Donald Trump did a mitzvah at the first (maybe only) presidential debate, which was held at Hofstra University on September 26. He brought his true self – not a studied, rehearsed character who could recite the positions scripted for him by Kellyanne Conway.
Instead, he dared to say in mixed company what he has been saying to his rabble, letting his words hang in the air alongside the reasonable, practical, solid policy solutions that Hillary Clinton has been proposing for more than a year.
He showed his true colors – and they were a nasty mishmash of clash that didn’t make sense.
He was incoherent, hysterical. With bloodshot eyes, sniffling, guzzling water (recalling his attacks on Marco Rubio) he looked reptilian (is he hiding a health issue, I wonder?).
Hillary Clinton had to be perfect – not a single inappropriate word or phrase or misplaced comma or gesture or glance. She had to strike just the perfect tone between showing that a woman could be powerful, professional and command authority, but also be “likable,” “pleasing.” And authentic – she elucidated the positions (on investing in infrastructure, keeping the nation safe, attacking ISIS) she has long advocated, and did it with passion, fully immersed in knowing all the parameters of the issues and seeing the long view. She had to show she could stand up to his attacks, send them back without appearing shrill or shrewish, and still present her own positive solutions that will help this country achieve “broad-based, inclusive growth” which, she said, “is what we need in America, not more advantages for people at the very top.” And do it in two minutes.
And she was perfect. Indeed, pundit Howard Feinman said it was like an elementary school teacher schooling an unruly child (yet another sexist remark – remember when they criticized Obama for being like a “college professor”?).
With every answer, Trump’s credibility was shot (as were his surrogates who declared him the winner after), he was exposed as the ridiculous Reality TV buffoon he is, and his Swift Boating tactic which Republicans have been exploiting since Bush v. Kerry, where he accuses his opponent of the very thing he is guilty of (ie. pay-to-play) boomeranged so perfectly when he accused Clinton of not having the “temperament,” judgment, or the “look” to be President.
“I think my strongest asset, maybe by far, is my temperament. I have a winning temperament. I know how to win. She does not have a…” he said, as the audience could not contain its snickering.
The ultimate was when he attacked Clinton on her stamina – a woman who even with pneumonia soldiered on the campaign trail and ran rings around him in the Commander-in-Chief forum – saying, “She doesn’t have the look. She doesn’t have the stamina. I said she doesn’t have the stamina. And I don’t believe she does have the stamina. To be president of this country, you need tremendous stamina” – which all at once reinforced his misogyny and ridiculousness, and exposed him to her withering rejoinder:
“Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina,” she retorted.
On the other hand, she used his own words to attack him – he basically admitted he pays zero tax (“That makes me smart.”); that he did in fact stiff contractors (“Maybe he didn’t do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work” …“But on occasion, four times, we used certain laws that are there. And when Secretary Clinton talks about people that didn’t get paid, first of all, they did get paid a lot, but taken advantage of the laws of the nation”) and turned it into an advertorial for his new hotel; that he did insult women (“Rosie O’Donnell deserved it”), or how his business was sued for housing discrimination (“We settled the suit with zero — with no admission of guilt. It was very easy to do.”).
Stop and frisk unconstitutional? (the answer he offered when asked about how to deal with rising racial tensions, especially with police shootings of unarmed black men). “No, you’re wrong. It went before a judge, who was a very against-police judge,” he said lamely.
She didn’t just parry his attacks – on her record as Secretary of State, in which he tried to blame her for everything that has gone wrong in the world for the past 30 years – she sent them boomeranging back, making a strong case for the Iran nuclear deal, for supporting NATO, for her plan to defeat ISIS, (the list goes on and on).
When he said, “The single greatest problem the world has is nuclear armament, nuclear weapons, not global warming, like you think and your — your president thinks,” he not only reminded voters that he is advocating countries like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia get their own nuclear weapons), but that he has called climate change “a hoax” perpetrated by China (then lied that he hadn’t said that), and, finally, his pejorative use of “your” president, should have not only had progressives, anti-nuclear activists, environmentalists but also African-Americans throwing shoes at the TV (they surely screamed at the watch party at The Space in Westbury).
When he tried to attack her saying, “For 30 years, you’ve been doing it, and now you’re just starting to think of solutions,” he did her the favor of reminding people that she has had a stunning array of accomplishments on behalf of women, girls, families, working people (not to mention her work as Senator and Secretary of State) over the past 30 years – what has he accomplished for anyone but his own self interest, using bankruptcies, stiffing contractors, outsourcing jobs overseas, hiring undocumented workers.
And she managed to both present her argument for an economy that benefits for all, that invests in the middle class, in infrastructure, in education, and paying for it by having the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share, while at the same time throwing back the question of trust and transparency back on him using how he has failed to disclose his taxes, saying, “So if he’s paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health. And I think probably he’s 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’s trying to hide.”
I disagree with the pundits insistence that the debate did not provide enough “policy.” If they actually listened, they would have realized how Clinton managed to get in her policy points on a score of key issues (go back and read the transcript). This was a contest of Substance versus Nonsense.
And finally, when he tried to criticize her for not being on the campaign trail for a few days before the debate, she came back with the line that sums up this contest:
“I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And, yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president. And I think that’s a good thing.”
The Hillary for America campaign has issued 19 pages of Donald Trump’s lies, including the seven the Republican presidential candidate uses most often, as a guide to be used in the upcoming debate at Hofstra University, Long Island, on Monday, September 26.
The campaign is calling out the moderator, Lester Holt, of the first Presidential Election debate, as well as reporters and viewers to hold Trump to account.
For his part, Trump has warned the moderator will be “afraid” to attack Hillary Clinton and that if he is attacked, it is only proof that the system is “rigged” against him.
Expectations are so skewed that the fear is Trump only has to appear calm, even if ill-informed or shallow and lacking in any real understanding of policies, while Hillary Clinton has to be perfectly in command but also “attractive” and not too “studied” or scripted. In this, Hillary, a trail-blazer for women’s rights, will experience the same kind of gender-bias as when she became Arkansas’ First Lady and wanted to be known as Hillary Rodham, instead of Mrs. Clinton, and when in 1992, campaigning for her husband, Bill Clinton, she said she didn’t want to back cookies and stand by her man like Tammy Wynette.
A misplaced comma in a phrase could cost her the debate while the big question for Trump is whether he will be able to resist his verbal tick of calling her “Crooked” Hillary.
But Donald Trump’s, who has used his background as a Realty TV star as his strongest advantage in the campaign so far has won PolitiFact’s “Liar of the Year” award, after it rated 70 percent of his claims as “four Pinnochios” or “Pants on Fire.”
“Debates are about each candidate laying out their vision for America, not making things up. Donald Trump has shown a clear pattern of repeating provably false lies and hoping no one corrects him. Voters and viewers should keep track: any candidate who tells this many lies clearly can’t win the debate on the merits,” said HFA Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri.
The campaign issued a handy guide to Trump’s Seven Deadly Lies
1. FALSE: Trump opposed the Iraq War.
Washington Post:Trump: “I was totally against the war in Iraq.” // Four Pinocchios.”
As our timeline shows, Trump was not ‘totally’ against the Iraq War. Trump expressed lukewarm support the first time he was asked about it on Sept. 11, 2002, and was not clearly against it until he was quoted in the August 2004 Esquire cover story. (We even made a video documenting how this is a bogus claim.) Yet he repeatedly claims he opposed the war from the beginning — and thus, earns Four Pinocchios.”
FALSE: Trump opposed intervention in Libya.
Factcheck.org: Donald Trump on Libya, May 20 interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: I would have stayed out of Libya.” // False.
“Trump’s claim that he ‘would have stayed out of Libya’ doesn’t square with his comments at the time. In February 2011, Trump, referring to Gadhafi, said that the U.S. should go into Libya ‘on a humanitarian basis’ and ‘knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively and save the lives.’”
FALSE: Clinton supports open borders.
PolitiFact: Trump says Clinton wants to create ‘totally open borders.’ // False
“This is a huge distortion of Clinton’s proposals. Clinton has praised work already done to secure the border, and she said she supported a 2013 bill that would have invested billions more in border security while creating a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants. Her plan calls for protecting the border and targeting deportation to criminals and security threats.”
FALSE: Clinton wants to get rid of the Second Amendment.
ABC News: “Claim: Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment” // False.
“When Trump made this same claim earlier in the cycle, Politifact rated the claim false after finding no evidence of Clinton ever advocating for the abolishment of the Second Amendment… Bottom line: there’s no evidence to support Trump’s claim.
PolitiFact: “Donald Trump falsely claims Hillary Clinton ‘wants to abolish the 2nd Amendment,’” // False.
“We found no evidence of Clinton ever saying verbatim or suggesting explicitly that she wants to abolish the Second Amendment, and the bulk of Clinton’s comments suggest the opposite. She has repeatedly said she wants to protect the right to bear arms while enacting measures to prevent gun violence.”
FALSE: President Obama and Clinton founded ISIS.
Washington Post: “Is Obama the founder of ISIS?” // Absolutely not.
“Absolutely not. It’s like saying that Ronald Reagan is the founder of al-Qaeda because the arms he sent to the mujahideen in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion led to the creation of al-Qaeda. It’s a ludicrous claim.”
Washington Post: “Trump also claims Hillary Clinton was a “co-founder” of ISIS. Does that make sense?” // No.
“No. Within the administration, Clinton was one of the loudest forces for keeping a residual force in Iraq and for intervening in Syria, such as arming the rebels. So the criticism especially does not apply to her, since she advocated a more hawkish policy than was undertaken by Obama.”
FALSE: Clinton would allow 620,000 refugees into the U.S. with no vetting.
Washington Post: Trump: “This includes her plan to bring in 620,000 new refugees from Syria and that region over a short period of time.” // This is an “invented figure.”
“Trump has used this number before, but it stems from the unverified assumption that Clinton, who has called for 55,000 additional refugees from Syria, would continue at that pace for every year of her first term, on top of the Obama administration’s proposal for 100,000 refugees for fiscal year 2017. Trump then multiplies 155,000 times four years to reach 620,000 refugees. Clinton has never proposed such a “plan,” so this is an invented figure.”
Washington Post: Trump: “Under the Clinton plan, you’d be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of the children and their children.” // “It’s false…”
“Trump has repeatedly made this “hundreds of thousands” claim, usually referring to Syria, but it’s false… Trump also falsely claims there is “no system to vet” refugees. The process actually takes two more years, after vetting that starts with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and then continues with checks by U.S. intelligence and security agencies.”
FALSE: Trump will make Mexico pay for the wall.
NPR Fact Check: Trump: “And Mexico will pay for the wall. 100 percent.” // Mexican President “would not pay” for the wall.
“After his meeting with Donald Trump today, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto reiterated his insistence that Mexico would not pay for construction of a border wall. Peña Nieto said he made that clear to Trump during their meeting, although Trump told reporters that the issue of payment was not discussed. — Scott Horsley”
For the rest of the18 pages of Trump’s lies see The Briefing here.
“Our concern about Trump’s record of lying is what that means for how the debate unfolds and how viewers should judge,” Jennifer Palmieri said on a press call.
Trump should be expected to present his solutions – explain what his solutions are, demonstrate the knowledge and judgment. But so far, Trump has shown clear pattern of lying, expecting no one to correct them, she said.
“We have provided 19 pages of lies Trump has told during the campaign,” she said. Politifact has rated 70% of his claims as untrue; Factchecker gave him 47 ‘Four Pinnochios’ and rated 47 ‘Pants on Fire.’ He beat out all modern presidential candidates for fact checking – he was awarded the Lie of the Year and Trump was named the Liar of the Year.
“We think this warrants particular focus because his level of lying is unprecedented in American politics – reporters should keep this in mind,”
“Trump is a very unconventional, unusual, challenging candidate – recognize it’s true for press and moderators. It’s unprecedented in modern times to hold a conference to talk about special precautions because the opponent is a habitual liar, but we think it is necessary.
“When Trump has been chosen as Politifact’s Liar of the Year, for the moderator to let lies go unchallenged, gives Trump an unfair advantage. It is the role of moderator, particularly in this case, to call out those lies, and do so in real time.
