Lester Holt: Good evening from Hofstra university in Hempstead, new York, I'm Lester holt, anchor of "NBC nightly news." I want to welcome you to the first presidential debate. The participants are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. This debate is sponsored by a nonpartisan commission.

The commission drafted tonight's format and the rules have been agreed to by the campaigns. The 90-minute debate is divided into six segments, each 15 minutes long. We'll explore three topics area tonight, achieving prosperity, America's direction and securing America.
At the start of each segment, I will ask the same lead-off question to both candidates and they will have up to two minutes to respond.

The questions have not been shared with the commission or the campaigns.
The audience here in the room has agreed to remain silence so that we can focus on what the candidates are saying. I will invite you to applaud, however, at this moment as we welcome the candidates, Democrat nominee for president of the United States, Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee for president of the United States Donald J. Trump.
Well, I don't expect us to cover all of the issues of this campaign tonight but I remind everyone, there are two more presidential debates scheduled. We are going to focus on many of the issues that voters tell us are most important and we're going to press for specifics. I am honored to have this role but this evening belongs to the candidates and just as important to the American people.

Candidates, we look forward to hearing you articulate your policies and your positions as well as your visions and your values. So, let's begin. We're calling this opening segment achieving prosperity and central to that is jobs. There are two economic realities in America today. There's been a record six straight years of job growth and new census numbers show income has increased at a record rate after years of stagnation.
However, income inequality remains stagnant and Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Beginning with you secretary Clinton, why are you a better choice than your opponent to create the kind of jobs that put more money into the pockets of American workers.

Hillary Clinton: Thank you, Lester, and thanks to Hofstra for hosting us. The central question in this election is really what kind of country we want to be in, what kind of future we'll build together.
Today is my granddaughter's second birthday so I think about this a lot. First, we have to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. That means we need new jobs, good jobs with rising incomes. I want us to invest in you. I want us to invest in your future. That means jobs in infrastructure, in advanced manufacturing, innovation and technology, clean renewable energy and small business because most of the new jobs will come from small business.
We also have to make the economy fairer. That starts with raising the national minimum wage and also guarantee, finally, equal pay for women's work. I also want to see more companies do profit sharing. If you help create the profits, you should be able to share in them, not just the executives at the top.

And I want us to do more to support people who are struggling to balance family and work. I've heard from so many of you about the difficult choices you face and the stresses that you're under. So let's have paid family leave, earned sick days, let's be sure we have affordable child care and debt-free college. How are we going to do it? We're going to do it by having the wealthy pay their fair share and close the corporate loopholes. Finally, we tonight, are on the stage together, Donald Trump and I, Donald, it's good to be with you. We're going to have a debate where we are talking about the important issues facing our country. You have to judge us, who can shoulder the immense, awesome responsibilities of the presidency. Who can put into action the plans that will make your life better. I hope that I will be able to earn your vote on November 8th.

Lester Holt: Secretary Clinton, thank you. Mr. Trump, the same question to you. It's about putting money -- more money into the pockets of American workers. You have up to two minutes.

Donald Trump: Thank you, Lester. Our jobs are fleeing the country. They are going to Mexico, they are going to many other countries. You look at what China is doing to our country in terms of making our product. They are devaluing their currency and there's nobody in our government to fight them and we have a very good fight and we have a winning fight because they are using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China and many other countries are doing the same thing. So we're losing our good jobs, so many of them. When you look at what is happening in Mexico, a friend of mine who builds plants says it's the eighth wonder of the world, that bigging the bigger plants in the world, the most sophisticated, some of the best plants, with the United States, as we said, not so much.

So Ford is leaving. You see that, a small car division leaving. Thousands of jobs leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio, they are all leaving. And we can't allow it to happen anymore. As far as child care is concerned and so many other things, I think Hillary and I agree on that. We probably disagree a little bit as to numbers and amounts and what we're going to do but perhaps we'll be talking about that later. But we have to stop our jobs from being stolen from us.We have to stop our companies from leaving the United States and with it, firing all of their people. All you have to do is take a look at carrier air conditioning in Indianapolis. They are going to Mexico. So many hundreds and hundreds of companies are doing this. We cannot let it happen.

