donald trump healthcare

gwen ifill, newshour anchor: good evening,i’m gwen ifill. judy woodruff, newshour anchor: and i’mjudy woodruff. and welcome to this pbs newshour special:coverage of the second presidential debate between democrat hillary clinton and republicandonald trump. the stage is set at washington universityin st. louis. the most unconventional campaign in modernpresidential history has reached entirely new levels. friday’s release of the videotape from 2005of donald trump using lewd language and bragging about making unwanted sexual advances on womenhas prompted a number of republicans to withdraw

their support from their party’s nominee. ifill: tonight’s debate will be a town hallformat where hillary clinton and donald trump will be taking questions from an audienceof uncommitted voters, as well as from moderators martha radiate of abc news and anderson cooperof cnn. joining us at our table are our regular newshourcontributors: syndicated columnist mark shields, new york times columnist david brooks, andamy walter of the cook political report. and in another unprecedented turn: donaldtrump staged a surprise appearance little more than an hour ago with four women, threeof who whom accused bill clinton of sexual assault or harassment.

in response, the clinton campaign said, we’renot surprised see donald trump continue his destructive race to the bottom. friends, the moral equivalency wars are infull — i don’t know, sway, david? david brooks, the new york times: this couldbe one of the most historic and repulsive debates to the american political history. we’ve entered tv — a reality tv show ofthe bottom level. and so i’m expecting a traffic accidentfrankly. and what trump did tonight i think will backfireon him badly as more republicans flee from him.

woodruff: amy, how much of all this stuffdo you think is going to come up tonight? amy walter, the cook political report: well,the fact that i can’t let my fourth-grader watch a presidential debate i think tellsyou all you need to know about where we are in this campaign and what i expect from it. look, i think donald trump’s — beforehe had this press conference my thought was he’s either going to come in do contritionor he’s going to do combative. and we know obviously which half he chose. he has decided throughout the course of thiscampaign to double down, triple down, any time he’s challenged.

he is only interested in talking to his — thefaithful, never interested in reaching beyond that. ifill: and, mark shields, are we talking abouta policy debate tonight or a personality debate? mark shields, syndicated columnist: we’retalking about donald trump trying to save his candidacy. stop republicans from fleeing him. energizing the base. making it a clinton race again. i think unsuccessfully.

woodruff: and now here are the moderators, martha radiate and anderson cooper. [*] radiate: ladies and gentlemen the republicannominee for president, donald j. trump, and the democratic nominee for president, hillaryclinton. (applause) cooper: thank you very much for being here. we’re going to begin with a question fromone of the members in our town hall. each of you will have two minutes to respondto this question.

secretary clinton, you won the coin toss,so you’ll go first. our first question comes from patrice brock. patrice? question: thank you, and good evening. the last debate could have been rated as ma,mature audiences, per tv parental guidelines. knowing that educators assign viewing thepresidential debates as students’ homework, do you feel you’re modeling appropriateand positive behavior for today’s youth? clinton: well, thank you. are you a teacher?

yes, i think that that’s a very good question,because i’ve heard from lots of teachers and parents about some of their concerns aboutsome of the things that are being said and done in this campaign. and i think it is very important for us tomake clear to our children that our country really is great because we’re good. and we are going to respect one another, lifteach other up. we are going to be looking for ways to celebrateour diversity, and we are going to try to reach out to every boy and girl, as well asevery adult, to bring them in to working on behalf of our country.

i have a very positive and optimistic viewabout what we can do together. that’s why the slogan of my campaign is“stronger together,” because i think if we work together, if we overcome the divisivenessthat sometimes sets americans against one another, and instead we make some big goals— and i’ve set forth some big goals, getting the economy to work for everyone, not justthose at the top, making sure that we have the best education system from preschool throughcollege and making it affordable, and so much else. if we set those goals and we go together totry to achieve them, there’s nothing in my opinion that america can’t do.

so that’s why i hope that we will come togetherin this campaign. obviously, i’m hoping to earn your vote,i’m hoping to be elected in november, and i can promise you, i will work with everyamerican. i want to be the president for all americans,regardless of your political beliefs, where you come from, what you look like, your religion. i want us to heal our country and bring ittogether because that’s, i think, the best way for us to get the future that our childrenand our grandchildren deserve. cooper: secretary clinton, thank you. mr. trump, you have two minutes.

trump: well, i actually agree with that. i agree with everything she said. i began this campaign because i was so tiredof seeing such foolish things happen to our country. this is a great country. this is a great land. i’ve gotten to know the people of the countryover the last year-and-a-half that i’ve been doing this as a politician. i cannot believe i’m saying that about myself,but i guess i have been a politician.

trump: and my whole concept was to make americagreat again. when i watch the deals being made, when iwatch what’s happening with some horrible things like obamacare, where your health insuranceand health care is going up by numbers that are astronomical, 68 percent, 59 percent,71 percent, when i look at the iran deal and how bad a deal it is for us, it’s a one-sidedtransaction where we’re giving back $150 billion to a terrorist state, really, thenumber one terror state, we’ve made them a strong country from really a very weak countryjust three years ago. when i look at all of the things that i seeand all of the potential that our country has, we have such tremendous potential, whetherit’s in business and trade, where we’re

doing so badly. last year, we had almost $800 billion tradedeficit. in other words, trading with other countries. we had an $800 billion deficit. it’s hard to believe. inconceivable. you say who’s making these deals? we’re going the make great deals. we’re going to have a strong border.

we’re going to bring back law and order. just today, policemen was shot, two killed. and this is happening on a weekly basis. we have to bring back respect to law enforcement. at the same time, we have to take care ofpeople on all sides. we need justice. but i want to do things that haven’t beendone, including fixing and making our inner cities better for the african-american citizensthat are so great, and for the latinos, hispanics, and i look forward to doing it.

it’s called make america great again. cooper: thank you, mr. trump. the question from patrice was about are youboth modeling positive and appropriate behavior for today’s youth? we received a lot of questions online, mr.trump, about the tape that was released on friday, as you can imagine. you called what you said locker room banter. you described kissing women without consent,grabbing their genitals. that is sexual assault.

you bragged that you have sexually assaultedwomen. do you understand that? trump: no, i didn’t say that at all. i don’t think you understood what was — thiswas locker room talk. i’m not proud of it. i apologize to my family. i apologize to the american people. certainly i’m not proud of it. but this is locker room talk.

you know, when we have a world where you haveisis chopping off heads, where you have — and, frankly, drowning people in steel cages, whereyou have wars and horrible, horrible sights all over, where you have so many bad thingshappening, this is like medieval times. we haven’t seen anything like this, thecarnage all over the world. and they look and they see. can you imagine the people that are, frankly,doing so well against us with isis? and they look at our country and they seewhat’s going on. yes, i’m very embarrassed by it. i hate it.

but it’s locker room talk, and it’s oneof those things. i will knock the hell out of isis. we’re going to defeat isis. isis happened a number of years ago in a vacuumthat was left because of bad judgment. and i will tell you, i will take care of isis. cooper: so, mr. trump… trump: and we should get on to much more importantthings and much bigger things. cooper: just for the record, though, are yousaying that what you said on that bus 11 years ago that you did not actually kiss women withoutconsent or grope women without consent?

trump: i have great respect for women. nobody has more respect for women than i do. cooper: so, for the record, you’re sayingyou never did that? trump: i’ve said things that, frankly, youhear these things i said. and i was embarrassed by it. but i have tremendous respect for women. cooper: have you ever done those things? trump: and women have respect for me. and i will tell you: no, i have not.

and i will tell you that i’m going to makeour country safe. we’re going to have borders in our country,which we don’t have now. people are pouring into our country, and they’recoming in from the middle east and other places. we’re going to make america safe again. we’re going to make america great again,but we’re going to make america safe again. and we’re going to make america wealthyagain, because if you don’t do that, it just — it sounds harsh to say, but we haveto build up the wealth of our nation. trump: right now, other nations are takingour jobs and they’re taking our wealth. trump: and that’s what i want to talk about.

cooper: secretary clinton, do you want torespond? clinton: well, like everyone else, i’vespent a lot of time thinking over the last 48 hours about what we heard and saw. you know, with prior republican nominees forpresident, i disagreed with them on politics, policies, principles, but i never questionedtheir fitness to serve. donald trump is different. i said starting back in june that he was notfit to be president and commander-in-chief. and many republicans and independents havesaid the same thing. what we all saw and heard on friday was donaldtalking about women, what he thinks about

women, what he does to women. and he has said that the video doesn’t representwho he is. but i think it’s clear to anyone who heardit that it represents exactly who he is. because we’ve seen this throughout the campaign. we have seen him insult women. we’ve seen him rate women on their appearance,ranking them from one to ten. we’ve seen him embarrass women on tv andon twitter. we saw him after the first debate spend nearlya week denigrating a former miss universe in the harshest, most personal terms.

so, yes, this is who donald trump is. but it’s not only women, and it’s notonly this video that raises questions about his fitness to be our president, because hehas also targeted immigrants, african- americans, latinos, people with disabilities, pows, muslims,and so many others. so this is who donald trump is. and the question for us, the question ourcountry must answer is that this is not who we are. that’s why — to go back to your question— i want to send a message — we all should — to every boy and girl and, indeed, tothe entire world that america already is great,

but we are great because we are good, andwe will respect one another, and we will work with one another, and we will celebrate ourdiversity. clinton: these are very important values tome, because this is the america that i know and love. and i can pledge to you tonight that thisis the america that i will serve if i’m so fortunate enough to become your president. radiate: and we want to get to some questionsfrom online… trump: am i allowed to respond to that? i assume i am.

radiate: yes, you can respond to that. trump: it’s just words, folks. it’s just words. those words, i’ve been hearing them formany years. i heard them when they were running for thesenate in new york, where hillary was going to bring back jobs to upstate new york andshe failed. i’ve heard them where hillary is constantlytalking about the inner cities of our country, which are a disaster education-wise, job wise,safety-wise, in every way possible. i’m going to help the african-americans.

i’m going to help the latinos, hispanics. i am going to help the inner cities. she’s done a terrible job for the african-americans. she wants their vote, and she does nothing,and then she comes back four years later. we saw that firsthand when she was unitedstates senator. she campaigned where the primary part of hercampaign… radiate: mr. trump, mr. trump — i want toget to audience questions and online questions. trump: so, she’s allowed to do that, buti’m not allowed to respond? radiate: you’re going to have — you’regoing to get to respond right now.

trump: sounds fair. radiate: this tape is generating intense interest. in just 48 hours, it’s become the singlemost talked about story of the entire 2016 election on facebook, with millions and millionsof people discussing it on the social network. as we said a moment ago, we do want to bringin questions from voters around country via social media, and our first stays on thistopic. jeff from ohio asks on facebook, “trumpsays the campaign has changed him. when did that happen?” so, mr. trump, let me add to that.

when you walked off that bus at age 59, wereyou a different man or did that behavior continue until just recently? and you have two minutes for this. trump: it was locker room talk, as i toldyou. that was locker room talk. i am a person who has great respect for people,for my family, for the people of this country. and certainly, i’m not proud of it. but that was something that happened. if you look at bill clinton, far worse.

