleted. As soon as she releases them, I will release.
(APPLAUSE)
I will release my tax returns. And that's against -- my lawyers, they say, "Don't do
it." I will tell you this. No -- in fact, watching shows, they're reading the papers.
Almost every lawyer says, you don't release your returns until the audit's complete. When
the audit's complete, I'll do it. But I would go against them if she releases her e-mails.
HOLT: So it's negotiable?
TRUMP: It's not negotiable, no. Let her release the e-mails. Why did she delete 33,000...
HOLT: Well, I'll let her answer that. But let me just admonish the audience one more
time. There was an agreement. We did ask you to be silent, so it would be helpful for us.
Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, I think you've seen 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. We know the IRS
has made clear there is no prohibition on releasing it when you're under audit.
So you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? And I think there
may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe
he's not as charitable as he claims to be.
CLINTON: Third, 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. Or maybe
he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid
nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a 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.
21:35:27 TRUMP: That makes me smart.
CLINTON: So if he's paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools
or health. And I think probably he's not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of
our country see what the real reasons are, because it must be something really important,
even terrible, that he's trying to hide.
And the financial disclosure statements, they don't give you the tax rate. They don't give
you all the details that tax returns would. And it just seems to me that this is something
that the American people deserve to see. And I have no reason to believe that he's ever
going to release his tax returns, because there's something he's hiding.
And we'll guess. We'll keep guessing at what it might be that he's hiding. 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 answers to that, and he should provide
them.
HOLT: He also -- he also raised the issue of your e-mails. Do you want to respond to
that?
CLINTON: I do. You know, I made a mistake using a private e- mail. TRUMP: That's for
sure.
CLINTON: 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.
HOLT: Mr. Trump?
TRUMP: That was more than a mistake. That was done purposely. OK? That was not a mistake.
That was done purposely. When you have your staff taking the Fifth Amendment, taking the
Fifth so they're not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server
taking the Fifth, I think it's disgraceful. And believe me, this country thinks it's -- really
thinks it's disgraceful, also.
As far as my tax returns, you don't learn that much from tax returns. That I can tell
you. 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 said $650 -- which, by the
way, a lot of friends of mine that know my business say, boy, that's really 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 are worth $3.9 billion.
And the $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, I would -- if that would help you, I would give you
a list of banks. These are very fine institutions, very 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 braggadocios way. It's because it's about time that this country
had somebody running it that has an idea about money.
When we have $20 trillion in debt, and our country's a mess, you know, it's one thing
to have $20 trillion in debt and our roads are good and our bridges are good and everything's
in great shape, our airports. 21:38:25 Our airports are like from a third world country.
You land at LaGuardia, you land at Kennedy, you land at LAX, you land at Newark, and 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 things has happened. We owe $20 trillion, and we're a mess. We haven't
even started. And we've 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 have 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 needs new roads, new tunnels, new bridges, new airports,
new schools, new hospitals. And we don't have the money, because it's been squandered on
so many of your ideas.
HOLT: We'll let you respond and we'll move on to the next segment.
CLINTON: And maybe because you haven't paid any federal income tax for a lot of years.
(APPLAUSE)
And the other thing I think is important...
TRUMP: It would be squandered, too, believe me.
CLINTON: ... is if your -- if your main claim to be president of the United States is your
business, then I think we should talk about that. You know, your campaign manager said
that you built a lot of businesses on 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 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 at one of your golf
courses. It's a beautiful facility. It immediately was put to use. And you wouldn't pay what
the man needed to be paid, what he was charging you to do...
TRUMP: Maybe he didn't do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work...
CLINTON: Well, to...
TRUMP: Which our country should do, too.
CLINTON: Do the thousands of people that 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
that they produced, and then refused to pay them?
21:40 I can only say 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 businesspeople that have never taken bankruptcy once. You call yourself
the King of Debt. You talk about leverage. You even at one time suggested that you would
try to negotiate down the national debt of the United States.
TRUMP: Wrong. Wrong.
CLINTON: Well, sometimes there's not a direct transfer of skills from business to government,
but sometimes what happened in business would be really bad for government.
HOLT: Let's let Mr. Trump...
CLINTON: And we need to be very clear about that.
TRUMP: So, yeah, I think -- I do think it's time. Look, it's all words, it's all sound
bites. I built an unbelievable company. Some of the greatest assets anywhere in the world,
real estate assets anywhere in the world, beyond the United States, in Europe, lots
of different places. It's an unbelievable company.
But on occasion, four times, we used certain laws that are there. And when Secretary Clinton
talks about people that didn't get paid, first of all, they did get paid a lot, but taken
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. But
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 and
that 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 one way, I'm going to get to Pennsylvania
Avenue another.
But we're opening the Old Post Office. Under budget, ahead of schedule, saved tremendous
money. I'm a year ahead of schedule. And that's what this country should be doing.
We build roads and they cost two and three and four times 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 were 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.
HOLT: Well, we're well behind schedule, so I want 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.
The share of Americans who say race relations are bad in this country is the highest it's
been in decades, much of it amplified by shootings of African-Americans by police, 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 bridge a very wide and bitter gap.
So how do you heal the divide? Secretary Clinton, you get two minutes on this.
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 determines 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 techniques, that they're well prepared to use force only when necessary.
Everyone should be respected by the law, and everyone should respect the law.
CLINTON: 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 with policing,
21:45:35 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've got to 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 two things, as I said. We have to restore
trust. We have to work with the police. We have to make sure they respect the communities
and the communities respect them. And we have to tackle the plague of gun violence, which
is a big contributor to a lot of the problems that we're seeing today.
HOLT: All right, Mr. Trump, you have two minutes. How do you heal the divide?
TRUMP: Well, 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 going
to have a country.
And when I look at what's going on in Charlotte, a city I love, a city where I have investments,
when I look at what's going on throughout various parts of our country, whether it's
-- I mean, I can just keep naming them all day long -- we need law and order in our country.
I just got today the, as you know, the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, we just
-- just came in. We have endorsements from, I think, almost every police group, very -- I
mean, a large percentage of them in the United States.