“Clinton has a responsibility to defend herself – her own record. But given the historic record of how much Trump lies, it can’t be only on her to call him out if the moderator isn’t willing to stand up and challenge lies. We’ve provided 19 pages of them for helpful reference, plus the 7 he uses most often. This is unusual, but that’s the year we are in, that’s the campaign Trump is running, and it requires that kind of role for the moderator.”
Palmieri said that Trump would probably do what he could to “get under her skin,” but “good luck. We’ve all seen her endure tough questions – 11 hours during the Benghazi hearings. Trump may think he will be the first to get under her skin, but I doubt it.”
As for expectations of how Trump might perform, We had a dry run during the Commander-in-Chief forum which demonstrated that Trump could control his demeanor, and the concern is that will be the sole criteria for handing him the “win” in the debate.
“But maintaining demeanor and not becoming unhinged is not the standard for being considered President of the United States.” What should be the standard is that you demonstrate that you understand problems, have solutions, that you can explain them, that you have adequate knowledge, judgment to do the job “and that’s certainly what she is coming to the debate to do, and that’s what voters should judge Trump on as well.”
How Trump behaves and whether or not he maintains a calm demeanor is up to him, and we think that is within his power – I wouldn’t describe that as what we are pending a lot of time on. A good deal of our prep is thinking through the argument she would put forward that she would do – it is a useful exercise at debate as well as what closing arguments for last few weeks of campaign will be as well.
On a press call led by HFA Chair John Podesta, Hillary for America called on Donald Trump to disclose all information related to his foreign investments and business dealings, divest his holdings in the Trump Organization to remove troubling conflicts of interest, and release his tax returns to meet the basic threshold for transparency. This week, Newsweek published a new bombshell report, “How The Trump Organization’s Foreign Business Ties Could Upend U.S. National Security.” The report offers a disturbing preview of the foreign entanglements that could influence Donald Trump, should voters make the grave mistake of electing him president. We now know that over the course of decades, The Trump Organization has been financially involved in more than a dozen countries on five continents — including Russia, Ukraine, Libya, Turkey, China, and Brazil. These new revelations also bring greater urgency to the need for Trump to release his tax returns, so the American people can see his sources of income, and what influences he might be subject to as president.
HFA also launched a new webpage, “Full Disclosure: Comparing the Two Candidates”, a one-stop shop to access each candidate’s financial records or lack thereof, medical information, professional correspondence – including emails – and other personal and professional records. Voters can compare Hillary Clinton’s sizable record of disclosure to that of Donald Trump, the least transparent candidate for president in modern history.
“We already knew that Donald Trump is the least transparent presidential candidate in modern history,” HFA Chair John Podesta said, “Now we’re learning that Trump is tied up in a web of personal and business relationships with countries that play key roles in our foreign policy decisions. Until Trump discloses his foreign business ties, divests from the Trump Organization, and releases his tax returns, there should be serious concern about who a President Trump would serve: the American people, or Trump’s bank account.”
In case you missed it, Newsweek’s upcoming cover story detailed a sample of the various foreign influences circling around Trump and the Trump Organization. Key excerpts, and the full story, can be found below:
The Newsweek article stated, “Never before has an American candidate for president had so many financial ties with American allies and enemies, and never before has a business posed such a threat to the United States. If Donald Trump wins this election and his company is not immediately shut down or forever severed from the Trump family, the foreign policy of the United States of America could well be for sale.”
ON TRUMP IN LIBYA: “But for the Trump Organization, Qaddafi was not a murdering terrorist; he was a prospect who might bring the company financing and the opportunity to build a resort on the Mediterranean coast of Libya.”
ON TRUMP IN TURKEY: “In other words, Trump would be in direct financial and political conflict with Turkey from the moment he was sworn into office. Once again, all his dealings with Turkey would be suspect: Would Trump act in the interests of the United States or his wallet?”
ON TRUMP IN UKRAINE: “The potential financial conflicts here for a President Trump are enormous.”
ON TRUMP IN SOUTH KOREA: “This relationship puts Trump’s foreign policies in conflict with his financial interests…. One of the primary South Korean companies involved in nuclear energy, a key component in weapons development, is Trump’s partner—Daewoo Engineering and Construction. It would potentially get an economic windfall if the United States adopted policies advocated by Trump.”
ON TRUMP IN INDIA: “In India, the conflicts between the interests of the Trump Organization and American foreign policy are starker… No doubt, few Indian political groups hoping to establish close ties to a possible future American president could have missed the recent statements from the Trump family that its company wanted to do more deals in their country.”
ON TRUMP IN UAE: “With Middle Eastern business partners and American allies turning on him, Trump lashed out… Once again, Trump’s personal and financial interests are in conflict with critical national security issues for the United States.”
ON TRUMP IN AZERBAIJAN: “If American intelligence concludes, or has already concluded, that his business partner’s father has been aiding Iran by laundering money for the military, will Trump’s foreign policy decisions on Iran and Azerbaijan be based on the national security of the United States or the financial security of Donald Trump?”
NEWSWEEK: “The dealings of the Trump Organization reach into so many countries that it is impossible to detail all the conflicts they present in a single issue of this magazine, but a Newsweek examination of the company has also found deep connections in China, Brazil, Bulgaria, Argentina, Canada, France, Germany and other countries.”
I’m disappointed that Hillary Clinton issued a statement pulling back on her statement that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are in a basket of “deplorable” and the other half are people who feel they have been left out and left behind by government. Her statement is founded in fact – surveys of Trump supporters that show solid percentages who favor building a wall, banning Muslims, even saying the Emancipation Proclamation was a bad idea. Nonetheless, hoping to have the same success as an attack on Hillary Clinton as Mitt Romney’s 47% comment (47% of Americans would not vote for him because they were “takers” which presumably included seniors on Social Security and veterans, and Barack Obama’s comment about “guns and God” and taking a tiny phrase out of context, “You didn’t build it”), Trump created a new ad.
Hopefully it will backfire because instead of coming back against Clinton, it will highlight who, indeed, is inspired by his campaign of hatred, bigotry and fear.
In response to Donald Trump’s new ad, HFA Deputy Communications Director Christina Reynolds offered the following statement:
“As we’ve come to expect, Donald Trump gets quite a bit wrong in his new TV ad, ignoring Hillary Clinton’s comments that she did not mean half of his supporters were deplorable and her reference to the economic concerns of many of his supporters. That said, if he’d like to argue against Hillary’s claim that people who are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic or Islamophobic are deplorable, we are happy to have that debate. Trump has spent the entire campaign offering divisive views that have given rise to far too much hatred and bigotry—Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine will continue to call that out.”
TRANSCRIPT
RECORD
VOICEOVER:Speaking to wealthy donors, Hillary Clinton called tens of millions of Americans “deplorable”
CLINTON CLARIFIED REMARKS
Clinton Said She Regretted Being “Grossly Generalistic” In Her Comments. “Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong. But let’s be clear, what’s really ‘deplorable’ is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called ‘alt-right’ movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values. It’s deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people. It’s deplorable that he’s attacked a federal judge for his ‘Mexican heritage,’ bullied a Gold Star family because of their Muslim faith, and promoted the lie that our first black president is not a true American. So I won’t stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign.” [Hillary for America, Statement, 9/10/16]
IN THE FULL CONTEXT OF HER REMARKS, CLINTON SAID THANKFULLY, THE HATEFUL TRUMP SUPPORTERS “ARE NOT AMERICA”
Clinton Said We Have To “Understand And Empathize With” Trump Supporters Who Feel “The Government Has Let Them Down” And Who Are “Desperate For Change.” “…thankfully they are not America. But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.’” [Transcript via NPR, 9/10/16]
CLINTON HAS REPEATEDLY SAID THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICANS REJECT TRUMP’S BIGOTRY
Clinton: “As I Said, Many Of Trump’s Supporters Are Hard-Working Americans Who Just Don’t Feel Like The Economy Or Our Political System Are Working For Them.” “I also meant what I said last night about empathy, and the very real challenges we face as a country where so many people have been left out and left behind. As I said, many of Trump’s supporters are hard-working Americans who just don’t feel like the economy or our political system are working for them. I’m determined to bring our country together and make our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top. Because we really are ‘stronger together.’” [Hillary for America, Statement, 9/10/16]
Clinton: “So There May Be Some Folks Who Buy Into His Dark, Negative Vision, And Think He Maybe Could Be Their Voice, But I Don’t Think That Represents The Vast Majority Of Americans.” “And you know, the other thing that struck me about his speech was when he said, ‘I am your voice.’ Now, look, I will admit, maybe he does speak for some people, but I think it’s kind of hard to imagine him speaking for immigrants, for people with disabilities, for African Americans, for Latinos, for women, or even for working people who he has a history of stiffing, not supporting. So there may be some folks who buy into his dark, negative vision, and think he maybe could be their voice, but I don’t think that represents the vast majority of Americans.” [Voter Registration Event in Charlotte, NC, 7/25/16]
Asked If Americans Are Becoming Desensitized To Trump’s Rhetoric, Clinton Said “The Vast Majority Of Americans Are People Who Are Decent And Caring And Looking For Ways That We Can Come Together, Not To Be Divided By Fear And Hatred.” “QUESTION: Do you worry that Americans are becoming desensitized to this kind of rhetoric? HILLARY CLINTON: I think the uproar from Americans across our country in response to a number of the comments that Trump has made, but in particular to his derogatory comments about the Khans shows to the contrary, that the vast majority of Americans are people who are decent and caring and looking for ways that we can come together, not to be divided by fear and hatred.” [Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine at Press Avail in Ashland, OH, 7/31/16]
Clinton On Trump Supporters: “I Think That The Core Of His Support Really Centers On The Disappointment In The Economy That So Many Americans Feel.” “YAMICHE ALCINDOR: My question is you’ve accused Donald Trump of using racist and sexist language, what does it say about the electorate that so many Americans are supporting him? HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I really believe that the core of his support — I’m not going to speak for everyone who supports him because I think there have been some quite distressing statements coming out of his rallies and his supporters and who has aligned themselves with him. But I think that the core of his support really centers on the disappointment in the economy that so many Americans feel. And what I have been saying is, you know, I want to bring this country together. I think we have three overarching goals: we need more economic opportunity; we need to protect our national security; and we have got to work toward American unity.” [Q&A at NABJ & NAHJ Convention in Washington, D.C., 8/5/16]
CLINTON GAVE AN ENTIRE SPEECH ABOUT HOW THE ALT-RIGHT USES TRUMP’S CAMPAIGN TO PROMOTE THEIR HATE MOVEMENT
Clinton: “Trump Is Reinforcing Harmful Stereotypes And Offering A Dog Whistle To His Most Hateful Supporters.” “Now, Trump’s lack of knowledge or experience or solutions would be bad enough. But what he’s doing here is more sinister. Trump is reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters. It’s a disturbing preview of what kind of President he’d be.” [Remarks on Trump’s Prejudice and Paranoia in Reno, NV, 8/25/16]
Clinton: “This Is A Moment Of Reckoning For Every Republican Dismayed That The Party Of Lincoln Has Become The Party Of Trump. It’s A Moment Of Reckoning For All Of Us Who Love Our Country.” “We wouldn’t tolerate this kind of behavior before and we wouldn’t tolerate it in our own homes. And we shouldn’t stand for it in a presidential candidate. My friends, this is a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump. It’s a moment of reckoning for all of us who love our country and believe that America is better than this.” [Remarks on Trump’s Prejudice and Paranoia in Reno, NV, 8/25/16]
Clinton On Trump: “Every Day, More Americans Are Standing Up And Saying ‘Enough Is Enough’ – Including A Lot Of Republicans. And I Am Honored To Have Their Support In This Campaign.” “We can have our disagreements, and believe me, I understand that. I think that’s healthy. We need good debates, but we need to do it in a respectful way, not finger pointing and blaming, and stirring up this bigotry and prejudice. Every day, more Americans are standing up and saying ‘enough is enough’ – including a lot of Republicans. And I am honored to have their support in this campaign.” [Remarks on Trump’s Prejudice and Paranoia in Reno, NV, 8/25/16]
HILLARY CLINTON: You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. The racists, sexists, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.
TRUMP’S CANDIDACY HAS GIVEN THE ALT-RIGHT “LEGITIMACY THEY HAVE CRAVED FOR YEARS.”