mine are words, and his was action. his was what he’s done to women. there’s never been anybody in the historypolitics in this nation that’s been so abusive to women. so you can say any way you want to say it,but bill clinton was abusive to women. hillary clinton attacked those same womenand attacked them viciously. four of them here tonight. one of the women, who is a wonderful woman,at 12 years old, was raped at 12. her client she represented got him off, andshe’s seen laughing on two separate occasions,

laughing at the girl who was raped. kathy shelton, that young woman is here withus tonight. so don’t tell me about words. i am absolutely — i apologize for thosewords. but it is things that people say. but what president clinton did, he was impeached,he lost his license to practice law. he had to pay an $850,000 fine to one of thewomen. paula jones, who’s also here tonight. and i will tell you that when hillary bringsup a point like that and she talks about words

that i said 11 years ago, i think it’s disgraceful,and i think she should be ashamed of herself, if you want to know the truth. radiate: can we please hold the applause? secretary clinton, you have two minutes. clinton: well, first, let me start by sayingthat so much of what he’s just said is not right, but he gets to run his campaign anyway he chooses. he gets to decide what he wants to talk about. instead of answering people’s questions,talking about our agenda, laying out the plans that we have that we think can make a betterlife and a better country, that’s his choice.

when i hear something like that, i am remindedof what my friend, michelle obama, advised us all: when they go low, you go high. (applause) and, look, if this were just aboutone video, maybe what he’s saying tonight would be understandable, but everyone candraw their own conclusions at this point about whether or not the man in the video or theman on the stage respects women. but he never apologizes for anything to anyone. clinton: he never apologized to mr. and mrs.khan, the gold star family whose son, captain khan, died in the line of duty in iraq. and donald insulted and attacked them forweeks over their religion.

he never apologized to the distinguished federaljudge who was born in indiana, but donald said he couldn’t be trusted to be a judgebecause his parents were, quote, “mexican.” he never apologized to the reporter that hemimicked and mocked on national television and our children were watching. and he never apologized for the racist liethat president obama was not born in the united states of america. he owes the president an apology, he owesour country an apology, and he needs to take responsibility for his actions and his words. trump: well, you owe the president an apology,because as you know very well, your campaign,

sidney blumenthal — he’s another realwinner that you have — and he’s the one that got this started, along with your campaignmanager, and they were on television just two weeks ago, she was, saying exactly that. so you really owe him an apology. you’re the one that sent the pictures aroundyour campaign, sent the pictures around with president obama in a certain garb. that was long before i was ever involved,so you actually owe an apology. number two, michelle obama. i’ve gotten to see the commercials thatthey did on you.

and i’ve gotten to see some of the mostvicious commercials i’ve ever seen of michelle obama talking about you, hillary. so, you talk about friend? go back and take a look at those commercials,a race where you lost fair and square, unlike the bernie sanders race, where you won, butnot fair and square, in my opinion. and all you have to do is take a look at wikileaksand just see what they say about bernie sanders and see what deborah wasserman schultz hadin mind, because bernie sanders, between super-delegates and deborah wasserman schultz, he never hada chance. and i was so surprised to see him sign onwith the devil.

but when you talk about apology, i think theone that you should really be apologizing for and the thing that you should be apologizingfor are the 33,000 e-mails that you deleted, and that you acid washed, and then the twoboxes of e-mails and other things last week that were taken from an office and are nowmissing. and i’ll tell you what. i didn’t think i’d say this, but i’mgoing to say it, and i hate to say it. but if i win, i am going to instruct my attorneygeneral to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there has neverbeen so many lies, so much deception. there has never been anything like it, andwe’re going to have a special prosecutor.

when i speak, i go out and speak, the peopleof this country are furious. in my opinion, the people that have been long-termworkers at the fbi are furious. there has never been anything like this, wheree-mails — and you get a subpoena, you get a subpoena, and after getting the subpoena,you delete 33,000 e-mails, and then you acid wash them or bleach them, as you would say,very expensive process. so we’re going to get a special prosecutor,and we’re going to look into it, because you know what? people have been — their lives have beendestroyed for doing one-fifth of what you’ve done.

and it’s a disgrace. and honestly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. radiate: secretary clinton, i want to followup on that. (crosstalk) radiate: i’m going to let you talk aboute-mails. clinton: … because everything he just saidis absolutely false, but i’m not surprised. trump: oh, really? clinton: in the first debate… (laughter)

radiate: and really, the audience needs tocalm down here. clinton: … i told people that it would beimpossible to be fact-checking donald all the time. i’d never get to talk about anything i wantto do and how we’re going to really make lives better for people. so, once again, go to hillaryclinton.com. we have literally trump — you can fact checkhim in real time. last time at the first debate, we had millionsof people fact checking, so i expect we’ll have millions more fact checking, because,you know, it is — it’s just awfully good

that someone with the temperament of donaldtrump is not in charge of the law in our country. trump: because you’d be in jail. radiate: secretary clinton… cooper: we want to remind the audience toplease not talk out loud. please do not applaud. you’re just wasting time. radiate: and, secretary clinton, i do wantto follow up on e- mails. you’ve said your handing of your e-mailswas a mistake. you disagreed with fbi director james comey,calling your handling of classified information,

quote, “extremely careless.” the fbi said that there were 110 classifiede-mails that were exchanged, eight of which were top secret, and that it was possiblehostile actors did gain access to those e-mails. you don’t call that extremely careless? clinton: well, martha, first, let me say — andi’ve said before, but i’ll repeat it, because i want everyone to hear it — thatwas a mistake, and i take responsibility for using a personal e-mail account. obviously, if i were to do it over again,i would not. i’m not making any excuses.

it was a mistake. and i am very sorry about that. but i think it’s also important to pointout where there are some misleading accusations from critics and others. after a year-long investigation, there isno evidence that anyone hacked the server i was using and there is no evidence thatanyone can point to at all — anyone who says otherwise has no basis — that any classifiedmaterial ended up in the wrong hands. i take classified materials very seriouslyand always have. when i was on the senate armed services committee,i was privy to a lot of classified material.

obviously, as secretary of state, i had someof the most important secrets that we possess, such as going after bin laden. so i am very committed to taking classifiedinformation seriously. and as i said, there is no evidence that anyclassified information ended up in the wrong hands. radiate: ok, we’re going to move on. trump: and yet she didn’t know the word— the letter c on a document. right? she didn’t even know what that word — whatthat letter meant.

you know, it’s amazing. i’m watching hillary go over facts. and she’s going after fact after fact, andshe’s lying again, because she said she — you know, what she did with the e-mailwas fine. you think it was fine to delete 33,000 e-mails? i don’t think so. she said the 33,000 e-mails had to do withher daughter’s wedding, number one, and a yoga class. well, maybe we’ll give three or three orfour or five or something.

33,000 e-mails deleted, and now she’s sayingthere wasn’t anything wrong. and more importantly, that was after gettinga subpoena. that wasn’t before. that was after. she got it from the united states congress. and i’ll be honest, i am so disappointedin congressmen, including republicans, for allowing this to happen. our justice department, where our husbandgoes on to the back of a airplane for 39 minutes, talks to the attorney general days beforea ruling is going to be made on her case.

but for you to say that there was nothingwrong with you deleting 39,000 e-mails, again, you should be ashamed of yourself. what you did — and this is after gettinga subpoena from the united states congress. cooper: we have to move on. trump: you did that. wait a minute. one second. cooper: secretary clinton, you can respond,and then we got to move on. radiate: we want to give the audience a chance.

trump: if you did that in the private sector,you’d be put in jail, let alone after getting a subpoena from the united states congress. cooper: secretary clinton, you can respond. then we have to move on to an audience question. clinton: look, it’s just not true. and so please, go to… trump: oh, you didn’t delete them? cooper: allow her to respond, please. clinton: it was personal e-mails, not official.

trump: oh, 33,000? yeah. clinton: not — well, we turned over 35,000,so… trump: oh, yeah. what about the other 15,000? cooper: please allow her to respond. she didn’t talk while you talked. clinton: yes, that’s true, i didn’t. trump: because you have nothing to say.

clinton: i didn’t in the first debate, andi’m going to try not to in this debate, because i’d like to get to the questionsthat the people have brought here tonight to talk to us about. trump: get off this question. clinton: ok, donald. i know you’re into big diversion tonight,anything to avoid talking about your campaign and the way it’s exploding and the way republicansare leaving you. but let’s at least focus… trump: let’s see what happens…

cooper: allow her to respond. clinton: … on some of the issues that peoplecare about tonight. let’s get to their questions. cooper: we have a question here from ken karpowicz. he has a question about health care. ken? trump: i’d like to know, anderson, why aren’tyou bringing up the e-mails? i’d like to know. why aren’t you bringing…

cooper: we brought up the e-mails. trump: no, it hasn’t. it hasn’t. and it hasn’t been finished at all. cooper: ken karpowicz has a question. trump: it’s nice to — one on three. question: thank you. affordable care act, known as obamacare, itis not affordable. premiums have gone up.

deductibles have gone up. copays have gone up. prescriptions have gone up. and the coverage has gone down. what will you do to bring the cost down andmake coverage better? cooper: that first one goes to secretary clinton,because you started out the last one to the audience. clinton: if he wants to start, he can start. no, go ahead, donald.

trump: no, i’m a gentlemen, hillary. go ahead. cooper: secretary clinton? clinton: well, i think donald was about tosay he’s going to solve it by repealing it and getting rid of the affordable careact. and i’m going to fix it, because i agreewith you. premiums have gotten too high. copays, deductibles, prescription drug costs,and i’ve laid out a series of actions that we can take to try to get those costs down.

but here’s what i don’t want people toforget when we’re talking about reining in the costs, which has to be the highestpriority of the next president, when the affordable care act passed, it wasn’t just that 20million got insurance who didn’t have it before. but that in and of itself was a good thing. i meet these people all the time, and theytell me what a difference having that insurance meant to them and their families. but everybody else, the 170 million of uswho get health insurance through our employees got big benefits.

number one, insurance companies can’t denyyou coverage because of a pre-existing condition. number two, no lifetime limits, which is abig deal if you have serious health problems. number three, women can’t be charged morethan men for our health insurance, which is the way it used to be before the affordablecare act. number four, if you’re under 26, and yourparents have a policy, you can be on that policy until the age of 26, something thatdidn’t happen before. so i want very much to save what works andis good about the affordable care act. but we’ve got to get costs down. we’ve got to provide additional help tosmall businesses so that they can afford to

provide health insurance. but if we repeal it, as donald has proposed,and start over again, all of those benefits i just mentioned are lost to everybody, notjust people who get their health insurance on the exchange. and then we would have to start all over again. right now, we are at 90 percent health insurancecoverage. that’s the highest we’ve ever been inour country. cooper: secretary clinton, your time is up. clinton: so i want us to get to 100 percent,but get costs down and keep quality up.

cooper: mr. trump, you have two minutes. trump: it is such a great question and it’smaybe the question i get almost more than anything else, outside of defense. obamacare is a disaster. you know it. we all know it. it’s going up at numbers that nobody’sever seen worldwide. nobody’s ever seen numbers like this forhealth care. it’s only getting worse.

