donald trump (r), presidential candidate:i know more about isis than the generals, believe me. hillary rodham clinton (d), presidential candidate:i have sat at that table in the situation room. donald trump: nobody knows the system betterthan me. i alone can fix it. hillary rodham clinton: i'm going to closemy campaign focused on opportunities for kids and fairness for families. donald trump: hillary failed on the economy.
everything she touched didn't work out. hillary rodham clinton: even if you're totallyopposed to donald trump, you may still have some questions about me. judy woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is away tonight. welcome to this "pbs newshour" special coverageof the final presidential debate between democrat hillary clinton and republican donald trump. the stage is set at the university of nevada,las vegas, at a time when the most recent
polls, both national and in battleground states,show a surge in support for clinton, while trump's numbers have been slipping, especiallysince the release of the 2005 video where he's heard using lewd language, boasting aboutbeing sexually aggressive. the debate moderator, chris wallace of foxnews, announced ahead of time that there will be six topics tonight, not necessarily inthis order, debt and entitlement, immigration, the economy, the supreme court, foreign hotspots, and fitness to be president. to watch it all, joining me here at this tablein washington, our regular "newshour" contributors, syndicated columnist mark shields, new yorktimes columnist david brooks, and amy walter of the cook political report.
so, we're at the third one. and it will all be over after this one. david, do you expect them to go high or low? david brooks: you promise it will be over? (laughter) david brooks: no, i expect her to go high,him to go low. he's behind, and so he's got to try some desperatemove. and the trick for her will be to see if shecan be strong enough to rebut whatever he says, while still projecting some sense ofpositivity that will attract some people to
her. my big question, though, for the country is,do we want to take a shower after this is over? will we feel better about our country or worse? judy woodruff: low or high, mark? mark shields: i think donald trump won thenomination going away and prevailed in the debates by exposing and playing to the vulnerabilitiesand perceived weaknesses of his opponents. he has to have concluded after -- and he rattledthem. and he bullied them.
and he has to have concluded, after two debates,that that hasn't worked with hillary clinton. after 26 debates with barack obama, she'sfar more formidable than anybody he faced in the republican primaries. and i don't know. i think he's just going to throw everythingtoday. judy woodruff: amy? amy walter, the cook political report: andthat's the challenge for the third debate too. your home always told, you never get a secondchance to make a good first impression.
his first debate performance, i think, inmany ways sealed the fate of his entire candidacy. now, he can try to come back in the thirddebate and go after hillary clinton more aggressively. but i don't know that that's going to makemuch of a difference, although this is what a republican strategist told me he needs todo tonight. he just put in all caps, "e-mails, foundation,failed record, e-mails, foundation, failed record, e-mails, foundation, failed record." that is, i think, what you're going to hearfrom donald trump. wallace: good evening from the thomas andmack center at the university of nevada, las vegas.
i'm chris wallace of fox news, and i welcomeyou to the third and final of the 2016 presidential debates between secretary of state hillaryclinton and donald j. trump. wallace: this debate is sponsored by the commissionon presidential debates. the commission has designed the format: sixroughly 15-minute segments with two-minute answers to the first question, then open discussionfor the rest of each segment. both campaigns have agreed to those rules. for the record, i decided the topics and thequestions in each topic. none of those questions has been shared withthe commission or the two candidates. the audience here in the hall has promisedto remain silent.
no cheers, boos, or other interruptions sowe and you can focus on what the candidates have to say. wallace: no noise, except right now, as wewelcome the democratic nominee for president, secretary clinton, and the republican nomineefor president, mr. trump. (applause) secretary clinton, mr. trump, welcome. let's get right to it. the first topic is the supreme court. you both talked briefly about the court inthe last debate, but i want to drill down
on this, because the next president will almostcertainly have at least one appointment and likely or possibly two or three appointments. wallace: 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 thecourt take the country? and secondly, what's your view on how theconstitution should be interpreted? do the founders' words mean what they sayor is it a living document to be applied flexibly according to changing circumstances? in this segment, secretary clinton, you gofirst.
you have two minutes. clinton: thank you very much, chris. and thanks to unlv for hosting us. you know, i think when we talk about the supremecourt, it really raises the central issue in this election, namely, what kind of countryare we going to be? what kind of opportunities will we providefor our citizens? what kind of rights will americans have? and i feel strongly that the supreme courtneeds to stand on the side of the american people, not on the side of the powerful corporationsand the wealthy.
for me, that means that we need a supremecourt that will stand up on behalf of women's rights, on behalf of the rights of the lgbtcommunity, that will stand up and say no to citizens united, a decision that has underminedthe election system in our country because of the way it permits dark, unaccountablemoney to come into our electoral system. i have major disagreements with my opponentabout these issues and others that will be before the supreme court. but i feel that at this point in our country'shistory, it is important that we not reverse marriage equality, that we not reverse roev. wade, that we stand up against citizens united, we stand up for the rights of peoplein the workplace, that we stand up and basically
say: the supreme court should represent allof us. that's how i see the court, and the kind ofpeople that i would be looking to nominate to the court would be in the great traditionof 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 itsjob and confirm the nominee that president obama has sent to them. that's the way the constitution fundamentallyshould operate. the president nominates, and then the senateadvises and consents, or not, but they go
forward with the process. wallace: secretary clinton, thank you. wallace: mr. trump, same question. where do you want to see the court take thecountry? and how do you believe the constitution shouldbe interpreted? trump: well, first of all, it's great to bewith you, and thank you, everybody. the supreme court: it's what it's all about. our country is so, so -- it's just so imperativethat we have the right justices. something happened recently where justiceginsburg made some very, very inappropriate
statements toward me and toward a tremendousnumber 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 opinionis 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 bea very, very small replica of what it is right
now. but i feel that it's absolutely importantthat we uphold, because of the fact that it is under such trauma. i feel that the justices that i am going toappoint -- and i've named 20 of them -- the justices that i'm going to appoint will bepro-life. they will have a conservative bent. they will be protecting the second amendment. they are great scholars in all cases, andthey're people of tremendous respect. they will interpret the constitution the waythe founders wanted it interpreted.
and i believe that's very, very important. i don't think we should have justices appointedthat decide what they want to hear. it's all about the constitution of -- of -- andso important, the constitution the way it was meant to be. and those are the people that i will appoint. wallace: mr. trump, thank you. wallace: we now have about 10 minutes foran 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, letme 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 right that is reasonablylimited. those were the words of the judge antoninscalia who wrote the decision. what's wrong with that? content from philipspatient-centered healthcare is coming discover how value-based care can lead togreater efficiency and better patient outcomes.
clinton: well, first of all, i support thesecond amendment. i lived in arkansas for 18 wonderful years. i represented upstate new york. i understand and respect the tradition ofgun ownership. it goes back to the founding of our country. but i also believe that there can be and mustbe reasonable regulation. because i support the second amendment doesn'tmean that i want people who shouldn't have guns to be able to threaten you, kill youor members of your family. and so when i think about what we need todo, 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 sensiblethat are the kind of reforms that would make a difference that are not in any way conflictingwith 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 thatcase, because what the district of columbia was trying to do was to protect toddlers fromguns and so they wanted people with guns to
safely store them. and the court didn't accept that reasonableregulation, but they've accepted many others. so i see no conflict between saving people'slives and defending the second amendment. wallace: let me bring mr. trump in here. the bipartisan open debate coalition got millionsof votes on questions to ask here, and this was, in fact, one of the top questions thatthey got. how will you ensure the second amendment isprotected? you just heard secretary clinton's answer. does she persuade you that, while you maydisagree on regulation, that, in fact, she
supports a second amendment right to beararms? trump: well, the d.c. vs. heller decisionwas 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, extremelyangry. and people that believe in the second amendmentand believe in it very strongly were very
upset with what she had to say. wallace: well, let me bring in secretary clinton. were you extremely upset? clinton: well, i was upset because, unfortunately,dozens of toddlers 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 secondamendment, that i also believe there's an individual right to bear arms. that is not in conflict with sensible, commonsenseregulation.
and, you know, look, i understand that donald'sbeen strongly supported by the nra. the gun lobby's on his side. they're running millions of dollars of adsagainst me. and i regret that, because what i would liketo see is for people to come together and say: of course we're going to protect anddefend the second amendment. but we're going to do it in a way that triesto save some of these 33,000 lives that we lose every year. wallace: let me bring mr. trump back intothis, because, in fact, you oppose any limits on assault weapons, any limits on high- capacitymagazines.
you support a national right to carry law. why, sir? trump: well, let me just tell you before wego any further. in chicago, which has the toughest gun lawsin the united states, probably you could say by far, they have more gun violence than anyother city. so we have the toughest laws, and you havetremendous gun violence. i am a very strong supporter of the secondamendment. and i am -- i don't know if hillary was sayingit in a sarcastic manner, but i'm very proud to have the endorsement of the nra.
and it's the earliest endorsement they'veever given to anybody who ran for president. so i'm very honored by all of that. we are going to appoint justices -- this isthe best way to help the second amendment. we are going to appoint justices that willfeel very strongly about the second amendment, that will not do damage to the second amendment. wallace: well, let's pick up on another issuewhich divides you and the justices that whoever ends up winning this election appoints couldhave a dramatic effect there, and that's the issue of abortion. trump: right.
wallace: mr. trump, you're pro-life. but i want to ask you specifically: do youwant the court, including the justices that you will name, to overturn roe v. wade, whichincludes -- in fact, states -- a woman's right to abortion? trump: well, if that would happen, becausei am pro-life, and i will be appointing pro-life judges, i would think that that will go backto the individual states. wallace: but i'm asking you specifically. would you like to... trump: if they overturned it, it will go backto the states.
wallace: but what i'm asking you, sir, is,do you want to see the court overturn -- you just said you want to see the court protectthe second amendment. do you want to see the court overturn roev. wade? trump: well, if we put another two or perhapsthree justice on, that's really what's going to be -- that will happen. and that'll happen automatically, in my opinion,because i am putting pro-life justices on the court. i will say this: it will go back to the states,and the states will then make a determination. wallace: secretary clinton?
clinton: well, i strongly support roe v. wade,which guarantees a constitutional right to a woman to make the most intimate, most difficult,in many cases, decisions about her health care that one can imagine. and in this case, it's not only about roev. wade. it is about what's happening right now inamerica. so many states are putting very stringentregulations on women that block them from exercising that choice to the extent thatthey are defunding planned parenthood, which, of course, provides all kinds of cancer screeningsand other benefits for women in our country. donald has said he's in favor of defundingplanned parenthood.
he even supported shutting the governmentdown to defund planned parenthood. i will defend planned parenthood. i will defend roe v. wade, and i will defendwomen's rights to make their own health care decisions. wallace: secretary clinton... clinton: and we have come too far to havethat turned back now. and, indeed, he said women should be punished,that there should be some form of punishment for women who obtain abortions. and i could just not be more opposed to thatkind of thinking.
wallace: i'm going to give you a chance torespond, but i want to ask you, secretary clinton, i want to explore how far you believethe right to abortion goes. you have been quoted as saying that the fetushas no constitutional rights. you also voted against a ban on late-term,partial-birth abortions. why? clinton: because roe v. wade very clearlysets out that there can be regulations on abortion so long as the life and the healthof the mother are taken into account. and when i voted as a senator, i did not thinkthat that was the case. the kinds of cases that fall at the end ofpregnancy are often the most heartbreaking,
painful decisions for families to make. i have met with women who toward the end oftheir pregnancy get the worst news one could get, that their health is in jeopardy if theycontinue to carry to term or that something terrible has happened or just been discoveredabout the pregnancy. i do not think the united states governmentshould be stepping in and making those most personal of decisions. so you can regulate if you are doing so withthe life and the health of the mother taken into account. wallace: mr. trump, your reaction?
and particularly on this issue of late-term,partial-birth abortions. trump: well, i think it's terrible. if you go with what hillary is saying, inthe ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the motherjust prior to the birth of the baby. now, you can say that that's ok and hillarycan say that that's ok. but it's not ok with me, because based onwhat she's saying, and based on where she's going, and where she's been, you can takethe baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month on the final day. and that's not acceptable.
clinton: well, that is not what happens inthese cases. and using that kind of scare rhetoric is justterribly unfortunate. you should meet with some of the women thati have met with, women i have known over the course of my life. this is one of the worst possible choicesthat any woman and her family has to make. and i do not believe the government shouldbe making it. you know, i've had the great honor of travelingacross the world on behalf of our country. i've been to countries where governments eitherforced women to have abortions, like they used to do in china, or forced women to bearchildren, like they used to do in romania.
and i can tell you: the government has nobusiness in the decisions that women make with their families in accordance with theirfaith, with medical advice. and i will stand up for that right. wallace: all right. but just briefly, i want to move on to anothersegment... trump: and, honestly, nobody has businessdoing what i just said, doing that, as late as one or two or three or four days priorto birth. nobody has that. let's move on to the subject of immigration.