We have a situation where we have our inner cities, African- Americans, Hispanics are
living in he'll because it's so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot.
21:47:17 In Chicago, they've had thousands of shootings, thousands since January 1st.
Thousands of shootings. And I'm saying, 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 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,
over -- 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 street. And in many cases, they're illegally here, 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 be -- 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, decimated.
HOLT: Your two -- your two minutes expired, but I do want to follow up. 21:48:38 Stop-and-frisk
was ruled unconstitutional in New York, because it largely singled out black and Hispanic
young men.
TRUMP: No, 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 have won an appeal. If you look at it, throughout the country, there
are many places where it's allowed.
HOLT: The argument is that it's a form of racial profiling.
TRUMP: No, the argument is that we have to take the guns away from these people that
have them and they are bad people that shouldn't have them.
These are felons. These are people that are bad people that shouldn't be -- 21:49:18 when
you have 3,000 shootings in Chicago from January 1st, when you have 4,000 people killed in
Chicago by guns, from the beginning of the presidency of Barack Obama, his hometown,
you have to have stop-and-frisk.
You need more police. You need a better community, you know, relation. You don't have good community
relations in Chicago. It's terrible. I have property there. It's terrible what's going
on in Chicago.
But when you look -- and Chicago's not the only -- you go to Ferguson, you go to so many
different places. You need better relationships. I agree with Secretary Clinton on this.
TRUMP: 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, the relationships were
really a beautiful thing, and then five police officers were killed one night very violently.
So there's some bad things going on. Some really bad things.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton...
TRUMP: But we need -- Lester, we need law and order. And 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 it's very unfair to them what our politicians are allowing
to happen.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: 21:50:36 Well, I've heard -- I've heard Donald say this at his rallies, and
it's really unfortunate that he paints such a dire negative picture of black communities
in our country.
TRUMP: Ugh.
CLINTON: You know, the vibrancy of the black church, the black businesses that employ so
many people, 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 in 1991. Property crime is down 40 percent. 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-American
and Latino men ended up in jail for nonviolent offenses. And it's just a fact that if you're
a 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. 21:52:20 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 commonsense gun safety measures would assist us. Right now
-- and this is something Donald has supported, along with the gun lobby -- right now, we've
got too many military- style weapons on the streets. In 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 who's on the terrorist watch list
from being able to buy a gun in our country. 21:53:39 If you're too dangerous to fly, you
are too dangerous to buy a gun. So there are things we can do, and we ought to do it in
a bipartisan way.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton, last week, you said we've got to do everything possible to improve
policing, to go right at implicit bias. 21:53:50 Do you believe that police are implicitly
biased against black people?
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, you
know, 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've met with a group of very distinguished, experienced police chiefs a few weeks ago.
They admit it's an issue. They've got a lot of concerns. 21:54:38 Mental health is one
of the biggest concerns, because now police are having 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.
HOLT: Mr. Trump...
TRUMP: I'd like to respond to that.
HOLT: Please.
TRUMP: First of all, I agree, and a lot of people even within my own party want to give
certain rights to people on watch lists and no- fly lists. I agree with you. When a person
is on a watch list or a no-fly list, and I have the endorsement of the NRA, which I'm
very proud of. 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 when
people are on there, even if they shouldn't be on there, we'll help them, we'll help them
legally, we'll help them get off. But I tend to agree with that quite strongly.
I do want to bring up the fact that you were the one that brought up the words 21:55:33
super-predator about young black youth. And that's a term that I think was a -- it's -- it's
been horribly met, as you know. I think you've apologized for it. But I think it was a terrible
thing to say.
And when it comes to stop-and-frisk, you know, you're talking about takes guns away. Well,
I'm talking about taking guns away from gangs and people that use them. And I don't think
-- 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 why you can't say it, but I really don't believe
-- in New York City, stop-and-frisk, we had 2,200 murders, and stop-and-frisk brought
it down to 500 murders. Five hundred murders is a lot of murders. It's 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 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, if we're going to talk about mayors, that under the
current mayor, crime has continued to drop, including murders. So there is...
TRUMP: No, you're wrong. You're wrong.
CLINTON: No, I'm not.
TRUMP: Murders are up. All right. You check it.
CLINTON: New York -- New York has done an excellent job. And I give credit -- I give
credit across the board going back two mayors, two 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, 21:57:30 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.
HOLT: This conversation is about race. And so, Mr. Trump, I have to ask you for five...
TRUMP: I'd like to just respond, if I might.
HOLT: Please -- 20 seconds.
TRUMP: I'd just like to respond.
HOLT: Please respond, then I've got a quick follow-up for you.
TRUMP: I will. 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 said,
see ya later, I'll see you in four years.
The African-American community -- because -- look, 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 what it is. They've controlled these communities for up to 100
years.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, let me...
(CROSSTALK)
CLINTON: Well, I -- I do think...
TRUMP: And I will tell you, you look at the inner cities -- and I just left Detroit, and
I just left Philadelphia, and I just -- you know, you've seen me, I've been all over the
place. You decided to stay home, and that's OK. But I will tell you, I've been 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.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, I...
CLINTON: 21:58:53 I think -- I think -- I think Donald just criticized me for preparing
for this debate. And, yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared
to be president. 21:59:06 And I think that's a good thing.
(APPLAUSE)
HOLT: Mr. Trump, for five years, you perpetuated a false claim that the nation's first black
president was not a natural-born citizen. You questioned his legitimacy. In 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 very -- well, just very simple to say. Sidney Blumenthal works for
the campaign and close -- very close friend of Secretary Clinton. And her campaign manager,
Patti Doyle, went to -- during the campaign, her campaign against President Obama, fought
very hard. And you can go look it up, and you can check it out.
TRUMP: And if you look at CNN this past week, Patti Solis Doyle was on Wolf Blitzer saying
that this happened. Blumenthal sent McClatchy, highly respected reporter at McClatchy, to
Kenya to find out about it. They were pressing it very hard. She failed to get the birth
certificate.