in ’17, it implodes by itself. their method of fixing it is to go back andask congress for more money, more and more money. we have right now almost $20 trillion in debt. obamacare will never work. it’s very bad, very bad health insurance. far too expensive. and not only expensive for the person thathas it, unbelievably expensive for our country. it’s going to be one of the biggest lineitems very shortly.

we have to repeal it and replace it with somethingabsolutely much less expensive and something that works, where your plan can actually betailored. we have to get rid of the lines around thestate, artificial lines, where we stop insurance companies from coming in and competing, becausethey want — and president obama and whoever was working on it — they want to leave thoselines, because that gives the insurance companies essentially monopolies. we want competition. you will have the finest health care planthere is. she wants to go to a single-payer plan, whichwould be a disaster, somewhat similar to canada.

and if you haven’t noticed the canadians,when they need a big operation, when something happens, they come into the united statesin many cases because their system is so slow. it’s catastrophic in certain ways. but she wants to go to single payer, whichmeans the government basically rules everything. hillary clinton has been after this for years. obamacare was the first step. obamacare is a total disaster. and not only are your rates going up by numbersthat nobody’s ever believed, but your deductibles are going up, so that unless you get hit bya truck, you’re never going to be able to

use it. cooper: mr. trump, your time… trump: it is a disastrous plan, and it hasto be repealed and replaced. cooper: secretary clinton, let me follow upwith you. your husband called obamacare, quote, “thecraziest thing in the world,” saying that small-business owners are getting killed aspremiums double, coverage is cut in half. was he mistaken or was the mistake simplytelling the truth? clinton: no, i mean, he clarified what hemeant. and it’s very clear.

look, we are in a situation in our countrywhere if we were to start all over again, we might come up with a different system. but we have an employer-based system. that’s where the vast majority of peopleget their health care. and the affordable care act was meant to tryto fill the gap between people who were too poor and couldn’t put together any resourcesto afford health care, namely people on medicaid. obviously, medicare, which is a single-payersystem, which takes care of our elderly and does a great job doing it, by the way, andthen all of the people who were employed, but people who were working but didn’t havethe money to afford insurance and didn’t

have anybody, an employer or anybody else,to help them. that was the slot that the obamacare approachwas to take. and like i say, 20 million people now havehealth insurance. so if we just rip it up and throw it away,what donald’s not telling you is we just turn it back to the insurance companies theway it used to be, and that means the insurance companies… cooper: secretary clinton… clinton: … get to do pretty much whateverthey want, including saying, look, i’m sorry, you’ve got diabetes, you had cancer, yourchild has asthma…

cooper: your time is up. clinton: … you may not be able to have insurancebecause you can’t afford it. so let’s fix what’s broken about it, butlet’s not throw it away and give it all back to the insurance companies and the drugcompanies. that’s not going to work. cooper: mr. trump, let me follow up on this. trump: well, i just want — just one thing. first of all, hillary, everything’s brokenabout it. everything.

number two, bernie sanders said that hillaryclinton has very bad judgment. this is a perfect example of it, trying tosave obamacare, which is a disaster. cooper: you’ve said you want to end obamacare… trump: by the way… cooper: you’ve said you want to end obamacare. you’ve also said you want to make coverageaccessible for people with pre-existing conditions. how do you force insurance companies to dothat if you’re no longer mandating that every american get insurance? trump: we’re going to be able to.

you’re going to have plans… cooper: what does that mean? trump: well, i’ll tell you what it means. you’re going to have plans that are so good,because we’re going to have so much competition in the insurance industry. once we break out — once we break out thelines and allow the competition to come… cooper: are you going — are you going tohave a mandate that americans have to have health insurance? trump: president obama — anderson, excuseme.

president obama, by keeping those lines, theboundary lines around each state, it was almost gone until just very toward the end of thepassage of obamacare, which, by the way, was a fraud. you know that, because jonathan gruber, thearchitect of obamacare, was said — he said it was a great lie, it was a big lie. president obama said you keep your doctor,you keep your plan. the whole thing was a fraud, and it doesn’twork. but when we get rid of those lines, you willhave competition, and we will be able to keep pre-existing, we’ll also be able to helppeople that can’t get — don’t have money

because we are going to have people protected. and republicans feel this way, believe itor not, and strongly this way. we’re going to block grant into the states. we’re going to block grant into medicaidinto the states… trump: … so that we will be able to takecare of people without the necessary funds to take care of themselves. radiate: we now go to gorbah hamed with aquestion for both candidates. question: hi. there are 3.3 million muslims in the unitedstates, and i’m one of them.

you’ve mentioned working with muslim nations,but with islamophobia on the rise, how will you help people like me deal with the consequencesof being labeled as a threat to the country after the election is over? radiate: mr. trump, you’re first. trump: well, you’re right about islamophobia,and that’s a shame. but one thing we have to do is we have tomake sure that — because there is a problem. i mean, whether we like it or not, and wecould be very politically correct, but whether we like it or not, there is a problem. and we have to be sure that muslims come inand report when they see something going on.

when they see hatred going on, they have toreport it. as an example, in san bernardino, many peoplesaw the bombs all over the apartment of the two people that killed 14 and wounded many,many people. horribly wounded. they’ll never be the same. muslims have to report the problems when theysee them. and, you know, there’s always a reason foreverything. if they don’t do that, it’s a very difficultsituation for our country, because you look at orlando and you look at san bernardinoand you look at the world trade center.

go outside. look at paris. look at that horrible — these are radicalislamic terrorists. and she won’t even mention the word andnor will president obama. he won’t use the term “radical islamicterrorism.” now, to solve a problem, you have to be ableto state what the problem is or at least say the name. she won’t say the name and president obamawon’t say the name. but the name is there.

it’s radical islamic terror. and before you solve it, you have to say thename. radiate: secretary clinton? clinton: well, thank you for asking your question. and i’ve heard this question from a lotof muslim-americans across our country, because, unfortunately, there’s been a lot of verydivisive, dark things said about muslims. and even someone like captain khan, the youngman who sacrificed himself defending our country in the united states army, has been subjectto attack by donald. i want to say just a couple of things.

first, we’ve had muslims in america sincegeorge washington. and we’ve had many successful muslims. we just lost a particular well-known one withmuhammad ali. clinton: my vision of america is an americawhere everyone has a place, if you’re willing to work hard, you do your part, you contributeto the community. that’s what america is. that’s what we want america to be for ourchildren and our grandchildren. it’s also very short-sighted and even dangerousto be engaging in the kind of demagogic rhetoric that donald has about muslims.

we need american muslims to be part of oureyes and ears on our front lines. i’ve worked with a lot of different muslimgroups around america. i’ve met with a lot of them, and i’veheard how important it is for them to feel that they are wanted and included and partof our country, part of our homeland security, and that’s what i want to see. it’s also important i intend to defeat isis,to do so in a coalition with majority muslim nations. right now, a lot of those nations are hearingwhat donald says and wondering, why should we cooperate with the americans?

and this is a gift to isis and the terrorists,violent jihadist terrorists. we are not at war with islam. and it is a mistake and it plays into thehands of the terrorists to act as though we are. so i want a country where citizens like youand your family are just as welcome as anyone radiate: thank you, secretary clinton. mr. trump, in december, you said this. “donald j. trump is calling for a totaland complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states until our country’s representativescan figure out what the hell is going on.

we have no choice. we have no choice.” your running mate said this week that themuslim ban is no longer your position. is that correct? and if it is, was it a mistake to have a religioustest? trump: first of all, captain khan is an americanhero, and if i were president at that time, he would be alive today, because unlike her,who voted for the war without knowing what she was doing, i would not have had our peoplein iraq. iraq was disaster.

so he would have been alive today. the muslim ban is something that in some formhas morphed into a extreme vetting from certain areas of the world. hillary clinton wants to allow hundreds ofthousands — excuse me. excuse me.. radiate: and why did it morph into that? no, did you — no, answer the question. do you still believe… trump: why don’t you interrupt her?

you interrupt me all the time. raddatz: i do. radiate: would you please explain whetheror not the muslim ban still stands? trump: it’s called extreme vetting. we are going to areas like syria where they’recoming in by the tens of thousands because of barack obama. and hillary clinton wants to allow a 550 percentincrease over obama. people are coming into our country like wehave no idea who they are, where they are from, what their feelings about our countryis, and she wants 550 percent more.

this is going to be the great trojan horseof all time. we have enough problems in this country. i believe in building safe zones. i believe in having other people pay for them,as an example, the gulf states, who are not carrying their weight, but they have nothingbut money, and take care of people. but i don’t want to have, with all the problemsthis country has and all of the problems that you see going on, hundreds of thousands ofpeople coming in from syria when we know nothing about them. we know nothing about their values and weknow nothing about their love for our country.

radiate: and, secretary clinton, let me askyou about that, because you have asked for an increase from 10,000 to 65,000 syrian refugees. we know you want tougher vetting. that’s not a perfect system. so why take the risk of having those refugeescome into the country? clinton: well, first of all, i will not letanyone into our country that i think poses a risk to us. but there are a lot of refugees, women andchildren — think of that picture we all saw of that 4-year-old boy with the bloodon his forehead because he’d been bombed

by the russian and syrian air forces. there are children suffering in this catastrophicwar, largely, i believe, because of russian aggression. and we need to do our part. we by no means are carrying anywhere nearthe load that europe and others are. but we will have vetting that is as toughas it needs to be from our professionals, our intelligence experts and others. but it is important for us as a policy, youknow, not to say, as donald has said, we’re going to ban people based on a religion.

how do you do that? we are a country founded on religious freedomand liberty. how do we do what he has advocated withoutcausing great distress within our own county? are we going to have religious tests whenpeople fly into our country? and how do we expect to be able to implementthose? so i thought that what he said was extremelyunwise and even dangerous. and indeed, you can look at the propagandaon a lot of the terrorists sites, and what donald trump says about muslims is used torecruit fighters, because they want to create a war between us.

and the final thing i would say, this is the10th or 12th time that he’s denied being for the war in iraq. we have it on tape. the entire press corps has looked at it. it’s been debunked, but it never stops himfrom saying whatever he wants to say. trump: that’s not been debunked. clinton: so, please… trump: that has not been debunked. clinton: … go to hillaryclinton.com andyou can see it.

trump: i was against — i was against thewar in iraq. has not been debunked. and you voted for it. and you shouldn’t have. well, i just want to say… radiate: there’s been lots of fact-checkingon that. i’d like to move on to an online question… trump: excuse me. she just went about 25 seconds over her time.