and there is almost no issue that separatesthe two of you more than the issue of immigration. actually, there are a lot of issues that separatethe two of you. mr. trump, you want to build a wall. secretary clinton, you have offered no specificplan for how you want to secure our southern border. mr. trump, you are calling for major deportations. secretary clinton, you say that within yourfirst 100 days as president you're going to offer a package that includes a pathway tocitizenship. the question, really, is, why are you rightand your opponent wrong?
mr. trump, you go first in this segment. trump: well, first of all, she wants to giveamnesty, which is a disaster and very unfair to all of the people that are waiting on linefor many, many years. we need strong borders. in the audience tonight, we have four mothersof -- i mean, these are unbelievable people that i've gotten to know over a period ofyears whose children have been killed, brutally killed by people that came into the countryillegally. you have thousands of mothers and fathersand relatives all over the country. they're coming in illegally.
drugs are pouring in through the border. we have no country if we have no border. hillary wants to give amnesty. she wants to have open borders. the border -- as you know, the border patrolagents, 16,500-plus ice last week, endorsed me. first time they've ever endorsed a candidate. it means their job is tougher. but they know what's going on.
they know it better than anybody. they want strong borders. they feel we have to have strong borders. i was up in new hampshire the other day. the biggest complaint they have -- it's withall of the problems going on in the world, many of the problems caused by hillary clintonand by barack obama. all of the problems -- the single biggestproblem is heroin that pours across our southern it's just pouring and destroying their youth. it's poisoning the blood of their youth andplenty of other people.
we have to have strong borders. we have to keep the drugs out of our country. we are -- right now, we're getting the drugs,they're getting the cash. we need absolute -- we cannot give amnesty. now, i want to build the wall. we need the wall. and the border patrol, ice, they all wantthe wall. we stop the drugs. we shore up the border.
one of my first acts will be to get all ofthe drug lords, all of the bad ones -- we have some bad, bad people in this countrythat have to go out. we're going to get them out; we're going tosecure the border. and once the border is secured, at a laterdate, we'll make a determination as to the rest. but we have some bad hombres here, and we'regoing to get them out. same question to you, secretary clinton. basically, why are you right and mr. trumpis wrong? clinton: well, as he was talking, i was thinkingabout a young girl i met here in las vegas,
carla, who is very worried that her parentsmight be deported, because she was born in this country but they were not. they work hard, they do everything they canto give her a good life. and you're right. i don't want to rip families apart. i don't want to be sending parents away fromchildren. i don't want to see the deportation forcethat donald has talked about in action in our country. we have 11 million undocumented people.
they have 4 million american citizen children,15 million people. he said as recently as a few weeks ago inphoenix that every undocumented person would be subject to deportation. now, here's what that means. it means you would have to have a massivelaw enforcement presence, where law enforcement officers would be going school to school,home to home, business to business, rounding up people who are undocumented. and we would then have to put them on trains,on buses to get them out of our country. i think that is an idea that is not in keepingwith who we are as a nation.
i think it's an idea that would rip our countryapart. i have been for border security for years. i voted for border security in the unitedstates senate. and my comprehensive immigration reform planof course includes border security. but i want to put our resources where i thinkthey're most needed: getting rid of any violent person. anybody who should be deported, we shoulddeport them. when it comes to the wall that donald talksabout building, he went to mexico, he had a meeting with the mexican president.
didn't even raise it. he choked and then got into a twitter warbecause the mexican president said we're not paying for that wall. so i think we are both a nation of immigrantsand we are a nation of laws and that we can act accordingly. and that's why i'm introducing comprehensiveimmigration reform within the first 100 days with the path to citizenship. wallace: thank you, secretary clinton. i want to follow up...
trump: chris, i think it's... wallace: ok. trump: i think i should respond to that. first of all, i had a very good meeting withthe president of mexico. very nice man. we will be doing very much better with mexicoon trade deals. believe me. the nafta deal signed by her husband is oneof the worst deals ever made of any kind, signed by anybody.
it's a disaster. hillary clinton wanted the wall. hillary clinton fought for the wall in 2006or thereabouts. now, she never gets anything done, so naturallythe wall wasn't built. but hillary clinton wanted the wall. wallace: well, let me -- wait, wait, sir,let me... trump: we are a country of laws. we either have -- and by the way... wallace: now, wait.
i'd like to hear from... trump: well -- well, but she said one thing. wallace: i'd like to hear -- i'd like to hearfrom secretary clinton. clinton: i voted for border security, andthere are... trump: and the wall. clinton: there are some limited places wherethat was appropriate. there also is necessarily going to be newtechnology and how best to deploy that. but it is clear, when you look at what donaldhas been proposing, he started his campaign bashing immigrants, calling mexican immigrantsrapists and criminals and drug dealers, that
he has a very different view about what weshould do to deal with immigrants. now, what i am also arguing is that bringingundocumented immigrants out from the shadows, putting them into the formal economy willbe good, because then employers can't exploit them and undercut americans' wages. and donald knows a lot about this. he used undocumented labor to build the trumptower. he underpaid undocumented workers, and whenthey complained, he basically said what a lot of employers do: "you complain, i'll getyou deported." i want to get everybody out of the shadows,get the economy working, and not let employers
like donald exploit undocumented workers,which hurts them, but also hurts american workers. wallace: mr. trump? trump: president obama has moved millionsof people out. nobody knows about it, nobody talks aboutit. but under obama, millions of people have beenmoved out of this country. they've been deported. she doesn't want to say that, but that's what'shappened, and that's what happened big league. as far as moving these people out and moving-- we either have a country or we don't.
we're a country of laws. we either have a border or we don't. now, you can come back in and you can becomea citizen. but it's very unfair. we have millions of people that did it theright way. they're on line. they're waiting. we're going to speed up the process, big league,because it's very inefficient. but they're on line and they're waiting tobecome citizens.
very unfair that somebody runs across theborder, becomes a citizen, under her plan, you have open borders. you would have a disaster on trade, and youwill have a disaster with your open borders. wallace: i want to... trump: but what she doesn't say is that presidentobama has deported millions and millions of people just the way it is. wallace: secretary clinton, i want to... clinton: we will not have open borders. that is...
wallace: well, let me -- secretary... clinton: that is a rank mischaracterization. clinton: we will have secure borders, butwe'll also have reform. and this used to be a bipartisan issue. ronald reagan was the last president... wallace: secretary clinton, excuse me. secretary clinton. clinton: ... to sign immigration reform, andgeorge w. bush supported it, as well. wallace: secretary clinton, i want to clearup your position on this issue, because in
a speech you gave to a brazilian bank, forwhich you were paid $225,000, we've learned from the wikileaks, that you said this, andi want to quote. "my dream is a hemispheric common market withopen trade and open borders." so that's the question... trump: thank you. wallace: that's the question. please quiet, everybody. is that your dream, open borders? clinton: well, if you went on to read therest of the sentence, i was talking about
energy. you know, we trade more energy with our neighborsthan we trade with the rest of the world combined. and i do want us to have an electric grid,an energy system that crosses borders. i think that would be a great benefit to us. but you are very clearly quoting from wikileaks. and what's really important about wikileaksis that the russian government has engaged in espionage against americans. they have hacked american websites, americanaccounts of private people, of institutions. then they have given that information to wikileaksfor the purpose of putting it on the internet.
this has come from the highest levels of therussian government, clearly, from putin himself, in an effort, as 17 of our intelligence agencieshave confirmed, to influence our election. clinton: so i actually think the most importantquestion of this evening, chris, is, finally, will donald trump admit and condemn that therussians are doing this and make it clear that he will not have the help of putin inin this election, that he rejects russian espionage against americans, which he actuallyencouraged in the past? those are the questions we need answered. we've never had anything like this happenin any of our elections before. wallace: well?
trump: that was a great pivot off the factthat she wants open borders, ok? how did we get on to putin? wallace: hold on -- hold on, wait. hold on, folks. because we -- this is going to end up gettingout of control. let's try to keep it quiet so -- for the candidatesand for the american people. trump: so just to finish on the borders... wallace: yes? trump: she wants open borders.
people are going to pour into our country. people are going to come in from syria. she wants 550 percent more people than barackobama, and he has thousands and thousands of people. they have no idea where they come from. and you see, we are going to stop radicalislamic terrorism in this country. she won't even mention the words, and neitherwill president obama. so i just want to tell you, she wants openborders. now we can talk about putin.
i don't know putin. he said nice things about me. if we got along well, that would be good. if russia and the united states got alongwell and went after isis, that would be good. he has no respect for her. he has no respect for our president. and i'll tell you what: we're in very serioustrouble, because we have a country with tremendous numbers of nuclear warheads -- 1,800, by theway -- where they expanded and we didn't, 1,800 nuclear warheads.
and she's playing chicken. look, putin... wallace: wait, but... trump: ... from everything i see, has no respectfor this person. clinton: well, that's because he'd ratherhave a puppet as president of the united states. trump: no puppet. no puppet. clinton: and it's pretty clear... trump: you're the puppet!
clinton: it's pretty clear you won't admit... trump: no, you're the puppet. clinton: ... that the russians have engagedin cyberattacks against the united states of america, that you encouraged espionageagainst our people, that you are willing to spout the putin line, sign up for his wishlist, break up nato, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help fromhim, because he has a very clear favorite in this race. so i think that this is such an unprecedentedsituation. we've never had a foreign government tryingto interfere in our election.
we have 17 -- 17 intelligence agencies, civilianand military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks,come from the highest levels of the kremlin and they are designed to influence our election. i find that deeply disturbing. clinton: and i think it's time you take astand... trump: she has no idea whether it's russia,china, or anybody else. clinton: i am not quoting myself. trump: she has no idea. clinton: i am quoting 17...
trump: hillary, you have no idea. clinton: ... 17 intelligence -- do you doubt17 military and civilian... trump: and our country has no idea. clinton: ... agencies. trump: yeah, i doubt it. i doubt it. clinton: well, he'd rather believe vladimirputin than the military and civilian intelligence professionals who are sworn to protect us. i find that just absolutely...
(crosstalk) trump: she doesn't like putin because putinhas outsmarted her at every step of the way. wallace: mr. trump... trump: excuse me. putin has outsmarted her in syria. trump: he's outsmarted her every step of theway. wallace: i do get to ask some questions. trump: yes, that's fine. wallace: and i would like to ask you thisdirect question.
the top national security officials of thiscountry do believe that russia has been behind these hacks. even if you don't know for sure whether theyare, do you condemn any interference by russia in the american election? trump: by russia or anybody else. wallace: you condemn their interference? trump: of course i condemn. donald trump: nobody knows the system betterthan me. i alone can fix it. donald trump: hillary failed on the economy.everything she touched didn't work out.
judy woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff.gwen ifill is away tonight. so, we're at the third one. and it will allbe over after this one. he's behind, and so he's got to try some desperatemove. and the trick for her will be to see if she can be strong enough to rebut whateverhe says, while still projecting some sense of positivity that will attract some peopleto her. over? will we feel better about our countryor worse? he has to have concluded after -- and he rattledthem. and he bullied them. and he has to have concluded, after two debates, that that hasn'tworked with hillary clinton. after 26 debates with barack obama, she's far more formidablethan anybody he faced in the republican primaries.
and i don't know. i think he's just goingto throw everything today. your home always told, you never get a secondchance to make a good first impression. his first debate performance, i think, in manyways sealed the fate of his entire candidacy. a republican strategist told me he needs todo tonight. he just put in all caps, "e-mails, foundation, failed record, e-mails, foundation,failed record, e-mails, foundation, failed record." vegas. i'm chris wallace of fox news, andi welcome you to the third and final of the 2016 presidential debates between secretaryof state hillary clinton and donald j. trump. wallace: this debate is sponsored by the commissionon presidential debates. the commission has
designed the format: six roughly 15-minutesegments with two-minute answers to the first question, then open discussion for the restof each segment. both campaigns have agreed to those rules. for the record, i decided the topics and thequestions in each topic. none of those questions has been shared with the commission or thetwo 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. secretary clinton, mr. trump, welcome. let'sget right to it. the first topic is the supreme court.
first of all, where do you want to see thecourt take the country? and secondly, what's your view on how the constitution should beinterpreted? do the founders' words mean what they say or is it a living document to beapplied flexibly according to changing circumstances? in this segment, secretary clinton, you gofirst. you have two minutes. clinton: thank you very much, chris. and thanksto unlv for hosting us. in this election, namely, what kind of countryare we going to be? what kind of opportunities will we provide for our citizens? what kindof rights will americans have? people, not on the side of the powerful corporationsand the wealthy. for me, that means that we need a supreme court that will stand up onbehalf of women's rights, on behalf of the
rights of the lgbt community, that will standup and say no to citizens united, a decision that has undermined the election system inour country because of the way it permits dark, unaccountable money to come into ourelectoral system. before the supreme court. but i feel thatat this point in our country's history, it is important that we not reverse marriageequality, 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 basicallysay: the supreme court should represent all of us. and i look forward to having that opportunity.i would hope that the senate would do its
job and confirm the nominee that presidentobama 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 goforward with the process. wallace: mr. trump, same question. where doyou want to see the court take the country? trump: well, first of all, it's great to bewith you, and thank you, everybody. the supreme court: it's what it's all about. our countryis so, so -- it's just so imperative that we have the right justices. that i represent. and she was forced to apologize.and apologize she did. but these were statements that should never, ever have been made.