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.
HOLT: That was...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Because I want to get on to defeating ISIS, because I want to get on to creating
jobs, because I want to get on to having a strong border, because I want to get on to
things that are very important to me and that are very important to the country.
HOLT: I will let you respond. It's important. But I just want to get the answer here. The
birth certificate was produced in 2011. You've continued to tell the story and question the
president's legitimacy in 2012, '13, '14, '15...
TRUMP: Yeah.
HOLT: .... 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. But nobody was caring much about it. But I was the one
that got him to produce the birth certificate. And I think I did a good job.
Secretary Clinton also fought it. I mean, you know -- now, everybody in mainstream is
going to say, oh, that's not true. Look, it's true. Sidney Blumenthal sent a reporter -- you
just have to take a look at CNN, the 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.
HOLT: I'm sorry. I'm just going to follow up -- and I will let you respond to that,
because there's a lot there. But we're talking about racial healing in this segment. What
do you say to Americans, people of color who...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Well, it was very -- I say nothing. I say nothing, because I was able to get him
to produce it. He should have produced it a long time before. I say nothing.
But let me just tell you. When you talk about healing, I think that I've developed very,
very good relationships over the last 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 his birth certificate.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, just listen to what you heard.
(LAUGHTER)
And clearly, as Donald just admitted, he knew he was going to stand on this debate stage,
and Lester Holt was going to be asking us questions, so he tried to put the whole racist
birther lie to bed.
But it can't be dismissed that easily. He has really started his political activity
based on this racist lie that our 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 into his fold, apparently
believed it or wanted to believe it.
But, remember, Donald started his career back in 1973 being sued by the Justice Department
for racial discrimination because 22:03:18 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 birther 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 at 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.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, you can respond and we're going to move on to the next segment.
TRUMP: I would love to respond. First of all, I got to watch in preparing for this some
of your debates against Barack Obama. You treated him with terrible disrespect. And
I watched the way you talk now about how lovely everything is and how wonderful you are. It
doesn't work that way. You were after him, you were trying to -- you even sent out or
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
22:04:42 holier than thou, it really doesn't work. It really doesn't.
Now, as far as the lawsuit, yes, when I was very young, I went into my father's company,
had a real estate company in Brooklyn and Queens, and we, along with many, many other
companies throughout the country -- it was a federal lawsuit -- were sued. We settled
the suit with zero -- with no admission of guilt. It was very easy to do.
TRUMP: I notice you bring that up a lot. And, you know, I also notice the very nasty commercials
that you do on me in so many different ways, which I don't do on you. Maybe I'm trying
to save the money.
But, frankly, I look -- 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 one step further. In Palm Beach, Florida, tough community, a brilliant community, a
wealthy community, probably the wealthiest community 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.
HOLT: Our next segment is called "Securing America." We want to start with a 21st century
war happening every day in this 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 fight it?
Secretary Clinton, this answer goes to you.
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.
22:06:49 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 that Russia
has used cyber attacks against all kinds of organizations in our country, and I am deeply
concerned about this. I know Donald's very praiseworthy of Vladimir Putin, but Putin
is playing a really...
(CROSSTALK)
CLINTON: ... tough, long game here. And one of the things he's done is to let loose cyber
attackers to hack into government files, to hack into personal files, hack into the Democratic
National Committee. And we recently have learned that, you know, that 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. And 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 that
we have. We don't want to engage in a different kind of warfare. But we will defend the citizens
of this country.
And the Russians need to understand that. I think they've been treating it as almost
a probing, how far would we go, how much would we do. And that's why I was so -- I was so
shocked when Donald publicly 22:08:41 invited Putin to hack into Americans. That is just
unacceptable. It's one of the reasons why 50 national security officials who served
in Republican information -- in administrations...
HOLT: Your two minutes have expired.
CLINTON: ... have said that Donald is unfit to be the commander- in-chief. It's comments
like that that really worry people who understand the threats that we face.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, you have two minutes and the same question. Who's behind it? And how
do we fight it?
TRUMP: I do want to say that I was just endorsed -- and more are coming next week -- it will
be over 200 admirals, many of them here -- admirals and generals endorsed me to lead this country.
That just happened, and many more are coming. And I'm very proud of it.
In addition, I was just endorsed by ICE. They've never endorsed anybody before on immigration.
I was just endorsed by ICE. I was just recently endorsed -- 16,500 Border Patrol agents.
So when Secretary Clinton talks about this, I mean, I'll take the admirals and I'll take
the generals any day over the political hacks that I see that have led our country so brilliantly
over the last 10 years with their knowledge. OK? Because look at the mess that we're in.
Look at the mess that we're in.
As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said. 22:09:52 We should
be better than anybody else, and perhaps we're not. I don't think anybody knows it was Russia
that broke into the DNC. She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I don't -- 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, OK?
TRUMP: You don't know who broke in to DNC.
But what did we learn with DNC? We learned that 22:10:29 Bernie Sanders was taken advantage
of by your people, by Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Look what happened to her. But Bernie Sanders
was taken advantage of. That's what we learned.
Now, whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country,
we don't know, because the truth is, under President Obama we've lost control of things
that we used to have control over.
We came in with the Internet, we came up with the Internet, and I think Secretary Clinton
and myself would agree very much, when you look at 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 -- it is a huge problem.
I have a son. He's 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these 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 that we have to do better, Lester,
and certainly cyber is one of them.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, I think there are a 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 radicalize, even direct people in our country and Europe
and elsewhere.
But we also have to intensify our air strikes against ISIS and eventually support our Arab
and Kurdish partners to be able to actually take out ISIS in Raqqa, end their claim of
being a Caliphate.
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 of Iraq and then, you know, really squeeze them in
Syria.
But we have to be cognizant of the fact that they've had foreign fighters coming to volunteer
for them, foreign money, foreign weapons, 22:12:35 so we have to make this the top priority.