radiate: she did not. trump: could i just respond to this, please? radiate: very quickly, please. trump: hillary clinton, in terms of havingpeople come into our country, we have many criminal illegal aliens. when we want to send them back to their country,their country says we don’t want them. in some cases, they’re murderers, drug lords,drug problems. and they don’t want them. and hillary clinton, when she was secretaryof state, said that’s ok, we can’t force

it into their country. let me tell you, i’m going to force themright back into their country. they’re murderers and some very bad people. and i will tell you very strongly, when berniesanders said she had bad judgment, she has really bad judgment, because we are lettingpeople into this country that are going to cause problems and crime like you’ve neverseen. we’re also letting drugs pour through oursouthern border at a record clip. at a record clip. and it shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

ice just endorsed me. they’ve never endorsed a presidential candidate. the border patrol agents, 16,500, just recentlyendorsed me, and they endorsed me because i understand the border. she doesn’t. she wants amnesty for everybody. come right in. come right over. it’s a horrible thing she’s doing.

she’s got bad judgment, and honestly, sobad that she should never be president of the united states. that i can tell you. radiate: thank you, mr. trump. i want to move on. this next question from the public throughthe bipartisan open debate coalition’s online forum, where americans submitted questionsthat generated millions of votes. this question involves wikileaks release ofpurported excerpts of secretary clinton’s paid speeches, which she has refused to release,and one line in particular, in which you,

secretary clinton, purportedly say you needboth a public and private position on certain issues. so, tu (ph), from virginia asks, is it okfor politicians to be two-faced? is it acceptable for a politician to havea private stance on issues? secretary clinton, your two minutes. clinton: well, right. as i recall, that was something i said aboutabraham lincoln after having seen the wonderful steven spielberg movie called “lincoln.” it was a master class watching president lincolnget the congress to approve the 13th amendment.

it was principled, and it was strategic. and i was making the point that it is hardsometimes to get the congress to do what you want to do and you have to keep working atit. and, yes, president lincoln was trying toconvince some people, he used some arguments, convincing other people, he used other arguments. that was a great — i thought a great displayof presidential leadership. but, you know, let’s talk about what’sreally going on here, martha, because our intelligence community just came out and saidin the last few days that the kremlin, meaning putin and the russian government, are directingthe attacks, the hacking on american accounts

to influence our election. and wikileaks is part of that, as are othersites where the russians hack information, we don’t even know if it’s accurate information,and then they put it out. we have never in the history of our countrybeen in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power, is working so hard to influencethe outcome of the election. and believe me, they’re not doing it toget me elected. they’re doing it to try to influence theelection for donald trump. clinton: now, maybe because he has praisedputin, maybe because he says he agrees with a lot of what putin wants to do, maybe becausehe wants to do business in moscow, i don’t

know the reasons. but we deserve answers. and we should demand that donald release allof his tax returns so that people can see what are the entanglements and the financialrelationships that he has… radiate: we’re going to get to that later. secretary clinton, you’re out of time. clinton: … with the russians and other foreignpowers. raddatz: mr. trump? trump: well, i think i should respond, because— so ridiculous.

look, now she’s blaming — she got caughtin a total lie. her papers went out to all her friends atthe banks, goldman sachs and everybody else, and she said things — wikileaks that justcame out. and she lied. now she’s blaming the lie on the late, greatabraham lincoln. that’s one that i haven’t… ok, honest abe, honest abe never lied. that’s the good thing. that’s the big difference between abrahamlincoln and you.

that’s a big, big difference. we’re talking about some difference. but as far as other elements of what she wassaying, i don’t know putin. i think it would be great if we got alongwith russia because we could fight isis together, as an example. but i don’t know putin. but i notice, anytime anything wrong happens,they like to say the russians are — she doesn’t know if it’s the russians doingthe hacking. maybe there is no hacking.

but they always blame russia. and the reason they blame russia because theythink they’re trying to tarnish me with russia. i know nothing about russia. i know — i know about russia, but i knownothing about the inner workings of russia. i don’t deal there. i have no businesses there. i have no loans from russia. i have a very, very great balance sheet, sogreat that when i did the old post office

on pennsylvania avenue, the united statesgovernment, because of my balance sheet, which they actually know very well, chose me todo the old post office, between the white house and congress, chose me to do the oldpost office. one of the primary area things, in fact, perhapsthe primary thing was balance sheet. but i have no loans with russia. you could go to the united states government,and they would probably tell you that, because they know my sheet very well in order to getthat development i had to have. now, the taxes are a very simple thing. as soon as i have — first of all, i payhundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.

many of her friends took bigger deductions. warren buffett took a massive deduction. soros, who’s a friend of hers, took a massivededuction. many of the people that are giving her allthis money that she can do many more commercials than me gave her — took massive deductions. i pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. but — but as soon as my routine audit isfinished, i’ll release my returns. i’ll be very proud to. they’re actually quite great.

cooper: we want to turn, actually, to thetopic of taxes. we have a question from spencer maass. spencer? question: good evening. my question is, what specific tax provisionswill you change to ensure the wealthiest americans pay their fair share in taxes? trump: well, one thing i’d do is get ridof carried interest. one of the greatest provisions for peoplelike me, to be honest with you, i give up a lot when i run, because i knock out thetax code.

and she could have done this years ago, bythe way. she’s a united states — she was a unitedstates senator. she complains that donald trump took advantageof the tax code. well, why didn’t she change it? why didn’t you change it when you were asenator? the reason you didn’t is that all your friendstake the same advantage that i do. and i do. you have provisions in the tax code that,frankly, we could change. but you wouldn’t change it, because allof these people gave you the money so you

can take negative ads on donald trump. but — and i say that about a lot of things. you know, i’ve heard hillary complainingabout so many different things over the years. “i wish you would have done this.” but she’s been there for 30 years she’sbeen doing this stuff. she never changed. and she never will change. she never will change. we’re getting rid of carried interest provisions.

i’m lowering taxes actually, because i thinkit’s so important for corporations, because we have corporations leaving — massive corporationsand little ones, little ones can’t form. we’re getting rid of regulations which goeshand in hand with the lowering of the taxes. but we’re bringing the tax rate down from35 percent to 15 percent. we’re cutting taxes for the middle class. and i will tell you, we are cutting them bigleague for the middle class. and i will tell you, hillary clinton is raisingyour taxes, folks. you can look at me. she’s raising your taxes really high.

and what that’s going to do is a disasterfor the country. but she is raising your taxes and i’m loweringyour taxes. that in itself is a big difference. we are going to be thriving again. we have no growth in this country. there’s no growth. if china has a gdp of 7 percent, it’s likea national catastrophe. we’re down at 1 percent. and that’s, like, no growth.

and we’re going lower, in my opinion. and a lot of it has to do with the fact thatour taxes are so high, just about the highest in the world. and i’m bringing them down to one of thelower in the world. and i think it’s so important — one ofthe most important things we can do. but she is raising everybody’s taxes massively. cooper: secretary clinton, you have two minutes. the question was, what specific tax provisionswill you change to ensure the wealthiest americans pay their fair share of taxes?

clinton: well, everything you’ve heard justnow from donald is not true. i’m sorry i have to keep saying this, buthe lives in an alternative reality. and it is sort of amusing to hear somebodywho hasn’t paid federal income taxes in maybe 20 years talking about what he’s goingto do. but i’ll tell you what he’s going to do. his plan will give the wealthy and corporationsthe biggest tax cuts they’ve ever had, more than the bush tax cuts by at least a factorof two. donald always takes care of donald and peoplelike donald, and this would be a massive gift. and, indeed, the way that he talks about histax cuts would end up raising taxes on middle-class

families, millions of middle-class families. now, here’s what i want to do. i have said nobody who makes less than $250,000a year — and that’s the vast majority of americans as you know — will have theirtaxes raised, because i think we’ve got to go where the money is. and the money is with people who have takenadvantage of every single break in the tax code. and, yes, when i was a senator, i did voteto close corporate loopholes. i voted to close, i think, one of the loopholeshe took advantage of when he claimed a billion-dollar

loss that enabled him to avoid paying taxes. i want to have a tax on people who are makinga million dollars. it’s called the buffett rule. yes, warren buffett is the one who’s goneout and said somebody like him should not be paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. i want to have a surcharge on incomes above$5 million. we have to make up for lost times, becausei want to invest in you. i want to invest in hard-working families. and i think it’s been unfortunate, but it’shappened, that since the great recession,

the gains have all gone to the top. and we need to reverse that. people like donald, who paid zero in taxes,zero for our vets, zero for our military, zero for health and education, that is wrong. cooper: thank you, secretary. clinton: and we’re going to make sure thatnobody, no corporation, and no individual can get away without paying his fair shareto support our country. cooper: thank you. i want to give you — mr. trump, i want togive you the chance to respond.

i just wanted to tell our viewers what she’sreferring to. in the last month, taxes were the number-oneissue on facebook for the first time in the campaign. the new york times published three pages ofyour 1995 tax returns. they show you claimed a $916 million loss,which means you could have avoided paying personal federal income taxes for years. you’ve said you pay state taxes, employeetaxes, real estate taxes, property taxes. you have not answered, though, a simple question. did you use that $916 million loss to avoidpaying personal federal income taxes for years?

trump: of course i do. of course i do. and so do all of her donors, or most of herdonors. i know many of her donors. her donors took massive tax write-offs. cooper: so have you (inaudible) personal federalincome tax? trump: a lot of my — excuse me, anderson— a lot of my write- off was depreciation and other things that hillary as a senatorallowed. and she’ll always allow it, because thepeople that give her all this money, they

want it. that’s why. see, i understand the tax code better thananybody that’s ever run for president. hillary clinton — and it’s extremely complex— hillary clinton has friends that want all of these provisions, including they wantthe carried interest provision, which is very important to wall street people. but they really want the carried interestprovision, which i believe hillary’s leaving. very interesting why she’s leaving carriedinterest. but i will tell you that, number one, i paytremendous numbers of taxes.

i absolutely used it. and so did warren buffett and so did georgesoros and so did many of the other people that hillary is getting money from. now, i won’t mention their names, becausethey’re rich, but they’re not famous. so we won’t make them famous. cooper: so can you — can you say how manyyears you have avoided paying personal federal income taxes? trump: no, but i pay tax, and i pay federaltax, too. but i have a write-off, a lot of it’s depreciation,which is a wonderful charge.

i love depreciation. you know, she’s given it to us. hey, if she had a problem — for 30 yearsshe’s been doing this, anderson. i say it all the time. she talks about health care. why didn’t she do something about it? she talks about taxes. she doesn’t do anything about anything otherthan talk. with her, it’s all talk and no action.

cooper: in the past… trump: and, again, bernie sanders, it’sreally bad judgment. she has made bad judgment not only on taxes. she’s made bad judgments on libya, on syria,on iraq. i mean, her and obama, whether you like itor not, the way they got out of iraq, the vacuum they’ve left, that’s why isis formedin the first place. they started from that little area, and nowthey’re in 32 different nations, hillary. congratulations. great job.

cooper: secretary — i want you to be ableto respond, secretary clinton. clinton: well, here we go again. i’ve been in favor of getting rid of carriedinterest for years, starting when i was a senator from new york. but that’s not the point here. trump: why didn’t you do it? why didn’t you do it? clinton: because i was a senator with a republicanpresident. clinton: i will be the president and we willget it done.

that’s exactly right. trump: you could have done it, if you werean effective — if you were an effective senator, you could have done it. if you were an effective senator, you couldhave done it. but you were not an effective senator. she didn’t interrupt you. clinton: you know, under our constitution,presidents have something called veto power. look, he has now said repeatedly, “30 yearsthis and 30 years that.” so let me talk about my 30 years in publicservice.

