Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Liveblog: The Third Presidential Debate

How bad can it get?

Here we go.

Chris Wallace: Supreme Court ... next prez will have appointments to make. Where do you want to see the court take the country, and how should Constitution be interpreted?

Clinton: What kind of country are we going to be? What opportunities, what rights? Court needs to stand on side of people, not on side of powerful corporations. Court needs to stand up for women's rights, minority rights, stand up against Citizen's United. No reversal of Roe v. Wade, no reversal of marriage rights. Senate should do its job and confirm nominee that Obama sent them.

Trump: Supreme Court--it's what it's all about. Justice Ginsberg made inappropriate comments against me, and she was forced to apologize. Uphold the 2nd Amendment. I've named 20 justices that I'd draw my nominees from. They will protect the 2nd Amendment. They will interpret the document the way the Founders wanted it interpreted. The Constitution the way it's meant to be. [Duh.]

Wallace: Quotes Clinton: "The Supreme Court is wrong on 2nd Amendment."

Clinton: I support the 2nd Amendment, understand and respect gun ownership, but also believe there can be reasonable regulations. We lose 33,000 people a year from guns. Close loop-holes that allow people who shouldn't have guns to have guns.

Wallace: How will you insure that the 2nd Amendment is protected?

Trump: Doesn't answer, talks about how "extremely upset" Hillary was over Heller decision.

Wallace: Why do you support a National Right to Carry Law?

Trump: New York has tough gun laws and is one of the most violent cities. We are going to appoint justices that feel very strongly about the 2nd Amendment.

Wallace: Abortion ... Mr. Trump, you're pro-life. Do you want the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Trump: Roe v. Wade will be overturned if I put two or three justices on the Court.

Clinton: I strongly support Roe v. Wade. Many states are putting stringent restrictions on abortion, defunding Planned Parenthood. I support Planned Parenthood. Donald has said that women should be punished for abortions. Roe says there can be restrictions on abortion so long as the life of the mother is protected. You can regulate if you're doing so with the life and health of the mother in mind.

Trump: Late-term abortion, not okay with me.

Clinton: You wouldn't talk like that if you knew some of the women I've known who've faced those decisions.

9:20
Immigration ... Mr. Trump, you want to build a wall, and Mrs. Clinton, you've offered no specific plan for immigration.

Trump: She wants amnesty. Open borders. ICE has endorsed me. Heroin is pouring across our borders. [The snot-nose has returned!] I want to build the wall.

Wallace: Why are you right and Mr. Trump wrong?

Clinton: [She personalizes the issue] ... young woman she knows whose parents are not legal. Donald has said that every undocumented person will have to be deported. Rounding up people and putting them on trains, buses, to ship them out of the country -- think about that. We need to get rid of any violent persons, of course. We are both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. I'll introduce legislation first 100 days with a path to citizenship.

Trump: Clinton wanted a wall in 2006, or thereabouts.

Clinton: Bringing immigrants out of the shadows will be good, so that employers can't exploit them.

Trump: Under Obama, millions of people have been deported. Nobody talks about it. [So he admires Obama?] "Bigly" makes an appearance.

Clinton: We will not have open borders. That is a gross mischaracterization of my plan.

Wallace: Quotes from Wikileaks about a dream of open borders.

Clinton: I was talking about energy, an electrical grid that crosses borders. The Russian government has engaged in espionage against American citizens, given stolen emails to Wikileaks to influence our election. Finally, will Donald Trump admit and condemn the Russian government for their espionage?

Trump: That was a great pivot away from open borders! People are going to pour in from Syria. We are going to stop radical Islamic terrorism. I don't know Putin. He says nice things about me. It would be a good thing if we got along well. We're in very serious trouble. Nuclear warheads, and she's playing chicken. Putin has no respect for our government. No respect for her.

Clinton: That's because Putin wants a puppet for president.

Trump: No puppet! No puppet!

Clinton: [Drills in on Russian espionage.]

Trump: She has no idea who's doing that. No idea!

[Wallace losing control]

Wallace: Mr. Trump, America's top security experts say Russia is behind these attacks. Do you condemn Russia for that?