HEADLINE: “Donald Trump’s Alt-Right Brain” [Editorial, New York Times, 9/5/16]
New York Times Editorial Board: Trump’s Candidacy Granted The Alternative-Right “The Legitimacy They Have Craved For Years.” “Mr. Trump says he isn’t signaling the alt-right when he says of immigrants, as he did again on Wednesday: ‘We have no idea who these people are, where they come from. I always say Trojan Horse. Watch what’s going to happen, folks. It’s not going to be pretty.’ Or when he said — in a line widely quoted on alt-right websites — ‘There is only one core issue in the immigration debate and it is this: the well-being of the American people.’ Mr. Trump’s white supremacist followers don’t take his disavowals too seriously. After all, he has enthusiastically retweeted bogus crime statistics and incendiary imagery from these websites and hired one of their biggest lights, Stephen Bannon of Breitbart News, to manage his campaign. There aren’t enough of these people to put Mr. Trump in the White House. But his candidacy has granted them the legitimacy they have craved for years. For the first time, a candidate is using a major-party megaphone to shout the ideas they once could only mutter among themselves in the shadowy fringes of national debate.” [Editorial, New York Times, 9/5/16]
THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN FORTIFIED THE WHITE SUPREMACIST MOVEMENT
Donald Trump Was A Boon For White Supremacists, Who Used His Candidacy As A Tool To Expand Their Movement. “The Ku Klux Klan is using Donald Trump as a talking point in its outreach efforts. Stormfront, the most prominent American white supremacist website, is upgrading its servers in part to cope with a Trump traffic spike. And former Louisiana Rep. David Duke reports that the businessman has given more Americans cover to speak out loud about white nationalism than at any time since his own political campaigns in the 1990s. As hate group monitors at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League warn that Trump’s rhetoric is conducive to anti-Muslim violence, white nationalist leaders are capitalizing on his candidacy to invigorate and expand their movement.” [Politico, 12/10/15]
Politico: “The Ku Klux Klan Is Using Donald Trump As A Talking Point In Its Outreach Efforts.” [Politico, 12/10/15]
Politico: “Stormfront, The Most Prominent American White Supremacist Website, Is Upgrading Its Servers In Part To Cope With A Trump Traffic Spike.” [Politico, 12/10/15]
Stormfront Founder Don Black: “Demoralization Has Been The Biggest Enemy And Trump Is Changing All That.” “As hate group monitors at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League warn that Trump’s rhetoric is conducive to anti-Muslim violence, white nationalist leaders are capitalizing on his candidacy to invigorate and expand their movement. ‘Demoralization has been the biggest enemy and Trump is changing all that,’ said Stormfront founder Don Black, who reports additional listeners and call volume to his phone-in radio show, in addition to the site’s traffic bump.” [Politico, 12/10/15]
VOICEOVER:People like you, you, and you
TRUMP DESCRIBED THE AFRICAN AMERICAN AND HISPANIC COMMUNITIES AS IMPOVERISHED AND CRIME-RIDDEN
Trump On The African-American Community: “You Have So Many In Poverty And The Crime Is Horrible And The Education Is Terrible And They Live Terribly.” TRUMP: “But you have tremendous numbers of African-Americans that have really had a hard time. I mean, beyond belief. And, you know, I read the numbers where you have so many in poverty and the crime is horrible and the education is terrible and they live terribly. And I say, what do you have to lose? I say to them, what do you have to lose? Give it to me. I’m going to fix them. And a lot of people are agreeing with me. What do you have to lose. The Democrats and the Hillary Clintons of the world have done a terrible job. She has been there for 35 years. She has done a terrible job. But the Hillary Clintons of the world have done a terrible job, Eric, and I say, what do you have to lose? I will fix it and you know what? A lot of people are agreeing.” [O’Reilly Factor, Fox News, 9/1/16]
TRUMP HAS DESCRIBED AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES IN INSULTING AND IGNORANT TERMS
HEADLINE: “Donald Trump’s Description Of Black America Is Offending Those Living In It”[New York Times, 8/24/16]
New York Times: “The Unrelievedly Dire Picture He Has Painted Of Black America Has Left Many Black Voters Angry, Dumbfounded Or Both. Interviews With Roughly A Dozen Blacks Here Turned Up No One Who Found Any Appeal In Mr. Trump’s Remarks.” “But the unrelievedly dire picture he has painted of black America has left many black voters angry, dumbfounded or both. Interviews with roughly a dozen blacks here turned up no one who found any appeal in Mr. Trump’s remarks. More common was the suggestion that Mr. Trump was trying to appeal to whites who might support him.” [New York Times, 8/24/16]
TRUMP CRITICIZED A FEDERAL JUDGE’S ABILITY TO DO HIS JOB BECAUSE OF HIS HERITAGE
Trump Claimed Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel Could Not Preside Over His Case Without A Conflict Of Interest Because He Was “Of Mexican Heritage.” “Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel had ‘an absolute conflict’ in presiding over the litigation given that he was ‘of Mexican heritage’ and a member of a Latino lawyers’ association. Mr. Trump said the background of the judge, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants, was relevant because of his campaign stance against illegal immigration and his pledge to seal the southern U.S. border.” [Wall Street Journal, 6/2/16]
TRUMP CALLED TO BAN AN ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE BASED ON THEIR RELIGION
12/7/15: Trump Called For A “Total And Complete Shutdown Of Muslims Entering The United States,” Citing “Great Hatred Towards Americans By Large Segments Of The Muslim Populations.” “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim populations.” [Press Release, Donald Trump for President, 12/7/15]
Trump Said He Was Not Rolling Back His Ban On Muslims: “In Fact, You Could Say It’s An Expansion.” “Donald Trump made clear this weekend that he has not rolled back his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, despite top allies insisting that he had… ‘I don’t think so. I actually don’t think it’s a rollback. In fact, you could say it’s an expansion,’ Trump said. ‘I’m looking now at territory. People were so upset when I used the word ‘Muslim’: ‘Oh, you can’t use the word ‘Muslim.’ Remember this. And I’m okay with that, because I’m talking territory instead of Muslim.’” [Washington Post, 7/24/16; Meet the Press, 7/24/16]
TRUMP CALLED IMMIGRANTS CRIMINALS AND RAPISTS
Trump: “When Mexico Sends Its People, They’re Not Sending Their Best… They’re Bringing Drugs. They’re Bringing Crime. They’re Rapists.”TRUMP: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” [Trump Presidential Campaign Announcement, New York NY, 6/16/15]
TRUMP REPEATEDLY MADE SEXIST ATTACKS
Trump On Megyn Kelly: “You Could See There Was Blood Coming Out Of Her Eyes, Blood Coming Out Of Her Wherever.”“Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Friday night that Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly ‘had blood coming out of her eyes’ when she aggressively questioned him during Thursday’s presidential debate. ‘She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions,’ Trump said in a CNN interview. ‘You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off base.’” [Washington Post, 8/8/15]
Trump On Fiorina: “Look At That Face! Would Anyone Vote For That? Can You Imagine That, The Face Of Our Next President?”“When the anchor throws to Carly Fiorina for her reaction to Trump’s momentum, Trump’s expression sours in schoolboy disgust as the camera bores in on Fiorina. ‘Look at that face!’ he cries. ‘Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!’ The laughter grows halting and faint behind him. ‘I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?’ And there, in a nutshell, is Trump’s blessing and his curse: He can’t seem to quit while he’s ahead.” [Rolling Stone, 9/9/15]
Trump On Hillary Clinton: “Do You Think She Looks Presidential? I Don’t Think So.” “GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump went after Hillary Clinton Tuesday for the way she looks, saying she just doesn’t seem presidential. ‘Do you think she looks presidential? I don’t think so,’ Trump said to his crowd at a rally in Ashburn, Virginia.” [Huffington Post, 8/2/16; Trump Campaign Rally, Ashburn VA, 8/2/16]
TRUMP DEFENDED HIS SUGGESTION THAT SEXUAL ASSAULTS SHOULD BE EXPECTED IF WOMEN ARE ALLOWED TO SERVE IN THE MILITARY WITH MEN
Trump Defended His 2013 Tweet Suggesting Sexual Assault Was Inevitable “When They Put Men And Women Together” In The Military: “It Is A Correct Tweet. There Are Many People Think That’s Absolutely Correct.” LAUER: “In 2013, on this subject, you tweeted this. Quote, 26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military. Only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men and women together? End quote.” TRUMP: “Well, it is a correct tweet. There are many people think that’s absolutely correct. We need to have a –“ [Commander In Chief Forum, MSNBC, 9/7/16]
VOICEOVER:Deplorable
TRUMP SAID HE WAS PROUD TO BE A BIRTHER
USA Today: Trump “Was Perhaps The Most Prominent Voice Of The ‘Birther’ Movement.”“Trump has been an outspoken critic of President Obama and was perhaps the most prominent voice of the ‘birther’ movement, which asserted, erroneously, that Obama was not a natural-born U.S. citizen. On Monday, he took a shot at the newest entrant to the 2016 Republican field, Jeb Bush, tweeting: ‘Do we really need another Bush in the White House — we have had enough of them.’ If there’s one thing Trump brings to the 2016 campaign, it’s confidence. ‘I’m the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far,’ he told The Des Moines Register in a recent interview.” [USA Today, 6/16/15]
March 2011: Trump: “I’m Proud To Be” A Birther. “Well I thought he was very nice to me, though. I mean, I understand that. And he doesn’t want to be labeled as a birther, probably. I’m proud to be. I mean, I’m very proud of it. I don’t like the term. I think it’s a demeaning term to the people that believe that he should have a birth certificate. .” [Laura Ingraham Show,AUDIO 06:30-07:00, 3/30/11]
VOICEOVER: You know what’s deplorable?
TRUMP ATTACKED A GOLD STAR FAMILY WHO LOST THEIR SON IN IRAQ
HEADLINE: “Donald Trump Criticizes Muslim Family Of Slain U.S. Soldier, Drawing Ire” [New York Times, 7/30/16]
HEADLINE: “Donald Trump’s Slander Of Captain Humayun Khan’s Family Is Horrifying, Even For Trump” [Vox, 7/30/16]
Trump Claimed The Mother Of A Fallen Muslim Soldier Did Not Speak At The Democratic Nation Convention Because “Maybe She Wasn’t Allowed To Have Anything To Say, You Tell Me.” “Donald J. Trump belittled the parents of a slain Muslim soldier who had strongly denounced Mr. Trump during the Democratic National Convention, saying that the soldier’s father had delivered the entire speech because his mother was not ‘allowed’ to speak…But, he added, ‘If you look at his wife, she was standing there, she had nothing to say, she probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say, you tell me.’” [New York Times,7/30/16; This Week, ABC, 7/31/16]
Trump Suggested His Business Career Was A Sacrifice Comparable To The Loss Of Khizr Khan’s Son: “I Think I Have Made A Lot Of Sacrifices.” STEPHANOPOULOS: “How would you answer that father [Khan]? What sacrifice have you made for your country?” TRUMP: “I think I have made a lot of sacrifices. I’ve work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve done — I’ve had tremendous success.” STEPHANOPOULOS: “Those are sacrifices?” TRUMP: “Oh, sure. I think they’re sacrifices.” [This Week, ABC, 7/31/16]
VOICEOVER:Hillary Clinton viciously demonizing hard working people like you.
