Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton went head-to-head Monday night in the first presidential debate.
NPR's politics team, with help from reporters and editors who cover national security, immigration, business, foreign policy and more, is live annotated the debate. Portions of the debate with added analysis are underlined in yellow, followed by context and fact check.
You can follow more highlights of the debate at nprpolitics.org.
Note: The transcript on this page was updated live as the debate proceeded. We are working to correct the transcript as it comes in, but due to the live nature of the event, there may be some discrepancies.
SPEAKER:Good evening from Hofstra University in Hempstead New York.
LESTER HOLT:I'm Lester Holt anchor of NBC nightly news I want to welcome you to the first presidential debate. The participants tonight are Donald Trump — and Hillary Clinton. This debate is sponsored by the commission on presidential debates, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization. The commission drafted tonight format and the rules have been agreed to by the campaigns. The ninety minute debate is divided into six segments each fifteen minutes long. Will explore two three topic areas tonight achieving prosperity in their construction and securing America. And the start of each segment I will ask the same leadoff question to both candidates and do what you type up to two minutes to respond. From that point until the end of the segment we will have an open discussion. Questions our mind and not been shared with the commission or the campaigns. The audience here in the room has agreed to remain silent so that we can focus on what the oocandidates are saying. I will invite you to applaud however at this moment as we welcome the candidates. Democratic nominee for President of the United States Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee for president of the United States Donald J Trump.
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HILLARY CLINTON:How are you Donald?
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LESTER HOLT:While I don't expect this to cover all the issues of this campaign tonight but I remind everyone there are two more presidential debates scheduled. We are going to focus on many of the issues that voters tell us are most important and we're going to press for specifics. I am honored to have this rolled but this evening belongs to the candidates and just as important to the American people. Candidates we look forward to hearing you articulate your policies and your positions as well as your visions and your values.
So let's begin. We're calling this opening segment achieving prosperity and central to that is jobs. There are two economic realities in America today. There's been a record six straight years of job growth and new census numbers show incomes have increased at a record rate after years of stagnation. However, income inequality remains significant. And nearly half of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Beginning with you, Secretary Clinton - why are you a better choice than your opponent to create the kinds of jobs that will put more money into the pockets of American workers?
HILLARY CLINTON:Well thank you, Lester, and thanks to Hofstra for hosting us. The central question in this election is really what kind of country we want to be and what kind of future we will build together. Today is my granddaughter's second birthday so I think about this a lot. First we have to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. That means we need new jobs, good jobs with rising incomes. I want us to invest in you. I want us to invest in your future. That means jobs in infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, innovation and technology, clean renewable energy and small business because most of the new jobs will come from small business. We also have to make the economy fairer. That starts with raising the national minimum wage and also guarantee, finally, equal pay for woman's work.
The federal minimum wage has not been increased by Congress since 2009. — Marilyn Geewax
According to the latest Census income report, full-time, year-round working women earned 80 percent of what men earned in 2015. Lots of factors go into that wage gap, including hours and jobs worked, as well as interruptions in women's careers due to maternity. — Danielle Kurtzleben
I also want to see more companies to profit sharing. If you help create the profits you should be able to share in them, not just the executives at the top. And I want us to do more to support people who are struggling to balance family and work. I've heard from so many of you about the difficult choices you face and the stresses that you're under. So let's have paid family leave, earned sick, days let's be sure we have affordable childcare and debt-free college.
Clinton's primary campaign promise; at the end of the primary season, she announced a plan for tuition-free public college for working families. — Anya Kamenetz
How are we going to do it? We're going to do it by having the wealthy pay their fair share and close the corporate loopholes. Finally, we tonight are on the stage together, Donald Trump and I. Donald, it's good to be with you. We are going to have a debate where we are talking about the important issues facing our country. You have to judge us. Who can shoulder the immense, awesome responsibilities of the presidency? Who can put into action the plans that will make your life better? I hope that I will be able to earn your vote on November eighth.
LESTER HOLT:Secretary Clinton, thank you. Mr. Trump the same question to you. It's about putting money, more money into the pockets of American workers. You have up to two minutes.
DONALD TRUMP:Thank you, Lester. Our jobs are fleeing the country. They're going to Mexico they're going to many other countries. You look at what China is doing for country in terms of making our product, they're devaluing their currency and there's nobody in our government to fight them.
Obama has brokered an agreement with Chinese President Xi to reduce hacking, and IP theft — and cybersecurity experts who monitor intrusions from China say that attacks are in fact down. — Aarti Shahani
And we have a very good fight and we have a winning fight. Because they're using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China and many other countries are doing the same thing. So we are losing our good jobs, so many of them. When you look at what's happening in Mexico, a friend of mine who builds plants, said it's the eighth wonder of the world. They're building some of the biggest plants anywhere in the world, some of the most sophisticated, some of the best plants. With the United States, as he said, not so much. So Ford is leaving, you see that their small car division, leaving. Thousands of jobs leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio, they're all leaving.
Unemployment in Michigan is 4.5 percent; Ohio rate is 4.7 percent. Both are better than the national average of 4.9 percent. — Marilyn Geewax
Ford CEO Mark Fields says zero jobs will be lost in Michigan because Ford will build two new vehicles at that plant. — Aarti Shahani
And we can't allow to happen anymore. As far as child care is concerned and so many of the things I think Hillary and I agree on that. We probably disagree a little bit as to numbers and amounts and what we're going to do but perhaps will be talking about that later.
