prevent another crisis. together we changed the way we use energy. together we reformed our health care system and another 16 million americans now know the peace of mind of health insurance. together we've stood up for justice and equality and the freedom to marry is now open to all. >> we have to fight just as hard in this election as we did in the last two. no matter who is on the ballot next november, that's the choice we're going to face and that's why i'm still fired up and still ready to go. i'm not just asking you to work as hard for our party as you did in 2008 or 2012. i'm asking you to work even harder. knock on more doors, talk to more of your friends. give more than you thought you could give. if we do that, then i know that democrats won't just win the white house and congress, and elections all the way down the ticket, we'll keep building on the extraordinary progress the past several years. we'll leave our kids and america better than ever. thanks everybody.

[ applause ] >> again, that was a taped message from president obama to the folks here at the wynn hotel getting ready for this debate. you were watching closely, john that videotape. i saw the vice president a couple times in that videotape. i don't know if that was accidental. it was deliberate or sending a message. not sending a message. >> that's the only appearance the vice president will make in this hall tonight. they love the vice president. a great deal of respect for the vice president. they wanted to give him a lot of latitude because of the personal issues and the family issues he's gone through. even people here who like him and want him to run, he needs to make his decision. they're tired of waiting. >> very powerful. has been running on cnn. he's looming over this debate. >> you want to talk to a potential candidate linked to barack obama. it's joe biden. much more than hillary clinton ever would be. >> you agree? >> there is potential, though. he has to decide if he wants to run. >> i do think time is running out.

i think that people's patience are being tested here. >> whose patience? >> i think people in this -- perhaps people in the news media who are beginning to get tired of the wait. >> i think there are filing deadlines. i think that's going to determine when he decides. >> gloria, everyone stand by. david axelrod, any a ma electric henderson, gloria borger, thank you. it's time to wrap it up. the democratic presidential debate begins right after a very short break.

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the great beauty of owning a property is that you can create wealth through capital appreciation, and this has been denied to many south africans for generations. this is an opportunity to right that wrong. the idea was to bring capital into the affordable housing space in south africa, with a fund that offers families of modest income safe and good accommodation. citi got involved very early on and showed an enormous commitment. and that gave other investors confidence. citi's really unique, because they bring deep understanding of what's happening in africa. i really believe we only live once, and so you need to take an idea that you have and go for it.

you have the opportunity to say, "i've been part of the creation of over 27,000 units of housing," and to replicate this across the entire african continent. the democratic candidates are here and they are ready to debate. >> in the heart of las vegas right now, a marquis event, a high stakes class of campaign rivals who have never gone head to head before. it's the democrats turn in the spotlight with the white house on the line. >> we have to make republicans pay a price at the polls.

>> if we stand together, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish! >> tonight, the first democratic debate of this presidential race. it's a critical test for a party's superstar who has been down this road before. hillary clinton, the front-runner. facing questions about her record, her e-mails and the strength of her support. the former secretary of state says her enemies are up to their old tricks. >> i won't get down in the mud with them. >> bernie sanders, the surprise threat. gaining in the polls by critics doubt he can go the distance. the senator and self-proclaimed socialist is giving the clinton camp a scare by rallying against the billionaire class. >> yes, we have the guts to take you on. >> three other political veterans are in the mix. martin o'malley, jim webb and lincoln chafee have served in top elected offices, but they're struggling to get traction. >> i know that it's a tough fight. i kind of like tough fights.

>> now, the stage is set for the democrats to drive home their differences with each other and with republicans. >> we're going to rattle their amnesia and force them to acknowledge reality. >> the other republican candidates, they are just trump without the pizzazz or the hair. >> in an election season that's breaking all the riels, this night in vegas could change the odds once again. [ applause ] good evening everyone. we're live in the wynn resort in las vegas for the democratic presidential debate. welcome. [ applause ] >> the five major candidates are about to face-off for the first time in a primary race that's a lot more competitive than many expected.