And I would also do everything possible to take out their leadership. I was involved
in a number of efforts to take out Al Qaida leadership when I was secretary of state,
including, of course, taking out bin Laden. And I think we need to go after Baghdadi,
as well, make that one of our organizing principles. Because we've got to defeat ISIS, and we've
got to do everything we can to disrupt their propaganda efforts online.
HOLT: You mention ISIS, and we think of ISIS certainly as over there, but there are American
citizens who have been inspired to commit acts of terror on American soil, the latest
incident, of course, the bombings we just saw in New York and New Jersey, the knife
attack at a mall in Minnesota, in the last year, deadly attacks in San Bernardino and
Orlando. I'll ask this to both of you. Tell us specifically how you would prevent homegrown
attacks by American citizens, Mr. Trump?
TRUMP: Well, first I have to say one thing, very important. 22:13:32 Secretary Clinton
is talking about taking out 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 out
-- what, they shouldn't have been in, 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 a long time. She's been trying
to take them out for a long time. But they wouldn't have even been 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 said it to
you once, had we taken the oil -- and we should have taken the oil -- ISIS would not have
been able to form either, because the oil was their primary source of income. And now
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.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: 22:14:31 Well, I hope the fact-checkers are turning up the volume and really working
hard. Donald supported the invasion of Iraq.
TRUMP: Wrong.
CLINTON: That is absolutely proved over and over again.
TRUMP: Wrong. Wrong.
CLINTON: He actually advocated for the actions we took in Libya and urged that Gadhafi be
taken out, after actually doing some business with him one time.
CLINTON: But the larger point -- and he says this constantly -- is 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 have protected our troops, and the Iraqi government
would not give that.
But let's talk about the question you asked, Lester. 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've got to have an intelligence 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've got to do everything we can to vacuum up intelligence from Europe, from the Middle
East. That means we've got to work more closely with our allies, and that's something that
Donald has been very dismissive of.
We're working with NATO, the longest military alliance in the 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.
HOLT: Mr. Trump...
TRUMP: Well, I have to respond.
HOLT: 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 going to be actually probably a 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? And
you have to understand, I'm a businessperson. I did really well. But I have common sense.
And I said, well, I'll tell you. I haven't given lots of thought to NATO. But two things.
Number one, the 28 countries of NATO, many of them aren't paying their fair share. Number
two -- and that bothers me, because we should be asking -- we're defending them, and they
should at least be paying us what they're supposed to be paying by treaty and contract.
And, number two, I said, and very strongly, NATO could be obsolete, because -- and I was
very strong on this, and it was actually covered very accurately in the New York Times, which
is unusual for the New York Times, to be honest -- but I said, they do not focus on terror.
And I was very strong. And I said it numerous times.
And about four months ago, I read on the front page of the Wall Street Journal that NATO
is opening up a major terror division. And I think that's great. And I think we should
get -- because we pay approximately 73 percent 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 going to do that. And that was -- believe me -- I'm sure 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 22:19:03 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 were the ones that took out the troops. Not only that, you named the day. They couldn't
believe it. They sat back probably and said, I can't believe it. They said...
CLINTON: Lester, we've covered...
TRUMP: No, wait a minute.
CLINTON: We've covered this ground.
TRUMP: When they formed, when they formed, this is something that never should have happened.
It should have never happened. Now, you're talking about taking out ISIS. But you were
there, and you were secretary of state when it was a little infant. Now it's in over 30
countries. And you're going to stop them? I don't think so.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, a lot of these are judgment questions. You had supported the war in Iraq
before the invasion. What makes your...
TRUMP: I did not support the war in Iraq.
HOLT: In 2002...
TRUMP: That is a mainstream media nonsense put out by her, because she -- frankly, I
think the best person in her campaign is mainstream media.
HOLT: My question is, since you supported it...
TRUMP: Just -- would you like to hear...
HOLT: ... why is your -- why is your judgment...
TRUMP: Wait a minute. I was against the war in Iraq. Just so you put it out.
HOLT: The record shows otherwise, but why -- why was...
TRUMP: The record does not show that.
HOLT: Why was -- is your judgment any...
TRUMP: The record shows that I'm right. When I did an interview with Howard Stern, very
lightly, first time anyone's asked me that, I said, very lightly, I don't know, maybe,
who knows? Essentially. I then did an interview with Neil Cavuto. We talked about the economy
is more important. I then spoke to Sean Hannity, which everybody refuses to call Sean Hannity.
I had numerous conversations with Sean Hannity at Fox. And Sean Hannity said -- and he called
me the other day -- and I spoke to him about it -- he said you were totally against the
war, because he was for the war.
HOLT: Why is your judgment better than...
TRUMP: And when he -- excuse me. And that was before the war started. Sean Hannity said
very strongly to me and other people -- he's willing to say it, 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 have never been there.
But nobody called Sean Hannity. 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 definitely -- because if you read this article, there's no doubt. But if somebody
-- and I'll ask the press -- if somebody would call up Sean Hannity, this was before the
war started. He and I used to have arguments about the war. I said, it's a terrible and
a stupid thing. It's going to destabilize the Middle East. And that's exactly what it's
done. It's been a disaster.
HOLT: My reference was to what you had said in 2002, and my question was...
TRUMP: No, no. You didn't hear what I said.
HOLT: Why is your judgment -- why is your judgment any different than Mrs. Clinton's
judgment?
TRUMP: 22:21:48 Well, I have much better judgment than she does. There's no question about that.
I also have a much better temperament than she has, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
I have a much better -- she spent -- let me tell you -- she spent hundreds of millions
of dollars on an advertising -- you know, they get Madison Avenue into a room, they
put names -- oh, temperament, let's go after -- 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 a...
HOLT: Secretary Clinton?
TRUMP: Wait. The AFL-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.
HOLT: Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: Whew, OK.
(LAUGHTER)
Let's talk about two important issues that were briefly mentioned by Donald, first, 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 that 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 putting together 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, and 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, 22:24:28 I'd blow them out of the water and
start another war. That's not good judgment.
TRUMP: That would not start a war.
CLINTON: That is not the right temperament to be commander-in- chief, to be taunted.
And the worst part...