Trump and Clinton disagree more than a little bit on child care. Trump's plan would allow parents to deduct their state's average cost of child care, and he would also introduce rebates for lower-income parents. There would also be new savings accounts for parents to set aside money for child care. As for Clinton, she has said that families should not pay more than 10 percent of their income for child care, though it's not clear how that would be implemented. She also has called for more Head Start funding, as well as universal pre-K programs.
In addition, she has proposed 12 weeks of parental leave, to be paid for (as with many of her other programs) by higher taxes on high-income Americans. He has proposed six weeks of maternity leave, which would fall under the unemployment program. — Danielle Kurtzleben
But we have to stop our jobs are being stolen from us. We have to stop our companies from leaving the United States and with it, firing all of their people. All the have to do is take a look at carrier air-conditioning in Indianapolis. They left fourteen hundred people. They are going to Mexico. So many hundreds and hundreds of companies are doing this. We cannot let it happen.
Under my plan I will be reducing taxes tremendously from thirty five percent to fifteen percent for companies, small and big businesses.
Trump wants to cut income tax rates while capping deductions for the wealthy. He would also reduce the business tax rate to 15 percent and eliminate the estate tax. The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that his plan would reduce federal revenue by $4.4 trillion to $5.9 trillion over the next decade, which is a lot, but down from $10 trillion in his original plan.
Some of that could be offset by economic growth, but even using "dynamic scoring," the foundation says the plan cuts tax revenue by $2.6 trillion to $3.9 trillion over 10 years. (The higher figure is if the 15 percent business tax rate is applied to "pass-through" entities.) The biggest beneficiaries of Trump's tax cuts are the wealthy. The top 1 percent of earners see their after-tax income rise by between 10.2 percent and 16 percent. Overall savings would be less than 1 percent. — Scott Horsley
That's going to be a job creator like we haven't seen since Ronald Reagan. It's going to be a beautiful thing to watch. Companies will come, they will build, they will expand, new companies will start and I look very very much forward to doing it. We had to renegotiate our trade deals and we have to stop these countries from stealing our companies and our jobs.
LESTER HOLT:Secretary Clinton, would you like to respond?
HILLARY CLINTON:Well, I think that trade is an important issue, of course. We are five percent of the world's population - we have to trade with the other ninety five percent. And we need to have smart fair trade deals. We also though you have a tax system that rewards work and not just a financial transactions. And the kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle-down economics all over again. In fact it would be the most extreme version the biggest tax cuts for the top percents of the people in this country than we've ever had. I call it trumped up trickle-down because that's exactly what it would be. That is not how we grow the economy. We just have a different view about what's best for growing the economy. How we make investments that will actually produce jobs and rising incomes. I think we come at it from somewhat different perspectives. I understand that. You know, Donald was very fortunate in his life and that's all to his benefit. He started his business with fourteen million dollars borrowed from his father and he really believes that the more you help wealthy people, the better off we will be and that everything will work out from there. I don't buy that. I have a different experience. My father was a small businessman. He worked really hard, he printed drapery fabrics on long tables where he pulled out those fabrics and he went down with the silkscreen and dumped the paint in and took the squeegee and kept going. And so what I believe is the more we can do for the middle class, the more we can invest in you, your education, your skills for future, the better we will be off in the better we will grow. That's the kind of economy I wanted to see again.
LESTER HOLT: Let me follow up message up if I can. You talk about creating five million jobs and he promised to bring back millions of jobs for Americans. How are you going to bring back the industries that have led to this country for cheaper labor overseas? How specifically are you going to tell American manufacturers that you have to come back?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, for one thing and before we start on that my father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and I built into a company that's worth many many billions of dollars with some of the greatest assets in the world and I say that only because that's the kind of thinking that our country needs.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump's father came to his rescue repeatedly with multiple loans.
Our country is in deep trouble. We don't know what we're doing when it comes to devaluations and all of these countries all over the world, especially China. They're the best the best ever at it. What they're doing to us is a very very sad thing. So we have to do that. We had to renegotiate our trade deals and Lester, they're taking our jobs. They're giving incentives, they're doing things that frankly we don't do.
Let me give you the example of Mexico. They have a vat tax, we're on a different system. When we sell into Mexico there is a tax when they sell an automatic sixteen percent approximately. When they sell into us there's no tax. It's a defective agreement. It's been defective for a long time, many years, but the politicians haven't done anything about it. Now in all fairness to Secretary Clinton...yes? Is that okay? Good, I want you to be very happy. It's very important to me. But in all fairness to Secretary Clinton, when she started talking about this it was really very recently, she's been doing this for thirty years and why hasn't she made the agreements better? The NAFTA agreement is defective. Just because of the tax and many other reasons but just because of the tax.
LESTER HOLT: Let me interrupt for just a moment.
DONALD TRUMP: Secretary Clinton and others, politicians, should have been doing this for years. Now right now because of the fact that we created a movement. They should've been doing this for years. What's happened to our jobs and our country and our economy generally is look — we owe twenty trillion dollars. We cannot do it any longer, Lester.
LESTER HOLT: Back to the question, though, how do you bring back, specifically bring back jobs, American manufacturers how do you make them bring the jobs back?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, the first thing you do is don't let the jobs leave. The companies are leaving. I could name, I mean there are thousands of them, they're leaving and they're leaving in bigger numbers than ever. And what you do is you say fine, you want to go to Mexico or some other country, good luck, we wish you a lot of luck. But if you think you're going to make your air conditioners or your cars, or your cookies or whatever you make, and bring them into our country without a tax, you're wrong. And once you say you're going to tax them coming in and our politicians never do this because they have special interests and the special interests want those companies to leave because in many cases they own the companies. So what I'm saying is we can stop them from leaving, we have to stop them from leaving, and that's a big big factor.