all amendments, but the second amendment,which is under absolute siege. i believe if my opponent should win this race, which itruly don't think will happen, we will have a second amendment which will be a very, verysmall replica of what it is right now. but i feel that it's absolutely important thatwe uphold, because of the fact that it is under such trauma. justices that i'm going to appoint will bepro-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. theywill interpret the constitution the way the founders wanted it interpreted. and i believethat's very, very important.
i don't think we should have justices appointedthat decide what they want to hear. it's all about the constitution of -- of -- and soimportant, the constitution the way it was meant to be. and those are the people thati will appoint. wallace: we now have about 10 minutes foran open discussion. i want to focus on two issues that, in fact, by the justices thatyou name could end up changing the existing law of the land. first is one that you mentioned,mr. trump, and that is guns. second amendment." and now, in fact, in the2008 heller case, the court ruled that there is a constitutional right to bear arms, buta right that is reasonably limited. those were the words of the judge antonin scaliawho wrote the decision. what's wrong with
that? clinton: well, first of all, i support thesecond amendment. i lived in arkansas for 18 wonderful years. i represented upstatenew york. i understand and respect the tradition of gun ownership. it goes back to the foundingof our country. but i also believe that there can be and mustbe reasonable regulation. because i support the second amendment doesn't mean that i wantpeople who shouldn't have guns to be able to threaten you, kill you or members of yourfamily. guns. i think we need comprehensive backgroundchecks, need to close the online loophole, close the gun show loophole. there's othermatters that i think are sensible that are
the kind of reforms that would make a differencethat are not in any way conflicting with the second amendment. you mentioned the heller decision. and whati was saying that you referenced, chris, was that i disagreed with the way the court appliedthe second amendment in that case, because what the district of columbia was trying todo was to protect toddlers from guns and so they wanted people with guns to safely storethem. 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. wallace: let me bring mr. trump in here. thebipartisan open debate coalition got millions
of votes on questions to ask here, and thiswas, in fact, one of the top questions that they got. how will you ensure the second amendmentis protected? you just heard secretary clinton's answer. does she persuade you that, whileyou may disagree on regulation, that, in fact, she supports a second amendment right to beararms? trump: well, the d.c. vs. heller decision was very strongly -- and she was extremelyangry about it. i watched. i mean, she was very, very angry when upheld. and justicescalia 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 verystrongly were very upset with what she had to say.
wallace: well, let me bring in secretary clinton.were you extremely upset? individual right to bear arms. that is notin conflict with sensible, commonsense regulation. and, you know, look, i understand that donald'sbeen strongly supported by the nra. the gun lobby's on his side. they're running millionsof dollars of ads against me. and i regret that, because what i would like to see isfor people to come together and say: of course we're going to protect and defend the secondamendment. but we're going to do it in a way that tries to save some of these 33,000 livesthat we lose every year. on assault weapons, any limits on high- capacitymagazines. you support a national right to carry law. why, sir?
trump: well, let me just tell you before wego any further. in chicago, which has the toughest gun laws in the united states, probablyyou could say by far, they have more gun violence than any other city. so we have the toughestlaws, and you have tremendous gun violence. i am a very strong supporter of the secondamendment. and i am -- i don't know if hillary was saying it in a sarcastic manner, but i'mvery proud to have the endorsement of the nra. and it's the earliest endorsement they'veever given to anybody who ran for president. wallace: mr. trump, you're pro-life. but iwant to ask you specifically: do you want the court, including the justices that youwill name, to overturn roe v. wade, which includes -- in fact, states -- a woman's rightto abortion?
wallace: but i'm asking you specifically.would you like to... just said you want to see the court protectthe second amendment. do you want to see the court overturn roe v. wade? to be -- that will happen. and that'll happenautomatically, in my opinion, because i am putting pro-life justices on the court. iwill say this: it will go back to the states, and the states will then make a determination. care that one can imagine. and in this case,it's not only about roe v. wade. it is about what's happening right now in america. donald has said he's in favor of defundingplanned parenthood. he even supported shutting
the government down to defund planned parenthood.i will defend planned parenthood. i will defend roe v. wade, and i will defend women's rightsto make their own health care decisions. wallace: secretary clinton... clinton: andwe have come too far to have that turned back now. and, indeed, he said women should bepunished, that there should be some form of punishment for women who obtain abortions.and i could just not be more opposed to that kind of thinking. clinton, i want to explore how far you believethe right to abortion goes. you have been quoted as saying that the fetus has no constitutionalrights. you also voted against a ban on late-term, partial-birth abortions. why?
abortion so long as the life and the healthof the mother are taken into account. and when i voted as a senator, i did not thinkthat that was the case. painful decisions for families to make. ihave met with women who toward the end of their pregnancy get the worst news one couldget, that their health is in jeopardy if they continue to carry to term or that somethingterrible has happened or just been discovered about the pregnancy. i do not think the unitedstates government should be stepping in and making those most personal of decisions. soyou can regulate if you are doing so with the life and the health of the mother takeninto account. wallace: mr. trump, your reaction? and particularlyon this issue of late-term, partial-birth
abortions. trump: well, i think it's terrible. if yougo with what hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the babyout of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. now, you can say that that's ok and hillarycan say that that's ok. but it's not ok with me, because based on what she's saying, andbased on where she's going, and where she's been, you can take the baby and rip the babyout of the womb in the ninth month on the final day. and that's not acceptable. clinton: well, that is not what happens inthese cases. and using that kind of scare
rhetoric is just terribly unfortunate. youshould meet with some of the women that i have met with, women i have known over thecourse of my life. this is one of the worst possible choices that any woman and her familyhas to make. and i do not believe the government should be making it. with their families in accordance with theirfaith, with medical advice. and i will stand up for that right. wallace: all right. but just briefly, i wantto move on to another segment... as one or two or three or four days priorto birth. nobody has that. wallace: all right. let's move on to the subjectof immigration. and there is almost no issue
that separates the two of you more than theissue of immigration. actually, there are a lot of issues that separate the two of you. mr. trump, you want to build a wall. secretaryclinton, you have offered no specific plan for how you want to secure our southern border.mr. trump, you are calling for major deportations. offer a package that includes a pathway tocitizenship. the question, really, is, why are you right and your opponent wrong? mr. trump, you go first in this segment. youhave two minutes. to all of the people that are waiting on linefor many, many years. we need strong borders. killed by people that came into the countryillegally. you have thousands of mothers and
fathers and relatives all over the country.they're coming in illegally. drugs are pouring in through the border. we have no countryif we have no border. hillary wants to give amnesty. she wants tohave open borders. the border -- as you know, the border patrol agents, 16,500-plus icelast week, endorsed me. first time they've ever endorsed a candidate. it means theirjob is tougher. but they know what's going on. they know it better than anybody. theywant strong borders. they feel we have to have strong borders. i was up in new hampshire the other day. thebiggest complaint they have -- it's with all of the problems going on in the world, manyof the problems caused by hillary clinton
and by barack obama. all of the problems -- thesingle biggest problem is heroin that pours across our southern border. it's just pouringand destroying their youth. it's poisoning the blood of their youth and plenty of otherpeople. we have to have strong borders. we have to keep the drugs out of our country.we are -- right now, we're getting the drugs, they're getting the cash. we need strong borders.we need absolute -- we cannot give amnesty. now, i want to build the wall. we need thewall. and the border patrol, ice, they all want the wall. we stop the drugs. we shoreup the border. one of my first acts will be to get all of the drug lords, all of the badones -- we have some bad, bad people in this country that have to go out. we're going toget them out; we're going to secure the border.
rest. but we have some bad hombres here, andwe're going to get them out. wallace: mr. trump, thank you. same questionto you, secretary clinton. basically, why are you right and mr. trump is wrong? this country but they were not. they workhard, they do everything they can to give her a good life. and you're right. i don't want to rip familiesapart. i don't want to be sending parents away from children. i don't want to see thedeportation force that donald has talked about in action in our country. we have 11 million undocumented people. theyhave 4 million american citizen children,
15 million people. he said as recently asa few weeks ago in phoenix that every undocumented person would be subject to deportation. now,here's what that means. it means you would have to have a massive law enforcement presence,where law enforcement officers would be going school to school, home to home, business tobusiness, rounding up people who are undocumented. i think that is an idea that is not in keepingwith who we are as a nation. i think it's an idea that would rip our country apart. i have been for border security for years.i voted for border security in the united states senate. and my comprehensive immigrationreform plan of course includes border security. person. anybody who should be deported, weshould deport them.
a meeting with the mexican president. didn'teven raise it. he choked and then got into a twitter war because the mexican presidentsaid we're not paying for that wall. act accordingly. and that's why i'm introducingcomprehensive immigration reform within the first 100 days with the path to citizenship. wallace: thank you, secretary clinton. i wantto follow up... trump: i think i should respond to that. firstof all, i had a very good meeting with the president of mexico. very nice man. we willbe doing very much better with mexico on trade deals. believe me. the nafta deal signed byher husband is one of the worst deals ever made of any kind, signed by anybody. it'sa disaster.
hillary clinton wanted the wall. hillary clintonfought for the wall in 2006 or thereabouts. now, she never gets anything done, so naturallythe wall wasn't built. but hillary clinton wanted the wall. trump: we are a country of laws. we eitherhave -- and by the way... wallace: now, wait. i'd like to hear from... clinton: there are some limited places wherethat was appropriate. there also is necessarily going to be new technology and how best todeploy that. and donald knows a lot about this. he usedundocumented labor to build the trump tower. trump: president obama has moved millionsof people out. nobody knows about it, nobody
talks about it. but under obama, millionsof people have been moved out of this country. they've been deported. she doesn't want tosay that, but that's what's happened, and that's what happened big league. as far as moving these people out and moving-- we either have a country or we don't. we're a country of laws. we either have a borderor we don't. now, you can come back in and you can becomea citizen. but it's very unfair. we have millions of people that did it the right way. they'reon line. they're waiting. we're going to speed up the process, big league, because it's veryinefficient. but they're on line and they're waiting to become citizens.
you have open borders. you would have a disasteron trade, and you will have a disaster with your open borders. clinton: we will not have open borders. thatis... clinton: we will have secure borders, butwe'll also have reform. and this used to be a bipartisan issue. ronald reagan was thelast president... wallace: secretary clinton, excuse me. secretaryclinton. from the wikileaks, that you said this, andi want to quote. "my dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders."so that's the question... wallace: that's the question. please quiet,everybody. is that your dream, open borders?
energy. you know, we trade more energy withour neighbors than we trade with the rest of the world combined. and i do want us tohave an electric grid, an energy system that crosses borders. i think that would be a greatbenefit to us. but you are very clearly quoting from wikileaks.and what's really important about wikileaks is that the russian government has engagedin espionage against americans. they have hacked american websites, american accountsof private people, of institutions. then they have given that information to wikileaks forthe purpose of putting it on the internet. espionage against americans, which he actuallyencouraged in the past? those are the questions we need answered. we've never had anythinglike this happen in any of our elections before.
trump: that was a great pivot off the factthat she wants open borders, ok? how did we get on to putin? wallace: hold on -- hold on, wait. hold on,folks. because we -- this is going to end up getting out of control. let's try to keepit quiet so -- for the candidates and for the american people. trump: she wants open borders. people aregoing to pour into our country. people are going to come in from syria. she wants 550percent more people than barack obama, and he has thousands and thousands of people.they have no idea where they come from. and you see, we are going to stop radicalislamic terrorism in this country. she won't
even mention the words, and neither will presidentobama. so i just want to tell you, she wants open borders. now we can talk about putin. i don't knowputin. he said nice things about me. if we got along well, that would be good. if russiaand the united states got along well and went after isis, that would be good. he has no respect for her. he has no respectfor our president. and i'll tell you what: we're in very serious trouble, because wehave a country with tremendous numbers of nuclear warheads -- 1,800, by the way -- wherethey expanded and we didn't, 1,800 nuclear warheads. and she's playing chicken. look,putin...