TRUMP: No, they were taunting us.
CLINTON: ... of what we heard Donald say has been about nuclear weapons. He has said repeatedly
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 East Asia, well, you know, that's fine...
TRUMP: Wrong.
CLINTON: ... have a good time, folks.
TRUMP: It's lies.
CLINTON: And, in fact, his 22:25:17 cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons is so deeply
troubling. That is the number-one 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 should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes, as
far as I think anyone with any sense about this should be concerned.
TRUMP: That line's getting a little bit old, I must say. I would like to...
CLINTON: It's a good one, though. It well describes the problem.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: It's not an accurate one at all. It's not an accurate one. So I just want to give
a lot of things -- and just to respond. I agree with her on one thing. The single greatest
problem the world has is nuclear armament, nuclear weapons, 22:26:04 not global warming,
like you think and your -- your president thinks.
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. But 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 -- we lose on everything.
I say, who makes these -- we lose on everything. All I said, that it's very possible that if
they don't pay a fair share, because this isn't 40 years ago where we could do what
we're doing. We can't defend Japan, a behemoth, selling us cars by the million...
HOLT: We need to move on.
TRUMP: Well, wait, but it's very important. All I said was, they may have to defend themselves
or they have to help us out. We're a country that owes $20 trillion. They have to help
us out.
HOLT: Our last...
TRUMP: As far as the nuclear is concerned, I agree. It is the single greatest threat
that this country has.
HOLT: Which leads to my next question, as we enter our last segment here (inaudible)
the subject of securing America. On nuclear weapons, President Obama reportedly considered
changing the nation's longstanding policy on first use. Do you support the current policy?
Mr. Trump, you have two minutes on that.
TRUMP: Well, I have to say that, you know, for what Secretary Clinton was saying about
nuclear with Russia, she's very cavalier in the way she talks about various countries.
But Russia has been expanding their -- they have a much newer capability than we do. We
have not been updating from the new standpoint.
I looked the other night. I was seeing B-52s, they're old enough that your father, your
grandfather could be flying them. We are not -- 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. 22:28:09 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
that you started is the Iran deal. Iran is one of their biggest trading partners. Iran
has power over North Korea.
And when they made that horrible deal with Iran, they should have included the fact that
they do something with respect to North Korea. And they should have done something with respect
to Yemen and all these other places.
And when asked to Secretary Kerry, why didn't you do that? Why didn't you add other things
into the deal? One of the great giveaways of all time, of all time, including $400 million
in cash. Nobody's 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.
HOLT: Your two minutes is expired.
TRUMP: And they're going to end up getting nuclear. I met with Bibi Netanyahu the other
day. Believe me, he's not a happy camper.
HOLT: All right. Mrs. Clinton, Secretary Clinton, you have two minutes.
CLINTON: 22:29:30 Well, let me -- 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 and 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 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
a majority of the American people, say that, you know, 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'd rather deal with the other problems having
put that lid on their 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, then 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.
22:31:04 So we need to be more precise in how we talk about these issues. People around
the word 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 a 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 also stand up to bullies, whether they're abroad or at
home.
We cannot let those who would try to destabilize the world to interfere with American interests
and security...
HOLT: Your two minutes is...
CLINTON: ... to be given any opportunities at all.
HOLT: ... is expired.
TRUMP: Lester, one thing I'd like to say.
HOLT: Very quickly. Twenty seconds.
TRUMP: I will go very quickly. But I will tell you that Hillary will tell you to go
to her website and read all about how to defeat ISIS, which she could have 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're in more and more places, more and more states,
more and more nations.
HOLT: Mr. Trump...
TRUMP: 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
policemen of the world. We cannot protect countries all over the world...
HOLT: We have just...
TRUMP: ... where they're not paying us what we need.
HOLT: We have just a few final questions...
TRUMP: And she doesn't say that, because she's got no business ability. We need heart. 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.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, this year Secretary Clinton became the 22:32:57 first woman nominated
for president by a major party. Earlier this month, you said she doesn't have, quote, "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.
HOLT: The quote was, "I just don't think she has the presidential look."
TRUMP: You have -- wait a minute. Wait a minute, Lester. 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 them, 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 that Hillary has the stamina.
HOLT: Let's let her respond.
CLINTON: 22:33:52 Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal,
a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around
the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he
can talk to me about stamina.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: The world -- let me tell you. Let me tell you. Hillary 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.
(APPLAUSE)
But it's bad, bad experience. Whether it's the Iran deal that you're so in love with,
where we gave them $150 billion back, whether it's the Iran deal, whether it's anything
you can -- name -- you almost can't name a good deal. I agree. She's got experience,
but it's bad experience. And this country can't afford to have another four years of
that kind of experience.
HOLT: We are at -- we are at the final question.
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: Well, one thing. One thing, Lester.
HOLT: Very quickly, because we're at the final question now.
CLINTON: You know, he tried to switch from looks to stamina. But this is a man who has
called women pigs, slobs and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience
to employers, who has said...
TRUMP: I never said that.
CLINTON: .... women don't deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men.
TRUMP: I didn't say that.
CLINTON: And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He
loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman
22:35:35 "Miss Piggy." Then he called her "Miss Housekeeping," because she was Latina.
Donald, she has a name.
TRUMP: Where did you find this? Where did you find this?
CLINTON: Her name is Alicia Machado.
TRUMP: Where did you find this?
CLINTON: And she has become a U.S. citizen, and you can bet...
TRUMP: Oh, really? CLINTON: ... she's going to vote this November.
TRUMP: OK, good. Let me just tell you...
(APPLAUSE)
HOLT: Mr. Trump, could we just take 10 seconds and then we ask the final question...
TRUMP: You know, Hillary is hitting me with tremendous commercials. Some of it's said
in entertainment. Some of it's 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
and nobody feels sorry for her.
But you want to know the truth? I was going to say something...
HOLT: Please very quickly.
TRUMP: ... extremely rough to Hillary, to her family, and I said to myself, "I can't
do it. I just can't do it. It's inappropriate. It's not nice." But she 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.