LESTER HOLT: Let me let Secretary Clinton get in here.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, let's stop for a second and remember where we were eight years ago, we had the worst financial crisis - the great recession, the worst since the 1930s. That was, in large part, because of tax policies that slash taxes on the wealthy, failed to invest in the middle class, took their eyes off of Wall Street and created a perfect storm. In fact, Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. He said, back in 2006, gee, I hope it does collapse because then I can go in and buy some and make some money. Well, it did collapse.
DONALD TRUMP:That called business, by the way.
HILLARY CLINTON: Nine million people, nine million people lost their jobs. Five million people lost their homes. And thirteen trillion dollars in family wealth was wiped out. Now, we have come back from that abyss. And it has not been easy. So we're now on the precipice of having a potentially much better economy. But the last thing we need to do is to go back to the policies that failed us in the first place. Independent experts have looked at what I've proposed and looked at what Donald has proposed. And basically they have said this — that if his tax plan, which would blow up the debt by over five trillion dollars
This is from the Tax Foundation, which just put out a report saying Trump's plan would balloon the deficit; Hillary's plan, not so much. — Jim Zarroli
and would, in some instances, disadvantage middle-class families compared to the wealthy, were to go into effect, we would lose three and a half million jobs. And maybe have another recession. They've looked at my plans, and they've said okay, if we can do this, and I intend to get it done, we will have ten million more new jobs. Because we will be making investments where we can grow the economy. Take clean energy. Some country is going to be the clean energy superpower of the twenty first century. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it's real.
DONALD TRUMP:I did not — I do not say that
Actually, Trump has called climate change a "hoax" on several occasions. He said on Meet the Press that he was joking about China's role. As PolitiFact noted: "On Dec. 30, 2015, Trump told the crowd at a rally in Hilton Head, S.C., 'Obama's talking about all of this with the global warming and ... a lot of it's a hoax. It's a hoax. I mean, it's a moneymaking industry, OK? It's a hoax, a lot of it.'" — Domenico Montanaro
NPR: CJ-climate-two The original source for the "hoax" quote was a tweet Trump sent in 2012. He said the concept of global warming was created by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.
HILLARY CLINTON: The science is real. And I think is important that we grip this and deal with it both at home and abroad. And here's what we can do - we can deploy a half a billion more solar panels. We can have enough clean energy to power every home. We can build a new modern electric grid. That's a lot of jobs. That's a lot of new economic activity. So I've tried to be very specific about what we can and should do. And I am determined that we are going to get the economy really moving again. Building on the progress we've made over the last eight years but never going back to what got us in trouble in the first place.
LESTER HOLT: Mr. Trump.
DONALD TRUMP: She talks about solar panels. We invested in a solar company, our country. That was a disaster. They lost plenty of money on that one. Now look, I'm a great believer in all forms of energy. But were putting a lot of people out of work. Our energy policies are disaster. Our country is losing so much in terms of energy, in terms of paying off our debt.
Domestic oil and gas production have increased steadily during President Obama's time in office. The U.S. has been the world's leading producer of natural gas since 2011 and the top producer of oil since 2013.
The Energy Information Administration says gasoline prices averaged $2.17 a gallon last week — about a nickel cheaper than a year ago, and about 30 cents a gallon less than Obama's first year in office, and about a buck and a half less than during George W. Bush's last year in office. — Scott Horsley
You can't do what you're looking to do with twenty trillion in debt. The Obama administration from the time they've come in is over two hundred thirty years worth of debt. And he's topped it. He's doubled it in a course of almost eight years — seven and a half years to be semi- exact. So I will tell you this, we have to do a much better job at keeping our jobs and we have to do a much better job at getting companies incentive to build new companies or to expand. Because they're not doing it. All you have to do is look at Michigan and all you have to do is look at Ohio and look at all of these places where so many of their jobs and their companies are just leaving. They're gone. And Hillary, I'll just ask you this — you've been doing this for thirty years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now? For thirty years, you've been doing it. And now you're just starting to think of solutions.
HILLARY CLINTON:Well actually --
DONALD TRUMP: Excuse me. I will bring my job. You can't bring back jobs.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, actually, I have thought about this quite a bit.
DONALD TRUMP: Yeah for thirty years.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, not quite that long. I think my husband did a pretty good job in the 1990s. I think a lot about what worked and how we can make it work again.
DONALD TRUMP: Well, he approved NAFTA. He approved NAFTA, which is the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country.
HILLARY CLINTON:...a balanced budget, and incomes went up for everybody. Manufacturing jobs went up also in the 1990s if we're actually going to look at the facts.
For comparison: jobs per year was strongest under Bill Clinton (2.8 million), followed by Carter (2.6 million), Reagan (2 million), Obama (1.3 million as of January), H.W. Bush (659,000), and W. Bush (160,000). — Scott Horsley
When I was in the Senate, I had a number of trade deal that came before me. And I held them all the same test. Will they create jobs in America? Will they raise incomes in America? And are they good for our national security? Some of them I voted for. The biggest one, is a multinational one known as CAFTA, I voted against. And because I hold the same standards as I look at all of these trade deals. But let's not assume that trade is the only challenge we have in the economy. I think it is a part of it. And I've said what I'm going to do. I'm going to have a special prosecutor.
Kind of awkward for Hillary Clinton to raise the term "special prosecutor" even though this would be a very different kind of one. — Carrie Johnson
We're going to enforce the trade deals we have and we're going to hold people accountable. When I was Secretary of State, we actually increased American exports globally thirty percent. We increased them to China fifty percent. So I know how to really work to get new jobs and to get exports that help to create more new jobs.