TRUMP QUESTIONED HOW STUPID THE PEOPLE OF IOWA AND THE COUNTRY WERE
Donald Trump: “How Stupid Are The People Of Iowa? How Stupid Are The People Of The Country To Believe This Crap?” “With his voice growing louder and louder, Trump questioned what sort of person would attack his mother. He questioned how a belt buckle could stop a blade, stepping away from the podium to demonstration how such an attack might happen and how his own belt buckle wouldn’t stay in place long enough to stop a knife. ‘Anybody have a knife?’ Trump asked the audience, which was screened by Secret Service agents who began protecting him this week. ‘You want to try it on me?’ Trump was flabbergast: ‘How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?’” [Washington Post, 11/13/15; Donald Trump Campaign Rally, Fort Dodge Iowa, 11/12/15]
TRUMP SAID HE LOVES THE “POORLY EDUCATED,” BRAGGING HE WON THAT GROUP OF VOTERS
Trump: “We Won With Poorly Educated — I Love The Poorly Educated.” TRUMP: “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated — I love the poorly educated. We’re the smartest people, we’re the most loyal people.’” [Trump Campaign Rally, Las Vegas NV, 2/23/16]
TRUMP MOCKED A DISABLED REPORTER
HEADLINE: “Trump Mocks New York Times Reporter With Disability” [Chicago Tribune,11/25/15]
Chicago Tribune: “Trump Appeared To Mock Kovaleski’s Physical Condition; The Reporter Has Arthrogryposis, Which Visibly Limits Flexibility In His Arms. ‘Now, The Poor Guy — You’ve Got To See This Guy, “Ah, I Don’t Know What I Said! I Don’t Remember!”’ Trump Said As He Jerked His Arms In Front Of His Body.” “On stage Tuesday, Trump berated Times investigative reporter Serge Kovaleski for his recent recollection of an article he had written a few days after the attacks. Trump appeared to mock Kovaleski’s physical condition; the reporter has arthrogryposis, which visibly limits flexibility in his arms. ‘Now, the poor guy — you’ve got to see this guy, “Ah, I don’t know what I said! I don’t remember!”’ Trump said as he jerked his arms in front of his body. The gesture was all the more personal because Kovaleski covered Trump while reporting for the New York Daily News between 1987 and 1993, a tumultuous period for Trump in which he struggled through several financial setbacks.” [Chicago Tribune, 11/25/15]
DONALD J. TRUMP: I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message.
The stark contrast between the two major candidates for President could not be sharper as in their proposals to defeat ISIS and the scourge of terrorism. And it is probably the singular issue – shorthand – which stands in for the rest: a detailed, nuanced policy borne of first-hand experience and due diligence, and an off-the-cuff hyperbolic non sequitur. In essence, a plan versus no plan at all.
The outlines were presented during the Commander in Chief Forum where – despite moderator Matt Lauer’s best effort to cut off Clinton from her response, she stated:
“We have to defeat ISIS. That is my highest counterterrorism goal. And we’ve got to do it with air power. We’ve got to do it with much more support for the Arabs and the Kurds who will fight on the ground against ISIS. We have to squeeze them by continuing to support the Iraqi military. They’ve taken back Ramadi, Fallujah. They’ve got to hold them. They’ve got to now get into Mosul.
“We’re going to work to make sure that they have the support — they have special forces, as you know, they have enablers, they have surveillance, intelligence, reconnaissance help.
“They are not going to get ground troops. We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again. And we’re not putting ground troops into Syria. We’re going to defeat ISIS without committing American ground troops. So those are the kinds of decisions we have to make on a case-by-case basis.
“And, remember, when I became secretary of state, we had 200,000 troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I’m very grateful that we have brought home the vast majority of those. We have a residual force, as you know, in Afghanistan. We have built up several thousands of the folks that I’ve talked about who are assisting in the fight against ISIS.
“But it is in our national security interest to defeat ISIS. And I intend to make that happen.
“And as part of it, we’re going after Baghdadi, the leader, because it will help us focus our attention, just like going after bin Laden helped us focus our attention in the fight against Al Qaida in the Afghanistan- Pakistan theater.”
Then, Clinton was asked, with just about a minute left of her time, how she would deal with “terror attacks on our soil,” either directed by ISIS or inspired by ISIS, and “Would your message as the next president of the United States or potential next president be to Americans that we simply are living in the reality that those attacks will happen? And can you guarantee people that after four years of a Clinton presidency, they will be safer on the streets of San Bernardino or Boston than they are today?”
Clinton responds, “I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that that’s the result. I’m not going to, you know, promise something that I think most thinking Americans know is going to be a huge challenge, and here’s why. We’ve got to have an intelligence surge. We’ve got to get a lot more cooperation out of Europe, out of the Middle East. We have to do a better job of not only collecting and analyzing the intelligence we do have, but distributing it much more quickly down the ladder to state and local law enforcement.
“We also have to do a better job combating ISIS online, where they recruit, where they radicalize. And I don’t think we’re doing as much as we can. We need to work with Silicon Valley. We need to work with our experts in our government. We have got to disrupt, we have got to take them on in the arena of ideas that, unfortunately, pollute and capture the minds of vulnerable people. So we need to wage this war against ISIS from the air, on the ground, and online, in cyberspace.
“And here at home, for goodness’s sakes, we have to finally pass a law prohibiting people on the terrorist watch list from being able to buy a gun in the United States of America. So we’ve got work to do. I know we can do that work. I’m meeting with a group of terror experts, counterterrorism experts.
“But I want to just say one additional thing… Matt Olsen, the former director of the National Center on Counterterrorism, has a great article out today saying the last thing we need to do is to play into the hands of ISIS. Going after American Muslims, defaming a Gold Star family, the family of Captain Khan, making it more difficult for us to have a coalition with Muslim majority nations that is not going to help us to succeed in defeating ISIS and protecting our American homeland.”
In contrast, Donald Trump denigrated the generals, suggested he would install his own generals and demand a plan within 30 days which may or may not be as good as his secret plan which he will not detail because it is better to be “unpredictable.” He suggested that ISIS would not exist at all if Obama had only seized Iraq’s oil reserves – “To the victor belong the spoils” – which actually would be a war crime and a violation of international and US law. And instead of saying what he would do (beyond convening a new pack of generals to come up with a plan), he only could attack Obama and Clinton. He also suggested that he was “shocked” after his classified briefing, that the briefers indicated that Obama had rejected their advice (something that would never have happened since briefers don’t give policy advice), and that if he were president, Osama bin Ladin would have been killed before the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
Here are Trump’s remarks:
“Sure. I mean, part of the problem that we’ve had is we go in, we defeat somebody, and then we don’t know what we’re doing after that. We lose it, like as an example, you look at Iraq, what happened, how badly that was handled. And then when President Obama took over, likewise, it was a disaster. It was actually somewhat stable. I don’t think could ever be very stable to where we should have never gone into in the first place.
“But he came in. He said when we go out — and he took everybody out. And really, ISIS was formed. This was a terrible decision. And frankly, we never even got a shot. And if you really look at the aftermath of Iraq, Iran is going to be taking over Iraq. They’ve been doing it. And it’s not a pretty picture.
“The — and I think you know — because you’ve been watching me I think for a long time — I’ve always said, shouldn’t be there, but if we’re going to get out, take the oil. If we would have taken the oil, you wouldn’t have ISIS, because ISIS formed with the power and the wealth of that oil.”
Lauer asks, “How were we going to take the oil? How were we going to do that?”
Trump replies, “Just we would leave a certain group behind and you would take various sections where they have the oil. They have — people don’t know this about Iraq, but they have among the largest oil reserves in the world, in the entire world.
“And we’re the only ones, we go in, we spend $3 trillion, we lose thousands and thousands of lives, and then, Matt, what happens is, we get nothing. You know, it used to be to the victor belong the spoils. Now, there was no victor there, believe me. There was no victor. But I always said: Take the oil.
“One of the benefits we would have had if we took the oil is ISIS would not have been able to take oil and use that oil to fuel themselves.”
Lauer then asks about Trump’s plan to defeat ISIS. “When we’ve met in the past and we’ve talked, you say things like I’m going to bomb the expletive out of them very quickly. And when people like me press you for details like that gentleman just said on what your plan is, you very often say, I’m not going to give you the details because I want to be unpredictable.”
“Absolutely. The word is unpredictable,” Trump interjects.
When Lauer asks whether Trump’s “secret plan” to defeat ISIS he has been “hiding this whole time” is actually “to convene my top generals and they will have 30 days to submit a plan for soundly and quickly defeating ISIS,” Trump replies. “No. But when I do come up with a plan that I like and that perhaps agrees with mine, or maybe doesn’t — I may love what the generals come back with. I will convene…
“I have a plan. But I want to be — I don’t want to — look. I have a very substantial chance of winning. Make America great again. We’re going to make America great again. I have a substantial chance of winning. If I win, I don’t want to broadcast to the enemy exactly what my plan is.
“And let me tell you, if I like maybe a combination of my plan and the generals’ plan, or the generals’ plan, if I like their plan, Matt, I’m not going to call you up and say, “Matt, we have a great plan.” This is what Obama does. “We’re going to leave Iraq on a certain day.”
Lauer presses, “But you’re going to convene a panel of generals, and you’ve already said you know more about ISIS than those generals do.”
Trump replies. “Well, they’ll probably be different generals, to be honest with you.”
Hillary for America campaign followed up with a reminder of the detailed plan Hillary Clinton introduced months ago:
“The threat we face from terrorism is real, urgent, and knows no boundaries. Hillary Clinton knows that ISIS cannot be contained, it must be defeated,” Hillary for America campaign said in a statement. “Doing so takes more than empty talk and a handful of slogans. It takes a real plan, real experience, and real leadership. Donald Trump lacks all three. He won’t even say what his plan to defeat ISIS is.
Hillary Clinton has laid out a comprehensive plan to defeat ISIS and keep American safe at home. She understands that it’s not enough just to take out specific groups or leaders – we must have a comprehensive strategy to win the long game against the global terrorist network and its ideology.
First, we need to take out ISIS’s strongholds in the Middle East by intensifying the coalition air campaign, supporting our partners on the ground, and pursuing diplomacy to end Syria’s civil war and close Iraq’s sectarian divide, because those conflicts are keeping ISIS alive.
Second, we need to lash up with our allies to dismantle the global network that supplies money, arms, propaganda and fighters to the terrorists. This means targeted efforts to root out ISIS hubs and affiliates and preventing terrorist organizations from establishing hubs elsewhere, choking off the networks that facilitate their growth and expansion.
And third, we need to harden our defenses at home, including by launching an intelligence surge to ensure law enforcement has the information they need to detect and disrupt plots, working with Silicon Valley to shut down terrorist propaganda online, and keeping guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists. Hillary has also proposed establishing a “lone wolf” task force to identify and stop radicalized individuals who may or may not have contact and direction from any formal organization.
“As we do all of this, we cannot allow terrorists to intimidate us into abandoning our values or allowing us to be driven by fear to embrace policies that would actually make us less safe. Hillary knows that all communities need to be engaged in the fight against ISIS. As the Director of the FBI told Congress recently, anything that erodes trust with Muslim-Americans makes the job of law enforcement more difficult. American Muslims are on the front lines of efforts to combat radicalization, and we need to increase trust and cooperation with law enforcement. Since 9/11, law enforcement agencies have worked hard to build relationships with Muslim-American communities. They are the most likely to recognize the insidious effects of radicalization before it’s too late, and the best positioned to help us block it. Hillary knows we should be intensifying contacts in those communities, not scapegoating or isolating them. And as we engage in this fight, we will be stronger with our allies and partners standing with us, particularly in the Muslim world, as we cannot win this fight alone.”
They also took note that various pundits have praised Clinton’s plan:
New York Times’David Brooks: “This week we had a chance to watch Hillary Clinton respond in real time to a complex foreign policy challenge. On Thursday, six days after the Paris attacks, she gave a comprehensive antiterrorism speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. The speech was very impressive. While other candidates are content to issue vague calls to get tough on terror, Clinton offered a multilayered but coherent framework, not only dealing with ISIS but also putting that threat within the crosscutting conflicts that are inflaming the Middle East.… [Clinton] is thoughtful and instructive on both the big picture and the right way forward.”
CNN: “Michael Desch, an expert in international security at Notre Dame University, said that Clinton’s speech was polished and showed her to be ‘head and shoulders’ above Republican candidates on framing an anti-ISIS strategy.”
US News & World Report’sDave Catanese: “A strong performance delivered with the poise of an incumbent president”
Politico’sRoger Simon: “Hillary gives one of her best speeches ever on world terror. So presidential, they practically played ‘Hail to the Chief.’”