trump: no puppet. no puppet. so i think that this is such an unprecedentedsituation. we've never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election. we have17 -- 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that theseespionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the kremlin andthey are designed to influence our election. trump: yeah, i doubt it. i doubt it. professionals who are sworn to protect us.i find that just absolutely... trump: excuse me. putin has outsmarted herin syria. wallace: and i would like to ask you thisdirect question. the top national security
officials of this country do believe thatrussia has been behind these hacks. even if you don't know for sure whether they are,do you condemn any interference by russia trump: of course i condemn. of course i -- idon't know putin. i have no idea. wallace: i'm not asking -- i'm asking do youcondemn? trump: i never met putin. this is not my bestfriend. but if the united states got along with russia, wouldn't be so bad. let me tell you, putin has outsmarted herand obama at every single step of the way. whether it's syria, you name it. missiles.take a look at the "start up" that they signed. the russians have said, according to many,many reports, i can't believe they allowed
us to do this. they create warheads, and wecan't. the russians can't believe it. she has been outsmarted by putin. and all you have to do is look at the middleeast. they've taken over. we've spent $6 trillion. they've taken over the middle east. she hasbeen outsmarted and outplayed worse than anybody i've ever seen in any government whatsoever. wallace: we're a long way away from immigration,but i'm going to let you finish this topic. you got about 45 seconds. trump: and she always will be. clinton: i -- i find it ironic that he's raisingnuclear weapons. this is a person who has
been very cavalier, even casual about theuse of nuclear weapons. he's... trump: wrong. clinton: ... advocated morecountries getting them, japan, korea, even saudi arabia. he said, well, if we have them,why don't we use them, which i think is terrifying. but here's the deal. the bottom line on nuclearweapons is that when the president gives the order, it must be followed. there's aboutfour minutes between the order being given and the people responsible for launching nuclearweapons to do so. and that's why 10 people who have had that awesome responsibility havecome out and, in an unprecedented way, said they would not trust donald trump with thenuclear codes or to have his finger on the nuclear button.
trump: i have 200 generals... wallace: very quickly. trump: ... and admirals, 21 endorsing me,21 congressional medal of honor recipients. as far as japan and other countries, we arebeing ripped off by everybody in the -- we're defending other countries. we are spendinga fortune doing it. they have the bargain of the century. all i said is, we have to renegotiate theseagreements, because our country cannot afford to defend saudi arabia, japan, germany, southkorea, and many other places. we cannot continue to afford -- she took that as saying nuclearweapons.
trump: look, she's been proven to be a liaron so many different ways. this is just another lie. clinton: well, i'm just quoting you when youwere asked... trump: there's no quote. you're not goingto find a quote from me. clinton: ... about a potential nuclear -- nuclearcompetition in asia, you said, you know, go ahead, enjoy yourselves, folks. that kind... trump: and defend yourselves. clinton: ... of language -- well... trump: and defend yourselves. i didn't saynuclear. and defend yourself.
clinton: the united states has kept the peace-- the united states has kept the peace through our alliances. donald wants to tear up ouralliances. i think it makes the world safer and, frankly, it makes the united states safer.i would work with our allies in asia, in europe, in the middle east, and elsewhere. that'sthe only way we're going to be able to keep the peace. wallace: we're going to -- no, we are goingto move on to the next topic, which is the economy. and i hope we handle that as wellas we did immigration. you also have very different ideas about how to get the economygrowing faster. secretary clinton, in your plan, government plays a big role. you seemore government spending, more entitlements,
more tax credits, more tax penalties. mr.trump, you want to get government out with lower taxes and less regulation. trump: yes. wallace: we're going to drill down into thisa little bit more. but in this overview, please explain to me why you believe that your planwill create more jobs and growth for this country and your opponent's plan will not.in this round, you go first, secretary clinton. clinton: well, i think when the middle classthrives, america thrives. and so my plan is based on growing the economy, giving middle-classfamilies many more opportunities. i want us to have the biggest jobs program since worldwar ii, jobs in infrastructure and advanced
manufacturing. i think we can compete withhigh-wage countries, and i believe we should. new jobs and clean energy, not only to fightclimate change, which is a serious problem, but to create new opportunities and new businesses. i want us to do more to help small business.that's where two- thirds of the new jobs are going to come from. i want us to raise thenational minimum wage, because people who live in poverty should not -- who work full-timeshould not still be in poverty. and i sure do want to make sure women get equal pay forthe work we do. i feel strongly that we have to have an educationsystem that starts with preschool and goes through college. that's why i want more technicaleducation in high schools and in community
colleges, real apprenticeships to prepareyoung people for the jobs of the future. i want to make college debt-free and for familiesmaking less than $125,000, you will not get a tuition bill from a public college or universityif the plan that i worked on with bernie sanders is enacted. and we're going to work hard to make surethat it is, because we are going to go where the money is. most of the gains in the lastyears since the great recession have gone to the very top. so we are going to have thewealthy pay their fair share. we're going to have corporations make a contribution greaterthan they are now to our country. that is a plan that has been analyzed by independentexperts which said that it could produce 10
million new jobs. by contrast, donald's planhas been analyzed to conclude it might lose 3.5 million jobs. why? because his whole planis to cut taxes, to give the biggest tax breaks ever to the wealthy and to corporations, adding$20 trillion to our debt, and causing the kind of dislocation that we have seen before,because it truly will be trickle-down economics on steroids. so the plan i have i think will actually producegreater opportunities. the plan he has will cost us jobs and possibly lead to anothergreat recession. wallace: secretary, thank you. mr. trump,why will your plan create more jobs and growth than secretary clinton's?
trump: well, first of all, before i starton my plan, her plan is going to raise taxes and even double your taxes. her tax plan isa disaster. and she can say all she wants about college tuition. and i'm a big proponent.we're going to do a lot of things for college tuition. but the rest of the public's goingto be paying for it. we will have a massive, massive tax increase under hillary clinton'splan. trump: but i'd like to start off where weleft, because when i said japan and germany, and i'm -- not to single them out, but southkorea, these are very rich, powerful countries. saudi arabia, nothing but money. we protectsaudi arabia. why aren't they paying? she immediately -- when she heard this, iquestioned it, and i questioned nato. why
aren't the nato questioned -- why aren't theypaying? because they weren't paying. since i did this -- this was a year ago -- allof a sudden, they're paying. and i've been given a lot -- a lot of credit for it. allof a sudden, they're starting to pay up. they have to pay up. we're protecting people, theyhave to pay up. and i'm a big fan of nato. but they have to pay up. she comes out and said, we love our allies,we think our allies are great. well, it's awfully hard to get them to pay up when youhave somebody saying we think how great they are. we have to tell japan in a very nice way,we have to tell germany, all of these countries,
south korea, we have to say, you have to helpus out. we have, during his regime, during president obama's regime, we've doubled ournational debt. we're up to $20 trillion. so my plan -- we're going to renegotiate tradedeals. we're going to have a lot of free trade. we're going to have free trade, more freetrade than we have right now. but we have horrible deals. our jobs are being taken outby the deal that her husband signed, nafta, one of the worst deals ever. our jobs arebeing sucked out of our economy. you look at all of the places that i justleft, you go to pennsylvania, you go to ohio, you go to florida, you go to any of them.you go upstate new york. our jobs have fled to mexico and other places. we're bringingour jobs back.
i am going to renegotiate nafta. and if ican't make a great deal -- then we're going to terminate nafta and we're going to createnew deals. we're going to have trade, but we're going -- we're going to terminate it,we're going to make a great trade deal. and if we can't, we're going to do it -- we'regoing to go a separate way, because it has been a disaster. we are going to cut taxesmassively. we're going to cut business taxes massively. they're going to start hiring people.we're going to bring the $2.5 trillion... wallace: time, mr. trump. trump: ... that's offshore back into the country.we are going to start the engine rolling again, because...
trump: ... right now, our country is dyingat 1 percent gdp. clinton: well, let me translate that, if ican, chris, because... trump: you can't. clinton: ... the fact is, he's going to advocatefor the largest tax cuts we've ever seen, three times more than the tax cuts under thebush administration. i have said repeatedly throughout this campaign: i will not raisetaxes on anyone making $250,000 or less. i also will not add a penny to the debt. ihave costed out what i'm going to do. he will, through his massive tax cuts, add $20 trillionto the debt. well, he mentioned the debt. we know how toget control of the debt. when my husband was
president, we went from a $300 billion deficitto a $200 billion surplus and we were actually on the path to eliminating the national debt.when president obama came into office, he inherited the worst economic disaster sincethe great depression. he has cut the deficit by two-thirds. so, yes, one of the ways you go after thedebt, one of the ways you create jobs is by investing in people. so i do have investments,investments in new jobs, investments in education, skill training, and the opportunities forpeople to get ahead and stay ahead. that's the kind of approach that will work. wallace: secretary...
clinton: cutting taxes on the wealthy, we'vetried that. it has not worked the way that it has been promised. wallace: secretary clinton, i want to pursueyour plan, because in many ways it is similar to the obama stimulus plan in 2009, whichhas led to the slowest gdp growth since 1949. trump: correct. wallace: thank you, sir. you told me in july when we spoke that theproblem is that president obama didn't get to do enough in what he was trying to do withhis stimulus. so is your plan basically more -- even more of the obama stimulus?
clinton: well, it's a combination, chris.and let me say that when you inherit the level of economic catastrophe that president obamainherited, it was a real touch-and-go situation. i was in the senate before i became secretaryof state. i've never seen people as physically distraught as the bush administration teamwas because of what was happening to the economy. i personally believe that the steps that presidentobama took saved the economy. he doesn't get the credit he deserves for taking some veryhard positions. but it was a terrible recession. so now we've dug ourselves out of it, we'restanding, but we're not yet running. so what i am proposing is that we invest from themiddle out and the ground up, not the top down. that is not going to work.
that's why what i have put forward doesn'tadd a penny to the debt, but it is the kind of approach that will enable more people totake those new jobs, higher-paying jobs. we're beginning to see some increase in incomes,and we certainly have had a long string of increasing jobs. we've got to do more to getthe whole economy moving, and that's what i believe i will be able to do. wallace: mr. trump, even conservative economistswho have looked at your plan say that the numbers don't add up, that your idea, andyou've talked about 25 million jobs created, 4 percent... trump: over a 10-year period.
wallace: ... growth is unrealistic. and theysay -- you talk a lot about growing the energy industry. they say with oil prices as lowas they are right now, that's unrealistic, as well. your response, sir? trump: so i just left some high representativesof india. they're growing at 8 percent. china is growing at 7 percent. and that for themis a catastrophically low number. we are growing -- our last report came out-- and it's right around the 1 percent level. and i think it's going down. last week, asyou know, the end of last week, they came out with an anemic jobs report. a terriblejobs report. in fact i said, is that the last jobs report before the election? because ifit is, i should win easily, it was so bad.
the report was so bad. look, our country is stagnant. we've lostour jobs. we've lost our businesses. we're not making things anymore, relatively speaking.our product is pouring in from china, pouring in from vietnam, pouring in from all overthe world. i've visited so many communities. this hasbeen such an incredible education for me, chris. i've gotten to know so many -- i'vedeveloped so many friends over the last year. and they cry when they see what's happened.i pass factories that were thriving 20, 25 years ago, and because of the bill that herhusband signed and she blessed 100 percent, it is just horrible what's happened to thesepeople in these communities.
now, she can say that her husband did well,but, boy, did they suffer as nafta kicked in, because it didn't really kick in verymuch, but it kicked in after they left. boy, did they suffer. that was one of the worstthings that's ever been signed by our country. now she wants to sign trans-pacific partnership.and she wants it. she lied when she said she didn't call it the gold standard in one ofthe debates. she totally lied. she did call it the gold standard. and they actually factchecked, and they said i was right. i was so honored. wallace: i want you to give you a chance tobriefly speak to that, and then i want to pivot to one-sixth of the economy...
trump: and that will be as bad as nafta. wallace: ... which is obamacare. but go ahead,briefly. clinton: well, first, let me say, number one,when i saw the final agreement for tpp, i said i was against it. it didn't meet my test.i've had the same test. does it create jobs, raise incomes, and further our national security?i'm against it now. i'll be against it after the election. i'll be against it when i'mpresident. there's only one of us on this stage who'sactually shipped jobs to mexico, because that's donald. he's shipped jobs to 12 countries,including mexico. but he mentioned china. and, you know, oneof the biggest problems we have with china
is the illegal dumping of steel and aluminuminto our markets. i have fought against that as a senator. i've stood up against it assecretary of state. donald has bought chinese steel and aluminum.in fact, the trump hotel right here in las vegas was made with chinese steel. so he goesaround with crocodile tears about how terrible it is, but he has given jobs to chinese steelworkers,not american steelworkers. clinton: that's the kind of approach thatis just not going to work. trump: well, let me just say -- let me justsay. clinton: we're going to pull the country together.we're going to have trade agreements that we enforce. that's why i'm going to have atrade prosecutor for the first time in history.
and we're going to enforce those agreements,and we're going to look for businesses to help us by buying american products. wallace: secretary clinton? go ahead, mr.trump. trump: let me ask a simple question. she'sbeen doing this for 30 years. why the hell didn't you do it over the last 15, 20 years? clinton: no, i voted. trump: you were very much involved -- excuseme. my turn. you were very much involved in every aspect of this country. very much. andyou do have experience. i say the one thing you have over me is experience, but it's badexperience, because what you've done has turned
out badly. for 30 years, you've been in a position tohelp, and if you say that i use steel or i use something else, i -- make it impossiblefor me to do that. i wouldn't mind. the problem is, you talk, but you don't getanything done, hillary. you don't. just like when you ran the state department, $6 billionwas missing. how do you miss $6 billion? you ran the state department, $6 billion was eitherstolen. they don't know. it's gone, $6 billion. if you become president, this country is goingto be in some mess. believe me. clinton: well, first of all, what he justsaid about the state department is not only untrue, it's been debunked numerous times.