LESTER HOLT: Very quickly...
DONALD TRUMP: But you haven't done it in thirty years or 26 years.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I've been a senator, Donald..
DONALD TRUMP: You haven't done it.
HILLARY CLINTON: And I have been a Secretary of State and I have --
DONALD TRUMP: Your husband signed NAFTA, one of the worst thing that ever happened in the manufacturing industry.
HILLARY CLINTON:That is your opinion -
DONALD TRUMP: You go to New England. You go to Ohio, Pennsylvania. You go anywhere you want, Secretary Clinton, and you will see devastation where manufacturing is down thirty, forty, sometimes fifty percent — NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere but certainly ever signed in this country.
Most studies show NAFTA had a relatively small impact on the economy. "NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics or the large economic gains predicted by supporters. The net overall effect of NAFTA on the U.S. economy appears to have been relatively modest," according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. — Marilyn Geewax
And now you want to approve Trans-Pacific Partnership. You were totally in favor of it, then you heard what I was saying - how bad it is - and you said, I can't win that debate. But you know that if you did win, you would approve that, and that will be almost as bad as NAFTA. Nothing will ever top NAFTA.
HILLARY CLINTON: That is just not accurate. I was against it once it was finally negotiated and the terms were laid out. I wrote about in —
Hillary Clinton did write in her book, Hard Choices, that the TPP was the "gold standard" of trade deals and appeared very much in favor of it as President Obama's secretary of state. She said it "would link markets throughout Asia and the Americas, lowering trade barriers while raising standards on labor, the environment, and intellectual property." She called it "important for American workers, who would benefit from competing on a more level playing field." She also called it "a strategic initiative that would strengthen the position of the United States in Asia." Facing a serious populist primary challenge from Bernie Sanders, however, Clinton shifted her position left. Clinton has had a long time line of positions on trade, especially since her husband, Bill Clinton, signed NAFTA. Here's a history. — Domenico Montanaro
DONALD TRUMP:You called it the gold standard. You call it the gold standard of trade deals.
HILLARY CLINTON:You know what --
DONALD TRUMP: You said it's the finest deal you've ever seen.
HILLARY CLINTON: No.
DONALD TRUMP: And then you heard what I said about it and all of a sudden you were against it.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, Donald, I know you live in your own reality, but that is not the facts. The facts are, I did say, I hoped it would be a good deal. But when it was negotiated, which I was not possible for, I concluded it wasn't. I wrote about that — in my....
DONALD TRUMP: So is it President Obama's fault?
HILLARY CLINTON: ...before you even announced.
DONALD TRUMP: Secretary, is it President Obama's fault?
HILLARY CLINTON:There are --
DONALD TRUMP: Because he's pushing it.
HILLARY CLINTON:There are different views about what's good for our country, our economy and our leadership in the world. And I think it is important to look at what we need to do to get our economy going again. That's why I said new jobs, with rising incomes, investments, not in more tax cuts that would add five trillion dollars to the debt.
DONALD TRUMP: But you have no plan.
HILLARY CLINTON: Oh, I do.
DONALD TRUMP:Secretary, you have no plan.
HILLARY CLINTON: In fact, I've written a book about it. It's called, "Stronger Together." You can pick it up tomorrow at a bookstore or an airport near you.
LESTER HOLT: Folks, were going to --
HILLARY CLINTON: It's because I see this. We need to have strong growth, fair growth, sustained growth. We also have to look at how we help families balance the responsibilities at home and the responsibilities at business. So we have a very robust set of plans. And people who have looked at both of our plans, have concluded that mine would create ten million jobs and yours would lose us three and a half million jobs and explode the --
DONALD TRUMP:You are going to approve one of the biggest tax cuts in history - you are going to approve one of the biggest tax increases in history. You are going to drive business out.
Clinton would raise taxes on the wealthy — especially those making more than $5 million per year (2/10,000 people), limit the value of certain deductions and increase the estate tax rate, while extending that tax to more families (with thresholds set at $3.5 million/$7 million for couples). The Tax Policy Center estimated that an earlier version of her plan would raise an extra $1.1 trillion over a decade, with three-quarters of that coming from the top 1 percent. Last week, Clinton modified her estate tax proposal, raising the top rate to 65 percent on estates of more than $500 million. — Scott Horsley
Your regulations are disaster, and you're going to increase regulations all over the place. And by the way, my tax cut is the biggest since Ronald Reagan. I'm very proud of it.
Donald Trump's tax plan is indeed a large tax cut, but those cuts would largely benefit the highest earners. According to a recent analysis from the right-leaning Tax Foundation, the top 1 percent could see their after-tax incomes increase by up to 16 percent. Meanwhile, the bottom four quintiles would see their incomes grow by 1.9 percent or less. — Danielle Kurtzleben
It will create tremendous numbers of new jobs. But regulations — you are going to regulate these businesses out of existence. When I go around, Lester, I tell you this — I've been all over. And when I go around, despite the tax cut — the things that businesses and people like the most, is the fact that I'm cutting regulation. You have regulations on top of regulations and new companies cannot form. And old habits are going out of business, and you want to increase the regulation and make them even worse. I'm going to cut regulations. But I'm going to cut taxes big league and you're going to raise taxes big league. End of story.
LESTER HOLT: Let me get you to pause right there, because we're going to move into the...
HILLARY CLINTON:That can't be left to stand. You know,
LESTER HOLT: Please take thirty seconds.