Defense One’sKevin Baron: “[Clinton’s speech is the] Most comprehensive and detailed Mideast/Isis plans I’ve heard from any US leader so far, of late”
Quartz: “…talking about how to actually tackle Islamist extremism is complicated and politically fraught. It’s easier to play to fears about outsiders than to develop a substantive program. At least one US politician has given some thought to an idea about what to do: Presidential contender and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton delivered a speech today (Nov. 19) outlining her plan to battle the nexus of Islamist ideology that ISIL has created in the Middle East’s failed states… It’s a cohesive approach…”
New York Times’David Brooks: “This week we had a chance to watch Hillary Clinton respond in real time to a complex foreign policy challenge. On Thursday, six days after the Paris attacks, she gave a comprehensive antiterrorism speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. The speech was very impressive. While other candidates are content to issue vague calls to get tough on terror, Clinton offered a multilayered but coherent framework, not only dealing with ISIS but also putting that threat within the crosscutting conflicts that are inflaming the Middle East.… [Clinton] is thoughtful and instructive on both the big picture and the right way forward.”
CNN: “Michael Desch, an expert in international security at Notre Dame University, said that Clinton’s speech was polished and showed her to be ‘head and shoulders’ above Republican candidates on framing an anti-ISIS strategy.”
US News & World Report’sDave Catanese: “A strong performance delivered with the poise of an incumbent president”
Politico’sRoger Simon: “Hillary gives one of her best speeches ever on world terror. So presidential, they practically played ‘Hail to the Chief.’”
Defense One’sKevin Baron: “[Clinton’s speech is the] Most comprehensive and detailed Mideast/Isis plans I’ve heard from any US leader so far, of late”
Quartz: “…talking about how to actually tackle Islamist extremism is complicated and politically fraught. It’s easier to play to fears about outsiders than to develop a substantive program. At least one US politician has given some thought to an idea about what to do: Presidential contender and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton delivered a speech today (Nov. 19) outlining her plan to battle the nexus of Islamist ideology that ISIL has created in the Middle East’s failed states… It’s a cohesive approach…”
Donald Trump, in a speech in Cleveland on Sept. 8, unveiled four basic proposals as the underpinning of an education program that would stress school choice, a longstanding objective of the right wing, which is used to dismantle public schools in favor of privatized schools (such as charter schools), as a means of diverting public tax dollars into private and parochial schools as well as home-schooling, and a tool to dismantle teachers unions.
PROPOSAL: Trump says his first budget will immediately add an additional federal investment of $20 billion towards school choice. This will be done by repriortizing existing federal dollars. Specifically, Trump’s plan would use $20 billion of existing federal dollars to establish a block grant for the 11 million school age kids living in poverty. Individual states will be given the option as to how these funds will be used.
PROPOSAL: Trump will establish the national goal of providing school choice to every American child living in poverty. That means that we want every disadvantaged child to be able to choose the local public, private, charter or magnet school that is best for them and their family. Each state will develop its own formula, but the dollars should follow the student.
PROPOSAL: To achieve this long-term goal of school choice, Trump make this a shared national mission – to bring hope to every child in every city in this land. Mr. Trump will use the pulpit of the presidency to campaign for this in all 50 states and will call upon the American people to elect officials at the city, state and federal level who support school choice.
PROPOSAL: Trump will also support merit-pay for teachers, so that great teachers are rewarded instead of the failed tenure system that currently exists, which rewards bad teachers and punishes good ones.
“Our campaign represents the long-awaited chance to break with the bitter failures of the past, and to embrace a New American Future,” Trump stated.
“There is no failed policy more in need of urgent change than our government-run education monopoly.
“The Democratic Party has trapped millions of African-American and Hispanic youth in failing government schools that deny them the opportunity to join the ladder of American success.
“It is time to break-up that monopoly.
“I want every single inner city child in America who is today trapped in a failing school to have the freedom – the civil right – to attend the school of their choice. This includes private schools, traditional public schools, magnet schools and charter schools which must be included in any definition of school choice.
“Our government spends more than enough money to easily pay for this initiative – with billions left over. It’s simply a matter of putting students first, not the education bureaucracy.
“Let’s run through the numbers.
“At the state and federal level, the United States spends more than $620 billion on K-12 education each year. That’s an average of about $12,296 for every student enrolled in our elementary and secondary public schools.
“The federal government pays for about 10 percent—$64 billion, to be precise—of the K-12 costs. That $64 billion makes up about half of the total spending of the U.S. Department of Education.
“The other roughly $570 billion spent on K-12 education comes from the states.
“We spend more per student than almost any other major country in the world. Yet, our students perform near the bottom of the pack for major large advanced countries.
“Our largest cities spend some of the largest amounts of money on public schools.
“New York City spends $20,226 dollars per pupil.
“Baltimore spends $15,287 dollars per student.
“Chicago spends $11,976 dollars per student, and in Los Angeles it is $10,602.
“Just imagine if each student in these school systems was given a scholarship for this amount of money – allowing them and their family to choose the public or private school of their choice.
“Not only would this empower families, but it would create a massive education market that is competitive and produces better outcomes.
“These schools would then cater to the needs of the individual student and family – not the needs of the Teachers’ Union. There is no more important job than a teacher, and teachers will benefit greatly from these reforms.
“The current government monopoly, while great for the bureaucrats, has utterly failed too many students.
“According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, only 1 in 6 African-American students in the eighth grade are considered proficient in math and reading.
“Failing schools then contribute to failing economies.”
Trump declared, “As your President, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice. I understand many stale old politicians will resist. But it’s time for our country to start thinking big once again. We spend too much time quibbling over the smallest words, when we should spend our time dreaming about the great adventures that lie ahead.”
And in Charlotte last month, he said, “On education, we are going to give students choice, and allow charter schools to thrive…. overturn tenure…. my opponent wants to deny students choice and opportunity all to get a little more money from the education bureaucracy. She doesn’t care how many young dreams are dashed and destroyed, and they are destroyed, young people are destroyed before they even start. We are going to work closely with African American parents and children, wither the parents’ students, everybody in the African American community, in the inner cities, and what a big difference that will make.
But this is all a spiel and a scam – like his Trump University – to divert tax dollars into for-profit education companies, and into parochial schools (contradicting the Constitutional separation of church and state), and for good measure, undermine the Teachers Union, which has strongly backed Democratic candidates. That’s what is meant by the “education bureaucracy” and that’s why it has been so, so key to Republicans to end teacher tenure (and at the same time, make teachers subject to whim of firing when they get to expensive, or when they teach Evolution and refuse to teach Creationism as science).
This is his spiel, but how would his Education proposal work in real life? After all, it was George w. Bush, who as Texas Governor opposed President Bill Clinton’s effort to introduce national standards, but who as president, overturned public education with his No child Left Behind/Accountability federal control of public education, even promoting public shaming of teachers and public schools which did not meet the arbitrary and unfairly imposed testing regimen designed so that every public school and every public school teacher would fail.
HFA Statement in Response to Trump’s Education Speech Today in Cleveland
In response to Trump’s dangerous education proposals announced during his speech today in Cleveland, HFA Senior Policy Advisor Maya Harris offered the following statement:
“It’s no surprise that Donald Trump—whose only experience when it comes to education is his fraudulent ‘Trump University’—offered education policies that would prove disastrous for our public schools, our educators, and most importantly, our kids. Let’s be clear: Trump’s proposal to apparently gut nearly 30 percent of the federal education budget and turn it into private school vouchers would decimate public schools across America and deprive our most vulnerable students of the education they deserve.
“Hillary Clinton believes that the public school system is one of the pillars of our democracy. As president she will fight to strengthen our public schools to ensure every student receives a world-class education, regardless of their ZIP code.”
Donald Trump’s proposal, explained:
TRUMP: “[U]se $20 billion of existing federal dollars to establish a block grant for the 11 million school age kids living in poverty.”
EXPLAINER: A more extreme version of past Republican proposals, Trump’s plan would apparently eliminate the targeting of federal dollars to schools and districts with the highest concentrations of low-income students. Instead, he would turn over all $15.4 billion in Title I funding to states, and allow money to follow students outside of the public school system to private or parochial schools.
Trump’s proposal could strip funding from up to 56,000 public schools serving more than 21 million children. By allowing funding to leave America’s 56,000 Title I schools, Trump’s proposal will put crucial funding at risk for nearly 21 million American students.
Trump’s proposal might only serve 1.4 million students, while stripping funding from the other 10.5 million low-income students in America. Trump’s proposal would serve no-where near 11 million students. The average cost of a K-12 private school is $13,640 per student, per year. Since thevast majority of states do not support private school vouchers, Trump’s proposal would have to carry the full cost of attendance. As a result, Trump’s proposal might only serve 1.4 million students, while taking away funding that serves America’s low-income schools.
Trump’s proposal could have a devastating impact on student achievement. Research shows that students who attend schools using vouchersoften do worse than those who stayed in their neighborhood public schools.
To fund his $20 billion voucher program, Trump would have to cut all Title I funding and $5 billion dollars in additional federal education programs. Trump would need to “repurpose” roughly $5 billion in annual education funding which currently supports programming such as preschool, Pell grants, and crucial resources to help low income students, students with disabilities, and English-language learners.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses New York State Conservative Party Nominating Convention, New York City, Sept. 7, 2016.
By Karen Rubin, News & Photo Features
Less than two hours before Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would take the stage for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Commander-in-Chief Forum aboard the USS Intrepid, he was at the Marriott Marquis accepting the nomination for president of the New York State Conservative Party.
Addressing a gathering of a couple of hundred people, he spent about 10 minutes of the 25 minutes he spoke relating the story of how he came to the rescue of the ice skating rink at Central Park.
“I took over the project after Ed Koch didn’t want me to do it and the newspaper said ‘let Trump do.’ There was a lot of pressure, but I did it in four months and has been tremendously successful,” he told the crowd, adding the moral of the story, “We have to do the same for New York state. We have to bring back our businesses and we can’t let the remaining businesses here go.”
He said that in touring New York State during the Republican primary – which he won in a landslide – he saw what a mess the state was, saying, “It’s so sad, when I toured the state during the primaries, and I got to see every part of the state. I was in Syracuse and I was in Albany and I was everywhere. And I saw those great, beautiful buildings that were empty and rotting and falling down from the wind and the rain and the snow and they’re all over the state.
He vowed to restore businesses and bring back jobs from Mexico where all the New York jobs have fled. He said he met a man who built factories, who said his business was going great. Really, where are you building factories? Mexico, the man told him.
That will change under a Trump presidency. Believe it.
“And there’s no hope. There’s no hope other than if I become president, because there will be great hope. There will be great hope.”
Trump expressed confidence that he would win New York State and the presidency.
“I just want to tell you and I am being 100 percent serious, I think we are going New York,” Trump said. “Don’t forget, Hillary is not a New Yorker. I’m a real New Yorker folks, you will never get more of a New Yorker if you want a president than you are getting with me.”
Hillary for America campaign blasts Donald Trump’s charade to “soften” stance on immigration, stating, “as Trump attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas, he and his own campaign have continued to reaffirm that the defining policy proposal of his candidacy remains the same as it’s always been: forcibly remove 16 million people from this country.”
After a whirlwind visit to Mexico to meet with President Peña Nieto, Donald Trump is slated to give a speech on immigration which is supposed to clarify what policy he might implement as President, after a week of attempting to couch his extreme policies in “softened” rhetoric.
“But make no mistake: Trump will always be Trump, and he is the same today as he was on the first day of his presidential campaign,” the Hillary for America campaign stated.”At his campaign launch, he stood in Trump Tower and told the world that, when it comes to immigrants from Mexico, ‘they’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.’
“From the first days of his campaign, Donald Trump has painted Mexicans as ‘rapists’ and criminals and has promised to deport 16 million people, including children and U.S. citizens. He has said we should force Mexico to pay for his giant border wall. He has said we should ban remittances to families in Mexico if Mexico doesn’t pay up. What ultimately matters is what Donald Trump says to voters in Arizona, not Mexico, and whether he remains committed to the splitting up of families and deportation of millions.”
The HFA campaign continued, “While Trump may try to disguise his plans by throwing in words like ‘humane’ or ‘fair,’ the reality is that Trump’s agenda echoes the extreme right’s will – one that is fueling a dangerous movement of hatred across the country.
“So as Trump attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas, he and his own campaign have continued to reaffirm that the defining policy proposal of his candidacy remains the same as it’s always been: forcibly remove 16 million people from this country.”