clinton: but i think it's really an importantissue. he raised the 30 years of experience, so let me just talk briefly about that. youknow, back in the 1970s, i worked for the children's defense fund. and i was takingon discrimination against african-american kids in schools. he was getting sued by thejustice department for racial discrimination in his apartment buildings. in the 1980s, i was working to reform theschools in arkansas. he was borrowing $14 million from his father to start his businesses.in the 1990s, i went to beijing and i said women's rights are human rights. he insulteda former miss universe, alicia machado, called her an eating machine.
trump: give me a break. clinton: and on the day when i was in thesituation room, monitoring the raid that brought osama bin laden to justice, he was hostingthe "celebrity apprentice." so i'm happy to compare my 30 years of experience, what i'vedone for this country, trying to help in every way i could, especially kids and familiesget ahead and stay ahead, with your 30 years, and i'll let the american people make thatdecision. trump: well, i think i did a much better job.i built a massive company, a great company, some of the greatest assets anywhere in theworld, worth many, many billions of dollars. i started with a $1 million loan. i agreewith that. it's a $1 million loan. but i built
a phenomenal company. and if we could run our country the way i'verun my company, we would have a country that you would be so proud of. you would even beproud of it. and frankly, when you look at her real record,take a look at syria. take a look at the migration. take a look at libya. take a look at iraq.she gave us isis, because her and obama created this huge vacuum, and a small group came outof that huge vacuum because when -- we should never have been in iraq, but once we werethere, we should have never got out the way they wanted to get out. she gave us isis assure as you are sitting there. and what happened is now isis is in 32 countries. and now ilisten how she's going to get rid of isis.
she's going to get rid of nobody. wallace: all right. we are going to get toforeign hot spots in a few moments, but the next segment is fitness to be president ofthe united states. mr. trump, at the last debate, you said your talk about grabbingwomen was just that, talk, and that you'd never actually done it. and since then, aswe all know, nine women have come forward and have said that you either groped themor kissed them without their consent. why would so many different women from somany different circumstances over so many different years, why would they all in thislast couple of weeks make up -- you deny this -- why would they all make up these stories?
since this is a question for both of you,secretary clinton, mr. trump says what your husband did and that you defended was evenworse. mr. trump, you go first. trump: well, first of all, those stories havebeen largely debunked. those people -- i don't know those people. i have a feeling how theycame. i believe it was her campaign that did it. just like if you look at what came out todayon the clips where i was wondering what happened with my rally in chicago and other rallieswhere we had such violence? she's the one and obama that caused the violence. they hiredpeople -- they paid them $1,500, and they're on tape saying be violent, cause fights, dobad things.
i would say the only way -- because thosestories are all totally false, i have to say that. and i didn't even apologize to my wife,who's sitting right here, because i didn't do anything. i didn't know any of these -- ididn't see these women. these women -- the woman on the plane, the-- i think they want either fame or her campaign did it. and i think it's her campaign. becausewhat i saw what they did, which is a criminal act, by the way, where they're telling peopleto go out and start fist-fights and start violence. and i'll tell you what, in particular in chicago,people were hurt and people could have been killed in that riot. and that was now allon tape, started by her. i believe, chris,
that she got these people to step forward.if it wasn't, they get their 10 minutes of fame. but they were all totally -- it wasall fiction. it was lies, and it was fiction. clinton: well... clinton: at the last debate, we heard donaldtalking about what he did to women. and after that, a number of women have come forwardsaying that's exactly what he did to them. now, what was his response? well, he helda number of big rallies where he said that he could not possibly have done those thingsto those women because they were not attractive enough for them to be assaulted. trump: i did not say that. i did not say that.
clinton: in fact, he went on to say... wallace:her two minutes -- sir, her two minutes. her two minutes. trump: i did not say that. wallace: it's her two minutes. clinton: he went on to say, "look at her.i don't think so." about another woman, he said, "that wouldn't be my first choice."he attacked the woman reporter writing the story, called her "disgusting," as he hascalled a number of women during this campaign. donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger.he goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and i don't think there is a woman anywherewho doesn't know what that feels like. so
we now know what donald thinks and what hesays and how he acts toward women. that's who donald is. i think it's really up to all of us to demonstratewho we are and who our country is, and to stand up and be very clear about what we expectfrom our next president, how we want to bring our country together, where we don't wantto have the kind of pitting of people one against the other, where instead we celebrateour diversity, we lift people up, and we make our country even greater. america is great, because america is good.and it really is up to all of us to make that true, now and in the future, and particularlyfor our children and our grandchildren.
trump: nobody has more respect for women thani do. nobody. nobody has more respect... wallace: please, everybody. trump: and frankly, those stories have beenlargely debunked. and i really want to just talk about something slightly different. she mentions this, which is all fiction, allfictionalized, probably or possibly started by her and her very sleazy campaign. but iwill tell you what isn't fictionalized are her e-mails, where she destroyed 33,000 e-mailscriminally, criminally, after getting a subpoena from the united states congress.
what happened to the fbi, i don't know. wehave a great general, four-star general, today you read it in all of the papers, going topotentially serve five years in jail for lying to the fbi. one lie. she's lied hundreds oftimes to the people, to congress, and to the fbi. he's going to probably go to jail. thisis a four-star general. and she gets away with it, and she can run for the presidencyof the united states? that's really what you should be talking about, not fiction, wheresomebody wants fame or where they come out of her crooked campaign. clinton: well, every time donald is pushedon something which is obviously uncomfortable, like what these women are saying, he immediatelygoes to denying responsibility. and it's not
just about women. he never apologizes or sayshe's sorry for anything. so we know what he has said and what he'sdone to women. but he also went after a disabled reporter, mocked and mimicked him on nationaltelevision. trump: wrong. clinton: he went after mr. and mrs. khan,the parents of a young man who died serving our country, a gold star family, because oftheir religion. he went after john mccain, a prisoner of war, said he prefers "peoplewho aren't captured." he went after a federal judge, born in indiana, but who donald saidcouldn't be trusted to try the fraud and racketeering case against trump university because hisparents were mexican.
so it's not one thing. this is a pattern,a pattern of divisiveness, of a very dark and in many ways dangerous vision of our country,where he incites violence, where he applauds people who are pushing and pulling and punchingat his rallies. that is not who america is. and i hope that as we move in the last weeksof this campaign, more and more people will understand what's at stake in this election.it really does come down to what kind of country we are going to have. trump: so sad when she talks about violenceat my rallies, and she caused the violence. it's on tape. wallace: during the last...
trump: the other things are false, but honestly,i'd love to talk about getting rid of isis, and i'd love to talk about other things... trump: ... but those other charges, as sheknows, are false. wallace: in this bucket about fitness to bepresident, there's been a lot of developments over the last 10 days since the last debate.i'd like to ask you about them. these are questions that the american people have. secretary clinton, during your 2009 senateconfirmation hearing, you promised to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interestwith your dealing with the clinton foundation while you were secretary of state, but e-mailsshow that donors got special access to you.
those seeking grants for haiti relief wereconsidered separately from non-donors, and some of those donors got contracts, governmentcontracts, taxpayer money. can you really say that you kept your pledgeto that senate committee? and why isn't what happened and what went on between you andthe clinton foundation, why isn't it what mr. trump calls pay to play? clinton: well, everything i did as secretaryof state was in furtherance of our country's interests and our values. the state departmenthas said that. i think that's been proven. but i am happy, in fact i'm thrilled to talkabout the clinton foundation, because it is a world-renowned charity and i am so proudof the work that it does. you know, i could
talk for the rest of the debate -- i knowi don't have the time to do that. but just briefly, the clinton foundation madeit possible for 11 million people around the world with hiv-aids to afford treatment, andthat's about half all the people in the world who are getting treatment. in partnershipwith the american health association... clinton: ... we have made environments inschools healthier for kids, including healthier lunches... wallace: secretary clinton, respectfully,this is -- this is an open discussion. clinton: well, it is an open discussion. andyou... wallace: and the specific question went topay for play. do you want to talk about that?
clinton: well, but there is no -- but thereis no evidence -- but there is... trump: i think that it's been very well... wallace: let's ask mr. trump. clinton: there is a lot of evidence aboutthe very good work... trump: it's been very well studied. clinton: ... and the high rankings... wallace: please let me mr. trump speak. trump: ... and it's a criminal enterprise,and so many people know it. wallace: please let mr. trump speak.
trump: it's a criminal enterprise. saudi arabiagiving $25 million, qatar, all of these countries. you talk about women and women's rights? sothese are people that push gays off business -- off buildings. these are people that killwomen and treat women horribly. and yet you take their money. so i'd like to ask you right now, why don'tyou give back the money that you've taken from certain countries that treat certaingroups of people so horribly? why don't you give back the money? i think it would be agreat gesture. because she takes a tremendous amount of money.and you take a look at the people of haiti. i was at a little haiti the other day in florida.and i want to tell you, they hate the clintons,
because what's happened in haiti with theclinton foundation is a disgrace. and you know it, and they know it, and everybody knowsit. clinton: well, very quickly, we at the clintonfoundation spend 90 percent -- 90 percent of all the money that is donated on behalfof programs of people around the world and in our own country. i'm very proud of that.we have the highest rating from the watchdogs that follow foundations. and i'd be happyto compare what we do with the trump foundation, which took money from other people and boughta six- foot portrait of donald. i mean, who does that? it just was astonishing. but when it comes to haiti, haiti is the poorestcountry in our hemisphere. the earthquake
and the hurricanes, it has devastated haiti.bill and i have been involved in trying to help haiti for many years. the clinton foundationraised $30 million to help haiti after the catastrophic earthquake and all of the terribleproblems the people there had. we have done things to help small businesses,agriculture, and so much else. and we're going to keep working to help haiti... clinton: ... because it's an important partof the american experience. trump: they don't want you to help them anymore. trump: i'd like to mention one thing. trumpfoundation, small foundation. people contribute, i contribute. the money goes 100 percent -- 100percent goes to different charities, including
a lot of military. i don't get anything. idon't buy boats. i don't buy planes. what happens -- the money goes to them. wallace: wasn't some of the money used tosettle your lawsuits, sir? trump: no, it was -- we put up the americanflag. and that's it. they put up the american flag. we fought for the right in palm beachto put up the american flag. wallace: right. but there was a penalty thatwas imposed by palm beach county, and the money came from your foundation... trump: there was. there was. and, by the way... wallace: ... instead of mar-a-lago or yourself,sir.
trump: ... the money -- the money went tofisher house, where they build houses -- the money that you're talking about went to fisherhouse, where they build houses for veterans and disabled vets. wallace: i want to get into one... clinton: but, of course, there's no way wecan know whether any of that is true, because he hasn't released his tax returns. he isthe first candidate ever to run for president in the last 40-plus years who has not releasedhis tax returns, so everything he says about charity or anything else, we can't prove it.you can look at our tax returns. we've got them all out there.
but what is really troubling is that we learnedin the last debate he has not paid a penny in federal income tax. and we were talkingabout immigrants a few minutes ago, chris. you know, half of all immigrants -- undocumentedimmigrants in our country -- actually pay federal income tax. so we have undocumentedimmigrants in america who are paying more federal income tax than a billionaire. i findthat just astonishing. wallace: i want... trump: so let me just tell you very quickly,we're entitled because of the laws that people like her passed to take massive amounts ofdepreciation on other charges, and we do it. and all of her donors -- just about all ofthem -- i know buffett took hundreds of millions
of dollars, soros, george soros, took hundredsof millions of dollars... wallace: we... trump: let me just explain. wallace: but, no, we heard this... trump: most of her donors have done the samething as i do. wallace: mr. trump, we -- ok. trump: you know what she should have done? wallace: folks, we heard this... trump: and you know, hillary, what you shouldhave done, you should have changed the law
when you were a united states senator... trump: ... because your donors and your specialinterests are doing the same thing as i do, except even more so. clinton: well, you know... trump: you should have changed the law. butyou won't change the law, because you take in so much money. i mean, i sat in my apartmenttoday on a very beautiful hotel down the street known as trump... clinton: made with chinese steel. trump: but i will tell you, i sat there...