HILLARY CLINTON: I kind of assumed that there would be a lot of these charges and claims.
DONALD TRUMP: Facts.
HILLARY CLINTON: And so we have taken the home page of my website, hillaryclinton.com, and we've turned it into a fact checker. So if you want to see in real time what the facts are, please go and take a look.
DONALD TRUMP: And take a look at mine also and you'll see..
The Clinton campaign did have a live "fact checker" during the debate it called "Literally Trump." We took a look at Trump's site, and there is no live fact checker. — Domenico Montanaro
HILLARY CLINTON: Because what I have proposed would not add a penny to the debt and your plans with add five trillion dollars to the debt. What I have proposed would cut regulations and streamline them for small businesses. What I have proposed would be paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy because they have made all the gains in the economy. And I think it's time that the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share to support this country.
LESTER HOLT: Well, you just opened the next segment.
DONALD TRUMP: Could I just finish? I think I should - you go to her website, she's going to raise taxes 1.3 trillion dollars and look at her website. It's no different than this. She's telling us how to fight ISIS. Just go to her website. She tells you how to fight ISIS on her website. I don't think General Douglas MacArthur would like that too much.
LESTER HOLT: The next segment, we're continuing the subject....
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, at least I have a plan to fight ISIS.
DONALD TRUMP: No, no. You're telling the enemy everything you want to do.
HILLARY CLINTON:No, we're not.
DONALD TRUMP: No wonder you've been fighting ISIS your entire adult life.
Clinton has not been fighting ISIS her entire adult life as it has existed in its present form only since 2013-2014. — Phil Ewing
Hillary Clinton was born in 1947. The roots of ISIS arguably go back to the late 1990s, but the rise of ISIS in its present form followed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. Either way, the terrorist group was long after Clinton became an adult. — Sarah McCammon
LESTER HOLT:But,
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, that's — go to the please, go to the fact checkers.
LESTER HOLT: You are unpacking a lot here. And we're still on the issue of achieving prosperity. And I want to talk about taxes. The fundamental difference between you two as the concerns the wealthy. Secretary Clinton, you're calling for a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans. I'd like you to further defend that. And Mr. Trump, you're calling for tax cuts for the wealthy and I'd like you to defend that.
DONALD TRUMP:Well, I'm really calling for major jobs because the wealthy are going to create tremendous jobs. They're going to expand their companies. They're going to do a tremendous job. I'm getting rid of the carried interest provision. And if you really look, it's not a great thing for the wealthy. It's a great thing for a middle-class. It's a great thing for companies to expand. And when these people are going to put billions and billions of dollars into companies and when they're going to bring to have two and a half trillion dollars back from overseas, where they can't bring the money back because politicians like Secretary Clinton... because the taxes are so onerous and the bureaucratic red tape. So bad. So what they're doing is they're leaving our country and they're, believe it or not, leaving because taxes are too high and because some of them have lots of money outside of our country.
Much of this is money they make overseas in selling products there, not money they take outside the country. — Jim Zarroli
And instead of bringing it back and putting the money to work because they can't work out a deal to — and everybody agrees it should be brought back. Instead of that, they're leaving our country to get their money because they can't bring their money back into our country because of bureaucratic red tape because they can't get together. Because we have a president that can't sit them around a table and get them to approve something. And here's the thing — Republicans and Democrats agree that this should be done. Two and a half trillion - I happen to think it's double that - it's probably five trillion dollars that we can't bring into our country, Lester.
Macroeconomic research firm Capital Economics estimated this month that American firms hold $2.5 trillion overseas. And that figure is echoed in other reports — earlier this year, Citizens for Tax Justice (talking only about the top Fortune 500 companies) put it at $2.4 trillion. However, it's not immediately apparent where the $5 trillion figure comes from. NPR is asking the Trump campaign and will update with any new information. — Danielle Kurtzleben
With a little leadership, you'd get it in here very quickly. To be put to use on the inner cities and lots of other things, and it would be beautiful. But we have no leadership. And honestly, that starts with Secretary Clinton.
LESTER HOLT: All right, you have two minutes of the same question to defend tax increases on the wealthiest Americans, Secretary Clinton.
HILLARY CLINTON: I have a feeling that by the end of this evening, I'll be blamed for everything that's ever happened.
DONALD TRUMP: Why not?
:[(LAUGHTER)]
DONALD TRUMP:
HILLARY CLINTON:Why not, yeah why not? Just join the debate by saying more crazy things.
DONALD TRUMP:There's nothing crazy about not letting our companies bring their money back into --
LESTER HOLT: This is Secretary Clinton's two minutes please.
HILLARY CLINTON: Let's start the clock again, Lester. We've looked at your tax proposals. I don't see changes in the corporate tax rates or the kinds of proposals you are referring to that would cause the repatriation, bringing back of money that is stranded overseas.
DONALD TRUMP: Then you didn't read it.
HILLARY CLINTON: I happen to support that in a way that will actually work to our benefit. But when I look at what you have proposed, you have what is called now the Trump loophole because it would so advantage you and the business you do. You've proposed
DONALD TRUMP: Who gave it that name?
LESTER HOLT: Sir, this is Secretary Clinton's two minutes.
HILLARY CLINTON: ...tax benefit for your bit family. And when you look at what you are proposing it is, as I said, Trumped up, trickle-down. Trickle down it did not work. It got us into the mess we were in 2009. Slashing taxes on the wealthy hasn't worked and a lot of really smart, wealthy people know that. And they are saying, hey we need to do more to make the contributions we should be making to rebuild the middle class. I don't think what top-down works in America. I think building the middle-class, investing in the middle class, making college debt-free so more young people can get their education, helping people refinance their debt from college at a lower rate, those are the kinds of things that will really boost the economy, broad-based, inclusive growth.