Under my plan, I'll be reducing taxes tremendously from 35% to 15% for companies, small and big businesses. That's going to be a job creator like we haven't seen since Ronald Reagan. It's going to be a beautiful thing to watch. Companies will come, they will build, they will expand, new companies will start and I look very, very much forward to doing it. We have to renegotiate our trade deals and we have to stop these countries from stealing our companies and our jobs.

Holt: Secretary Clinton, would you like to respond?

Clinton: Well, I think that trade is an important issue. Of course, we are 5% of the world's population. We have to trade with the other 95%. And we need to have smart, fair trade deals. We also, though, need to have a tax system that rewards work and not just financial transactions. And the kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle down economics. It would be the most extreme version, the biggest tax cuts for the top percents of the people in this country that we've ever had. I call it trumped up trickle down because that's exactly what it would be.
That is not how we grow the economy. We just have a different view about what's best for growing the economy, how we make investments that will actually produce jobs and rising incomes. I think we come at it from somewhat different perspectives. I understand that. You know, Donald was very fortunate in his life and that's all to his benefit.
He started his business with $14 million, borrowed from his father, and he really believes that the more you help wealthy people, the better off we'll be and that everything will work out from there. I don't buy that. I have a different experience. My father was a small businessman.He worked really hard. He printed drapery fabrics and went down with a silk screen and dumped the paint in and kept going. And so what I believe is the more we can do for the middle class, the more we can invest in you, your education, your skills, your future, the better we will be off and the better we'll grow. That's the kind of economy I want us to see again.

Holt: Let me follow up with Mr. Trump, if I can. You've talked about creating 25 million jobs and you've promised to bring back millions of jobs for Americans. How are we going to bring back the industries that have left this country for cheaper labor overseas? How specifically are you going to tell American manufacturers that you have to come back?

Trump: Well, for one thing, and before we start on that, my father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and I built it into a company that's worth many, many billions of dollars with some of the greatest assets in the world and I say that because that's the kind of thinking our country needs. Our country is in deep trouble. We don't know what we're doing when it comes to devaluations and all of these countries all over the world, especially China, they are the best, the best ever at it. What they are doing to us is a very, very sad thing.

So we have to do that. We have to renegotiate our trade deals. And

Lester, they are taking our jobs, giving incentives, doing things that frankly we don't do. Let me give you an example of Mexico. They have a vat tax. We're in a different system.


When we sell into Mexico, there's a tax. When they sell an automatic 16% approximately -- when they sell into us, there's no tax. It's a defective agreement. It's been defective for a long time, many years. But the politicians haven't done anything about it. Now, in all fairness to secretary Clinton, yes, is that okay? Good. I want you to be very happy. It's very important to me. But in all fairness to secretary Clinton, when she started talking about this, it was really very recently. She's been doing this for 30 years. Why hasn't she made the agreements better? The nafta agreement is defective.

Holt: Let me interrupt a moment.

Trump: Secretary Clinton and others, politicians, should have been doing this for years, not right now because of the fact that we've created a movement. They should have been doing this for years. What's happened to our jobs and our country and our economy generally is -- look, we owe $20 trillion. We can't do it any longer.

Holt: Back to the question, specifically, how do you bring back the jobs? American manufacturers, how do you bring the jobs back?

Trump: First of all, you don't let the companies leave. The companies are leaving. There are thousands of them. They are leaving and they are leaving in bigger numbers than ever.

And what you do is you say, fine, you want to go to Mexico or some other country, good luck. We wish you a lot of luck. If you think you're going to make your air conditioners or your cars or cookies or whatever you make and bring them into our country without a tax, you're wrong. And once you say you're going to have to tax them coming in and our politicians never do this because they have special interests and special interests want those companies to leave because in many cases they own the companies. So what I'm saying is, we can stop them from leaving. We have to stop them from leaving. And that's a big, big factor.Holt Let me let secretary answer here.

Clinton: Let's stop for a second here and remember where we were eight years ago. We had the worst financial crisis, the worst since the 1930s in large part because of the policies that slash taxes on the wealthy, failed to invest in the middle class, took their eyes off of Wall Street and created a perfect storm. In fact, Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. He said back in 2006, gee, I hope it does collapse because then I can go in and buy some and make some money. Well, it did collapse.