... i sat there watching ad after ad afterad, false ad. all paid for by your friends on wall street that gave so much money becausethey know you're going to protect them. and, frankly, you should have changed the laws. trump: if you don't like what i did, you shouldhave changed the laws. wallace: mr. trump, i want to ask you aboutone last question in this topic. you have been warning at rallies recently that thiselection is rigged and that hillary clinton is in the process of trying to steal it fromyou. your running mate, governor pence, pledgedon sunday that he and you -- his words -- "will absolutely accept the result of this election."today your daughter, ivanka, said the same
thing. i want to ask you here on the stagetonight: do you make the same commitment that you will absolutely -- sir, that you willabsolutely accept the result of this election? trump: i will look at it at the time. i'mnot looking at anything now. i'll look at it at the time. what i've seen -- what i've seen is so bad.first of all, the media is so dishonest and so corrupt, and the pile-on is so amazing.the new york times actually wrote an article about it, but they don't even care. it's sodishonest. and they've poisoned the mind of the voters. but unfortunately for them, i think the votersare seeing through it. i think they're going
to see through it. we'll find out on november8th. but i think they're going to see through wallace: but, sir, there's... trump: if you look -- excuse me, chris -- ifyou look at your voter rolls, you will see millions of people that are registered tovote -- millions, this isn't coming from me -- this is coming from pew report and otherplaces -- millions of people that are registered to vote that shouldn't be registered to vote. so let me just give you one other thing. soi talk about the corrupt media. i talk about the millions of people -- tell you one otherthing. she shouldn't be allowed to run. it's crooked -- she's -- she's guilty of a very,very serious crime. she should not be allowed
to run. and just in that respect, i say it's rigged,because she should never... wallace: but... trump: chris, she should never have been allowedto run for the presidency based on what she did with e-mails and so many other things. wallace: but, sir, there is a tradition inthis country -- in fact, one of the prides of this country -- is the peaceful transitionof power and that no matter how hard-fought a campaign is, that at the end of the campaignthat the loser concedes to the winner. not saying that you're necessarily going to bethe loser or the winner, but that the loser
concedes to the winner and that the countrycomes together in part for the good of the country. are you saying you're not preparednow to commit to that principle? trump: what i'm saying is that i will tellyou at the time. i'll keep you in suspense. ok? clinton: well, chris, let me respond to that,because that's horrifying. you know, every time donald thinks things are not going inhis direction, he claims whatever it is, is rigged against him. the fbi conducted a year-long investigationinto my e-mails. they concluded there was no case; he said the fbi was rigged. he lostthe iowa caucus. he lost the wisconsin primary.
he said the republican primary was riggedagainst him. then trump university gets sued for fraud and racketeering; he claims thecourt system and the federal judge is rigged against him. there was even a time when hedidn't get an emmy for his tv program three years in a row and he started tweeting thatthe emmys were rigged against him. trump: should have gotten it. clinton: this is -- this is a mindset. thisis how donald thinks. and it's funny, but it's also really troubling. clinton: so that is not the way our democracyworks. we've been around for 240 years. we've had free and fair elections. we've acceptedthe outcomes when we may not have liked them.
and that is what must be expected of anyonestanding on a debate stage during a general election. you know, president obama said theother day when you're whining before the game is even finished... wallace: hold on. hold on, folks. hold on,folks. clinton: ... it just shows you're not up todoing the job. and let's -- you know, let's be clear about what he is saying and whatthat means. he is denigrating -- he's talking down our democracy. and i, for one, am appalledthat somebody who is the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that kindof position. trump: i think what the fbi did and what thedepartment of justice did, including meeting
with her husband, the attorney general, inthe back of an airplane on the tarmac in arizona, i think it's disgraceful. i think it's a disgrace. trump: i think we've never had a situationso bad in this country. wallace: hold on, folks. this doesn't do anygood for anyone. let's please continue the debate, and let's move on to the subject offoreign hot spots. the iraqi offensive to take back mosul hasbegun. if they are successful in pushing isis out of that city and out of all of iraq, thequestion then becomes, what happens the day after? and that's something that whicheverof you ends up -- whoever of you ends up as president is going to have to confront.
will you put u.s. troops into that vacuumto make sure that isis doesn't come back or isn't replaced by something even worse? secretaryclinton, you go first in this segment. you have two minutes. clinton: well, i am encouraged that thereis an effort led by the iraqi army, supported by kurdish forces, and also given the helpand advice from the number of special forces and other americans on the ground. but i willnot support putting american soldiers into iraq as an occupying force. i don't thinkthat is in our interest, and i don't think that would be smart to do. in fact, chris,i think that would be a big red flag waving for isis to reconstitute itself.
the goal here is to take back mosul. it'sgoing to be a hard fight. i've got no illusions about that. and then continue to press intosyria to begin to take back and move on raqqa, which is the isis headquarters. i am hopeful that the hard work that americanmilitary advisers have done will pay off and that we will see a real -- a really successfulmilitary operation. but we know we've got lots of work to do. syria will remain a hotbedof terrorism as long as the civil war, aided and abetted by the iranians and the russians,continue. so i have said, look, we need to keep oureye on isis. that's why i want to have an intelligence surge that protects us here athome, why we have to go after them from the
air, on the ground, online, why we have tomake sure here at home we don't let terrorists buy weapons. if you're too dangerous to fly,you're too dangerous to buy a gun. and i'm going to continue to push for a no-flyzone and safe havens within syria not only to help protect the syrians and prevent theconstant outflow of refugees, but to, frankly, gain some leverage on both the syrian governmentand the russians so that perhaps we can have the kind of serious negotiation necessaryto bring the conflict to an end and go forward on a political track. wallace: mr. trump, same question. if we areable to push isis out of mosul and out of iraq, will -- would you be willing to putu.s. troops in there to prevent their return
or something else? trump: let me tell you, mosul is so sad. wehad mosul. but when she left, when she took everybody out, we lost mosul. now we're fightingagain to get mosul. the problem with mosul and what they wanted to do is they wantedto get the leaders of isis who they felt were in mosul. about three months ago, i started readingthat they want to get the leaders and they're going to attack mosul. whatever happened tothe element of surprise, ok? we announce we're going after mosul. i have been reading aboutgoing after mosul now for about -- how long is it, hillary, three months? these peoplehave all left. they've all left.
the element of surprise. douglas macarthur,george patton spinning in their graves when they see the stupidity of our country. sowe're now fighting for mosul, that we had. all she had to do was stay there, and nowwe're going in to get it. but you know who the big winner in mosul isgoing to be after we eventually get it? and the only reason they did it is because she'srunning for the office of president and they want to look tough. they want to look good.he violated the red line in the sand, and he made so many mistakes, made all the mistakes.that's why we have the great migration. but she wanted to look good for the election.so they're going in. but who's going to get mosul, really? we'lltake mosul eventually. but the way -- if you
look at what's happening, much tougher thanthey thought. much, much tougher. much more dangerous. going to be more deaths that theythought. but the leaders that we wanted to get areall gone because they're smart. they say, what do we need this for? so mosul is goingto be a wonderful thing. and iran should write us a letter of thank you, just like the reallystupid -- the stupidest deal of all time, a deal that's going to give iran absolutelynuclear weapons. iran should write us yet another letter saying thank you very much,because iran, as i said many years ago, iran is taking over iraq, something they've wantedto do forever, but we've made it so easy for them.
so we're now going to take mosul. and do youknow who's going to be the beneficiary? iran. oh, yeah, they're making -- i mean, they areoutsmarting -- look, you're not there, you might be involved in that decision. but youwere there when you took everybody out of mosul and out of iraq. you shouldn't havebeen in iraq, but you did vote for it. you shouldn't have been in iraq, but once youwere in iraq, you should have never left the way. wallace: sir, your two minutes are up. trump: the point is, the big winner is goingto be iran. clinton: well, you know, once again, donaldis implying that he didn't support the invasion
of iraq. i said it was a mistake. i've saidthat years ago. he has consistently denied what is... clinton: ... a very clear fact that... clinton: ... before the invasion, he supportedit. and, you know, i just want everybody to go google it. google "donald trump iraq."and you will see the dozens of sources which verify that he was for the invasion of iraq. clinton: and you can actually hear the audioof him saying that. now, why does that matter? well, it matters because he has not told thetruth about that position. i guess he believes it makes him look better now to contrast withme because i did vote for it.
but what's really important here is to understandall the interplay. mosul is a sunni city. mosul is on the border of syria. and, yes,we do need to go after baghdadi, and -- just like we went after bin laden, while you weredoing "celebrity apprentice," and we brought him to justice. we need to go after the leadership. but we need to get rid of them, get rid oftheir fighters. there are an estimated several thousand fighters in mosul. they've been diggingunderground. they've been prepared to defend. it's going to be tough fighting. but i thinkwe can take back mosul, and then we can move on into syria and take back raqqa. this is what we have to do. i'm just amazedthat he seems to think that the iraqi government
and our allies and everybody else launchedthe attack on mosul to help me in this election, but that's how donald thinks. you know, healways is looking for some conspiracy. trump: chris, we don't gain anything. clinton: he has all the conspiracy theories... trump: iran is taking over iraq. wallace: secretary clinton, it's... trump: iran is taking over iraq. we don'tgain anything. clinton: this conspiracy theory, which he'sbeen spewing out for quite some time. trump: if they did it by surprise...
wallace: wait, wait, wait, secretary clinton,it's an open discussion. clinton: he says... trump: we could have gained if they did itby surprise. wallace: secretary, please let mr. trump speak. clinton: ... unfit, and he proves it everytime he talks. trump: no, you are the one that's unfit. youknow, wikileaks just actually came out -- john podesta said some horrible things about you,and, boy, was he right. he said some beauties. and you know, bernie sanders, he said youhave bad judgment. you do. and if you think that going into mosul afterwe let the world know we're going in, and
all of the people that we really wanted -- theleaders -- they're all gone. if you think that was good, then you do. now, john podestasaid you have terrible instincts. bernie sanders said you have bad judgment. i agree with both. clinton: well, you should ask bernie sanderswho he's supporting for president. and he has said... trump: which is a big mistake. clinton: ... as he has campaigned for me aroundthe country, you are the most dangerous person to run for president in the modern historyof america. i think he's right. wallace: let's turn to aleppo. mr. trump,in the last debate, you were both asked about
the situation in the syrian city of aleppo.and i want to follow up on that, because you said several things in that debate which werenot true, sir. you said that aleppo has basically fallen. in fact, there -- in fact, there are...trump: it's a catastrophe. i mean... wallace: it's a catastrophe, but there... trump: ... it's a mess. wallace: there are a quarter of... trump: have you seen it? have you seen it? wallace: sir... trump: have you seen what's happening to aleppo?
wallace: sir, if i may finish my question... trump: ok, so it hasn't fallen. take a lookat it. wallace: well, there are a quarter of a millionpeople still living there and being slaughtered. trump: that's right. and they are being slaughtered... wallace: yes. trump: ... because of bad decisions. wallace: if i may just finish here, and youalso said that -- that syria and russia are busy fighting isis. in fact, they have beenthe ones who've been bombing and shelling eastern aleppo, and they just announced ahumanitarian pause, in effect, admitting that
they have been bombing and shelling aleppo.would you like to clear that up, sir? trump: well, aleppo is a disaster. it's ahumanitarian nightmare. but it has fallen from the -- from any standpoint. i mean, whatdo you need, a signed document? take a look at aleppo. it is so sad when you see what'shappened. and a lot of this is because of hillary clinton,because what's happened is, by fighting assad, who turned out to be a lot tougher than shethought, and now she's going to say, oh, he loves assad, she's -- he's just much tougherand much smarter than her and obama. and everyone thought he was gone two years ago, three yearsago. he -- he aligned with russia. he now also aligned with iran, who we madevery powerful. we gave them $150 billion back.
we give them $1.7 billion in cash. i mean,cash. bundles of cash as big as this stage. we gave them $1.7 billion. now they have -- he has aligned with russiaand with iran. they don't want isis, but they have other things, because we're backing -- we'rebacking rebels. we don't know who the rebels are. we're giving them lots of money, lotsof everything. we don't know who the rebels are. and when and if -- and it's not goingto happen, because you have russia and you have iran now. but if they ever did overthrowassad, you might end up with -- as bad as assad is, and he's a bad guy, but you mayvery well end up with worse than assad. if she did nothing, we'd be in much bettershape. and this is what's caused the great
migration, where she's taking in tens of thousandsof syrian refugees, who probably in many cases -- not probably, who are definitely... wallace: let me... trump: ... in many cases, isis-aligned, andwe now have them in our country, and wait until you see -- this is going to be the greattrojan horse. and wait until you see what happens in the coming years. lots of luck,hillary. thanks a lot for doing a great job. wallace: secretary clinton, you have talkedabout -- and in the last debate and again today -- that you would impose a no-fly zoneto try to protect the people of aleppo and to stop the killing there. president obamahas refused to do that because he fears it's
going to draw us closer or deeper into theconflict. and general joseph dunford, the chairman ofthe joint chiefs of staff, says you impose a no-fly zone, chances are you're going toget into a war -- his words -- with syria and russia. so the question i have is, ifyou impose a no-fly zone -- first of all, how do you respond to their concerns? secondly,if you impose a no-fly zone and a russian plane violates that, does president clintonshoot that plane down? clinton: well, chris, first of all, i thinka no-fly zone could save lives and could hasten the end of the conflict. i'm well aware ofthe really legitimate concerns that you have expressed from both the president and thegeneral.
