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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