Trump: That's called business, by the way.

Clinton: 9 million people -- 9 million people lost their jobs, 5 million people lost their homes and $13 trillion in family wealth was wiped out. Now, we have come back from that abyss and it has not been easy so we're now on the precipace from having a lasting economy but we need to go back to the policies that failed us in the first place. Independent experts have looked alt what I have proposed and looked at what Donald has proposed and basically they said this.

That if his tax plan, which would blow up the debt by over $5 trillion and would, in some instances, disadvantage middle class families compared to the wealthy, were to go into effect, we would lose 3 1/2 million jobs and maybe have another recession.They looked at my plans and said, okay, if we can do this -- and I intend to get it done -- we will have 10 million more jobs because we'll make investments where we can grow the economy. Take clean energy. Some country is going to be the clean energy superpower of the 21st century. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it's real.

Trump: I did not. I do not say that.

Clinton: Scientists say it's real and I think it's important that we grip this and deal with it both at home and abroad. And here's what we can do. We can deploy half a billion more solar panels. We can have enough clean energy to power every home. We can build a new modern electric grid. That's a lot of jobs. That's a lot of new economic activity. So I've tried to be very specific about what we can and should do and I am determined that that we're going to get the economy really moving again, building on the progress we've made over the last eight years but never going back to what got us in trouble in the first place.

Trump: She talks about solar panels. We invested in a solar company. They lost plenty of money on that one. Look, I'm a great believer in all foms of energy but we're putting a lot of people out of work. Our energy policies are a disaster. Our country is losing so much in terms of energy and paying off our debt. You can't look at what you're planning to do with 20 trillion in debt. The Obama administration, from the time they have come in, is over 230 years worth of debt and he's topped it. He's doubled it in a course of almost eight years, 7 1/2 years, to be semiexact.

So I will tell you this, we have to do a much better job at keeping our jobs. And we have to do a much better job at giving companies incentives to build new companies to expand because they are not doing it. And all you have to do is look at Michigan and look at Ohio and look at all of these places where so many of their jobs and their companies are just leaving. They are gone. And Hillary, I'd just ask you this. You've been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now? For 30 years you've been doing it and now you are just starting to think of solutions.

Clinton: Actually, that's --

Trump: Excuse me. I will bring back jobs. You can't bring back jobs.

Clinton: Well, actually, I have thought about this quite a bit.

Trump: Yeah, for 30 years.

Clinton: And I have -- well, not quite that long. I think my husband did a pretty good job in the 1990s. I think a lot about what worked and how we can make it work again.

Trump: He approved nafta which is the single worst trade deal in this country.

Clinton: Incomes went up for everybody. Manufacturing went up in the 1990s if we're actually going to look at the facts. When I was in the senate, I had a number of trade deals that came before me and I held them all to the same test. Will they create jobs in America and are they good for our national security. Some of them I voted for.

The biggest one, a multinational one known as cafta, I voted against. And because I hold the same standards as I look at all of these trade deals. But let's not assume that trade is the only challenge we have in the economy. I think it is a part of it and I've said what I'm going to do.I'm going to have a special prosecutor. We're going to enforce the trade deals we have and we're going to hold people accountable. When I was secretary of state, we actually increased American exports globally 30%. We increased them to China 50%. So I know how to really work to get new jobs and to get exports that helped to create more new jobs.

Trump: You haven't done it in 30 years or 26 years or --

Clinton: I've been a senator and I have --

Trump: Excuse me. Your husband signed NAFTA, which was one of the worst things that ever happened.

Clinton: Well, that's your opinion.

Trump: To the manufacturing industry. You go to new England, Ohio, Pennsylvania, you go anywhere you want, secretary Clinton, and you will see devastation where manufacturing is down 30, 40, sometimes 50%.

Nafta is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere but certainly ever signed in this country and now you want to approve transpacific partnership. You were totally in favor of it and then you heard how I said how bad it was and if you win, you would approve it and it would be almost as bad as nafta. Nothing will ever top that.

Clinton: That is not accurate. Once the terms were laid out and --

Trump: You called it the gold standard. You called it the gold standard of trade deals.