22:36:42 But it's certainly not a nice thing that she's 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...
HOLT: We have to move on to the final question.
TRUMP: ... $200 million is spent, and I'm either winning or tied, and I've spent practically
nothing.
(APPLAUSE)
HOLT: 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 voters? Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, I support our democracy. And sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But
I certainly will support the outcome of this election.
And I know Donald's trying very hard to plant doubts about it, but I hope the people out
there understand: This election's really up to you. It's not about us so much as it is
about you and your families and the kind of country and 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.
HOLT: Mr. Trump, very quickly, same question. Will you accept the outcome as the will of
the voters? TRUMP: I want to make America great again. We are a nation that is seriously
troubled. We're losing our jobs. People are pouring into our country.
The other day, we were deporting 800 people. And perhaps they passed the wrong button,
they pressed the wrong button, or perhaps worse than that, it was corruption, but these
people that 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 1,800, and they don't
even know.
HOLT: Will you accept the outcome of the election?
TRUMP: Look, here's the story. I want to make America great again. I'm going to be able
to do it. I don't believe Hillary will. The answer is, if she wins, I will absolutely
support her.
(APPLAUSE)
HOLT: All right. Well, that is going to do it for us. That concludes our debate for this
evening, a spirit one. We covered a lot of ground, 22:38:33 not everything as I suspected
we would.
The next presidential debates are scheduled for October 9th at Washington University in
St. Louis and October 19th at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. The conversation will
continue.
A reminder. The vice presidential debate is scheduled for October 4th at Longwood University
in Farmville, Virginia. My thanks to Hillary Clinton and to Donald Trump and to Hofstra
University for hosting us tonight. Good night, everyone. 22:38:58
GWEN IFILL: And that concludes the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
We watched them there on the stage.
Joining Gwen Ifill and me here in our studio for some analysis, syndicated columnist Mark
Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report.
Mark Shields, they did cover a lot of ground, from jobs to taxes, from race to ISIS, and
just now women. What did you make of it all?
MARK SHIELDS: I think that, first of all, Donald Trump made it about him, rather than
about the American people.
I think that was missing in his message. And I really think that he is remarkable political
figure, in that, if you think about American presidents, whether it's Ronald Reagan or
John Kennedy or Barack Obama or Franklin Roosevelt, there was always an optimism to them.
That is a very dark and rather dreary message, that we're surrounded by people who are not
simply incompetent, but who are cutting deals, who have conflicts of interest.
If -- Hillary Clinton, I thought was Hillary Clinton. She was factual. She was well-organized
in her thinking, not particularly likable, did not come across as -- did not reveal much
about herself, other that anecdote about her dad again and the nod to the grandchild at
the opening.
I really thought Trump did -- failed his test of presidential...
GWEN IFILL: And as we watch the families come on stage, as is typical after these debates,
the Clintons, former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, of course. And Chelsea
Clinton is there as well.
And on the other half of the stage, Melania and Donald Trump, his sons, his daughters,
others.
Now, Amy, we -- I counted -- we counted it up. Hillary Clinton referred to Donald Trump
by his first name, Donald -- most people call him Mr. Trump -- 22 times. She clearly had
it in her mind that she wanted to get under his skin, to bug him. Did it work?
AMY WALTER: Well, he was on the defensive much more than he was on the offense in this
debate, whether it was on question of the birtherism, on his taxes, his support for
the Iraq War, the debate about women, and his things he said about women, about stamina.
This was a debate in which she was able -- and I think that Mark is completely right. Trump
made it about himself, but she helped him to make it about himself.
Look, she didn't provide the vision. I think that there are a lot of folks, even on the
Democratic side, looking for that sense of, what is the bigger message of Hillary Clinton?
She's very smart. She has all of the facts outlined. She has all the policy papers up
on her Web site.
But the bigger, sort of cohesive vision for where we take America, I just -- I don't know
that we still saw that in this debate.
JUDY WOODRUFF: David, how do you see this? Did either one of them do what they needed
to do tonight?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, it wasn't -- if what they needed to do was make me feel better about
the country, they failed. It was the opposite of elevating on both sides.
I thought, for the first half-hour, that Donald Trump was winning. And I thought that was
because, he may be obnoxious, but he is a change agent. And the first half-hour was
on his turf.
And her answers, Hillary Clinton's answers, went it was on -- gets to policy, it can't
just be three things. It has to be 16 things. And you get in laundry list mode.
Then she started attacking him. And she had two devastatingly good answers, on the birther
issue and the tax return issue, which were really good assaults on him. So, even though
she's not good at describing a policy, she's really good at going after him.
And then the debate got on, and Donald Trump became Donald Trump. And with every answer,
it was digging it a little deeper. His birther answer was abysmal, and bunch of bad answers
all in a row. The race issue was terrible, the looks issue, bad.
And so he just -- at his lack of preparation, and, frankly, a lot of his policies and his
character just got worse and worse and worse. So, I think you would have to say this was
a Clinton night.
GWEN IFILL: John Yang is in -- at Hofstra University for us tonight. He's at the site
of tonight's debate.
And I'm wondering what the scene is like there, John, how it's going over.
JOHN YANG: Well, I tell you, the spinners are just coming out. I'm just in front of
the Donald Trump holding room.
You can see them coming by here. Before, Senator Claire McCaskill came by. She's obviously
a supporter of Secretary Clinton. She was telling me that she felt -- and this is sort
of the line coming out of their -- the Clinton room tonight -- that Donald Trump, once again,
they say, showed that he wasn't prepared to be president.
They say that this was -- they say that it came right from the top, when the secretary
was able to give what they say -- what they're saying was a coherent policy about providing
jobs in America. But he wasn't.
I tried to -- Governor Christie went by, wouldn't stop. I'm trying to see if I can get someone
from the Trump campaign to get their reaction.
But, so far, that's what we have gotten so far.