The campaign wants to remind voters of Trump’s position on immigration, and also state Clinton’s position, which has been “pants-on-fire” mischaracterized by Trump as “open-borders” but is a detailed plan for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path for legalization and keeping families together:
TRUMP: “I don’t think it’s a softening… I’ve had people say it’s a hardening, actually.” [Anderson Cooper 360, CNN, 8/25/16]
TRUMP:“I will tell you we are tougher maybe than ever in a certain respect.” [NH1 News, 8/25/16]
Vice Presidential Nominee Mike Pence: “Nothing has changed about Donald Trump’s position on dealing with illegal immigration… It is going to be fair. It is going to be tough. But there will be no path to legalization, no path to citizenship unless people leave the country.” [State of the Union, CNN, 8/28/16]
Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway: “It is this week what it’s always been.” [New Day, CNN, 8/25/16]
Conway:“He’s said no path to legalization, no path to citizenship and no amnesty. You can return home, and if you would like to go stand in line, like everybody else is… stand in line, wait your turn, go through the normal courses. Then that would be evaluated on a case by case basis.” [Good Morning America, ABC, 8/26/16]
Campaign Spokeswoman Katrina Pierson: “…he hasn’t changed his position, he has changed the words that he is saying.” [New Day, CNN, 8/25/16]
Pierson:“There is not a different message. He is using different words to give the message, because everyone on the news is saying that he is a bigot and that he is a racist because of the words he uses.” [New Day, CNN, 8/25/16]
Rick Perry: “Donald Trump is not softening his position on immigration.” [Fox & Friends, FOX, 8/30/16]
Donald Trump Jr.: “He wasn’t softening on anything. He didn’t change his stance on anything.” [CNN, 8/30/16] No matter who surrounds Trump, his hateful rhetoric about immigrants and dangerous policies remain. He would deport an estimated 16 million, including every single undocumented immigrant and U.S. citizens born here to undocumented parents…
TRUMP: “We’re going to take people that are here illegally, and we’re going to move them out. Got to move them out. We’re a country of laws, and we’ve got to remain that way.” [Florida GOP Sunshine Summit, Orlando FL, 11/13/15]
TRUMP: “We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out.” [Republican Primary Debate, Houston TX, 2/25/16]
TRUMP: “We’re going to keep the families together… but they have to go,” [Meet the Press, 8/16/16] Send a deportation force into schools, workplaces and homes in communities across America…
TRUMP: “You’re going to have a deportation force, and you’re going to do it humanely…’” [Washington Post, 11/11/15]
TRUMP: “We’re rounding them up in a very humane way, in a very nice way. And they’re going to be happy because they want to be legalized. And, by the way, I know it doesn’t sound nice, but not everything is nice, somebody has to do it.” [60 Minutes, CBS, 9/27/15]
TRUMP: “You know if you back to the early 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower… he moved out 1.5 million people and brought them back to where they came from. They were here illegally. I think — it really does have big precedent.” [Hannity, Fox News, 11/10/15]
TRUMP: “…Eisenhower had the exact same situation and he moved out one and a half million people and very few people talked about it and it was a tough situation, but what he did is he did it. And, you know, I like Ike.” [Mornings With Maria, 11/6/15] Rescind DACA and DAPA…
TRUMP: “I will immediately terminate President Obama’s illegal executive order on immigration. Immediately.” [Presidential Announcement Speech, New York NY, 6/16/15]
TRUMP: “I’m also going to cancel all unconstitutional orders, executive orders, you’ve been hearing about that. We have a little bit of an excessive executive order president and empower the rank and file ICE officers and border patrol officers to finally do the jobs that they were meant to do.” [Roast N’ Ride, Des Moines IA, 8/27/16] End birthright citizenship and deport U.S. citizens…
Sean Hannity: “One of the important aspects when you hear about his plan — you hear about his plan you hear about visas, you hear about people overstaying them. You hear, for example, no birth-right citizenship, correct?”
TRUMP: “Right.” [Hannity Town Hall, Fox News, Austin TX, 8/24/16]
Bill O’Reilly: “But here is a scenario, ok? Illegal immigrant mother and father living in Los Angeles, two children who are American citizens, born here. If you’re president do you order authorities to take that family into custody?”
TRUMP: “We have no choice. I’m sorry, Bill. We have to bring them out.” [O’Reilly Factor, Fox News, 8/24/15] Subject all immigrants to religious tests and ban the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims from entering the country…
“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” [Donald Trump Press Release, 12/7/15]
TRUMP: “Take a look at [FDR’s] presidential proclamations back a long time ago, 2525, 2526, 2527. What he was doing with Germans, Italians, and Japanese because he had to do it.” [Trump on Morning Joe, NBC News, 6/27/16]
TRUMP: “On immigration, we will temporarily suspend immigration from any place where adequate screening cannot be performed. Extreme vetting. Remember. Extreme vetting. All applicants for immigration will be vetted for ties to radical ideology, and we will screen out anyone who doesn’t share our values and love our people.” [Trump Campaign Speech, Charlotte NC, 8/18/16] And build a giant concrete wall along our southern border.
TRUMP: “We’re going to build a wall. It’s going to be a real. It’s going to be a wall that is powerful and that people aren’t going to be going under or up or around or anything else.” [Erin Burnett Outfront, CNN, 11/12/15]
TRUMP: “It’ll be a real wall… I think the height could be 35 to 45 feet. That’s a good height.” [Hannity Town Hall, Fox News, Austin TX, 8/24/16] What’s more, Trump has deployed lie after lie about Hillary Clinton’s plan for comprehensive immigration reform in an attempt to deceive and exploit voters so they buy into his dark, dystopian, and fabricated view of immigration in America.
Washington Post’s Fact Checker – “Four Pinocchios” for Falsely High Crime Statistics: “Trump’s wild rhetoric over deporting all unauthorized immigrants for bringing crimes like murder into the U.S. underscores a common public misperception that violent crime is correlated with immigration, especially illegal immigration. He continues to assert that crime is spiking because of illegal immigration, this time in California, but this claim remains unsupported…Four Pinocchios.” [Fact Checker, Washington Post, 5/13/16]
PolitiFact.com – “Pants on Fire” for a False TV Ad: “Trump’s television ad purports to show Mexicans swarming over ‘our southern border.’ However, the footage used to support this point actually shows African migrants streaming over a border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla, more than 5,000 miles away. We rate the claim Pants on Fire.” [Politifact.com, 1/4/16]
Washington Post’s Fact Checker – “Four Pinocchios” for Another False TV Ad – this Time on Social Security: “The Republican presidential nominee makes a bizarre claim that undocumented immigrants will collect Social Security under a Clinton presidency… The broad assertion in this ad is just not supported by facts, and thus earns Four Pinocchios.” [Fact Checker, Washington Post, 8/20/16]
PolitiFact.com – Trump’s Claim “False” That Undocumented Immigrants Will Take Americans’ Jobs: “Trump says Clinton is ‘proposing to print instant work permits for millions of illegal immigrants to come in and take everybody’s jobs, including low-income African-Americans.’… The green cards would be available to students who are already legally in the United States. And given their level of education and expertise, they would not be taking jobs of low-income Americans. Nor is the program aimed at millions of students. We rate the statement False.” [Politifact.com, 8/18/16]
PolitiFact.com – No, Trump, Clinton Will Not Create “Open Borders”:“Trump said Clinton’s immigration platform would ‘create totally open borders.’ This is a huge distortion of Clinton’s proposals… We rate this claim False.” [Politifact.com, 6/23/16]
Clinton Plan for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Governor Mike Pence recently said that there is a very clear contrast between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s immigration policies. He is absolutely correct.
Unlike Trump, Clinton has promised that she will fight for comprehensive immigration reform within her first 100 days that offers a pathway to full and equal citizenship, fixes the family visa backlog, and protects our borders and national security. She will:
Fight for comprehensive immigration reform legislation with a path to full and equal citizenship.
Defend President Obama’s DACA and DAPA executive actions.
Do everything possible under the law to go further to protect families.
Conduct humane, targeted immigration enforcement.
End family detention.
Close private immigrant detention centers.
Ensure families can buy into Affordable Care Act exchanges, regardless of immigration status.
Promote naturalization.
Remove the 3- and 10-year bars to keep families together.
Hillary Clinton: “The truth is, too many people today feel left out and left behind. That’s not the America we want to be. Instead of demonizing hard-working immigrant families, we should be giving them a real path to citizenship.” [Clinton Remarks, 1/21/16]
“We won’t be fooled by Trump’s attempts to distract from his bigotry and disguise his dangerous ideas. Donald Trump will be who he has always been: Donald Trump,” the Hillary for America campaign stated.
For a few precious days each year for the past 10 years, I have had the privilege of stepping into what felt as an alternate universe – a place of possibility and progress, where the intractable challenges of all time, like health care, religious wars, systemic poverty, racism and sexism, global warming, had solutions, not just pie-in-the-sky ideas, that were being implemented. Year after year, we could see the faces of people whose lives were saved or improved – many even attended the annual meeting to talk personally – and we could measure the progress.
This was the Clinton Global Initiative, an extraordinary gathering of Movers and Shakers of the world – senior ministers of government, CEOs of multinational corporations and financial institutions, wealthy philanthropists, along with the NGOs (nongovernmental organization) worker bees who are the ones who actually labor to improve lives in their local communities. They included among them Nobel laureates like Mohammed Yunus of Bangladesh, who transformed his society using microfinance. They had the scions of billionaires like Warren Buffet’s son, Peter Buffet, Co-chair, NoVo Foundation, which committed $30 million over five years to help rebuild the education systems and address violence against women and girls in post-conflict West Africa; the Nike Foundation that financed programs empowering girls (“The Girl Effect”), Sophie Gasperment, CEO of BodyShop who sponsored a new approach to stop child sex trafficking.
This was not charity. This was a nonprofit institution that figured out how to create sustainable development. The model has since been used by the Obama Administration, in the design of Strong Cities, Strong Communities program which forged public-private partnerships to spur economic development in cities like Detroit, for example, in programs forging public-private partnerships to cultivate adoption of clean, renewable energy, and in Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” initiative and the “Joining Forces” program to incentivize companies to hire veterans returned from war.
At the first Clinton Global Initiative, Condoleezza Rice shared the stage with Al Gore. Over the years, other prominent Republicans – including Republican candidates for president (John McCain, Mitt Romney), made appearances if not in person, by videolink. But that pretty much stopped after Florida Governor Charlie Crist was photographed hugging President Clinton at a session on climate change; the photo was blasted on page 1 all over Florida, and he was drummed out of the Republican Party and Florida politics.
Sure I gagged when I heard Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs say “We are doing God’s work,” but there was former Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson calling for a tax on carbon. “We need a national policy to unleash the markets, unleash innovation, that will lead to new technologies and change behavior – business and consumer behavior.”
“We started CGI to create a new kind of community built around the new realities of our modern world, where problem-solving requires the active partnership of government, business, and civil society,” President Bill Clinton stated when he announced changes to the Clinton Foundation and that this year’s Clinton Global Initiative would be the last. “We’ve brought together leaders from across sectors and around the world both to talk about our challenges, and to commit publicly to actually do something about them. It was something different, but our bet paid off: there was a hunger for the chance to make an impact that brought together people and organizations with the resources to make a difference with people who have the knowledge and experience to turn good ideas into action. Corporations, governments, and non-governmental organizations began combining their strengths and finding entirely new approaches to old problems. CGI quickly became an embodiment of what works best in the 21st-century world, and what has been behind all of the Clinton Foundation’s work since the very beginning: networks of cooperation.
“This partnership model, which may seem self-evident today, was simply not how philanthropy and corporate responsibility worked over a decade ago. Today, members of the Clinton Global Initiative have made more than 3,500 commitments that are already improving over 430 million lives in more than 180 countries. These projects will continue to make an impact around the world and in the U.S. The idea that working together beats going it alone has caught on well beyond our CGI community.”
The Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative have been the greatest force for good in a very disturbed, unsettled, increasingly dark world – it makes Jimmy Carter’s Habitat for Humanity look like the Cub Scouts.
And because Clinton Global Initiative has been such a gamechanger in actually making progress against the most intractable challenges facing the planet today, the Republicans have been trying to kill it forever. That’s because the Republicans realize that their power and control depends upon persistent income inequality, suffering and despair, and an underclass of voiceless, unrepresented people. They don’t want real solutions to anything. They want to be able to throw a few dollars at a problem for their own sense of redemption, while actually committing pay-for-play in accommodating their donors, like Dirty Fuels and the NRA.