this would not be done just on the first day.this would take a lot of negotiation. and it would also take making it clear to therussians and the syrians that our purpose here was to provide safe zones on the ground. we've had millions of people leave syria andthose millions of people inside syria who have been dislocated. so i think we couldstrike a deal and make it very clear to the russians and the syrians that this was somethingthat we believe was in the best interests of the people on the ground in syria, it wouldhelp us with our fight against isis. but i want to respond to what donald saidabout refugees. he's made these claims repeatedly. i am not going to let anyone into this countrywho is not vetted, who we do not have confidence
in. but i am not going to slam the door onwomen and children. that picture of that little 4-year-old boy in aleppo, with the blood comingdown his face while he sat in an ambulance, is haunting. and so we are going to do verycareful, thorough vetting. that does not solve our internal challenges with isis and ourneed to stop radicalization, to work with american muslim communities who are on thefront lines to identify and prevent attacks. in fact, the killer of the dozens of peopleat the nightclub in orlando, the pulse nightclub, was born in queens, the same place donaldwas born. so let's be clear about what the threat is and how we are best going to beable to meet it. and, yes, some of that threat emanates fromover in syria and iraq, and we've got to keep
fighting, and i will defeat isis, and someof it is we have to up our game and be much smarter here at home. wallace: folks, i want to get into our finalsegment. trump: but i just have to... wallace: real quick. trump: it's so ridiculous what she -- shewill defeat isis. we should have never let isis happen in the first place. and rightnow, they're in 32 countries. trump: we should have -- wait one second.they had a cease-fire three weeks ago. a cease-fire, the united states, russia, and syria. andduring the cease-fire, russia took over vast
swatches of land, and then they said we don'twant the cease-fire anymore. we are so outplayed on missiles, on cease-fires.they are outplayed. now, she wasn't there. i assume she had nothing to do with it. butour country is so outplayed by putin and assad, and by the way -- and by iran. nobody canbelieve how stupid our leadership is. wallace: mr. trump, secretary clinton -- no,we need to move on to our final segment, and that is the national debt, which has not beendiscussed until tonight. our national debt, as a share of the economy,our gdp, is now 77 percent. that's the highest since just after world war ii. but the nonpartisancommittee for a responsible federal budget says, secretary clinton, under your plan,debt would rise to 86 percent of gdp over
the next 10 years. mr. trump, under your plan,they say it would rise to 105 percent of gdp over the next 10 years. the question is, whyare both of you ignoring this problem? mr. trump, you go first. trump: well, i say they're wrong, becausei'm going to create tremendous jobs. and we're bringing gdp from, really, 1 percent, whichis what it is now, and if she got in, it will be less than zero. but we're bringing it from1 percent up to 4 percent. and i actually think we can go higher than 4 percent. i thinkyou can go to 5 percent or 6 percent. and if we do, you don't have to bother askingyour question, because we have a tremendous machine. we will have created a tremendouseconomic machine once again. to do that, we're
taking back jobs. we're not going to let ourcompanies be raided by other countries where we lose all our jobs, we don't make our productanymore. it's very sad. but i'm going to create a -- the kind of a country that we were fromthe standpoint of industry. we used to be there. we've given it up. we've become very,very sloppy. we've had people that are political hacksmaking the biggest deals in the world, bigger than companies. you take these big companies,these trade deals are far bigger than these companies, and yet we don't use our greatleaders, many of whom back me and many of whom back hillary, i must say. but we don'tuse those people. those are the people -- these are the greatest negotiators in the world.we have the greatest businesspeople in the
world. we have to use them to negotiate ourtrade deals. we use political hacks. we use people thatget the position because they gave -- they made a campaign contribution and they're dealingwith china and people that are very much smarter than they are. so we have to use our greatpeople. but that being said, we will create an economicmachine the likes of which we haven't seen in many decades. and people, chris, will againgo back to work and they'll make a lot of money. and we'll have companies that willgrow and expand and start from new. clinton: well, first, when i hear donald talklike that and know that his slogan is "make america great again," i wonder when he thoughtamerica was great. and before he rushes and
says, "you know, before you and presidentobama were there," i think it's important to recognize that he has been criticizingour government for decades. you know, back in 1987, he took out a $100,000ad in the new york times, during the time when president reagan was president, and basicallysaid exactly what he just said now, that we were the laughingstock of the world. he wascriticizing president reagan. this is the way donald thinks about himself, puts himselfinto, you know, the middle and says, "you know, i alone can fix it," as he said on theconvention stage. but if you look at the debt, which is theissue you asked about, chris, i pay for everything i'm proposing. i do not add a penny to thenational debt. i take that very seriously,
because i do think it's one of the issueswe've got to come to grips with. so when i talk about how we're going to payfor education, how we're going to invest in infrastructure, how we're going to get thecost of prescription drugs down, and a lot of the other issues that people talk to meabout all the time, i've made it very clear we are going where the money is. we are goingto ask the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share. and there is no evidence whatsoever that thatwill slow down or diminish our growth. in fact, i think just the opposite. we'll havewhat economists call middle-out growth. we've got to get back to rebuilding the middle class,the families of america. that's where growth
will come from. that's why i want to investin you. i want to invest in your family. and i think that's the smartest way to growthe economy, to make the economy fairer. and we just have a big disagreement about this.it may be because of our experiences. you know, he started off with his dad as a millionaire... trump: yeah, yeah, we've heard -- we've heardthis before, hillary. clinton: i started off with -- my dad wasa small-business man. trump: we've heard this before. clinton: and i think it -- you know, it'sa difference that affects how we see the world and what we want to do with the economy.
wallace: time. trump: thank you, hillary. could i just respond? wallace: well, no, sir, because we're runningout of time... trump: because i did disagree with ronaldreagan very strongly on trade. i disagreed with him. we should have been much tougheron trade even then. i've been waiting for years. nobody does it right. trump: and frankly, now we're going to doit right. wallace: all right. the one last area i wantto get into with you in this debate is the fact that the biggest driver of our debt isentitlements, which is 60 percent of all federal
spending. now, the committee for federal -- aresponsible federal budget has looked at both of your plans and they say neither of youhas a serious plan that is going to solve the fact that medicare's going to run outof money in the 2020s, social security is going to run out of money in the 2030s, andat that time, recipients are going to take huge cuts in their benefits. so, in effect, the final question i want toask you in this regard is -- and let me start with you, mr. trump, would president trumpmake a deal to save medicare and social security that included both tax increases and benefitcuts, in effect, a grand bargain on entitlements? trump: i'm cutting taxes. we're going to growthe economy. it's going to grow at a record
rate of growth. wallace: that's not going to help in the entitlements. trump: no, it's going to totally help you.and one thing we have to do: repeal and replace the disaster known as obamacare. it's destroyingour country. it's destroying our businesses, our small business and our big businesses.we have to repeal and replace obamacare. you take a look at the kind of numbers thatthat will cost us in the year '17, it is a disaster. if we don't repeal and replace -- now,it's probably going to die of its own weight. but obamacare has to go. it's -- the premiumsare going up 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent. next year they're going to go up over 100percent.
and i'm really glad that the premiums havestarted -- at least the people see what's happening, because she wants to keep obamacareand she wants to make it even worse, and it can't get any worse. bad health care at themost expensive price. we have to repeal and replace obamacare. wallace: and, secretary clinton, same question,because at this point, social security and medicare are going to run out, the trust fundsare going to run out of money. will you as president entertain -- will you consider agrand bargain, a deal that includes both tax increases and benefit cuts to try to saveboth programs? clinton: well, chris, i am on record as sayingthat we need to put more money into the social
security trust fund. that's part of my commitmentto raise taxes on the wealthy. my social security payroll contribution will go up, as will donald's,assuming he can't figure out how to get out of it. but what we want to do is to replenishthe social security trust fund... trump: such a nasty woman. clinton: ... by making sure that we have sufficientresources, and that will come from either raising the cap and/or finding other waysto get more money into it. i will not cut benefits. i want to enhance benefits for low-incomeworkers and for women who have been disadvantaged by the current social security system. but what donald is proposing with these massivetax cuts will result in a $20 trillion additional
national debt. that will have dire consequencesfor social security and medicare. and i'll say something about the affordablecare act, which he wants to repeal. the affordable care act extended the solvency of the medicaretrust fund. so if repeals it, our medicare problem gets worse. what we need to do isgo after... trump: your husband disagrees with you. clinton: ... the long-term health care drivers.we've got to get costs down, increase value, emphasize wellness. i have a plan for doingthat. and i think that we will be able to get entitlement spending under control bywith more resources and harder decisions. wallace: this is -- this is the final time,probably to both of your delight, that you're
going to be on a stage together in this campaign.i would like to end it on a positive note. you had not agreed to closing statements,but it seems to me in a funny way that might make it more interesting because you haven'tprepared closing statements. so i'd like you each to take -- and we'regoing to put a clock up, a minute, as the final question in the final debate, to tellthe american people why they should elect you to be the next president. this is anothernew mini-segment. secretary clinton, it's your turn to go first. clinton: well, i would like to say to everyonewatching tonight that i'm reaching out to all americans -- democrats, republicans, andindependents -- because we need everybody
to help make our country what it should be,to grow the economy, to make it fairer, to make it work for everyone. we need your talents,your skills, your commitments, your energy, your ambition. you know, i've been privileged to see thepresidency up close. and i know the awesome responsibility of protecting our country andthe incredible opportunity of working to try to make life better for all of you. i havemade the cause of children and families really my life's work. that's what my mission will be in the presidency.i will stand up for families against powerful interests, against corporations. i will doeverything that i can to make sure that you
have good jobs, with rising incomes, thatyour kids have good educations from preschool through college. i hope you will give me achance to serve as your president. mr. trump? trump: she's raising the money from the peopleshe wants to control. doesn't work that way. but when i started this campaign, i startedit very strongly. it's called "make america great again." we're going to make americagreat. we have a depleted military. it has to be helped, has to be fixed. we have thegreatest people on earth in our military. we don't take care of our veterans. we takecare of illegal immigrants, people that come into the country illegally, better than wetake care of our vets. that can't happen.
our policemen and women are disrespected.we need law and order, but we need justice, too. our inner cities are a disaster. youget shot walking to the store. they have no education. they have no jobs. i will do morefor african-americans and latinos than she can ever do in 10 lifetimes. all she's done is talk to the african-americansand to the latinos, but they get the vote, and then they come back, they say, we'll seeyou in four years. we are going to make america strong again, and we are going to make americagreat again, and it has to start now. we cannot take four more years of barack obama, andthat's what you get when you get her. 5-minute fix newsletterkeeping up with politics is easy now.
sign upwallace: thank you both. secretary clinton -- hold on just a moment,folks. secretary clinton, mr. trump, i want to thank you both for participating in allthree of these debates. that brings to an end this year's debatessponsored by the commission on presidential debates. we want to thank the university ofnevada, las vegas, and its students for having us. now the decision is up to you. while millions have already voted, electionday, november 8th, is just 20 days away. one thing everyone here can agree on: we hopeyou will go vote. it is one of the honors and obligations of living in this great country.thank you, and good night.
judy woodruff: and that wraps up the finalpresidential debate between donald trump and hillary clinton, as we watch the candidateswalk across the stage to shake the hand of the moderator, chris wallace, and presumablytheir families will join them on stage in a moment. joining me here in our washington studio,syndicated columnist mark shields, new york times columnist david brooks, and amy walterof the cook political report. david brooks, it started out on a civil note.that lasted about 15 or 20 minutes. then they got into i can think a number of subjectsaround abortion and the supreme court. but, by the end of it, donald trump was callinghillary clinton a nasty woman and a liar.
and we heard a lot. david brooks: i counted 27 minutes of civility.that may be exceeding expectations. david brooks: i thought it was -- well, theheadline of the night is going to be the -- when he was asked if he would support the election,and he said, i will keep you in suspense about that over the election results. that is going to be the headline of the night.it's hard to believe we've... amy walter, the cook political report: forsure. judy woodruff: for sure. david brooks: ... presidential candidate saythat in a national debate.
i, frankly, thought it one of the best debateperformances that hillary clinton has ever given. i thought he was -- he has improved,but she gave four answers that i think knocked him out of the park, especially on the sexualabuse issue, on 30 years of experience, on that episode. she gave some extremely strong and coherentand michelle obama-esque answers. judy woodruff: and it was michelle obama,mark, who said, "when they go low, we go high." chris wallace, at the end, asked them bothto be positive, but we heard some -- we heard negative language to the very end. mark shields: we did.
i thought trump was better temperamentallytonight than he had been in any of the debates. if he had been that in the first debate, ithink it would have been -- it would have been a different race. but i think we come back to the tape. thetape is a killer to him. and i think that... judy woodruff: you mean the "access hollywood"audiotape. mark shields: i think the dynamic of tonight,it was his bad moment. i don't think people believe him. and it was her better moment. but i -- he didn't get the lift he needed.and i thought there were episodes of just incoherence on his part.