welcome. i'm anderson cooper. thanks for joining us. we're seconds away from introducing the candidates to viewers watching around the world. this debate is airing on cnn, cnn in espanol and cnn international. it's also being broadcast on the west wood one radio network. i'll be the moderator tonight and be joined in the questioning by dana bash, cnn in espanol, juan carlos lopez and cnn anchor don lemon sharing questions from democrats nationwide. we've teamed up with facebook to send a campaign camper around the country for the past three weeks. thousands of people stepped inside to record their questions for the candidates on video. millions more have weighed in on facebook. now it's time to meet the candidates. joining us on stage, please welcome former rhode island governor, lincoln chafee. [ applause ] former maryland governor, martin

o'malley. former secretary of state, hillary clinton. [ applause ] senator bernie sanders of vermont. [ applause ] and former senator jim webb of virginia. [ applause ] ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the democratic candidates for president of the united states. [ applause ] now, everybody, please rise for our national anthem performed by nine-time gram a

ward winner singer songwriter, sheryl crow. o say can you see ♪ ♪ by the dawn's early light ♪ what so proudly ♪ we hailed ♪ at the twilight's ♪ last gleaming ♪ whose broad stripes ♪ and bright stars ♪ through the perilous ♪ fight ♪ o the ramparts we watched ♪ were so gallantly streaming ♪ and the rocket's red glare ♪ the bottoms bursting

♪ in air ♪ gave proof through the night ♪ that our flag ♪ was still there ♪ o say does that ♪ star spangled banner ♪ yet wave ♪ o'er the land ♪ of the free ♪ and the home of the brave [ applause ] [ applause ] want to thank sheryl crow. the candidates are here. the crowd is certainly ready. the first democratic debate will begin right after this.

big day? ah, the usual. moved some new cars. hauled a bunch of steel. kept the supermarket shelves stocked. made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. what's up for the next shift? ah, nothing much. just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac. see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern.

[ applause ]

there is certainly a lot of excitement in this room tonight and no doubt around the country. we're back in the wynn hotel in the battleground state of nevada for the first democratic debate of the 2016 campaign. i'm anderson cooper. thanks for joining us. we've welcomed the candidates on stagement they're in place at their podiums. i want to quickly explain the ground rules tonight. as the moderator, i'll ask questions, follow-ups and guide the discussion. i'll be joined by juan carlos lopez and dana bash and don lemon who will share questions from around the country. each candidate gets one minute to answer questions and 30 seconds for follow-ups and rebuttals. i'll give the candidates time to respond if they've been singled out for criticism. our viewers should know that we have lights that are visible to the candidates to warn them when time is up. i want the candidates to introduce themselves to our audience. each candidate has two minutes to introduce themselves. let's begin with governor chafee. >> thank you anderson and thank

you cnn and facebook for organizing this debate. not only will americans be electing a new president next year, we'll be ee electricing a world leader. voters should assess the candidates' experience, character and vision for the future as they make this important decision. i'm the only one running for president that's been a mayor, a united states senator and a governor. as mayor, i brought labor peace to my city and kept taxes down. i was re-elected three times. as a senator, i earned a reputation for courageous votes against the bush cheney tax cuts that favored the wealthy. against the tragedy of the iraq war. for environmental stewardship, for protection of our civil liberties. i served on the foreign relations committee and i chaired the middle east subcommittee for four years. as governor, i came in at the depths of the recession and we turned my state around. rhode island had the biggest

drop of the unemployment rate over my four budgets of all but one state. happens to be nevada where we're having this debate. i'm very proud that over my almost 30 years of public service i have had no scandals. i've always been honest. had the courage to take the long-term view and i've shown good judgment. i have high ethical standards. as we look to the future, i want to address the income inequality, close the gap between the haves and the have not. i believe in prosperity through peace. i want to end these wars. i look forward to the discussion ahead. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, governor. senator webb, you have two minutes. >> thank you. people are disgusted with the way that money has corrupted our political process. intimidating incumbent and

empowering wall street every day. the turnstile government that we see and also the power of the financial sector in both parties. they're looking for a leader who understands how the system works, who has not been corrupted by it and has a proven record of accomplishing different things. i have a record of working across the political aisle. i've also spent more than half of my professional life away from politics and being an author, journalist and sole proprietor. in government service, i fought and bled for our country in vietnam as a marine. i spent years as a assistant secretary of defense, secretary of the navy in the reagan administration. in the senate, i spoke about economic fairness and social justice from day one. i also wrote and passed the best piece of veterans education legislation in history, the post 9/11 g.i. bill. i brought criminal justice reform out of the political shadows and into the national

