Third and Final Presidential Debate
On Oct. 19, the third and final debate between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton took place inside of the Thomas and Mack Center, an arena at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Nevada. The moderator for the final debate was Fox News Sunday and former host of NBC’s Meet the Press Chris Wallace. Like the other two debates, this one was divided up into six different sections, and each section lasted fifteen minutes for a total of 90 minutes. Both candidates were allowed to give statements lasting two minutes before they were allowed to comment on their opponent’s statements.
During the debate, Wallace opened with the topic of the Supreme Court and started with the question of the candidate’s appointment to the court to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. He also asked how each candidate would respect the Constitution.
Clinton said, “Thank you very much, Chris. And thanks to UNLV for hosting us. You know, I think when we talk about the Supreme Court, it really raises the central issue in this election, mainly, what kind of country are we going to be? What kind of opportunities will we provide for our citizens and personally What kind of opportunities will we provide for our citizens? What kind of rights will Americans have? I feel strongly that the Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people.”
On the other side, Trump brought up that recently, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had recently stated her disapproval for Trump and made comments about many of Trump’s supporters. However, he stated personally that he was over it, as Ginsberg apologized.
Trump then went on to give his position on the topic in regards to his position. “We need a Supreme Court that, in my opinion, is going to uphold the Second Amendment as well as all amendments, but the Second Amendment, which right now is under absolute siege. I believe if my opponent should win this race, which I truly don’t think will happen, we will have a Second Amendment which will be a very, very small replica of what it is right now. But I feel that it’s absolutely important that we uphold, because of the fact that it is under such trauma.”
Clinton and Trump went on to argue about Clinton’s past opposition to gun rights as well as Trump’s opposition to abortion and Clinton’s support for late term and partial birth abortion.
The next topic covered was immigration. Wallace brought up that in the recently leaked Podesta emails, it was revealed that Clinton supported open borders in the western hemisphere. Trump also brought up how Clinton planned on bringing in Syrian refugees who may be involved in ISIS, to which Clinton fought back about Trump’s policies regarding information. After a while, the topic moved on to the economy in which both candidates discussed their economic plans regarding taxes and government spending.
One topic that was brought up in this debate was the topic of the Clinton Foundation and the Trump Foundation. During the debate, both candidates brought up the involvement with both of their respective charities. Clinton attacked Trump for not releasing his tax returns and for not knowing how much he actually donated to charity.
Clinton said, “But, of course, there’s no way we can know whether any of that is true, because he hasn’t released his tax returns. He is the first candidate ever to run for president in the last 40-plus years who has not released his tax returns, so everything he says about charity or anything else, we can’t prove it. You can look at our tax returns. We’ve got them all out there.”
Trump then attacked the Clinton Foundation for its misuse of funds and for accepting money from foreign leaders, including bringing up Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations and bringing up how the Clinton Foundation accepted money from their government.
“It’s a criminal enterprise. Saudi Arabia giving $25 million, Qatar, all of these countries. You talk about women and women’s rights? So these are people that push gays off business — off buildings. These are people that kill women and treat women horribly. And yet you take their money,” Trump said.
Unlike the first two, the final debate had a more positive audience reaction toward the moderator, as many felt that unlike Cooper and Holt, Wallace was completely unbiased and kept the debate running smoother than the first two.