i’m very glad to do so. eight million kids every year have healthinsurance, because when i was first lady i worked with democrats and republicans to createthe children’s health insurance program. hundreds of thousands of kids now have a chanceto be adopted because i worked to change our adoption and foster care system. after 9/11, i went to work with republicanmayor, governor and president to rebuild new york and to get health care for our firstresponders who were suffering because they had run toward danger and gotten sickenedby it. hundreds of thousands of national guard andreserve members have health care because of

work that i did, and children have safer medicinesbecause i was able to pass a law that required the dosing to be more carefully done. when i was secretary of state, i went aroundthe world advocating for our country, but also advocating for women’s rights, to makesure that women had a decent chance to have a better life and negotiated a treaty withrussia to lower nuclear weapons. four hundred pieces of legislation have myname on it as a sponsor or cosponsor when i was a senator for eight years. i worked very hard and was very proud to bere-elected in new york by an even bigger margin than i had been elected the first time.

and as president, i will take that work, thatbipartisan work, that finding common ground, because you have to be able to get along withpeople to get things done in washington. cooper: thank you, secretary. clinton: i’ve proven that i can, and for30 years, i’ve produced results for people. radiate: we’re going to move on to syria. both of you have mentioned that. trump: she said a lot of things that werefalse. i mean, i think we should be allowed to maybe… radiate: no, we can — no, mr. trump, we’regoing to go on.

this is about the audience. because she has been a disaster as a senator. a disaster. radiate: mr. trump, we’re going to moveon. the heart-breaking video of a 5-year-old syrianboy named omran sitting in an ambulance after being pulled from the rubble after an airstrike in aleppo focused the world’s attention on the horrors of the war in syria, with 136million views on facebook alone. but there are much worse images coming outof aleppo every day now, where in the past few weeks alone, 400 people have been killed,at least 100 of them children.

just days ago, the state department calledfor a war crimes investigation of the syrian regime of bashar al-assad and its ally, russia,for their bombardment of aleppo. so this next question comes through socialmedia through facebook. diane from pennsylvania asks, if you werepresident, what would you do about syria and the humanitarian crisis in aleppo? isn’t it a lot like the holocaust when theu.s. waited too long before we helped? secretary clinton, we will begin with yourtwo minutes. clinton: well, the situation in syria is catastrophic. and every day that goes by, we see the resultsof the regime by assad in partnership with

the iranians on the ground, the russians inthe air, bombarding places, in particular aleppo, where there are hundreds of thousandsof people, probably about 250,000 still left. and there is a determined effort by the russianair force to destroy aleppo in order to eliminate the last of the syrian rebels who are reallyholding out against the assad regime. russia hasn’t paid any attention to isis. they’re interested in keeping assad in power. so i, when i was secretary of state, advocatedand i advocate today a no-fly zone and safe zones. we need some leverage with the russians, becausethey are not going to come to the negotiating

table for a diplomatic resolution, unlessthere is some leverage over them. and we have to work more closely with ourpartners and allies on the ground. but i want to emphasize that what is at stakehere is the ambitions and the aggressiveness of russia. russia has decided that it’s all in, insyria. and they’ve also decided who they want tosee become president of the united states, too, and it’s not me. i’ve stood up to russia. i’ve taken on putin and others, and i woulddo that as president.

i think wherever we can cooperate with russia,that’s fine. and i did as secretary of state. that’s how we got a treaty reducing nuclearweapons. it’s how we got the sanctions on iran thatput a lid on the iranian nuclear program without firing a single shot. so i would go to the negotiating table withmore leverage than we have now. but i do support the effort to investigatefor crimes, war crimes committed by the syrians and the russians and try to hold them accountable. mr. trump?

trump: first of all, she was there as secretaryof state with the so-called line in the sand, which… clinton: no, i wasn’t. i was gone. i hate to interrupt you, but at some point… trump: ok. but you were in contact — excuse me. you were… clinton: at some point, we need to do somefact-checking here.

trump: you were in total contact with thewhite house, and perhaps, sadly, obama probably still listened to you. i don’t think he would be listening to youvery much anymore. obama draws the line in the sand. it was laughed at all over the world whathappened. now, with that being said, she talks toughagainst russia. but our nuclear program has fallen way behind,and they’ve gone wild with their nuclear program. not good.

our government shouldn’t have allowed thatto happen. russia is new in terms of nuclear. we are old. we’re tired. we’re exhausted in terms of nuclear. a very bad thing. now, she talks tough, she talks really toughagainst putin and against assad. she talks in favor of the rebels. she doesn’t even know who the rebels are.

you know, every time we take rebels, whetherit’s in iraq or anywhere else, we’re arming people. and you know what happens? they end up being worse than the people. look at what she did in libya with gaddafi. gaddafi’s out. it’s a mess. and, by the way, isis has a good chunk oftheir oil. i’m sure you probably have heard that.

it was a disaster. because the fact is, almost everything she’sdone in foreign policy has been a mistake and it’s been a disaster. but if you look at russia, just take a lookat russia, and look at what they did this week, where i agree, she wasn’t there, butpossibly she’s consulted. we sign a peace treaty. everyone’s all excited. well, what russia did with assad and, by theway, with iran, who you made very powerful with the dumbest deal perhaps i’ve everseen in the history of deal-making, the iran

deal, with the $150 billion, with the $1.7billion in cash, which is enough to fill up this room. but look at that deal. iran now and russia are now against us. so she wants to fight. she wants to fight for rebels. there’s only one problem. you don’t even know who the rebels are. so what’s the purpose?

radiate: mr. trump, mr. trump, your two minutesis up. trump: and one thing i have to say. radiate: your two minutes is up. trump: i don’t like assad at all, but assadis killing isis. russia is killing isis. and iran is killing isis. and those three have now lined up becauseof our weak foreign policy. radiate: mr. trump, let me repeat the question. if you were president…

… what would you do about syria and thehumanitarian crisis in aleppo? and i want to remind you what your runningmate said. he said provocations by russia need to bemet with american strength and that if russia continues to be involved in air strikes alongwith the syrian government forces of assad, the united states of america should be preparedto use military force to strike the military targets of the assad regime. he and i haven’t spoken, and i disagree. i disagree. radiate: you disagree with your running mate?

trump: i think you have to knock out isis. right now, syria is fighting isis. we have people that want to fight both atthe same time. but syria is no longer syria. syria is russia and it’s iran, who she madestrong and kerry and obama made into a very powerful nation and a very rich nation, very,very quickly, very, very quickly. i believe we have to get isis. we have to worry about isis before we canget too much more involved. she had a chance to do something with syria.

they had a chance. and that was the line. and she didn’t. radiate: what do you think will happen ifaleppo falls? trump: i think aleppo is a disaster, humanitarian-wise. radiate: what do you think will happen ifit falls? trump: i think that it basically has fallen. ok? it basically has fallen.

let me tell you something. you take a look at mosul. the biggest problem i have with the stupidityof our foreign policy, we have mosul. they think a lot of the isis leaders are inmosul. so we have announcements coming out of washingtonand coming out of iraq, we will be attacking mosul in three weeks or four weeks. well, all of these bad leaders from isis areleaving mosul. why can’t they do it quietly? why can’t they do the attack, make it asneak attack, and after the attack is made,

inform the american public that we’ve knockedout the leaders, we’ve had a tremendous success? people leave. why do they have to say we’re going to beattacking mosul within the next four to six weeks, which is what they’re saying? how stupid is our country? radiate: there are sometimes reasons the militarydoes that. psychological warfare. trump: i can’t think of any.

i can’t think of any. and i’m pretty good at it. radiate: it might be to help get civiliansout. trump: and we have general flynn. and we have — look, i have 200 generalsand admirals who endorsed me. i have 21 congressional medal of honor recipientswho endorsed me. we talk about it all the time. they understand, why can’t they do somethingsecretively, where they go in and they knock out the leadership?

how — why would these people stay there? i’ve been reading now… radiate: tell me what your strategy is. trump: … for weeks — i’ve been readingnow for weeks about mosul, that it’s the harbor of where — you know, between raqqaand mosul, this is where they think the isis leaders are. why would they be saying — they’re notstaying there anymore. they’re gone. because everybody’s talking about how iraq,which is us with our leadership, goes in to

fight mosul. now, with these 200 admirals and generals,they can’t believe it. all i say is this. general george patton, general douglas macarthurare spinning in their grave at the stupidity of what we’re doing in the middle east. radiate: i’m going to go to secretary clinton. secretary clinton, you want assad to go. you advocated arming rebels, but it lookslike that may be too late for aleppo. you talk about diplomatic efforts.

those have failed. cease-fires have failed. would you introduce the threat of u.s. militaryforce beyond a no-fly zone against the assad regime to back up diplomacy? clinton: i would not use american ground forcesin syria. i think that would be a very serious mistake. i don’t think american troops should beholding territory, which is what they would have to do as an occupying force. i don’t think that is a smart strategy.

i do think the use of special forces, whichwe’re using, the use of enablers and trainers in iraq, which has had some positive effects,are very much in our interests, and so i do support what is happening, but let me just… radiate: but what would you do differentlythan president obama is doing? clinton: well, martha, i hope that by thetime i — if i’m fortunate… trump: everything. clinton: i hope by the time i am presidentthat we will have pushed isis out of iraq. i do think that there is a good chance thatwe can take mosul. and, you know, donald says he knows more aboutisis than the generals.

no, he doesn’t. there are a lot of very important planninggoing on, and some of it is to signal to the sunnis in the area, as well as kurdish peshmergafighters, that we all need to be in this. and that takes a lot of planning and preparation. i would go after baghdadi. i would specifically target baghdadi, becausei think our targeting of al qaida leaders — and i was involved in a lot of those operations,highly classified ones — made a difference. so i think that could help. i would also consider arming the kurds.

the kurds have been our best partners in syria,as well as iraq. and i know there’s a lot of concern aboutthat in some circles, but i think they should have the equipment they need so that kurdishand arab fighters on the ground are the principal way that we take raqqa after pushing isisout of iraq. radiate: thank you very much. we’re going to move on… trump: you know what’s funny? she went over a minute over, and you don’tstop her. when i go one second over, it’s like a bigdeal.

radiate: you had many answers. trump: it’s really — it’s really veryinteresting. cooper: we’ve got a question over here fromjames carter. mr. carter? question: my question is, do you believe youcan be a devoted president to all the people in the united states? cooper: that question begins for mr. trump. trump: absolutely. i mean, she calls our people deplorable, alarge group, and irredeemable.

i will be a president for all of our people. and i’ll be a president that will turn ourinner cities around and will give strength to people and will give economics to peopleand will bring jobs back. because nafta, signed by her husband, is perhapsthe greatest disaster trade deal in the history of the world. not in this country. it stripped us of manufacturing jobs. we lost our jobs. we lost our money.