Clinton: You know what --

Trump: You said it's the finest deal you've ever seen.

Trump: And all of a sudden you were against it.

Clinton: Donald, I know you live in your own reality, but that is not the facts. The facts are I did say I hoped it would be a good deal but when it was negotiated.

Clinton: Which I was not responsible for, I concluded it wasn't. I wrote about that.

Trump: So is it president Obama's fault? Is it president Obama's fault?

Clinton: Look, there are --

Trump: So is it president Obama's fault?

Clinton: There are different views about what is good for our country, our economy and our leadership in the world and I think it's important to look at what we need to do to get the economy going again. That's why I said, new jobs with rising incomes, investments, not in more tax cuts that would add $5 trillion to the debt.

Trump: But you have no plan.

Trump: Secretary, you have no plan.

Clinton: I have written a book about it. It's called "Stronger together". You can pick it up tomorrow at the bookstore or at an airport near you.

Holt: We're going to move to --

Clinton: We need to have strong growth, fair growth, sustained growth. We also have to look at how we help families balance their responsibilities at home and the responsibilities of business. We have a very robust set of plans and people have looked at both of our plans, have concluded that mine would create 10 million jobs and yours would lose us 3 1/2 million jobs and --

Trump: You are going to approve one of the biggest tax increases in history. You are going to drive business out. Your regulations are a disaster and you're going to increase regulations all over the place. And by the way, my tax cut is the biggest since Ronald Reagan. I'm very proud of it. It will create tremendous numbers of new jobs. But regulations, you are going to regulate these businesses out of existence. When I go around -- Lester, I tell you this, I've been all over.

And when I go around, despite the tax cut, the things that businesses and people like the most is the fact that I'm cutting regulation. You have regulations on top of regulations and new companies cannot form and old companies are going out of business and you want to increase the regulations and make them even worse. I'm going to cut regulations. I'm going to cut taxes big league and you're going to raise taxes big league. End of story.

Holt: Let me get you to pause right there.

Clinton: Lester, that can't be left to stand.

Trump: 30 seconds and then we'll go on.

Clinton: I kind of assumed there would be a lot of these charges and claims and so --

Clinton: -- We have taken the home page of my website, hillaryclinton.com and we've turned it into a fact checker. So if you want to see it in realtime, what the facts are, please go and take a look, because --

Trump: And take a look at mine, also.

Clinton: I will not add a penny to the debt and your plans would add $5 trillion to the debt. What I have proposed would cut regulations and streamline them for small businesses. What I have proposed would be paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy because they have made all the gains in the economy and I think it's time that the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.
You just opened the next segment.

Trump: I think I should — you go to — She's going to raise taxes $1.3 trillion. Look at her website. It's no different than this. She's telling us how to fight ISIS. She tells you how to fight ISIS on her website. I don't think General MacArthur would like that too much.

Clinton: At least I have a plan to fight ISIS.

Trump: No, you're telling the enemy everything you want to do. No wonder you've been fighting ISIS your entire adult life.

Holt: Folks, let me --

Clinton: Go to -- please, the fact checkers, get to work.

Holt: You are unpacking a lot here and we're still on the issue here of achieving prosperity and I want to talk about taxes, the fundamental difference between the two of you concerns the wealthy. Secretary Clinton, you're calling for an increase of taxes on the wealthiest and Mr. Trump, you're calling on tax cuts for the wealthy. I'd like for you to defend that and this next two-minute answer goes to you, Mr. Trump.

Trump: They are going to expand their companies and do a tremendous job. I'm getting rid of the great thing for the wealthy, it's a great thing for the middle class and for companies to expand and when these people are going to put billions and billions of dollars into companies and when they are going to bring $2.5 trillion back from overseas where they can't bring the money back because politicians like secretary Clinton won't allow them to bring the money back because the taxes are so onerous and the bureaucratic red tape, it's so bad.

So what they are doing is leaving our country and, believe it or not, they are leaving because taxes are too high and because some of them have lots of money outside of our country and instead of bringing it back and putting the money to work because they can't work out a deal and everybody agrees it should be brought back, instead of that, they are leaving our country to get their money because they can't bring their money back into our country because of bureaucratic red tape, because they can't get together. Because we have a president that can't sit them around a table and get them to approve something and here's the thing, Republicans and Democrats agree that this should be done. 2.5 trillion.