Moody's Analytics says that in a Clinton presidency, the economy would add 10.4 million jobs, based on her proposals. That would be 3.2 million more than under current law. — Marilyn Geewax
is what we need in America not more advantages for people at the very top.
LESTER HOLT: Mr. Trump --
DONALD TRUMP: Typical politician. All talk no action. Sounds good. Doesn't work. Never going to happen. Our country is suffering because people like Secretary Clinton have made such bad decisions in terms of our jobs and in terms of what is going on. Now look, we have the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression.
Private sector employers have added 15.1 million jobs since the trough of the recession in 2010. Unemployment, which peaked at 10 percent in October 2009, has fallen to 4.9 percent. Unemployment among African-Americans, which peaked at 16.8 percent in March 2010, has fallen to 8.1 percent. And unemployment among African-American young people is not 58 percent as Trump claimed, but 26.1 percent.
For comparison: Jobs per year was strongest under Bill Clinton (2.8 million), followed by Carter (2.6 million), Reagan (2 million), Obama (1.3 million as of January), H.W. Bush (659,000), and W. Bush (160,000). — Scott Horsley
And believe me, we are in a bubble right now. And the other leaving that looks good is the stock market. But if you raise interest rates even a little bit that is going to come crashing down.
Trump seems unhappy that rates may go up and also criticizes Fed Chair Janet Yellen for keeping them low, asserting that she is doing it to benefit Obama. — Jim Zarroli
We are in a big fat ugly bubble. And we better be awfully careful. And we had a Fed that is doing political things. This Janet Yellen of the Fed, the Fed is doing political by keeping interest rates at this level.
Trump has accused Yellen of this before — he did on CNBC recently — though he provided no evidence of it, as the AP noted. Responding to these attacks, Yellen said last week that in five years, when transcripts are released, "I will assure you that you will not find any signs of political motivation," per the Wall Street Journal. Additionally, as Bloomberg reported recently, "people who have been in the room at FOMC meetings say that elections are just not a topic during the policy debate." The Fed's governors are appointed to 14-year terms, meaning that they overlap with multiple administrations, and chairs often also serve presidents of both parties. Ben Bernanke served George W. Bush and Obama, and if Trump were elected, Yellen's term would extend into his administration as well.
Additionally, earlier this year, Trump was not so opposed to either Yellen or higher interest rates. Though he said he wants a Republican chair, he also said, "I'm not a person that thinks Janet Yellen is doing a bad job. I happen to be a low-interest-rate person unless inflation rears its ugly head, which can happen at some point," according to Reuters. — Danielle Kurtzleben
And believe me the day Obama goes off and he leaves and he goes out to the golf course for the rest of his life to play golf, when they raise interest rates, you are going to see some very bad things happen because the Fed is not doing their job. The Fed is being more political than Secretary Clinton.
LESTER HOLT: Mr. Trump, we're talking about the burden that Americans have to pay, yet you have not released your tax returns. And the reason nominees have released their returns for decades is that voters will know if their potential president owes money to — who you know owes it to, and any business conflicts. Don't have Americans have a right to know there are any conflicts of interest?
DONALD TRUMP:I don't mind releasing. I'm under a audit. Routine and it will be released. And as soon as the audit's finished, it will be released. But you will learn more about Donald Trump by going down to the federal elections where I filed a one hundred and four page, essentially financial statement of sorts, the forms that they have. It shows income, in fact the income — I just looked today, the income is filed at six hundred ninety four million dollars for this past year. Six hundred ninety four million. If you would have told me I would make that fifteen or twenty years ago I would have been very surprised. But that's the kind of thinking that our country needs. When we have a country that is doing so badly that is being ripped off by every single country in the world, it is the kind of thinking that our country needs because everybody — Lester, we have a trade deficit with all of the countries that we do business with of almost eight hundred billion dollars a year.
In 2015, the U.S. had a trade deficit with the rest of the world of $746 billion. In the first seven months of 2016, the trade deficit was $424 billion. In 2015, the U.S. had a trade deficit with China of $367 billion. In the first seven months of 2016, the trade deficit with China was $191 billion. (So in both cases, it's on pace to shrink slightly this year.) The Trump campaign has argued that a more muscular trade policy would boost federal revenue by $1.7 trillion over the next decade, partially offsetting the revenue loss from Trump's proposed tax cuts. Outside economists are not convinced. The pro-trade Peterson Institute for International Economics warns that Trump's threat of steep tariffs on imports from China and Mexico could unleash a trade war, costing 4 million jobs and driving the economy into recession. Clinton is not calling for new import tariffs, but like Trump she opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Peterson says each year's delay in TPP reduces GDP by tens of billions of dollars. — Scott Horsley
You know that is? That means who is negotiating these trade deals? We have people that are political hacks negotiating our trade deals.
LESTER HOLT: The IRS has an audit
DONALD TRUMP: Excuse me
LESTER HOLT: of your taxes. You're perfectly free to release your taxes during an audit. And so the question does the public's right to know outweigh your personal...
NPR: ak-irs As described by Slate, "The IRS commissioner himself has said that an audit doesn't prevent anyone from releasing his or her taxes. In fact, President Richard Nixon once released his returns while being audited."