Trump: Of course I condemn Russia! Putin has outsmarted her every step of the way! Nuclear weapons!

Clinton: Ironic he brings up nuclear weapons, since he's been very cavalier about giving bombs to other countries. He's said, "What's the point of having nuclear weapons if we can't use them?"

Trump: All I said was we have to renegotiate nuclear treaties.

Clinton: Donald wants to tear up our treaties.

9:36
Economy. You both have different ideas about getting the economy on track. Mrs. Clinton, you see a bigger role for government. Mr. Trump, you want to give big tax breaks to the rich.

Clinton: Alternative energy ... new sources, new jobs. Small businesses. An education system that prepares our kids. College should be debt-free. We're going to have the wealthy pay their fair share, more contribution from wealthy corporations. Donald's whole plan is to cut taxes, adding $20 trillion to our debt. Trickle-down economics on steroids.

Trump: Her plan is going to raise taxes. It's a disaster. [He goes back to Japan, Saudi Arabia, Korea, Germany]: "They've got to pay up!" They've got to help us out. Trade deals will be renegotiated. Jobs have fled. Cut taxes massively.

Clinton: Let me translate that if I can. He advocates for the largest tax cuts we've ever seen. He'll add $20 trillion to the debt. When my husband was president, we went from a huge debt to a huge surplus. One of the ways we go after the debt is to invest in people, skills, infrastructure. Cutting taxes on the wealthy -- we've tried that. It doesn't work.

Wallace: Mrs. Clinton, is your plan even more of the "Obama stimulus"? [Trump smiling very smugly at that question.]

Clinton: We have to stimulate the economy from the bottom up, not the top down.

Wallace: Mr. Trump, even very conservative economists who've looked at your plan say it doesn't add up.

Trump: The last jobs report was dismal -- I should win easily if that's the last jobs report! NAFTA the worst thing that ever happened to our country.

Clinton: Only one person on this stage has shipped jobs to Mexico. In fact, he's shipped jobs to a lot of other countries.

Trump: If you become president, this country is going to be in some mess!

Clinton: [Does a litany of her last 30 years of advocacy, compared to Donald's being sued for racial discrimination, taking $14 million from his daddy, insulting Miss Universe ... she pushed all his buttons. But he manages to hold it in the road.]

9:52
Fitness to be President of the United States. Mr. Trump, you denied that you ever did what you bragged about doing to women. Yet many women have come forward since saying that you did exactly that.

Trump: Those stories have been largely debunked. I don't know those women. It was Clinton who brought all this up. She and Obama have paid people at my rallies to cause violence. I didn't know any of those women. Her campaign did it. She got those people to step forward and she paid people at my rallies $1,500 apiece to cause violence.

Clinton: He's said that he could not possibly have sexually harassed those women because they weren't attractive enough.

Trump: I did not say that.

Clinton: He thinks that belittling women makes him a bigger man. We know who Donald is. It's up to all of us to demonstrate who we are and who this country is. America is great because America is good.

Trump: Nobody has more respect for women than I do, nobody. Those stories have been largely debunked. All of this was started by her and her sleazy campaign. What isn't fiction are the 30,000 emails that she destroyed. That's really what you should be talking about.

Clinton: Every time Donald is pushed on something, he immediately goes to denying responsibility. He never apologizes or says he's sorry for anything. [She runs down the list.] It's not one thing: it's a pattern of divisiveness. That is not who America is.

Trump: She caused the violence at my rallies. I'd love to talk about other things [rather than sexual assault].

Wallace: Mrs. Clinton, you promised to avoid even an appearance of a conflict of interest in dealing with the Clinton Foundation. Can you really say you kept your pledge? Why isn't it "pay to play."

Clinton: I'm thrilled to talk about the Clinton Foundation. It made it possible for 11 million people around the world to get AIDS treatment.

Trump: It's a criminal enterprise. Why don't you give back the money you've gotten from countries that have treated people horribly?

Clinton: Clinton Foundation spends 90% of the money that's donated, giving it to people around the world. I'm happy to compare our work to the Trump Foundation. Who spends big money for a six-foot portrait of himself? Who does that?

Trump: 100% of money in Trump Foundation goes to charity.