Now Donald Trump, desperate to turn the tide on his disgraceful, despicable campaign, has been searching for something, anything, to distract. So far, that has been Clinton’s emails and Benghazi. But even that could only go so far. So now it is Clinton Foundation and his trumped up scandal of pay-for-play without a single instance of actual wrongdoing. He has accused Hillary Clinton of “selling her office” to the detriment of national security.
Trump’s wet dream is that a special prosecutor, a la Ken Starr, would be appointed, with likely the same tactics as Starr used – locking up people until they gave the evidence he wanted. And when nothing was found to show the Clintons did anything illegal in the Whitewater land deal, Starr (the guy who had to resign his post at Baylor over ignoring sexual assault on campus) simply shifted gears to go after Clinton’s adultery. (Clearly, this is another case of projection by Donald Trump, who attacks opponents for the impropriety that he commits, including pay for play, which he has boasted of mastering, as when he got New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to reduce a $30 million tax bill on his failed Atlantic City casinos to a mere $5 million.)
CGI was so successful precisely because it brought on board leaders in government, industry, finance and philanthropy, together with NGOs and entrepreneurs. So why should it be a surprise that these same people – the Crown Prince of Bahrain, Bill and Melinda Gates – would also meet with the Secretary of State? Cause and effect are mixed up. These weren’t unknown money people who only after making a donation to the Clinton Foundation, not only got a meeting with Secretary of State they wouldn’t otherwise have had, but also some action that somehow was counter to the interests of the United States.
The Clinton Global Initiative has had stunning success in creating new programs to bring clean water, seeds, medicine, health care including training midwives (delivering birth was the most dangerous thing a woman could do), solar energy, education. Their projects have saved millions of children from death from disease and hunger, addressing issues such as child brides, human trafficking, drought, famine. And we haven’t even started on global warming, protecting the ocean, education, entrepreneurship, conflict resolution.
The programs have not just fostered new insights and new partnerships that could produce solutions to problems, but have changed cultures of countries and corporations and societies. Walmart – the company progressives love to hate – introduced sustainability throughout its delivery chain, resulting in tens of thousands of fewer trucks on the road spewing carbon emissions contributing to global warming, Goldman Sachs devised a new sort of bond to help fund repair of coral reefs. A company found investors for a process to turn algae production into fuel to power US Naval ships instead of diesel.
It is remarkable to hear Queen Rania of Jordan, a regular at CGI, speak about the need to improve access to education and jobs for women, and for young people generally, and (in 2010). I recall one panel discussion with HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Kingdom of Bahrain, President Bill Clinton, Salam Fayyad, Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority together with Shimon Peres, President of the State of Israel, talking about peace in the Middle East that was probably the closest the two intransigents had ever been to actual agreement. Or hear Bill Gates talk about having cut the number of child deaths in half, with a goal of reducing the number even further – to a mere 3 million a year, “where child in low income country can survive as well as a child in middle income country.”
It literally restores faith in a way that praying in church can’t possibly.
CGI has paved the way for a generational change in outlook through its CGI University, bringing college-age people together to channel their vision, their entrepreneurism, their talents and energies on these problems of health, education, global warming, poverty.
Last year’s Hult Prize at CGI– a competition for young entrepreneurs to solve a problem around a particular theme or problem (the winner gets $1 million in start-up capital), went to IMPCT for a project to create small play-based daycare franchises, owned and operated by a local entrepreneur to serve 20 nearby families with affordable early education, right in Brazilian slum neighborhoods, enabling mothers to work, children to have a decent place to learn, and create new pathways to entrepreneurship for women.
The unique aspect of Clinton Global Initiative is that every participant must make a commitment, and that commitment is monitored for implementation and measured for success. (You can’t even trace Donald Trump’s so-called “charitable contributions” or what went purely to get a tax deduction, or in the case of his recent adoration for veterans groups, to buy votes.)
The CGI provided a unique forum, a unique space, for these various entities to meet, even serendipitously, and partner together on “commitments.” I heard this same thing over and over. The conference offers a showcase for the “idea” people to pitch to the people who can fund and implement – so you see extraordinary collaborations.
So far, besides a couple of requests for meetings (which Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin said needed to go through official channels), a request for help with a visa (denied), or introduction to an ambassador by a Lebanese Nigerian who wanted to convey some information about an upcoming election in Lebanon, there has been no evidence of inappropriate action on Secretary Clinton’s part – that is, something that went counter to US interests, or specifically benefited the Clinton Foundation or them personally.
The billions of dollars that have been funneled into these projects went into the projects, not into the Clintons’ pockets.
Ah, but the appearance, the perception, we are told.
Trump is trumping this whole thing up because he is absolutely desperate, and this (thanks to Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, whose entire attack hinged on Hillary’s connections with corporations and special interests), is his last straw (well, along with the conspiracy that Hillary is sick).
As a result, we aren’t hearing anything about Hillary Clinton’s proposal for a rapid response to pandemics and bolster health infrastructure – issues that have been tackled at CGIs – or how she would promote small businesses in minority communities, which she announced last week. Or any of her specific plans to create jobs, fight ISIS, make communities safer and more successful.
And yet, Donald Trump has run his campaign as an infomercial, has clearly directed campaign spending directly to his own companies, family members and friends, has as his “advisers” his biggest donors (Carl Icahn, Robert Mercer), has refused to be transparent about what he owns and what he owes (like the millions he is in hock to with banks owned by the Chinese government), has clearly bought favors and would very likely bring these practices directly into the Oval Office, making or breaking deals through the prism of what benefits his own personal business interests.
Trump said years ago that he thought it would be possible for a presidential campaign to actually earn money, and that is exactly what he is doing. And there is no indication whatsoever that he wouldn’t do the same if he actually was in the Oval Office.
No one has been so scrutinized, analyzed, dissected as much as Hillary Clinton. If the same level of analysis was applied to anyone else (like Donald Trump, Jill Stein), I doubt they would pass muster. We actually don’t know anything about Donald Trump’s real income or supposed success as a businessman, whether he contributes to charity or whether he uses his “contributions” to buy politicians. He has said himself that no one knows the system better than he does. And these attacks on the Clinton Foundation and the Clintons is yet the latest example of “projection” – attacking the opponent for the very thing that you are doing. Trump has admitted to being a master at rigging the system.
And the real tragedy is that the Clintons are planning to shut down Clinton Global Initiative altogether and dramatically curtail the Clinton Foundation. Instead, they should do what any other president would do – resign as members of the Board and have a “blind trust” while Hillary Clinton is president.
Some Examples of Clinton Global Initiative Commitments
Here are some examples of the more than 3,000 CGI commitments:
Reaching 1 New Person with Clean Water Every 10 Seconds, Commitment by: World Vision, Partners: Procter & Gamble, Sesame Workshop, Coca-Cola, Grundfos, United Solar Initiative, University of North Carolina Water Institute, Denver Mattress, Kohler, Water Now, Water4, Well Spring for the World, Drexel University, Design Outreach, Desert Research Institute, Messiah College. In 2015, World Vision and partners committed to reaching one new person every ten seconds with clean water and sanitation on or before 2020, directly impacting 13 million people in 36 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. To do so, World Vision will form committees in each of the communities in which they work which are responsible for managing the community’s water points, which may include traditional boreholes with a hand pump, mechanized boreholes with solar power, protected springs, and rainwater harvesting. As girls and women bear the burden of collecting water globally, World Vision will specifically engage women in leadership positions within the committees. This commitment scales upon World Vision’s 2011 commitment to provide water, sanitation and hygiene solutions in 10 African countries.
Books For All: A Digital Library for 5 Million People: Commitment by: Worldreader; Partners: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Penguin Random House, Inc., Longhorn Publishers, Pratham, Microsoft, Rosetta Books, Cisco Foundation, Vodafone Group Foundation, Hesperian Books. In 2014, Worldreader committed to provide 5 million people with increased access to digital books in the next three years. The organization will quadruple the size of its digital library by 20,000 book titles, adding titles in English and local languages, with a particular focus on STEM and health content, as well as increase the number of distribution channels available by creating Android-based and web browser mobile reading applications. Worldreader announced today that as of March 2015, 4,230 books have been added to its global library, with a focus on reading materials that are about girls’ empowerment and STEM. Worldreader has reached 489,725 more readers since the CGI commitment was realized.
African Rhino Protection Program, Commitment by: United Postcode Lotteries, Partners: Peace Parks Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, South African National Parks, Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife, Government of South Africa
Partnership to Map Air Pollution Across California Cities, Commitment by: Aclima, Partner: Google
Healthy Honey Bees: Linking Food Security & the Environment, Commitment by: Monsanto Company, Partners: National Alfalfa & Forage Alliance, Western Growers, American Honey Producers Association, American Beekeeping Federation, Eastern Kentucky University, National Cotton Council of America, Project Apis m., The Keystone Alliance, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Field to Market
At a speech in Reno on Thursday, August 25, Hillary Clinton highlighted Donald Trump and his advisors’ embrace of a hate movement – the disturbing “alt-right” political philosophy. This “alt-right” brand is embracing extremism and presenting a dystopian view of America, Clinton said, which should concern all Americans regardless of party. Clinton argued that Trump’s embrace of this ideology, cemented by hiring the former head of a leading “alt-right” website Breitbart.com as his campaign CEO, dovetails with a troubling history of hateful behavior: Trump was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for racial bias in the 1970’s and started his presidential campaign calling Mexicans criminals, drug traffickers and rapists.
Clinton contrasted Donald Trump’s divisiveness with her vision of an America that is stronger together. Clinton said, “So no one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here. The names may have changed. Racists now call themselves ‘racialists.’ White supremacists now call themselves ‘white nationalists.’ The paranoid fringe now calls itself ‘alt-right.’ But the hate burns just as bright. […] this isn’t just about one election. It’s about who we are as a nation. It’s about the kind of example we want to set for our children and grandchildren.”
Here are Clinton’s remarks, as transcribed and highlighted:
Now I have to begin by saying my original plan for this visit was to focus on our agenda to help small businesses and entrepreneurs. This week we proposed new steps to cut red tape and taxes, to make it easier for small businesses to get the credit they need to grow and hire. I want to be a small business president. My father was a small businessman. And I believe that in America, if you can dream it, you should be able to build it.
We’ll be talking a lot more small business and about our economic plans in the days and weeks ahead.
But today, here in this community college devoted to opening minds and creating great understanding in this world and the place we live. I want to address something I hear from Americans all over our country. Everywhere I go, people tell me how concerned they are by the divisive rhetoric coming from my opponent in this election. I understand that concern because it’s like nothing we’ve heard before from a nominee for President of the United States from one of our two major parties.
From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia. He is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican party. His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous.
In just the past week, under the guise of ‘outreach’ to African Americans, Trump has stood up in front of largely white audiences and described black communities in such insulting and ignorant terms. ‘Poverty. Rejection. Horrible education. No housing. No homes. No ownership. Crime at levels nobody has seen.’ ‘Right now,’ he said, ‘you walk down the street and get shot.’ Those are his words.
But when I hear them, I think to myself how sad. Donald Trump misses so much, he doesn’t see. This is a man who clearly doesn’t know about Black America and doesn’t care about Black America.
Donald Trump misses so much. He doesn’t see the success of black leaders in every field, the vibrancy of the black-owned businesses, or the strength of the black church. He doesn’t see the excellence of historically black colleges and universities or the pride of black parents watching their children thrive. He apparently didn’t see Police Chief Brown on television after the murder of five of his officers conducting himself with such dignity.
And he certainly doesn’t have any solutions to take on the reality of systemic racism and create more equity and opportunity in communities of color and for every American.
It really does take a lot of nerve to ask people he’s ignored and mistreated for decades, ‘What do you have to lose?’ Because the answer is everything.
Now, Trump’s lack of knowledge or experience or solutions would be bad enough. But what he’s doing here is more sinister. Trump is reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.
It’s a disturbing preview of what kind of President he’d be.
And that’s what I want to make clear today: A man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far, dark reaches of the internet, should never run our government or command our military. Ask yourself, if he doesn’t respect all Americans, how can he serve all Americans?
Now, I know that some people still want to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. They hope that he will eventually reinvent himself – that there’s a kinder, gentler, more responsible Donald Trump waiting in the wings somewhere.