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I told you I will release them as soon as the audit. Look, I have been under audit almost for fifteen years. I know a lot of wealthy people that have never been audited. I said do you get audited? I get audited almost every year. And in a way I should be complaining. I'm not even complaining. I don't mind them. It's almost become a way of life. I get audited by the IRS. But other people don't. I will say this we have a situation in this country that has to be taken care of. I will release my tax returns against my lawyer's wishes when she releases her thirty three thousand e-mails that have been deleted. As soon as she releases them, I will release I will release my tax returns. And that is against, my lawyers, they say don't do it. I will tell you this — in fact watching shows, reading the papers. Almost every lawyer says you don't release your return until the audit is complete. When the audit is complete I will do it.
But I would go against them if she releases her emails.
LESTER HOLT:So it's negotiable?
DONALD TRUMP: It's not negotiable. No, let her release her emails. Why did she delete 33,000 emails?
LESTER HOLT: I will let her answer that. But let me just admonish the audience one more time. There was an agreement. We did ask you to be silent so it would be helpful for us. Secretary Clinton?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I think you have just seen another example of bait and switch here. For 40 years everyone running for president has released their tax returns.
That's true. Richard Nixon released his taxes in 1973. He was audited by the IRS "when questions bubbled up about a fishy charitable donation and speculation that Nixon had tried to game the tax system," PolitiFact has noted. Here's more on the history of candidates releasing tax returns, including three reasons why we care about what's in those returns. — Domenico Montanaro
You can go and see nearly I think thirty nine forty years of our tax returns. But everyone has done it. We know the IRS has made clear there is no prohibition on releasing it when you are under audit. So you gotta ask yourself — why won't he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First maybe he is not as rich as he says he has. Second maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third we don't know all of his business dealings but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about six hundred and fifty million dollars to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he does not want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he has paid nothing in federal taxes because the only years that anybody has ever seen for a couple of years where he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license. And they showed he did not pay any federal income tax.
DONALD TRUMP: That makes me smart.
HILLARY CLINTON: If you have paid zero, that means zero for troops, here for vets, zero for vets, zero for schools or health. And I think probably he is not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are because it must be something really important even terrible that he is trying to hide. In the financial disclosure statements they don't give you tax rate. They don't give you all the details the tax returns would. And it just seems to me that this is something that the American people deserve to see. And I have no reason to believe that he has ever going to release his tax returns because there is something he is hiding. And we will guess — we'll keep guessing at what it might be that he is hiding. But I think the question is were he ever to get near the White House, what would be those conflicts? Who does he owe money to? Well, he owes you the answers to that. And he should provide them.
LESTER HOLT: He also raised the issue of your e-mails. Do you want to respond to that?
HILLARY CLINTON: I do. You know, I made my mistake using a private e-mail.
DONALD TRUMP: That's for sure.
HILLARY CLINTON: And if I had to do it over again I would obviously do it differently. But I'm not going to make any excuses. It was a mistake and I take responsibility for that.
LESTER HOLT: Mr. Trump?
DONALD TRUMP: That was more than a mistake. That was done purposely. That was not a mistake. That was done purposely. When you have your staff taking the Fifth Amendment, taking the fifth so they are not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the fifth, I think it is disgraceful. And believe me, this country thinks it is this — really thinks it is disgraceful also.
The FBI director testified to Congress that Clinton told investigators she used the private server as a matter of convenience. An IT aide did invoke his Fifth Amendment rights and won immunity from the Justice Department. Two other people who worked on the server for Platte River Networks, a private company, also took the Fifth. And a pair of Clinton aides got a limited form of immunity for turning over their computers to the FBI. No one was charged with any wrongdoing. — Carrie Johnson
As far as my tax returns, you do not earn that much from tax returns. That I can tell you. You learn a lot from financial disclosure. And you should go down and take a look at that. The other thing - I am incredibly the under leveraged. The report that six hundred feet fifty — which by the way, a lot of friends of mine that know my business say boy that's really not a lot of money. That's not a lot of money relative to what I had. The big buildings that were in question they said in the same report, which actually wasn't even a bad story to be honest with you — but the buildings are worth 3.9 billion dollars. And the six hundred fifty is not even on that. But it is not six hundred fifty. It is much less than that. But I could give you a list of banks. If that would help you I would give you list the banks. These are very fine institutions, very fine banks. I could do that very quickly. I am very under leveraged. I have a great company. I have it tremendous income. And the reason I say it is not a braggadocio's way. It's because it is about time that this country had somebody running it that has an idea about money.
Because Donald Trump has refused to release his tax returns — in defiance of tradition dating back four decades — we don't know as much as we'd like about his business empire or his personal wealth. Much of his business is conducted through the privately held Trump Organization. But investors in his first public company — Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts — lost a lot of money, even as Trump himself was handsomely rewarded. The public company lost money every year Trump ran it, loaded up his Atlantic City casinos with costly debt, and ultimately filed for bankruptcy.
Trump has blamed the downfall on broader forces affecting Atlantic City. But he also drained cash out of the business to pay personal debts and support his lavish lifestyle. Contractors, including small businesses, lost money along with Trump's investors. Trump also forced an investment firm to fire an analyst, Marvin Roffman, who had warned that the business was unsustainable. Trump has been sued by the New York attorney general for allegedly defrauding students at Trump University, by investors who bought into failed condominium projects bearing the Trump name, and by contractors who say he refused to pay them. Trump boasts that he never settles lawsuits, but in fact he has settled at least 100 lawsuits, as USA Today reports. — Scott Horsley
When we had twenty twelve trillion dollars in debt in our country is a mess — you know is one thing to have twenty trillion debt and our roads are good and are bridges are good everything is in great shape. Our airports are like from a Third World country. You land at LaGuardia, you land at Kennedy, you land at LAX, you land at Newark and you come in from Dubai and Qatar and you see these incredible — you come in from China — you see these incredible airports and you land... we become a Third World country. So the worst of all things has happened. We owe twenty trillion dollars and we are a mess. We haven't even started. And we have spent $6 trillion dollars in the Middle East according to a report that I just saw. Whether it is six or five but it looks like it is six — six trillion dollars in the Middle East.