we lost our plants. it is a disaster. and now she wants to sign tpp, even thoughshe says now she’s for it. she called it the gold standard. and by the way, at the last debate, she lied,because it turned out that she did say the gold standard and she said she didn’t sayit. they actually said that she lied. but she’s lied about a lot of things. trump: i would be a president for all of thepeople, african- americans, the inner cities.

devastating what’s happening to our innercities. she’s been talking about it for years. as usual, she talks about it, nothing happens. she doesn’t get it done. same with the latino americans, the hispanicamericans. the same exact thing. they talk, they don’t get it done. you go into the inner cities and — you seeit’s 45 percent poverty. african- americans now 45 percent povertyin the inner cities.

the education is a disaster. jobs are essentially nonexistent. i mean, it’s — you know, and i’ve beensaying at big speeches where i have 20,000 and 30,000 people, what do you have to lose? it can’t get any worse. and she’s been talking about the inner citiesfor 25 years. nothing’s going to ever happen. let me tell you, if she’s president of theunited states, nothing’s going to happen. it’s just going to be talk.

and all of her friends, the taxes we weretalking about, and i would just get it by osmosis. she’s not doing any me favors. but by doing all the others’ favors, she’sdoing me favors. cooper: mr. trump, thank you. trump: but i will tell you, she’s all talk. it doesn’t get done. all you have to do is take a look at her senaterun. take a look at upstate new york.

cooper: your two minutes is up. secretary clinton, two minutes? trump: it turned out to be a disaster. cooper: you have two minutes, secretary clinton. clinton: well, 67 percent of the people votedto re-elect me when i ran for my second term, and i was very proud and very humbled by that. mr. carter, i have tried my entire life todo what i can to support children and families. you know, right out of law school, i wentto work for the children’s defense fund. and donald talks a lot about, you know, the30 years i’ve been in public service.

i’m proud of that. you know, i started off as a young lawyerworking against discrimination against african-american children in schools and in the criminal justicesystem. i worked to make sure that kids with disabilitiescould get a public education, something that i care very much about. i have worked with latinos — one of my firstjobs in politics was down in south texas registering latino citizens to be able to vote. so i have a deep devotion, to use your absolutelycorrect word, to making sure that an every american feels like he or she has a placein our country.

and i think when you look at the letters thati get, a lot of people are worried that maybe they wouldn’t have a place in donald trump’samerica. they write me, and one woman wrote me abouther son, felix. she adopted him from ethiopia when he wasa toddler. he’s 10 years old now. this is the only one country he’s ever known. and he listens to donald on tv and he saidto his mother one day, will he send me back to ethiopia if he gets elected? you know, children listen to what is beingsaid.

to go back to the very, very first question. and there’s a lot of fear — in fact, teachersand parents are calling it the trump effect. bullying is up. a lot of people are feeling, you know, uneasy. a lot of kids are expressing their concerns. so, first and foremost, i will do everythingi can to reach out to everybody. cooper: your time, secretary clinton. clinton: democrats, republicans, independents,people across our country. if you don’t vote for me, i still want tobe your president.

clinton: i want to be the best president ican be for every american. cooper: secretary clinton, your two minutesis up. i want to follow up on something that donaldtrump actually said to you, a comment you made last month. you said that half of donald trump’s supportersare, quote, “deplorable, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic.” you later said you regretted saying half. you didn’t express regret for using theterm “deplorable.” to mr. carter’s question, how can you unitea country if you’ve written off tens of

millions of americans? clinton: well, within hours i said that iwas sorry about the way i talked about that, because my argument is not with his supporters. it’s with him and with the hateful and divisivecampaign that he has run, and the inciting of violence at his rallies, and the very brutalkinds of comments about not just women, but all americans, all kinds of americans. and what he has said about african-americansand latinos, about muslims, about pows, about immigrants, about people with disabilities,he’s never apologized for. and so i do think that a lot of the tone andtenor that he has said — i’m proud of

the campaign that bernie sanders and i ran. we ran a campaign based on issues, not insults. and he is supporting me 100 percent. clinton: because we talked about what we wantedto do. we might have had some differences, and wehad a lot of debates… trump: … but we believed that we could makethe country better. and i was proud of that. cooper: i want to give you a minute to respond. trump: we have a divided nation.

we have a very divided nation. you look at charlotte. you look at baltimore. you look at the violence that’s taking placein the inner cities, chicago, you take a look at washington, d.c. we have an increase in murder within our cities,the biggest in 45 years. we have a divided nation, because people likeher — and believe me, she has tremendous hate in her heart. and when she said deplorable, she meant it.

and when she said irredeemable, they’reirredeemable, you didn’t mention that, but when she said they’re irredeemable, to methat might have been even worse. cooper: she said some of them are irredeemable. trump: she’s got tremendous — she’sgot tremendous hatred. and this country cannot take another fouryears of barack obama, and that’s what you’re getting with her. cooper: mr. trump, let me follow up with you. in 2008, you wrote in one of your books thatthe most important characteristic of a good leader is discipline.

you said, if a leader doesn’t have it, quote,“he or she won’t be one for very long.” in the days after the first debate, you sentout a series of tweets from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., including one that told people to check outa sex tape. is that the discipline of a good leader? trump: no, there wasn’t check out a sextape. it was just take a look at the person thatshe built up to be this wonderful girl scout who was no girl scout. cooper: you mentioned sex tape. trump: by the way, just so you understand,when she said 3 o’clock in the morning,

take a look at benghazi. she said who is going to answer the call at3 o’clock in the morning? guess what? she didn’t answer it, because when ambassadorstevens… cooper: the question is, is that the disciplineof a good leader? trump: … 600 — wait a minute, anderson,600 times. well, she said she was awake at 3 o’clockin the morning, and she also sent a tweet out at 3 o’clock in the morning, but i won’teven mention that. but she said she’ll be awake.

who’s going — the famous thing, we’regoing to answer our call at 3 o’clock in the morning. guess what happened? ambassador stevens — ambassador stevenssent 600 requests for help. and the only one she talked to was sidneyblumenthal, who’s her friend and not a good guy, by the way. so, you know, she shouldn’t be talking aboutthat. now, tweeting happens to be a modern day formof communication. i mean, you can like it or not like it.

i have, between facebook and twitter, i havealmost 25 million people. it’s a very effective way of communication. so you can put it down, but it is a very effectiveform of communication. i’m not un-proud of it, to be honest withyou. cooper: secretary clinton, does mr. trumphave the discipline to be a good leader? clinton: no. trump: i’m shocked to hear that. clinton: well, it’s not only my opinion. it’s the opinion of many others, nationalsecurity experts, republicans, former republican

members of congress. but it’s in part because those of us whohave had the great privilege of seeing this job up close and know how difficult it is,and it’s not just because i watched my husband take a $300 billion deficit and turn it intoa $200 billion surplus, and 23 million new jobs were created, and incomes went up foreverybody. everybody. african-american incomes went up 33 percent. and it’s not just because i worked withgeorge w. bush after 9/11, and i was very proud that when i told him what the city needed,what we needed to recover, he said you’ve

got it, and he never wavered. he stuck with me. and i have worked and i admire president obama. he inherited the worst financial crisis sincethe great depression. that was a terrible time for our country. cooper: we have to move along. clinton: nine million people lost their jobs. radiate: secretary clinton, we have to… clinton: five million homes were lost.

radiate: secretary clinton, we’re moving. clinton: and $13 trillion in family wealthwas wiped out. we are back on the right track. he would send us back into recession withhis tax plans that benefit the wealthiest of americans. radiate: secretary clinton, we are movingto an audience question. we’re almost out of time. we have another… trump: we have the slowest growth since 1929.

radiate: we’re moving to an audience question. trump: it is — our country has the slowestgrowth and jobs are a disaster. radiate: mr. trump, secretary clinton, wewant to get to the audience. thank you very much both of you. we have another audience question. beth miller has a question for both candidates. perhaps the most important aspect of thiselection is the supreme court justice. what would you prioritize as the most importantaspect of selecting a supreme court justice? radiate: we begin with your two minutes, secretaryclinton.

clinton: thank you. well, you’re right. this is one of the most important issues inthis election. i want to appoint supreme court justices whounderstand the way the world really works, who have real-life experience, who have notjust been in a big law firm and maybe clerked for a judge and then gotten on the bench,but, you know, maybe they tried some more cases, they actually understand what peopleare up against. because i think the current court has gonein the wrong direction. and so i would want to see the supreme courtreverse citizens united and get dark, unaccountable

money out of our politics. donald doesn’t agree with that. i would like the supreme court to understandthat voting rights are still a big problem in many parts of our country, that we don’talways do everything we can to make it possible for people of color and older people and youngpeople to be able to exercise their franchise. i want a supreme court that will stick withroe v. wade and a woman’s right to choose, and i want a supreme court that will stickwith marriage equality. now, donald has put forth the names of somepeople that he would consider. and among the ones that he has suggested arepeople who would reverse roe v. wade and reverse

marriage equality. i think that would be a terrible mistake andwould take us backwards. i want a supreme court that doesn’t alwaysside with corporate interests. i want a supreme court that understands becauseyou’re wealthy and you can give more money to something doesn’t mean you have any morerights or should have any more rights than anybody else. so i have very clear views about what i wantto see to kind of change the balance on the supreme court. and i regret deeply that the senate has notdone its job and they have not permitted a

vote on the person that president obama, ahighly qualified person, they’ve not given him a vote to be able to be have the fullcomplement of nine supreme court justices. i think that was a dereliction of duty. i hope that they will see their way to doingit, but if i am so fortunate enough as to be president, i will immediately move to makesure that we fill that, we have nine justices that get to work on behalf of our people. thank you. you’re out of time. trump: justice scalia, great judge, died recently.

and we have a vacancy. i am looking to appoint judges very much inthe mold of justice scalia. i’m looking for judges — and i’ve actuallypicked 20 of them so that people would see, highly respected, highly thought of, and actuallyvery beautifully reviewed by just about everybody. but people that will respect the constitutionof the united states. and i think that this is so important. also, the second amendment, which is totallyunder siege by people like hillary clinton. they’ll respect the second amendment andwhat it stands for, what it represents. so important to me.

now, hillary mentioned something about contributionsjust so you understand. so i will have in my race more than $100 millionput in — of my money, meaning i’m not taking all of this big money from all of thesedifferent corporations like she’s doing. what i ask is this. so i’m putting in more than — by the timeit’s finished, i’ll have more than $100 million invested. pretty much self-funding money. we’re raising money for the republican party,and we’re doing tremendously on the small donations, $61 average or so.

i ask hillary, why doesn’t — she made$250 million by being in office. she used the power of her office to make alot of money. why isn’t she funding, not for $100 million,but why don’t you put $10 million or $20 million or $25 million or $30 million intoyour own campaign? it’s $30 million less for special intereststhat will tell you exactly what to do and it would really, i think, be a nice sign tothe american public. why aren’t you putting some money in? you have a lot of it. you’ve made a lot of it because of the factthat you’ve been in office.

made a lot of it while you were secretaryof state, actually. so why aren’t you putting money into yourown campaign? i’m just curious. clinton: well… we’re going to get on to one more question. clinton: the question was about the supremecourt. and i just want to quickly say, i respectthe second amendment. but i believe there should be comprehensivebackground checks, and we should close the gun show loophole, and close the online loophole.