Because after all, it’s hard to believe anyone – let alone a nominee for president – could really believe all the things he says.
But here’s the hard truth, there is no other Donald Trump. This is it.
And Maya Angelou, a great American who I admire very much, she once said: ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’ Well, throughout his career and this campaign, Donald Trump has shown us exactly who he is. And I think we should believe him.
When he was getting his start in business, he was sued by the Justice Department for refusing to rent apartments to black and Latino tenants. Their applications would be marked with a ‘C’ – ‘C’ for ‘colored’ – and then rejected. Three years later, the Justice Department took Trump back to court because he hadn’t changed.
And the pattern continued through the decades.
State regulators fined one of Trump’s casinos for repeatedly removing black dealers from the floor. No wonder the turnover rate for his minority employees was way above average.
And let’s not forget that Trump first gained political prominence leading the charge for the so-called ‘Birthers.’ He promoted the racist lie that President Obama is not really an American citizen – part of a sustained effort to delegitimize America’s first black President.
In 2015, Trump launched his own campaign for President with another racist lie. He described Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals. And he accused the Mexican government of actively sending them across the border. None of that is true.
Oh, and by the way, by the way, Mexico’s not paying for his wall either. If he ever tries to get it built, the American taxpayer will pay for it. We’ll be stuck with the bill.
But there has been a steady stream of bigotry coming from him.
We all remember when Trump said a distinguished federal judge born in Indiana couldn’t be trusted to do his job because, quote, ‘He’s a Mexican.’ Think about that. The man who today is the standard bearer of the Republican Party said a federal judge, who by the way, had a distinguished career, who had to go into hiding because Mexican drug gangs were after him, who has Mexican heritage but who just like me was born in this country, is somehow incapable solely because of his heritage. Even the Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, described that as ‘the textbook definition of a racist comment.’
To this day, Trump has never apologized to Judge Curiel.
But for Trump, that is just par for the course.
This is someone who retweets white supremacists online, like the user who goes by the name ‘white-genocide-TM.’ Trump took this fringe bigot with a few dozen followers and spread his message to 11 million people.
His campaign famously posted an anti-Semitic image – a Star of David imposed over a sea of dollar bills – that first appeared on white supremacist websites.
The Trump campaign has also selected a prominent white nationalist leader as a delegate in California. And they only dropped him under pressure.
When asked in a nationally televised interview whether he would disavow the support of David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Trump wouldn’t do it. Only later, again under mounting pressure, did he backtrack.
And when Trump was asked about anti-Semitic slurs and death threats coming from his supporters, he refused to condemn them.
Through it all, he has continued pushing discredited conspiracy theories with racist undertones.
You remember, he said that thousands of American Muslims in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 attacks. They didn’t.
He suggested that Senator Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination. Perhaps in Trump’s mind, because Mr. Cruz was a Cuban immigrant, he must have had something to do with it. And there is absolutely, of course, no evidence of that.
Just recently, Trump claimed that President Obama founded ISIS. And then he repeated that over and over again.
His latest paranoid fever dream is about my health. All I can say is, Donald, dream on.
But, but my friends– but my friends, this is what happens when you treat the National Enquirer like Gospel. They said in October I’d be dead in six months.
It’s also what happens when you listen to the radio host Alex Jones, who claims that 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombings were inside jobs. He even said, and this really is just so disgusting, he even said that the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre were child actors and no one was actually killed there. I don’t know what actually happens in somebody’s mind or how dark their heart must be, to say something like that. But Trump didn’t challenge those lies. He went on Jones’ show and said, ‘Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.’
This from the man who wants to be President of the United States.
I’ve stood by President Obama’s side as he made the toughest decisions a Commander-in-Chief has to make. In times of crisis, our country depends on steady leadership, clear thinking, calm judgment, because one wrong move can mean the difference between life and death. I know we have veterans here and I know we have families – mothers and spouses and children of people who are currently serving.
The last thing we need in the Situation Room is a loose cannon who can’t tell the difference, or doesn’t care to, between fact and fiction, and who buys so easily into racially-tinged rumors. Someone so detached from reality should never be in charge of making decisions that are as real as they come. That is yet another reason why Donald Trump is simply temperamentally unfit to be President of the United States.
Now, I hear and I read some people who are saying that his bluster and bigotry is just over-heated campaign rhetoric – an outrageous person saying outrageous things for attention. But look at his policies. The ones that Trump has proposed, they would put prejudice into practice.
And don’t be distracted by his latest efforts to muddy the waters. He may have some new people putting new words in his mouth, but we know where he stands.
He would form a deportation force to round up millions of immigrants and kick them out of the country.
He’d abolish the bedrock constitutional principle that says if you’re born in the United States, you’re an American citizen. He says that children born to undocumented parents in America are ‘anchor babies’ and should be deported. Millions of them.
He’d ban Muslims around the world from entering our country just because of their religion.
Think about that for a minute. How would it actually work? People landing in U.S. airports would line up to get their passports stamped, just like they do now. But in Trump’s America, when they step up to the counter, the immigration officer would ask every single person, ‘What is your religion?’
And then what? What if someone says, ‘I’m a Christian,’ but the agent doesn’t believe him? Do they have to prove it? How would they do that?
Really, ever since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, America has distinguished itself as a haven for people fleeing religious persecution, believing in religious freedom and religious liberty. Under Donald Trump, America would distinguish itself as the only country in the world to impose a religious test at the border.
Now come to think of it, there actually may be one other place that does that. The so-called Islamic State. The territory ISIS controls. What a cruel irony that someone running for President would equate us with them.
Don’t worry, some will say, as President, Trump will be surrounded by smart advisors who will rein in his worst impulses.
So when a tweet gets under his skin and he wants to retaliate with a cruise missile, maybe cooler heads will convince him not to.
Well, maybe.
But look at who he’s put in charge of his campaign.
Trump likes to say he only hires the ‘best people.’ But he’s had to fire so many campaign managers it’s like an episode from the Apprentice. And the latest shake-up was designed to – quote – ‘Let Trump be Trump.’ So to do that, he hired Stephen Bannon, the head of a right-wing website, called Breitbart.com, as campaign CEO.
Now to give you a flavor of his work, here are a few headlines they’ve published. And I’m not making this up.
‘Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy.’
‘Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?’
‘Gabby Giffords: The Gun Control Movement’s Human Shield’
‘Hoist It High And Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims A Glorious Heritage.’
That one came shortly after the Charleston massacre, when Democrats and Republicans alike were doing everything they could to heal racial divides that Breitbart and Bannon tried to inflame.
Just imagine – Donald Trump reading that and thinking: ‘this is what I need more of in my campaign.’
Now Bannon has nasty things to say about pretty much everyone. This spring, he railed against Speaker Paul Ryan for, quote ‘rubbing his social-justice Catholicism in my nose every second.’ No wonder he’s gone to work for Trump – the only Presidential candidate ever to get into a public feud with the Pope.
It’s truly hard to believe, but according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Breitbart embraces ‘ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right.’This is not conservatism as we have known it, this is not Republicanism as we have known it. These are racist ideas. Race-baiting ideas. Anti-Muslim, anti-Immigrant, anti-women –– all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right.’
Now, Alt-Right is short for ‘Alternative Right.’ The Wall Street Journal describes it as a loose, but organized movement, mostly online, that ‘rejects mainstream conservatism, promotes nationalism and views immigration and multiculturalism as threats to white identity.’
So the de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump Campaign represents a landmark achievement for this group. A fringe element has effectively taken over the Republican Party.
This is part of a broader story — the rising tide of hardline, right-wing nationalism around the world.
Just yesterday, one of Britain’s most prominent right-wing leaders, a man named, Nigel Farage, who stoked anti-immigrant sentiments to win the referendum to have Britain leave the European Union, campaigned with Donald Trump in Mississippi.
Farage has called for the bar of legal immigrants from public school and health services. Has said women, and I quote, ‘are worth less than men,’ and supports scrapping laws that prevent employers from discriminating based on race. That’s who Donald Trump wants by his side when he is addressing an audience of American voters.
And the grand godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism is Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, Farage regularly appears on Russian propaganda programs. Now he’s standing on the same stage as the Republican nominee.
Trump himself heaps praise on Putin and embraces pro-Russian policies. He talks casually of abandoning our NATO allies, recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, giving the Kremlin a free hand in Eastern Europe. American Presidents from Truman, to Reagan, to Bush and Clinton, to Obama, have rejected the kind of approach Trump is taking on Russia. And we should, too.
All of this adds up to something we have never seen before. Of course there’s always been a paranoid fringe in our politics, a lot of it rising from racial resentment. But it’s never had the nominee of a major party stoking it, encouraging it, and giving it a national megaphone. Until now.
On David Duke’s radio show the other day, the mood was jubilant. ‘We appear to have taken over the Republican Party,’ one white supremacist said. Duke laughed. ‘No, there’s still more work to do,’ he replied.
So no one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here. The names may have changed. Racists now call themselves ‘racialists.’ White supremacists now call themselves ‘white nationalists.’ The paranoid fringe now calls itself ‘alt-right.’ But the hate burns just as bright.
And now Trump is trying to rebrand himself as well. But don’t be fooled.
There’s an old Mexican proverb that says ‘Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are.’
But we know who Trump is. A few words on a teleprompter won’t change that.
He says he wants to ‘make America great again,’ but more and more it seems as though his real message seems to be ‘Make America hate again.’
And this isn’t just about one election. It’s about who we are as a nation. It’s about the kind of example we want to set for our children and grandchildren.
Next time you see Trump rant on television, think about all the children listening across America. Kids hear a lot more than we think.
Parents and teachers are already worrying about what they call the ‘Trump Effect.’ They report that bullying and harassment are on the rise in our schools, especially targeting students of color, Muslims, and immigrants. At a recent high school basketball game in Indiana, white students held up Trump signs and taunted Latino players on the opposing team with chants of ‘Build the wall!’ and ‘Speak English.’ After a similar incident in Iowa, one frustrated school principal said, ‘They see it in a presidential campaign and now it’s OK for everyone to say this.’
We wouldn’t tolerate this kind of behavior before and we wouldn’t tolerate it in our own homes. And we shouldn’t stand for it in a presidential candidate.
My friends, this is a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump. It’s a moment of reckoning for all of us who love our country and believe that America is better than this.
Twenty years ago, when Bob Dole accepted the Republican nomination, he pointed to the exits in the convention hall and told any racists in the Party to get out.
The week after 9/11, George W. Bush went to a mosque and declared for everyone to hear that Muslims ‘love America just as much as I do.’
In 2008, John McCain told his own supporters that they were wrong about the man he was trying to defeat. Senator McCain made sure they knew – Barack Obama, he said, is an American citizen and ‘a decent person.’
We need that kind of leadership again.
We can have our disagreements, and believe me, I understand that. I think that’s healthy. We need good debates, but we need to do it in a respectful way, not finger pointing and blaming, and stirring up this bigotry and prejudice.
Every day, more Americans are standing up and saying ‘enough is enough’ – including a lot of Republicans. And I am honored to have their support in this campaign.
And I promise you this: with your help, I will be a president for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. For those who vote for me and for those who vote against me. I will be a president for all Americans.
Because I truly believe we are stronger together.
This is a vision for the future rooted in our values and reflected in a rising generation of young people. The young people in America today are the most open, diverse, and connected generation we have ever seen.
How many of you saw any of the Olympics? Right? I was so proud, I always get so carried away whenever the Olympics are on. And you look at the diversity of our athletes – look at our fabulous Olympic team representing the United Stated of America. Ibtihaj Muhammad, an African-American Muslim from New Jersey, won the bronze medal in fencing with grace and skill. Would she even have a place in Donald Trump’s America?
And I will tell you, when I was growing up, in so many parts of our country, Simone Manuel wouldn’t have been allowed to swim in the same public pool as Katie Ledecky. And now together on our swimming team they’re winning Olympic medals as teammates.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think we have a person to waste. We want to build an America where everyone has a place. Where if you work hard and do your part you can get ahead and stay ahead. That’s the basic bargain of America. And we cannot get to where we need to be, unless we move forward together and stand up against prejudice and paranoia. And prove, again, that America is great because America is good.
Thank you all so very much, let’s go out and win the election. God bless you and God bless the United States of America.”