I happen to think it's double that. It's probably $5 trillion that we can't bring into our country, Lester, and with a little leadership, you'd get it in here very quickly and it could be put to use on the inner cities and lots of other things and it would be beautiful. But we have no leadership. And honestly, that starts with secretary Clinton.

Holt: You have two minutes on the same question to defend tax increases of the wealthiest Americans, secretary Clinton.

Clinton: I have a feeling by the end of this evening I'm going to be blamed for everything that's ever happened.

Clinton: Yeah. Why not. Just join the debate by saying more crazy things. Now, let me say this.

Trump: There's nothing crazy about not letting our companies bring their money back into the country.

Holt: This is Secretary Clinton's two minutes, please.

Clinton: Let's start the clock again, Lester. We've looked at your tax proposals. I don't see changes in the corporate tax rates or the kinds of proposals you're referring to that would cause the repatriation, bringing back of the money stranded overseas.

Trump: Then you didn't read it.Clinton: I happen to support that in a way that will actually work to our benefit. But when I look at what you have proposed, you have what is called now the Trump loophole because it would so advantage you and the business you do. You've proposed --

Trump: Who gave it that name? Who gave it that name.

Holt: I'm sorry. This is Secretary Clinton's two minutes.

Clinton: A tax benefit for your family.

Trump: How much for my family? Lester? How much?

Clinton: Trumped up, trickle down. Trickle down did not work. It got us into the mess we were in in 2008 and 2009. Slashing taxes on the wealthy hasn't worked and a lot of really smart, wealthy people know that. And they are saying, hey, we need to do more to make the contributions we should be making to rebuild the middle class. I don't think top-down works in America.

I think building the middle class, investing in the middle class, making college debt-free so more young people can get their education, helping people refinance their debt from college at a lower rate, those are the kinds of things that will really boost the economy. Broad-based inclusive growth is what we need in America, not more advantages for people at the very top.

Trump: Typical politician, all talk, no action, sounds good, doesn't work, never going to happen. Our country is suffering because people like secretary Clinton have made such bad decisions in terms of our jobs and in terms of what's going on. Now, look, we have the worst revival of the economy since the great depression and, believe me, we're in a bubble right now. The only thing that looks good is the stock market but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, it's going to come crashing down.

We're in a big, fat ugly bubble and we better be awfully careful and we have a fed doing political things. This Janet Yellen of the fed, the fed is doing political by keeping the interest rates at this level and, believe me, the day Obama goes off and he leaves and goes out to the golf course for the rest of his life to play golf, when they raise interest rates, you're going to see some very bad things happen because the fed is not doing their job. The fed is being more political than Secretary Clinton.

Holt: Mr. Trump, we're talking about the burden that Americans have to pay yet you have not released your tax returns and the reason nominees have released their returns for decades is so that voters will know if their potential president owes money, who he owes it to and any business conflicts. Don't Americans have a right to know if there are any conflicts of interest.

Trump: I don't mind releasing. I'm under a routine audit. It will be released as soon as the audit is complete but you will learn more about Donald Trump by going down to the federal elections where I filed a 104-page essentially financial statement of sorts, the forms that they have. It shows income, in fact, the income, I just looked today, the income is filed at $694 million for this past year.

694 million. If you would have told me I was going to make that 15 or 20 years ago, I would have been very surprised but that's the kind of thinking that our country needs. When we have a country that's doing so badly, that's being ripped off by every single country in the world, it's the kind of thinking that our country needs because everybody --

Lester, we have a trade deficit with all of the countries that we do business with of almost $800 billion a year. You know what that is? Who is negotiating these trade deals? We have people that are political hacks negotiating our trade deals.

Clinton: The IRS says an audit of your taxes -- you're perfectly free to release your taxes during an audit. The question, does the public's right to know outweigh your --

Trump: I told you, I'll release them after the audit. I've been under audit for almost 15 years. I know a lot of wealthy people that have never been audited. I get audited every year. In a way, I should be complaining.