i disagree with david. i thought hillary hadsome great answers, but i thought there were excessive phases of just sort of bland, predictableprose. we're going to grow the -- how many times are we going to grow the economy? isthat a phrase that has sort of reached its saturation point or expiration date? judy woodruff: amy walter? amy walter: so, the only question coming outof this debate was whether or not he could stop what was looking like a freefall in thepolls and whether that freefall was also going to hurt the down-ballot candidates, especiallysenate candidates, in battleground states. i don't think it really helped at all here.and david is right. the headline is that a
president -- a candidate running for presidentof the united states of america said, i don't know if i'm going to abide by the decisionmade by voters. that is just an unbelievable statement. andthe number one challenge that donald trump has had throughout this campaign, when youlook at where he has fallen flat with voters, is on the question, do you think that donaldtrump has the judgment and the temperament to be president of the united states? he has trailed hillary clinton on that timeand time again. it's now a gaping chasm on that issue. and he did not challenge her onthat and help expand his -- do any better on that the question of judgment and temperamenttonight, either by interrupting her, and then,
of course, by making the statement he didthat he's going to keep people in suspense. judy woodruff: and we should note that hesaid this on a day when both his vice presidential running mate, mike pence, who we see therein the audience, has been saying -- and he said it again today -- that we will acceptthe results of the election, his daughter ivanka trump said today that she expectedher father would. let's listen to that part of the debate wheremoderator chris wallace asked donald trump directly, will you accept the result no matterwhat it is? donald trump: i will look at it at the time.i'm not looking at anything now. i will look at it at the time.
what i have seen -- what i have seen is sobad. first of all, the media is so dishonest and so corrupt, and the pile-on is so amazing.the new york times actually wrote an article about it, but they don't even care. it's sodishonest. and they've poisoned the minds of the voters. but, unfortunately for them, i think the votersare seeing through it. i think they're going to see through it. we'll find out on november8. if you look at your voter rolls, you willsee millions of people that are registered to vote, millions -- this isn't coming fromme -- this is coming from pew report and other places -- millions of people that are registeredto vote that shouldn't be registered to vote.
chris wallace, moderator: are you saying you'renot prepared now to commit to that principle? donald trump: what i'm saying is that i willtell you at the time. i will keep you in suspense. hillary rodham clinton: well, chris, let merespond to that, because that's horrifying. judy woodruff: david, it doesn't get any plainer,i guess, than that. david brooks: yes. and i wonder if it willhurt him. the reason we concede elections, and the reasonwhy every candidate in our history has conceded elections, and has said so all along thatthey respect the will of the voters, is because this is coherence of the country. the struggle for power can get ruthless inthe world. and when you -- and you can lead
to war. it can lead to conflict. it can leadto barbarity. and the reason we don't do fall into barbarity is because not that we're wonderfulpeople, but we have certain customs and standards which we adhere to. and not adhering to those customs and standardsreally does put you on the edge of some sort of dissent from the system we have enjoyed,which is not only based on the laws, but our attitudes toward the laws. and so he is violating and corrupting thoseattitudes. how many people in america agree with him? well, people have done studies ofthis, and somewhere between a third and 40 percent think they don't trust our systemof government anymore.
and so this is a time of maximum cynicism,which he is part of and also inflamed. judy woodruff: and we have been seeing peopleat his rallies, mark, in recent days say they won't accept her. they may not accept theresults of the election. mark shields: no, that's right. judy woodruff: how serious do you see this? mark shields: i think it is serious. i thinkit's the lead. there's no question of it. we have never had a president do that before. i was in washington when the moment of maximumconstitutional crisis, when richard nixon left the presidency. there were no tanks inthe streets. there were no rifles. it was
peaceable. it was peaceful. it was lawful.and gerald ford became president. what trump -- what's wrong with trump hereis his -- he's stepping on his basic message. his basic message is, i'm the strong guy,i'm the guy. and now, oh, poor little me. woe is me. they have rigged it on me. so, it's the strong man as whiner. and it'sjust a -- it's a terrible message. and it doesn't work politically. but i think it isa -- i mean, "i will look at it the time" is -- stephen a. douglas conceded to abrahamlincoln after a bitter campaign and said, you know, you are my president, god blessyou. and that -- it was such a small, small mindand man...
judy woodruff: amy. amy walter: if it weren't for that quote,i think the other one that would be leading tonight would be early on, when the questionabout the supreme court and who would be appointed to the supreme court by each of these candidates,and donald trump conceded the fact he's going to not just appoint pro-life justices, butthat he expects them to overturn roe v. wade. that would be -- again, if this were any othercampaign, if we were on parallel earth 2 in a normal kind of campaign, that would havebeen a really amazing statement. and, again, this is for a candidate who is doing verybadly with women candidates, especially suburban women.
that is the kind of statement that just makeshis ability to dig himself out of the hole he's in very, very tough. judy woodruff: i was just going to say, our-- i will come back to you in a minute. our john yang, "newshour"'s john yang, isat the debate site at the university of nevada, las vegas. john, you're in the spin room. you have beentrying to catch up with people speaking for both campaigns. what are you hearing? john yang: judy, i tell you, i have just spokento number of people from the clinton campaign, not only here in the spin room, but by e-mail.
the two moments that they single out in thisdebate were both donald trump moments, one where he, as you have been talking about,said he wouldn't pledge to accept the outcome of the election, and then also when he wouldn'tacknowledge or wouldn't accept the u.s. intelligence assessment that russia is behind the hacks,the wikileaks hacks. they say this shows that he's unfit for office. now, what i also asked them that, in all threedebates, it seems that their message has been that -- the negative message against donaldtrump, essentially that hillary clinton should be elected because she's not donald trump. i asked if she had made the positive messagefor herself. they all pointed to the closing
statement, which wasn't planned, as you heard.but they also say that the pivot starts now, that, in these debates, because of what donaldtrump has done, they had to make that. they had to go after him because of what he wasdoing. they say that, from now on, on the campaigntrail, for the next few weeks, or couple of weeks, the closing argument is going to bea positive one, presenting what hillary clinton will do as president if she's elected, makinga positive argument for her, rather than the negative argument against donald trump. judy woodruff: all right, john, who has beentalking, as we heard, to clinton and to trump representatives there in the spin room inlas vegas.
david brooks, did you hear hillary clintondoing that, making that pivot from making the case against donald trump to saying, hereis why i'm the right person? david brooks: not really, no. i think she does -- i will give mark 20 yardsin the 100-yard field. she does devolve into cliche and stereotypical thought when askedto make the positive case. and her best answers are attacks at him. i think she has got some indignation thatshe's facing this guy and indignation about some of the things he has said and his treatmenttoward women. in many ways, her entire life has been in defense of women's rights. andhere comes, at the climax of her political
life, her electoral life, a guy who seemsto her a threat and an insult to all that. and so she's rightfully indignant. has she made a positive case for herself?i think not. but that is in part because it's in both their interests right now to makehim the center of attention. and he -- she could have had a very bad day today. these video clips of her loose campaign staffallegedly saying they are fomenting violence and doing voter fraud, it could have beena terrible day for her. and yet he made himself the center even of his own remarks. judy woodruff: he did on several -- at severalpoints.
all right, our colleague lisa desjardins isin our newsroom upstairs, who has been looking at some -- what we call the fact-check. lisa, what did you discover? lisa desjardins: well, you know, one of theheadlines of this debate that might not get as much attention is the amount of policythat was discussed tonight. it was certainly the most that i have thinkwe have seen this presidential election. and we want to look at some of the facts aroundthose policies. up near the top, we heard lot about guns andthe second amendment. and hillary clinton made a claim. she claimed that, in this country,some 33,000 people are killed by guns, die
from gun injuries a year. we checked that.and according to the cdc, the latest available data shows she's right. just over 33,000 people are killed from firearms.but we really need to add some context, because 63 percent, almost two-thirds of those firearmdeaths, are suicides, not homicide. also, what is interesting to know about thatnumber, that is approximately as many people who are killed in car crashes in this countryas well. additionally, the u.s. gun death rate is about 25 times higher than the similarrates in similar high-income countries. all right, how about a claim from donald trump?we heard a lot about the economy. donald trump claims that the u.s. economy is stagnant.he used those words -- that word exactly.
well, if you look at the numbers, gdp wasup almost 2, almost 2.5 percent last year. last month -- this is the report that donaldtrump cited -- the country gained 156,000 jobs. so, that certainly is not stagnant.there is an increase. but it is below the ideal and even below what economists liketo see, which is 3 percent gdp growth. so, he may have been right when he said anemic,not stagnant. job growth, as mark shields said, a bland, predictable piece of prose,but an important piece of policy. judy woodruff: thank you, lisa, for keepingtrack of all that and a lot more during the debate. mark, at this stage in the campaign, withless than three weeks to go, how much do these
things matter, whether you get the exact descriptionright on the economy or not? mark shields: well, they matter into everybody'sdecision, judy. the decision process is very personal. but i think the decision has beenmade. just one -- one point where hillary did getin trouble in april of this year, if you will recall, when she said an unborn person doesn'thave any constitutional rights. and she was attacked by planned parenthood for sayingthat, because you have to use the language, which is fetus. and it's interesting. she's gone from a timewhen abortion was safe, legal and rare. now the democratic position is, abortion shallbe available. i mean, it's -- the rare part
has been dropped totally from the democraticrhetoric, i think it's fair to say. she was an ardent, really unfettered pro-choiceadvocate tonight. and she has been criticized by some of the pro-choice groups in the pastfor talking about the person who -- of an unborn... david brooks: it's one thing. presidentialcandidates used to say that, oh, i'm not going to impose a litmus test here. and that was actually a very valuable thingto say, because it did protect -- or at least make a pretense that the judiciary is aboutthe constitution, and it's not strictly a political office.
and that idea, that we don't have litmus tests,that's gone. it's like, we're -- i'm going to pick the people who are on my side. mark shields: yes. judy woodruff: i mean, and there's no questionabout that. amy walter: which has been going on, right,for quite some while. she's going to pick people who are going tostand with her on citizens united and the decision there, and he's going to pick peoplewho stand on abortion rights. judy woodruff: amy, we did hear, as lisa said,a lot more about policy tonight. chris wallace made a point of ticking off those six subjectareas, entitlements and debt.
did we learn anything new from these candidates? amy walter: no. no, we really didn't. well, again, this is hard for somebody whohas been following this all year. so, i recognize most normal people do not sit and listen tothe candidates, which is all the time. judy woodruff: more than a year. amy walter: yes, more -- it has felt likea hundred years, this campaign. so, i recognize that. but we kind of come back to where we startedin discussing this debate, which is, there is still not a lot of substance there withdonald trump. it's a lot of the same talking
points, but you're not really getting muchmore, much more than that. hillary clinton, i felt like, did tick throughsome of the talking points that she usually hits on. but i do feel like donald trump hadthe opportunity in this case to give more details about the economy. and looking atthe polling, it's the one issue where people say they trust him more than hillary clinton. and yet, when he had the chance, when theeconomy was literally teed up to him, he pivoted back to explain himself and the attack thathillary clinton made on him about missiles and nuclear weapons. and so any time, even on issue that is supposedlyin his wheelhouse, he had a hard time making
that case. judy woodruff: i thought that happened a coupleof different -- several different times, where she was able, because of the way she phrasedsomething, to frankly get under his skin... mark shields: she did. judy woodruff: ... and to get him -- and togoad him into probably something he didn't mean to talk about. i thought her answer of the 30 years was probablythe strongest answer she had, what i was doing those 30 years and what were you doing. andi think it -- i think it did bother him, judy. i think there was another problem that trumphad tonight. and that is the denigration of
america and its leadership: our country hasno idea. we're losers. it's one thing to criticize policy or policydecisions, but, boy, he makes it sound like the united states has done nothing right.and i just -- i think that our country has no idea, i think it has no political salienceor appeal. david brooks: yes, i think i disagree withthat. mark shields: ok. david brooks: that's been his secret sauceall year, and that there are -- the level of anger, the level of disgust, the levelof deep, deep pessimism is -- that's why we have donald trump.
and so he's closing with what his -- and heclosed his debate comments with his strongest close: i'm different. mark shields: it's a primary argument. it'snot a general argument. judy woodruff: so, let's -- for the finalminute-and-a-half that we have left, amy, where does this campaign go from here? wehave, what, 20 days -- 19 days left. amy walter: we're 19 days now, 19 left. remember,two million people have already voted. so, this debate, we talk about changing minds,are there undecided voters? a lot of folks have already cast their ballots before thisdebate. i think what this debate reminded us is thatthe candidates really are doubling and tripling
down on their message, on their overall closingargument. for trump, it's that his base is more importantthan expanding his ceiling. he's going to continue to make the same case he's made inthe primaries throughout the general, even though it only appeals to a narrow slice ofamericans, hillary clinton going to continue to make donald trump the focus, but also tryto make sure that he doesn't get any expansion. judy woodruff: twenty seconds, mark. mark shields: it was the last great moment.the rest of it is parallel skiing. and this was the intersection. this was his chanceto change the race. and he didn't do it tonight. david brooks: and will mike pence agree? willhe reiterate that he's going to support the
election results no matter what? that -- tosee how their positions evolve over the next few days on that question will be interesting. mark shields: every republican candidate... judy woodruff: it will be really interestingto see. amy walter: every republican. mark shields: ... will be asked that tomorrow. judy woodruff: yes. and mike pence was askedit tonight, i'm guessing. so, we will find out what he had to say. amy walter, david brooks, mark shields, wethank you all.
and that wraps up our coverage of this finalpresidential debate of the election. as always, there is much more online. youcan watch highlights at pbs.org/"newshour." plus, you can watch those fact-checks fromour "newshour" team. and do join us right back here for the "newshour"tomorrow evening. for all of us at the "pbs newshour" family, thank you, and good night.
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