radiate: we have — we have one more question,mrs. clinton. clinton: we have to save as many lives aswe possibly can. cooper: we have one more question from kenbone about energy policy. question: what steps will your energy policytake to meet our energy needs, while at the same time remaining environmentally friendlyand minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers? cooper: mr. trump, two minutes? i think it’s such a great question, becauseenergy is under siege by the obama administration. under absolutely siege.

the epa, environmental protection agency,is killing these energy companies. and foreign companies are now coming in buyingour — buying so many of our different plants and then re-jiggering the plant so that theycan take care of their oil. we are killing — absolutely killing ourenergy business in this country. now, i’m all for alternative forms of energy,including wind, including solar, et cetera. but we need much more than wind and solar. and you look at our miners. hillary clinton wants to put all the minersout of business. there is a thing called clean coal.

coal will last for 1,000 years in this country. now we have natural gas and so many otherthings because of technology. we have unbelievable — we have found overthe last seven years, we have found tremendous wealth right under our feet. so good. especially when you have $20 trillion in debt. i will bring our energy companies back. they’ll be able to compete. they’ll make money.

they’ll pay off our national debt. they’ll pay off our tremendous budget deficits,which are tremendous. but we are putting our energy companies outof business. we have to bring back our workers. you take a look at what’s happening to steeland the cost of steel and china dumping vast amounts of steel all over the united states,which essentially is killing our steelworkers and our steel companies. we have to guard our energy companies. we have to make it possible.

the epa is so restrictive that they are puttingour energy companies out of business. and all you have to do is go to a great placelike west virginia or places like ohio, which is phenomenal, or places like pennsylvaniaand you see what they’re doing to the people, miners and others in the energy business. it’s a disgrace. trump: it’s an absolute disgrace. cooper: secretary clinton, two minutes. clinton: and actually — well, that was veryinteresting. first of all, china is illegally dumping steelin the united states and donald trump is buying

it to build his buildings, putting steelworkersand american steel plants out of business. that’s something that i fought against asa senator and that i would have a trade prosecutor to make sure that we don’t get taken advantageof by china on steel or anything else. you know, because it sounds like you’rein the business or you’re aware of people in the business — you know that we are nowfor the first time ever energy-independent. we are not dependent upon the middle east. but the middle east still controls a lot ofthe prices. so the price of oil has been way down. and that has had a damaging effect on a lotof the oil companies, right?

we are, however, producing a lot of naturalgas, which serves as a bridge to more renewable fuels. and i think that’s an important transition. we’ve got to remain energy-independent. it gives us much more power and freedom thanto be worried about what goes on in the middle east. we have enough worries over there withouthaving to worry about that. so i have a comprehensive energy policy, butit really does include fighting climate change, because i think that is a serious problem.

and i support moving toward more clean, renewableenergy as quickly as we can, because i think we can be the 21st century clean energy superpowerand create millions of new jobs and businesses. but i also want to be sure that we don’tleave people behind. that’s why i’m the only candidate fromthe very beginning of this campaign who had a plan to help us revitalize coal country,because those coal miners and their fathers and their grandfathers, they dug that coalout. a lot of them lost their lives. they were injured, but they turned the lightson and they powered their factories. i don’t want to walk away from them.

so we’ve got to do something for them. clinton: but the price of coal is down worldwide. so we have to look at this comprehensively. clinton: and that’s exactly what i haveproposed. i hope you will go to hillaryclinton.com andlook at my entire policy. cooper: time is up. we have time for one more… radiate: we have… cooper: one more audience question.

radiate: we’ve sneaked in one more question,and it comes from karl becker. my question to both of you is, regardlessof the current rhetoric, would either of you name one positive thing that you respect inone another? radiate: mr. trump, would you like to go first? clinton: well, i certainly will, because ithink that’s a very fair and important question. look, i respect his children. his children are incredibly able and devoted,and i think that says a lot about donald. i don’t agree with nearly anything elsehe says or does, but i do respect that. and i think that is something that as a motherand a grandmother is very important to me.

so i believe that this election has becomein part so — so conflict-oriented, so intense because there’s a lot at stake. this is not an ordinary time, and this isnot an ordinary election. we are going to be choosing a president whowill set policy for not just four or eight years, but because of some of the importantdecisions we have to make here at home and around the world, from the supreme court toenergy and so much else, and so there is a lot at stake. it’s one of the most consequential electionsthat we’ve had. and that’s why i’ve tried to put forthspecific policies and plans, trying to get

it off of the personal and put it on to whatit is i want to do as president. and that’s why i hope people will checkon that for themselves so that they can see that, yes, i’ve spent 30 years, actuallymaybe a little more, working to help kids and families. and i want to take all that experience tothe white house and do that every single day. trump: well, i consider her statement aboutmy children to be a very nice compliment. i don’t know if it was meant to be a compliment,but it is a great — i’m very proud of my children. and they’ve done a wonderful job, and they’vebeen wonderful, wonderful kids.

so i consider that a compliment. i will say this about hillary. she doesn’t quit. she doesn’t give up. i respect that. i tell it like it is. she’s a fighter. i disagree with much of what she’s fightingfor. i do disagree with her judgment in many cases.

but she does fight hard, and she doesn’tquit, and she doesn’t give up. and i consider that to be a very good trait. radiate: thanks to both of you. cooper: we want to thank both the candidates. we want to thank the university here. this concludes the town hall meeting. our thanks to the candidates, the commission,washington university, and to everybody who watched. radiate: please tune in on october 19th forthe final presidential debate that will take

place at the university of nevada, las vegas. good night, everyone. ifill: and that concludes this second presidentialdebate between donald trump and hillary clinton. joining us here in washington for some analysisare syndicated columnist mark shields, new york times columnist david brooks, and amywalter of the cook political report, as we watch the candidates' families join them onstage after ending what -- a fairly nice moment where they -- someone was able to wring complimentout of them as opposed way this debate began -- mark shields. shields: karl becker (ph), thank you verymuch for the one pleasant moment of the evening.

that question was what good quality in theother person. brought out the one consistently positivenarrative in the whole evening. they didn't shake hands at the beginning,apparently knowing what was to follow. it was a pretty ugly evening. and not elevating, not inspiring. and i just thought trump was substance free. and anybody does not have anything to sayon health care 18 months after the race began, and he has nothing but a string of adjectives. and i just thought hillary clinton's answerson the emails was totally inadequate.

and she has no position on syria. ifill: of course, we were watching donaldtrump with his children. donald junior, and eric trump, and ivanka,and melania, his wife, standing over to the side greeting each other. and hillary clinton with her family as well. woodruff: amy walter, we -- this evening startedout with the donald trump videotape, audio tape from last friday. did he do anything in this debate to takethat cloud -- to lift that cloud off of him? walter: you know, in the last debate it wasdonald trump who was on defense the entire

time. and hillary clinton was on offense. she got under his skin. he went down rabbit holes. he lost his train of thought. this debate, for all the talk about how he'snot prepared and he doesn't like to go and do these mock sessions, he was very prepared. and he came in absolutely focused on makingthe debate about hillary clinton. and he pushed her and pushed and pushed theentire time.

he interrupted, he stalked her at points,walking around the stage, but he wanted to make sure that no one was going to walk awayfrom this debate saying he didn't take his opportunities to raise the questions aboutbenghazi, about emails, about any other issue that he didn't raise in the first debate. but to the question, judy, of whether it mattersor not, i do not believe that it does. i think that what he also did, which is whati feel like we've been sitting around this table talking about since this summer is he'stalking to the 40 percent of the people who are already with him. that's the base, who show up at his rallies,who he loves talking about, he loves talking

to, will be very happy with this debate performance. but if you are in suburban philadelphia, ifyou are an independent voter, if you are a woman, the voters right now that he needs,he's not winning, i don't think they move over into his column. ifill: it was a long 90 minutes, david brooks,but you know, this began with what paul ryan this weekend called the elephant in the room,which is the question about the videotape, the "access hollywood" videotape. and after about -- i counted four-and-a-halfminutes of niceties, they went immediately to that.

let's listen to that for a moment, then iwant you to talk about it on the other side. (begin video clip) trump: this was locker room talk. i'm not proud of it. i apologized to my family. i apologized to the american people. certainly i'm not proud of it. clinton: what we all saw and heard on fridaywas donald talking about women. what he thinks about women.

what he does to women. and he has said that the video doesn't representwho he is. but i think it's clear to anyone who heardit that it represents exactly who he is. trump: it's just words, folks. it's just words. those words i've been hearing them for manyyears. (end video clip) ifill: just words, folks. just words, david.

brooks: well, that was her best answer ofthe night. but it was one of her few good answers i thought. this is a guy with vulnerabilities comingout of every angle, and she missed a lot of them. this is a guy who just lost 40 house congressionalrepublicans, she can't point that out that his campaign is in free fall? i thought he says things that we've neverheard before. saying she has hate in her heart. what presidential candidate has said that?

that he wants to appoint a special prosecutor? we're in uncharted territory. ifill: that she should be in jail, that'sshe devil. brooks: but i thought the bottom line, howpeople and especially some of the swing sweaters, if there are any left, that amy talked about,will look at the mafioso-type stalking, how they look at that body language will determinea lot of their reactions. but my bottom line right now for this debateis he halted the free fall. that it will be -- the republicans who wereleaving him will stop leaving him. because he will have rallied the people thatreally dislike hillary clinton, he took it

to her, he took it to her with energy andfocus, and so at least he has not won anybody else over, but he stopped the slide. woodruff: so, mark shields, he stopped thebleeding, stopped the departure of these republicans? shields: well, he stopped a republican revoltthat dave is talking about, 40 republican members. and one after -- i mean, john thune of southdakota, third in republican leadership in the senate, i mean, these are not people whoare -- the nervous nellies who bail on republicans when they're in trouble. that is what i think, he was talking to theirconstituencies, the constituencies of the

republicans who are going to be on the phonetomorrow, the house republicans. and say, well, gee, do i really want to alienate? do i -- can we just pretend that this didn'thappen? i mean, this is a man, this is the first timea major party nominee has a billionaire running for president who just admitted in a debatethat he paid no federal income tax for 20 years. i mean, and just kind of glossed over it. he's a man without an embarrassment gene. i was amazed he showed up tonight and he justkind of glossed over what -- that whole tape.

i mean, he is really something we've neverseen before in a presidential candidate. ifill: the newshour's lisa desjardins is upstairsin our newsroom, she has been keeping -- i'm sorry, i'm going to the wrong person. we're going to newshour correspondent johnyang who is actually at washington university in st. louis, the site of tonight's debate. he's talking to people representing both campaigns. hey, john. john yang, newshour correspondent: hey, gwen. this is -- we're here with boris epshteyn,who is the senior adviser to the trump campaign.

mr. epshteyn, what did donald trump do tonightto stop this slide he has had over the past two weeks? boris epshteyn, trump campaign senior adviser:it was a strong night. he was in control. he was determined. he was presidential. he won this debate fair and square. it was a home run even though moderators didnot treat him fairly at all, they interrupted him about 25 more times than they interruptedhillary clinton.

