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good evening from the thomas and mack center at the university of nevada las vegas i'm chris
wallace of fox news and i welcome you to the third and final of the 2016 presidential debates between
secretary of state hillary clinton and donald j trump this debate is sponsored by the commission
on presidential debates the commission has designed the format six roughly 15-minute segments
with two-minute answers to the first question then open discussion for the rest of each segment
both campaigns have agreed to those rules for the record i decided the topics and the questions in
each topic none of those questions has been shared with the commission or the two candidates the
audience here in the hall has promised to remain silent no cheers boos or other interruptions so
we and you can focus on what the candidates have to say no noise except right now as we welcome the
democratic nominee for president secretary clinton and the republican nominee for president mr trump
secretary clinton mr trump welcome let's get right to it the first topic is the supreme court we you
both talked briefly about the court in the last debate but i want to drill down on this because
the next president will almost certainly have at least one appointment and likely
or possibly two or three appointments which means that you will in effect determine the
balance of the court for what could be the next quarter century first of all where do
you want to see the court take the country and secondly what's your view on how the constitution
should be interpreted is do the founders words mean what they say or is it a living document
to be a fl applied flexibly according to changing circumstances in this segment secretary clinton
you go first you have two minutes thank you very much chris and thanks to unlv for hosting us
you know i think when we talk about the supreme court it really raises
the central issue in this election namely what kind of country are we going to be
what kind of opportunities will we provide for our citizens what kind of rights will americans have
and i feel strongly that the supreme court needs to stand on the side of the american people
not on the side of the powerful corporations and the wealthy for me that means that we need
a supreme court that will stand up on behalf of women's rights on behalf of the rights of the
lgbt community that will stand up and say no to citizens united a decision that has undermined the
election system in our country because of the way it permits dark unaccountable money to come into
our electoral system i have major disagreements with my opponent about these issues and others
that will be before the supreme court but i feel that at this point in our country's history
it is important that we not reverse marriage equality that we not reverse roe v wade
that we stand up against citizens united we stand up for the rights of people
in the workplace that we stand up and basically say the supreme court should represent all of us
that's how i see the court and the kind of people that i would be looking to nominate to the court
would be in the great tradition of standing up to the powerful standing up on behalf of our
rights as americans and i look forward to having that opportunity i would hope that the senate
would do its job and confirm the nominee that president obama has sent to them that's the way
the constitution fundamentally should operate the president nominates and then the senate advises
and consents or not but they go forward with the process secretary clinton thank you mr trump same
question where do you want to see the court take the country and how do you believe the
constitution should be interpreted well first of all it's great to be with you and thank you
everybody the supreme court it's what it's all about our country is so so it's just so imperative
that we have the right justices something happened recently where justice ginsburg
made some very very inappropriate statements toward me and toward a tremendous number of people
many many millions of people that i represent and she was forced to apologize and apologize she did
but these were statements that should never ever have been made we need a supreme court that in my
opinion is going to uphold the second amendment and all amendments but the second amendment
which is under absolute siege i believe if my opponent should win this race which i truly don't
think will happen we will have a second amendment which will be a very very small replica of what it
is right now but i feel that it's absolutely important that we uphold because of the fact
that it is under such uh trauma i feel that the justices that i am going to appoint and i've named
20 of them the justices that i'm going to appoint will be pro-life they will have a conservative
bent they will be protecting the second amendment they are great scholars in all cases
and they're people of tremendous respect they will interpret the constitution the way the founders
wanted it interpreted and i believe that's very very important i don't think we should have
justices appointed that decide what they want to hear it's all about the constitution of of and and
so important the constitution the way it was meant to be and those are the people that i will appoint
mr trump thank you we now have about 10 minutes for an open discussion i want to
focus on two issues that in fact by the justices that you name could end up changing the existing
law of the land first is one that you mentioned mr trump and that is guns secretary clinton
you said last year and let me quote the supreme court is wrong on the second amendment and now in
fact in the 2008 heller case the court ruled that there is a constitutional right to bear arms but a
a right that is reasonably limited those were the words of the of the judge antonin scalia who wrote
the decision what's wrong with that well first of all i support the second amendment i lived in
arkansas for 18 wonderful years i represented upstate new york i understand and respect the
tradition of gun ownership it goes back to the founding of our country but i also believe that
there can be and must be reasonable regulation because i support the second amendment doesn't
mean that i want people who shouldn't have guns to be able to threaten you kill you or members
of your family and so when i think about what we need to do we have 33 000 people a year who die
from guns i think we need comprehensive background checks need to close the online loophole close the
gun show loophole there's other matters that i think are sensible that are the kind of reforms
that would make a difference that are not in any way conflicting with the second amendment
you mentioned the heller decision and what i was saying that you referenced chris was that
i disagreed with the way the court applied the second amendment in that case because what the
district of columbia was trying to do was to protect toddlers from guns and so they wanted
people with guns to safely store them and the court didn't accept that reasonable regulation but
they've accepted many others so i see no conflict between saving people's lives and defending the
second amendment let me bring mr trump in here the bipartisan open debate coalition got millions of
votes on questions to ask here and this was in fact one of the top questions that they got how
will you ensure the second amendment is protected you just heard secretary clinton's answer
does she persuade you that while you may disagree on regulation that in fact she supports a second
amendment right to bear arms well the d.c versus heller decision uh was very strongly and she was
extremely angry about it i watched i mean she was very very angry when upheld and justice scalia was
so involved and it was a well-crafted decision but hillary was extremely upset extremely angry and
people that believe in the second amendment and believe in it very strongly were very upset with
what she had to say let me bring in secretary clinton were you extremely upset well i was
upset because unfortunately dozens of toddlers uh injure themselves even kill people with guns
because unfortunately not everyone who has loaded guns in their homes takes appropriate precautions
but there's no doubt that i respect the second amendment that i also believe there's
an individual right to bear arms that is not in conflict with sensible common sense regulation and
you know look i understand that donald's been uh strongly supported by the nra the gun lobby's on
his side they're running millions of dollars of ads against me and i regret that because what i
would like to see is for people to come together and say of course we're going to protect and
defend the second amendment but we're going to do it in a way that tries to save some of these
33 000 lives that we lose every year let me bring mr trump back into that because in fact you oppose
any limits on assault weapons any limits on high capacity magazines you support a national right
to carry law why sir well let me just tell you before we go any further in chicago which has the
toughest gun laws in the united states probably you could say by far they have more gun violence
than any other city so we have the toughest laws and you have tremendous gun violence i am a very
strong supporter of the second amendment and i am i don't know if hillary was saying it
in a sarcastic manner but i'm very proud to have the endorsement of the nra and it's the earliest
endorsement they've ever given to anybody who ran for president so i'm very honored by all of that
we are going to appoint justices this is the best way to help the second amendment we are going
to appoint justices that will feel very strongly about the second amendment that will not do damage
to the second amendment well let's pick up on another issue which divides you and the justices
that whoever ends up winning this election points could have a dramatic effect that there and that's
the issue of abortion right mr trump you're pro-life but i want to ask you specifically do
you want the court including the justices that you will name to overturn roe v wade which includes
in fact states a woman's right to abortion well if that would happen because i am pro-life and i will
be appointing pro-life judges i would think that that will go back to the individual states but
i'm asking you specifically would you like if they overturned it it'll go back to the states but what
i'm asking you sir is do you want to see the court overturned you just said you want to see the court
protect the second amendment do you want to see the court overturn right well if we put
another two or perhaps three justices on that's really what's going to be that's will
happen and that'll happen automatically in my opinion because i am putting pro-life justices