I don't mind it. It's a way of life. I get audited by the IRS. Other people don't. I will say this. We have a situation in this country that has to be taken care of. I will release my tax returns, against my lawyer's wishes, when she releases her 33,000 e-mails that have been deleted. As soon as she releases them, I will release my tax returns and that's against my lawyers say don't do it. I will say this. In fact, watching shows to reading the papers, almost every lawyer says you don't release your returns until the audit is complete. When the audit's complete, I'll do it. But I would go against them if --

Holt: So it's negotiable?

Trump: It's not negotiable, no. Why did she delete 33,000 --

Holt: I'll let her answer that. Let me admonish the audience one more time. There was an agreement. We asked you to be silent. It would be helpful for us. Secretary Clinton?

Clinton: I think you've just seen another example of bait and switch here. For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see nearly I think 39, 40 years of our tax returns but everyone has done it. We know the irs has made clear there is no prohibition on releasing it when you're under audit.
So you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don't know all of his business dealings but we have been told, through investigative reporting, that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks.

Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes because the only years that anybody has ever seen were a couple of years when had he to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. So --

Trump: That makes me smart.

Clinton: He 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.

And the financial disclosure statement, they don't give you the tax rate. They don't give you all the details that tax returns would and it just seems to me that this is something that the American people deserve to see and I have no reason to believe that he's ever going to release his tax returns because there's something he's hiding.
And we'll guess, we'll keep guessing at what it is that he's hiding but I think the question is, will he ever, to get near the white house, what would be those conflicts? Who does he owe money to? Well, he owes you the answers to that and he should provide them.

Holt: He also raised the issue of your e-mails. Do you want to respond to that?

Clinton: I do. You know, I made a mistake using a private e-mail.

Trump: That's for sure.

Clinton: And if I had to do it over again, I would obviously do it differently. But I'm not going to make any excuses. It was a mistake and I take responsibility for that.

Trump: That was more than a mistake. That was done purposely. Okay? That was not a mistake. That was done purposely. When you have your staff taking the fifth amendment, taking the fifth so they are not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the fifth, I think it's disgraceful. And believe me, this country thinks it's disgraceful -- really thinks it's disgraceful, also.

As far as my tax returns, you don't learn that much from tax returns. You learn a lot from financial disclosures. I'm extremely underleveraged. The report that said 650 -- by the way, my friends said boy that's not a lot of money relative to what I had. The buildings in question, actually, it wasn't a bad story, to be honest with you, but the buildings are worth $3.9 billion and the 650 isn't even on that.

But it's not 650. It's much less than that. But I could give you a list of banks, if that would help you, I would give you list of banks, these are fine institutions. I'm very underleveraged. I have a great company and I have tremendous income.

I say that not in a bragadocious way but it's time that this country has somebody running the country who has an idea about money. When we are $20 trillion in debt and our country is a mess. It's one thing to hav$20 trillion in debt and our airports and roads are good and -- our airports are like from a third world country. You land at Laguardia, Newark, L.A.X., and you come in from dubai and Qatar, you come in from China, you see these incredible airports, we've become a third-world country.

So the worst of all things have happened. We owe $20 trial KREN trillion and we're a mess. Whether it's six or five but it looks like it's 6, $6 trillion in the Middle East we could have rebuilt our country twice and it's really a shame and it's politicians like secretary Clinton that have caused this problem. Our country has tremendous problems. We're a debtor nation, we're a serious debtor nation and we need new bridges, airports, schools, new hospitals and we don't have the money because it's been squandered on so many of your ideas.

Clinton: And maybe it's because you haven't paid any federal income tax for a lot of years. And the other thing I think is important --

Trump: It would be squandered, too, believe me.

Clinton: And if your main claim to be president of the United States is your business, then I think we should talk about that.

You know, your campaign manager said that you built a lot of businesses on the backs of little guys. And indeed, I have met a lot of the people who were stiffed by you and your businesses, Donald. I've met dishwashers, painters, architects, glass installers, marble installers, drapery installers like my dad was who you refused to pay when they finished the work that you asked them to do.

We have an architect in the audience who designed one of your clubhouses at one of your golf courses. It's a beautiful facility. It immediately was put to use. And you wouldn't pay what the man needed to be paid what he was charging you.