The total cost of the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is notoriously difficult to calculate because of the intricacies involved with what to include and what to exclude, the role played by debt service and other factors. According to one report by Linda Bilmes of Harvard, Iraq alone could wind up costing U.S. taxpayers some $3 trillion. — Phil Ewing
We could've rebuilt our country twice. And it's really a shame. And it's politicians like Secretary Clinton that have caused this problem. Our country has tremendous problems. We are a debtor nation. We're a serious debtor nation. And we have a country that needs new roads and tunnels, new bridges, new airports, new schools, new hospitals and we don't have the money because it has been squandered on so many of your ideas.
HILLARY CLINTON: And maybe because you have not paid any federal income tax for a lot of years. And the other thing I think is important --
DONALD TRUMP: It would be squandered too, believe me.
HILLARY CLINTON: If your main claim to be president of the United States is your business, then I think we should talk about that. You know your campaign manager said that you built a lot of businesses on the backs of little guys.
Here's USA Today on Trump's unpaid bills. — Scott Horsley
And indeed I have met a lot of the people who were stiffed by you and your businesses Donald. I've met dishwashers, painters, architects, glass installers, marble installers, drapery installers like my dad was, who you refused to pay when they finished the work that you asked them to do. We have an architect in the audience who designed one of your clubhouses at one of your golf courses. It's a beautiful facility. It immediately was put to use. And you would not pay what the man needed to be paid when he was charging you.
DONALD TRUMP: Maybe you can do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work. Which our country should do too.
HILLARY CLINTON: Do the thousands of people that you have stiffed over the course of the business not deserve some kind of apology from someone who has taken their labor, taken the goods that they produced, and then refused to pay them? I can only say that I am certainly relieved that my late father never did business with you. He provided a good middle-class life for us but the people he worked for, he expected the bargain to be kept on both sides. And when we talk about your business, you have taken business bankruptcy six times. There a lot of great business people that have never taken bankruptcy once. You call yourself your king of debt. You talk about leverage. You even went and suggested that you would try to negotiate down the national debt of the United States.
DONALD TRUMP: Wrong.
Clinton is correct; Trump did suggest this on CNBC in May. — Sarah McCammon
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, sometimes there is not a direct transfer of skills from business to government. But sometimes what happened in business would be really bad for government. And we need to be very clear about that.
DONALD TRUMP: Look it's all words. It's all soundbites. I built an unbelievable company, some of the greatest assets anywhere in the world real estate assets anywhere in the world beyond the United States. In Europe, lots of different places. It's an unbelievable company.
But on occasion, four times, we used certain laws that are there. And when Secretary Clinton talks about people that did not get paid, first of all they did get paid a lot but taken advantage of the laws of the nation. Now, if you want to change the laws, you've been a long time, change the laws. That take advantage of the laws of the nation because I am running the company. My obligation right now is to do well for myself, my family, my employees, for my companies.
And that is what I do. What she does not say is that tens of thousands of people that are unbelievably happy and that love me — I'll give you an example. We're just opening up on Pennsylvania Avenue right next to the White House, so if I don't get there one way, I'm going to get Pennsylvania Avenue another. But we are opening the old post office. Under budget, ahead of schedule, save tremendous money, I'm a year ahead of schedule.
And that is what this country should be doing. We build roads and they cost two and three and four times what they're supposed to cost. We buy products for our military and they come at a cost that are so far above what they are supposed to be because we don't have people that know what they are doing. When we look at the budget, the budget is back to large extent because we have people that have no idea as to what to do and how to buy. The Trump International is way under budget and way ahead of schedule. And we should be able to do that for our country.
LESTER HOLT: Well, we're well behind schedule so I want to move to our next segment. We move our next segment talking about America's direction. Let's start by talking about race. The share of Americans who say race relations are bad in this country is the highest it's been in decades. Much of it amplified it by shootings of African-Americans by police, as we have seen recently in Charlotte and Tulsa. Race has been a big issue in this campaign and one of you is going to have to bridge a very wide and bitter gap. So how do you heal the divide? Secretary Clinton - you get two minutes on this.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, you're right. Race remains a significant challenge in our country. Unfortunately, race still determines too much, often determines where people live, determines what kind of education in their public schools they can get...
From this year's Office of Civil Rights Data Collection:
Black students are 2.3 times more likely than white students to be referred to law enforcement or arrested as a result of a school incident.
Black preschoolers are 3.6 times more likely to be suspended than white preschoolers.
In schools with high black and Latino enrollment, 10 percent of teachers were in their first year, compared with 5 percent in largely white schools. — Anya Kamenetz
And yes it determines, how they are treated in the criminal justice system. We've just seen those two tragic examples in both Tulsa and Charlotte. And we've got to do several things at the same time. We have to restore trust between communities and the police. We have to work to make sure that our police are using the best training, the best techniques, that they're well prepared to use force only when necessary.
Everyone should be respected by the law and everyone should respect the law. Right now that's not the case in a lot of our neighborhoods. So I have, ever since the first day of my campaign, called for criminal justice reform. I've laid out a platform that I think would begin to remedy some of the problems we have in the criminal justice system. But we also have to recognize in addition to the chall