GWEN IFILL: OK, John, we're going to let you keep searching for people in the room to talk
to. And we will get back to you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Mark, I want to come to you, because was there any -- David was saying
that Donald Trump did better in the first half-hour, when they talked about jobs, and
he talked about jobs leaving the country. Did Hillary Clinton ever have an answer to
that?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, I thought -- I mean, she was defensive. There's no question about it.
She was defensive on the TPP.
But her answer that there were more manufacturing jobs -- she did the defense of her husband's
economic record, not a very -- a rather tepid defense. There was a hell of a defense to
be made for Bill Clinton's eight years of 22 million jobs and the lowest unemployment
rates for African-Americans in the history of the country, balancing the budget.
She did -- she just said more manufacturing jobs in the '90s.
But I want to say, in defense of Trump, and not to be totally -- I have never heard a
presidential candidate -- and I have heard 40 of them -- say, I'm extremely underleveraged.
(LAUGHTER)
MARK SHIELDS: I mean, that was a rather remarkable statement, if you think about it.
And when he talked about not paying taxes, he said, it would be squandered, too. That's
why he didn't pay any taxes. And I thought those were -- the explanation, the one that
will be most memorable, was that, who hacked the DNC? It wasn't Russia. Could have been
Russia. Could have been China. Could have been some other country, or it could have
been someone sitting on the bed that weighs 400 pounds.
I don't know if the bed weighs 400 pounds or the person weighs 400 pounds.
(LAUGHTER)
GWEN IFILL: And that is your definition of "in defense of Donald Trump"?
MARK SHIELDS: That was it. That was it.
GWEN IFILL: Just checking.
DAVID BROOKS: He touched me. I'm underleveraged myself.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
GWEN IFILL: Can we talk a little bit about the line of questioning on race?
Because when -- I never heard presidential candidate in the debate call the person that
he or she is running against, use the word racist, three times. And also, when he was
asked about race, Donald Trump talked about law and order.
What were the dog whistles in the room? Or maybe they weren't even dog whistles. Everybody
could hear them.
AMY WALTER: Yes.
Donald Trump's answer, whenever there's an issue on -- whether it's on race, whether
it's on policing, whether it's on terrorism, he always comes back to, it's all about law
and order. We're going to get the police. We're going to get stuff done, because that's
how things work.
And we also know that that is an answer that is not a comfortable answer for many people
in the African-American community and in -- among nonwhite voters, about who gets profiled when
we have stop and frisk programs, when we have law and order, what that actually means.
These were questions that were not the kinds of questions that Donald Trump answers particularly
well. But that's not who he's playing to. We talked about this a lot during the convention.
Throughout this -- throughout the convention, throughout this debate, Donald Trump talked
to the same people he's been talking to this entire campaign. There are a group of voters
out there who are white, who are working class who he's done very, very well with. And those
are voters he expects to take him all the way throughout this election.
And he's not interested in reaching out and getting beyond that base.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You know, David, picking up what Amy is saying, it seems to me that much
of this debate was on territory where Donald Trump is uncomfortable, I mean, the whole
birther question. Lester Holt raised that. He pushed Donald Trump on that. He pushed
him on his tax returns, which we have been talking about.
These were areas where Donald Trump was back against the ropes.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
I do think Holt was tougher on Trump than on Clinton. Maybe there's more to work with
there. And he certainly exposed some vulnerabilities. The defense that "I have a country club in
Palm Beach which allows in minorities," that's not -- that is not your good defense.
But...
GWEN IFILL: Trump is apparently already tweeting that there weren't good questions about e-mails,
about Benghazi...
DAVID BROOKS: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And the Clinton Foundation.
DAVID BROOKS: And somewhat fair, actually.
But here is way think it's going to happen. I think he really looked bad on some of the
-- especially some of the racial stuff, on the gender stuff, a lot of stuff.
And so I think we can expect his polls to drop as after the convention season. But,
as Amy said, that's not his audience. And, two, he is thematically so consistent. We
are under assault, we're under assault, we're under assault.
And it wouldn't surprise me if he then -- his numbers then began to go up, as they have
in the last couple weeks, with all this stuff. He's already said all this before.
GWEN IFILL: I might also add that, if you want to know, we have been keeping track of
the things that were true, the things that were false that were said tonight on our Web
site, PBS.org/NewsHour. Just go there and find what all of our experts, including our
own -- well, Margaret Warner, our own Paul Solman are telling -- answering these questions.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Pulling it together.
GWEN IFILL: But facts -- facts seemed to be an important issue here than -- or lack thereof,
tonight, Mark. And that was also Hillary Clinton's turf.
MARK SHIELDS: Yes. No, that's where she is.
But she can't give a short answer. That is a real problem. There is a little bit of,
let me tell you how much I know. And I -- I don't even know the capital of Sweden, but
I can tell you what the principal products of Sweden are and how long, you know, Stockholm
-- and I think that is -- but I have -- again, there are moments in the debate which I think
we can't ignore.
And that is, "You don't learn a lot from the tax returns, that, I can tell you," explaining
why he hasn't released his own taxes, and said paying no federal taxes makes me smart.
Now, I'm sorry. I mean, the cops and E-4s in the Marine Corps and schoolteachers and
registered nurses who pay taxes every year, I don't know if not paying taxes for the two
years that he has on the record is a recommendation.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVID BROOKS: I would agree with you, if the Republican debates hadn't happened.
And maybe it's just the Republican audiences are different. But the rules are a little
different this year. And a lot of things where he says, I'm smart, I got away with this,
I do think that has some resonance in a country of high-end social distrust. And I do think
some of the rules are a little different applying to him.
MARK SHIELDS: Do you think those respectable people who have come to him in the last few
weeks, I mean, the thoughtful, have been kind of overlooking it? Do you think they were
made comfortable tonight?
(CROSSTALK)
DAVID BROOKS: Total squirming. Total squirming.
(CROSSTALK)
AMY WALTER: Yes. And that's really the question: Did he pass the judgment test?
But to the point of -- which I don't know that he was able to pass the judgment, temperament
test. I don't think that that was -- he gets high marks on that.