but mr. trump won this debate hands down,and will move on now, will go to the next debate in las vegas where he will do great,and then win on november 8th. yang: how do you think did he on the questionabout foreign policy, the question about syria? he was asked about what his strategy wouldbe in syria and on aleppo, he disagreed with mike pence, his running mate. he said he hadn't spoken to mike pence. are we seeing some daylight opening up between-- on this ticket? epshteyn: here is bottom line. mr. trump has been very consistent.

and from the beginning that we need to fightis isis, deal with assad after. we need to defeat isis. eighty percent of people killed by isis havebeen killed in the last three years. that needs to stop. isis has to be defeated. and the trump-pence ticket is absolutely unitedon that. what governor pence was talking about wasthe safe zones, making sure that syrians are protected in their own country. and that is absolutely a priority for thetrump-pence ticket as well.

yang: but when he was asked about the consequenceswould be if aleppo fell, he turned to mosul. he didn't seem to discuss syrian and aleppoitself. epshteyn: here is the key issue here, right? the key issue is that because of the failedpolicies of hillary clinton and barack obama, syria is effectively a failed state. libya is a failed state. so, what the clinton campaign is trying todo is to distract americans from realizing that hillary clinton is the one at fault forwhat is going on in syria. so how could she possibly fix it?

what donald trump will do is ensure safe zonesin syria so syrian refugees are safe in their own country. and he will fight isis first and then dealwith assad and making sure that syria is no longer a failed state after. yang: we've got to leave it there. boris epshteyn, a senior adviser for the trumpcampaign -- gwen, judy. woodruff: thank you, john. and as at every debate there are lot of chargesand counter charges, claims and counter claims. our lisa desjardins is up in the newsroomright now, she has been keeping track of some

of this. lisa, what have you been hearing? lisa desjardins, newshour correspondent: that'sright. many claims, many words in this debate, butlet's talk start with two different claims about hillary clinton's emails. first, donald trump, and his claim duringthis debate that hillary clinton deleted those 33,000 infamous emails after she receiveda subpoena to hand them over. now we looked into this, and like many thingsthat the clinton emails, the answer is a little complicated.

hillary clinton's staff overseeing the emailserver ordered those emails to be deleted in december of 2014. the subpoena was actually handed out threemonths later. but here is what they say happened. they say a worker at the it company forgotto delete them. that worker has claimed responsibility andsaid he did delete them after the subpoena. but here is the thing, guys, the order wasgiven before the subpoena. so clinton herself says she has nothing todo with those deletions, so donald trump not accurate on that point exactly.

and then clinton, she also spoke about thoseemails, she said this quote that stuck out, she said she takes classified materials veryseriously and always has. but of course the fbi in its investigation,while finding no wrongdoing, no criminal problems with the hillary clinton's email server, didfind that she and her staff were extremely careless of classified information. and you know if you read deep into the fbi'sreport once the whole thing came out, it was clear that hillary clinton repeatedly saidshe did not receive training nor did she spend time trying to get that training to be onclassified materials. she said she expected her staff to know whatto do with classified materials.

so the real question there about how she lookedat classified materials even though she claims she took it very seriously. and one more, we don't have graphic for thisbecause we've been working right up to the minute, donald trump claimed, and i want toread basically his quote, he claimed that inner city poverty, he said, is 45 percentpoverty, quote, "african-americans now 45 percent poverty in the inner cities." that number jumped out to us right away. and of course our quinn bowman (ph) jumpedon the u.s. census site. and right now the u.s. census says african-americanpoverty overall about 24 percent.

that's nowhere near 45 percent. we can't find anywhere that sort of backsup that number of 45 percent poverty rate in the inner cities. it's possible trump was confusing a numberhe quotes often on the campaign trail, which is poverty rates for african-american children. but we can't find anything to substantiatethis claim of so much poverty in the african-american community -- gwen, judy. ifill: that is great work, thank you, lisa,for keeping us clear. it's very clear that these candidates allcome with their goals, the things that they

have come to say. for instance, we saw -- we just heard whatboth of them came to say about emails and about poverty, even though he wasn't askedabout that. and in fact, they got to emails before theywere asked about it. but i also was very interested to see whatdonald trump came to say about hillary clinton, to follow up in your point earlier, he wasasked about whether she -- i can't remember what the question was, but his answer was,she's all talk no action. let's listen. trump: thirty years she has been doing this,anderson, i say it all the time.

she talks about health care, why didn't shedo something about it? why didn't she do something about it? she doesn't do anything about anything otherthan talk. with her, it's all talk and no action. she has made bad judgments on libya, on syria,on iraq. vacuum they left, that's why isis formed inthe first place. they started from that little area now they'rein 32 different nations. hillary, congratulations. woodruff: amy, this is something that donaldtrump used in the first debate.

didn't get as much i think play, he went onlonger at this point. this is a tough one to come back on, isn'tit? walter: yes, it is the message that donaldtrump should be pushing forward, it's message that any republican would be pushing forwardright now and probably doing so more effectively because we wouldn't be distracted by thatperson's own problems that they keep having to get out of. that is the fundamental question of this election,when we started it, the question was, do americans want to see change or do they want to stickwith the status quo? and what's interesting, if you look at theway that these questions are asked in polling,

the wall street journal poll, nbc poll askedthis question starting in may, do you want change, even if it's unpredictable versusstaying the same even if it doesn't bring about change. it was in the 50s through may and july, itwent back down to 49 percent in this most recent poll in september. and i think what hillary clinton's -- andactually donald trump has helped her do this, is to make the case that you maybe want change,maybe i am the status quo, i am part of everything that right now so many voters say they arepushing back against, but this person is not the right person to deliver that change.

he's not stable. ifill: let's talk a little bit about stylepoints, because unlike the first debate, and like vice presidential debate, what we sawwere a town hall debate where people were asking questions about -- they got throughabout eight questions from voters i think. and at one point hillary clinton would walkover, for instance, when the young woman asked about muslims being discriminated against. and she would speak directly to her. he didn't as often. and as you pointed out, david, sometimes itfelt like he was stalking.

brooks: yes, and so, we’ve seen sort ofa temperamental choice for the american people. on the one hand, she was lot better at relationally(ph), she was also a lot better, i thought her — the cut-away shots, her listeningshots were good. very strong, not intimidated by any means,but not taking him too seriously. so i thought in the body language, and i reallyemphasize the visuals in these debates, that was very strong. he looked like a bully. on the other hand there might be some peoplewho say, it’s time for a bully. and the question is whether they can standlooking at him for four years.

and so, i think a lot of people, especiallypeople who are undecided, may have decided it’s just too unpleasant. and the question, a crucial question willbe, i think everyone is dispirited by this debate, as mark said. it’s just hard to sit through. it’s very ugly. it just makes you depressed for the country. but will they say that donald trump’s faultor will they say that’s both of them? and there’s a lot of that’s both of themout there right now.

woodruff: and, mark, you know, just pick upon that, because we are in — at a unprecedented we’ve talked about it over and over again. we’ve never seen some of the language, someof the stories that we’re hearing, some of the charges that we’re hearing. do people just have that to look forward tofor the next four weeks no matter how much they talk about the issues at these debates? shields: well, yes — no, i think we sawit tonight donald trump’s strategy was just scorched earth. i mean, that’s exactly what it is from hereon in.

i mean, you think “the jerry springer show”… ifill: and why not? shields: you think “the jerry springer show”is tasteless? i mean, this is “the jerry springer show”of politics. i mean, you mention about hatred, i mean,for somebody to have the chutzpah to sit there, you know, when muslim-american woman asksabout feeling animosity towards her, you know, and he says, you’re right about islamophobia,and that’s a shame, says the merchant of malice himself, i mean, it was just remarkable. but i didn’t think — i thought he didtrade well the first time.

and he did emails well tonight. i mean, i thought she was very much on thedefensive about the emails. and i didn’t — i don’t think she hasa satisfactory answer, convincing answer on the emails. ifill: well, and she was also on the defensiveabout the new wikileaks that came out about her private speeches. shields: and he didn’t take advantage ofthat. ifill: no, he didn’t. but i had to say, it was my favorite answerof the night, i didn’t think steven spielberg

would ever be invoked at a presidential debate. woodruff: the movie “lincoln.” ifill: the movie “lincoln,” inspiration… woodruff: … for having two points of view. walter: yes. look, i think though this race, to the pointsmade here, it’s sort of now frozen where we started. and if — there’s not a free fall, i agreethat it may be stopped, but the fact is, there are still a significant number of republicansthat have said publicly that they’re not

with him. i don’t know that any party has ever wonan election being this divided. and his ability, it’s not about gettingthose people back, he has got to figure out how to make sure that they come to the pollsfor the bottom of the ticket. that’s what so many senate and house candidatesare worried about, it’s that those folks who are saying, i can’t vote for donaldtrump, but as david says, i also don’t like her. that they just stay home, and that is veryproblematic for senate and house candidates on the republican side.

woodruff: we did have acknowledgment, thequestion is, is it baked in? but tonight donald trump did acknowledge thathe isn’t paying taxes. i mean, we don’t — he wouldn’t say howmany years, david, but it is kind of remarkable. brooks: yes. and, again, he’s trading on distrust andcynicism and hatred of government. and so the people who hate government willthink, way to go, i would have done that if i could. but a lot of people will think, well, thecommon good outweighs the selfish interest. ifill: shall we go back all the way to somethingthat happened at the very beginning of this

evening. and i wonder whether you think it was mindgame and whether it was effective, that before the debate even began, donald trump broughtreporters and introduced them to four women who have made charges against the clintons,three against bill clinton in particular. and they then brought seated in the hall. he even referenced them during the debateat one point. was that something which was clever or kindof icky, mark? shields: well, i mean, clever in the sensethat he was — he’s reaching to the hardcore republicans, the organizing principle of whichis they hate the clintons.

they hate hillary clinton. they hate bill clinton. and that is what it is. and i am the one tribune in this race andi’m not afraid to take them on. and that was — to me that was about stoppingthe hemorrhaging of support that we’ve talked about of republicans this week. but icky? absolutely icky. walter: yes, i definitely found the ice factorthere.

but, you know, this is a guy who is the masterof reality television. and he created, before this debate even began,more drama around himself and the focus — the interesting thing about this entire debatewas it was a town hall with the goal of, you get to talk to actual voters and they getto have their concerns put forward. at no point did it feel like regular peoplehad their voices heard. at no point did it feel like we were talkingabout anything other than a grudge match. ifill: ok. well, we are — unfortunately we had hopedto talk to some folks from the clinton campaign out there in st. louis tonight.

but we weren’t able to do it. so that concludes our coverage, we’ll getto more tomorrow, of the second presidential debate. but there is much more online. you can watch highlights at pbs.org/newshour. plus, fact checks from our very own economicscorrespondent paul solman, foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner, and the entirenewshour team. i’m gwen ifill. woodruff: and i’m judy woodruff.

join us right here for the newshour tomorrowevening, for all of us at the pbs newhour, and thanks to our team tonight, thank youand good night. end ​

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