Wallace: Didn't some of that money go to settle a lawsuit?

Clinton: There's no way to know anything about his charity because he won't release his tax returns. He hasn't paid a penny in income tax. We have undocumented immigrants who pay more in taxes than this billionaire.

Trump: We're entitled to take all the deductions. If you don't like what I did, you should have changed the law [because a single U.S. Senator can single-handedly change laws!].

Wallace: Will you accept the results of this election.

Trump: I'll look at it at the time. Media has poisoned the minds of the voters. If you look at the voter rolls, you'll see millions of people who are registered to vote who shouldn't be registered to vote. [WTF is he talking about?] She should never have been allowed to run for president because of all the things she's done.

Wallace: It's a tradition in this country that the loser concedes to the winner. Are you saying that you're not prepared to do that?

Trump: I'll keep you in suspense. I'll decide at the time.

Clinton: Every time things aren't going his way, he claims things are rigged against him. Trump University gets sued for fraud, and he claims the courts are rigged. He didn't get an Emmy for The Apprentice, and he claims the Emmys are rigged.

Trump: I hould have won it!

Clinton: He's talking down our democracy, he's denigrating the very foundations of our democracy.

10:10
Foreign hot-spots. Ah, ISIS! Something Trump has been totally incoherent about.

Clinton: I'm encouraged that there is an effort, led by Iraqi Army and aided by the Kurds, to take back Mosul. I'm not for using American ground troops. I'm hopeful that the hard work that American military advisors have done will pay off. I'll push for a no-fly zone and safe havens in Syria.

Wallace: Mr. Trump, if we're able to push ISIS out of Mosul, would you be for putting ground troops in there?

Trump: Stupidity of our country. No element of surprise. Only reason they're doing it [Mosul?] is because she's running for president. [WTF?] Iran should write us a letter, "Thank you very much." Iran is taking over Iraq. We shouldn't have been in Iraq. But once we were there, we never should have left.

Clinton: I'm amazed that he thinks the Iraqi government and our allies started this military operation to help me run for president.

Wallace: You were asked about Aleppo in the last debate. You said several things that weren't true. You said it's fallen. [Trump snarls: "Have you seen Aleppo?"] Russia has admitted that they have been bombing and shelling Aleppo. You said they weren't.

Trump: [Wanders down several rabbit holes at once. What is he talking about? Apparently, it's Hillary's fault that so many Syrians are migrating.]

Wallace: You're in favor of a no-fly zone, but Obama has refused to impose one. The generals say we'll be drawn into a war.

Clinton: I'm not going to let anyone into this country who is not vetted.

Trump: Our country is so out-played by Assad, Putin, Iran.

10:25
National debt. Both of you are ignoring the problem. Why?

Trump: Because I'm going to create so many jobs! A tremendous economic machine.

Clinton: When did Donald think America was great before? He's been running down this country for decades. He took out a full-page ad when Reagan was president and criticized what Reagan was doing in the same terms he uses against Obama and my husband. He's never thought that anyone was as smart as he thinks he is.

Trump: I disagreed with Reagan very strongly on trade.

Wallace: Biggest driver of our debt is entitlements. Neither of you has a serious plan for dealing with that. Would President Trump make a deal to save Social Security and Medicare by raising taxes and cutting benefits?

Trump: Repeal Obamacare!

Clinton: My plan to raise taxes on the wealthy should replenish Social Security. The Affordable Care Act extended the life of the Social Security Trust Fund.

Clinton closing: I'm reaching out to all Americans. We need everyone to make things work for everyone. I've been privileged to see the presidency up close, and I know the awesome responsibility. I will stand up for families against powerful interests, corporations. I will make sure your kids have good educations.

Trump: She's raising the money from the people she wants to control. [Huh?] We're going to make America great again. [Slogan time!] Police are disrespected. You get shot walking to the store in our cities. All she's done is talk. We're going to make America strong again and we're going to make American great again. We can't take another four years of Obama, and that's what you get with her.

2 comments:

Pixelshim said...

I hear the bathrooms in Trump Tower are being relabeled "Bad Hombres" and "Nasty Women".

Anonymous said...

Good idea