But on the question about where the country feels that we're going, we're pretty evenly
divided between whether -- and this is the Wall Street Journal poll -- is our country
losing ground or is our country making progress? Forty-eight percent say losing ground. Forty-five
percent say making progress.
Not surprisingly, among white Americans, plus-11 losing ground, among nonwhite Americans, plus-28
making progress.
And so when you see these candidates literally talking past each other, as you pointed out,
on race issues, on so many other issues about where we're going...
GWEN IFILL: Taxes.
AMY WALTER: ... on taxes, it's literally we have a country that is seeing the direction
that we're going in completely differently.
JUDY WOODRUFF: I think all three of you were saying before the debate that Hillary Clinton
tonight needed to be more likable. She needed to -- Mark, what was your term? She needed
to...
MARK SHIELDS: At the end of it, say, not a bad egg.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Not a bad egg.
(CROSSTALK)
MARK SHIELDS: Like to have in the carpool.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But she did she do that tonight?
MARK SHIELDS: In the PTA meeting.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Did that happen or not?
MARK SHIELDS: No. I don't think -- I don't think -- she wasn't unlikable, but she certainly
-- there wasn't any...
AMY WALTER: What?
MARK SHIELDS: There wasn't any point in which you got a peek into her -- who she is, what
makes her tick.
GWEN IFILL: I never hear anybody ask whether Donald Trump is likable.
MARK SHIELDS: Oh, sure we do.
GWEN IFILL: Yes?
MARK SHIELDS: Yes.
GWEN IFILL: Yes?
MARK SHIELDS: And he's thoroughly unlikable.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVID BROOKS: It's not really an open question.
GWEN IFILL: Oh, I see. Oh, I see.
(CROSSTALK)
MARK SHIELDS: Well, the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, to come back to what Amy was just talking
about, he started 28/59 favorable/unfavorable, and now he's at 29.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We're going quickly back to Hofstra university in New York.
Our John Yang is there.
John, you have maybe found a Trump person?
GWEN IFILL: Hi, John.
JOHN YANG: I have got -- we have been talking to some of the Trump supporters here now.
They think -- and the one point that they have been repeating over and over again is
the point, actually, that he repeated over and over again in the debate, was hitting
at Clinton as a career politician, that reinforcing this idea that he's the -- that career politicians
like Hillary Clinton are the reason for the problems we're seeing now.
That's been a signature line of his campaign and, in many ways, one reason for a lot of
the support of the campaign. And that's what we're hearing over and over again from the
Trump supporters here tonight.
GWEN IFILL: In fact, John, that was one of the big lines tonight, which is that she has
experience, but it's bad experience, right? And so they are picking up on that.
JOHN YANG: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So -- and, John, thank you.
(CROSSTALK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Go ahead.
JOHN YANG: No, go ahead.
JUDY WOODRUFF: I was just going to bring it back here and say to David, is that effective?
Is that something that sticks that he keeps repeating?
DAVID BROOKS: I think it does, actually.
If you looked at her, just take him out of the debate, she does look like a career politician.
She does repeat a lot of things. She doesn't quite make human convention -- connection.
And in year that's very unusual, she's not that unusual.
But I thought she did fine, and with some devastatingly good assaults. But, again, as
Mark said, he was the subject. And he did negative.
AMY WALTER: Well, and that's been the theme throughout this campaign, right?
Wherever the spotlight goes, if it's placed on you, the candidate, you are likely to drop
in the polls. When the spotlight gets to the other candidate -- because this race has just
simply been a referendum on who the worst candidate is, right?
And so when it -- if it goes to the spotlight now on Donald Trump and how much he was on
defense, it's not going to be how well Clinton did as much as how poorly he did. And if it
goes over to Hillary Clinton, then she becomes the focus. Her numbers suffer.
And at the end of the day, the candidate who wins is the candidate who doesn't get in that
spotlight for the last couple of weeks.
GWEN IFILL: Let me ask a question about just one big policy issue that he seemed to land
a few blows on. And that was on trade, when he kind of basically made the point that she
had changed her mind. And he drove that point home.
MARK SHIELDS: He did.
(CROSSTALK)
MARK SHIELDS: The question I had, as he was doing that, was -- are his interruptions a
sign of strength or obnoxiousness?
But he -- there's no question, he dominated the dialogue. She was very much playing defense
in the first part there.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But, as David said, in the first half-hour, it seemed to be that he was
getting the better of a couple of points.
But then, as we moved into the debate, it seemed to me Hillary Clinton felt more comfortable
coming after him and sticking with some...
(CROSSTALK)
MARK SHIELDS: Yes, she baited him. There's no question.
AMY WALTER: Oh, yes.
The Donald was baited. And he not, in that sense, go after her the way I thought he would.
I thought his own defense of his positions was really faulty.
GWEN IFILL: Well, time for all three of you to ask -- really quick answers.
AMY WALTER: Uh-oh.
GWEN IFILL: Expectations in advance, did they meet your expectations afterward?
AMY WALTER: Yes, they did.
GWEN IFILL: OK.
Mark?
MARK SHIELDS: No.
(LAUGHTER)
MARK SHIELDS: My expectations have never been met. No.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We may ask you this question again tomorrow.
David?
DAVID BROOKS: Not a kamikaze night for him. So, it's not a career-ender, not a campaign-ender,
but not a good night.
GWEN IFILL: All right. I think I gave you, like, one word.
AMY WALTER: Yes.
But I can say -- yes, agree that it was a better night for Hillary Clinton, but it does
not feel like it was the defining end-all, be-all of this campaign.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, hey, we have only got six weeks to go.
GWEN IFILL: You know what that means. We are going to have to come back and do it again
right here at this table, maybe October 4 for the vice presidential debate.
That concludes our coverage of the first presidential debate, but there's whole lot more, as we
were saying, online. You can watch highlights. Plus, see how "NewsHour" staff, from Margaret
Warner to Paul Solman, as you were saying, and more put what the candidates said in context.
That's all at PBS.org/NewsHour.
I'm Gwen Ifill.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And I'm Judy Woodruff.
And join us right here for the "NewsHour" tomorrow night.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and good night.