discussion. i led what later became called the strategic pivot to asia, two years before president obama was elected. i know where my loyalties are. my mother grew up in the poverty of east arkansas, chopping cotton, picking strawberries. three of her seven siblings died in childhood. my wife came to this country as a refugee from war torn vietnam, learned english, a language not spoken at home and earned her way into cornell law school. i have five daughters, amy works with disabled veterans, sara is an emergency room nurse, julia is a massage therapist, emily and georgia are still in school. my son jim fought as an infantry marine on the bloody streets of ramadi. you may be sure in a webb administration, the highest priority will be the working people who every day go out and make this country stronger at

home and who give us the right reputation and security overseas under a common sense foreign policy. thank you. [ applause ] >> governor o'malley, you have two minutes. >> my name is martin o'malley. former mayor of baltimore, former governor of maryland. a lifelong democrat and most importantly a husband and a father. my wife katie and i have four great kids, grace and tara and william and jack. and like you, there is nothing we wouldn't do to give them healthier and better lives. there are some things that i have learned to do better in life than others. after 15 years of executive experience, i have learned how to be an effective leader. whether it was raising the minimum wage, making our public schools the best in america, passing marriage equality, the dream act and comprehensive gun safety legislation, i have

learned how to get things done because i am very clear about my principles. thanks to president obama, our country has come a long way since the wall street crash of 2008. our country is doing better. we are creating jobs again. but we elected a president, not a magician. and there is urgent work that needs to be done right now. for there is a -- there is a deep injustice, an economic injustice that threatens to tear our country apart and it will not solve itself. injustice does not solve itself. what i'm talking about is this. our middle class is shrinking. our poor families are becoming poorer and 70% of us earning the same or less than we were 12 years ago. we need new leadership and we need action. the sort of action that will actually make wages go up again for all american families.

our economy isn't money. it's people. it's all of our people. so we must invest in our country and the potential of our kids to make college a debt-free option for all families instead of saddling our kids with lifetime crushing debt. we must square our shoulders to the great challenge of climate change and make this threat our opportunity. the future is what we make of it. we are all in this together. the question in this election is whether you and i still have the ability to give our kids a better future. i believe we do. that is why i am running for president and i need your help. thank you. [ applause ] >> governor o'malley, thank you very much. senator sanders. >> anderson, thank you very much. i think most americans understand that our country today faces a series of unprecedented crises. the middle class of this country for the last 40 years has been

disappearing, millions of americans are working longer hours for low wages and yet almost all of the new income and wealth being created is going to the top 1%. as a result of this disastrous citizens united supreme court decision, our campaign finance system is corrupt and is undermining american democracy. millionaires and billionaires are pouring unbelievable sums of money into the political process in order to fund super pacs and to elect candidates who represent their interests, not the interests of working people. today the scientific community is virtually unanimous. climate change is real. it is caused by human activity and we have a moral responsibility to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and

sustainable energy and leave this planet a habitable planet for our children and our grandchildren. today in america we have more people in jail than any other country on earth. african-american youth unemployment is 51%. hispanic youth unemployment is 36%. it seems to me that instead of building more jails and providing more incarceration, maybe just maybe we should be putting money into education and jobs for our kids. [ applause ] what this campaign is about is whether we can mobilize our people to take back our government from a handful of billionaires and create the vibrant democracy we know we can and should have.

thank you. [ applause ] >> secretary clinton. >> well, thank you and thanks to everyone for hosting this first of the democratic debates. i'm hillary clinton. i have been proud and privileged to serve as first lady, as a senator from new york and as secretary of state. i'm the granddaughter of a factory worker and the grandmother of a wonderful 1-year-old child. and every day, i think about what we need to do to make sure that opportunity is available not just for her but for all of our children. i have spent a very long time, my entire adult life looking for ways to even the odds to help people have a chance to get ahead. and in particular, to find the ways for each child to live up to his or her god-given potential.

i traveled across our country over the last months listening and learning, and i've put forward specific plans about how we're going to create more good paying jobs by investing in infrastructure and clean energy, by making it possible once again to invest in science and research and taking the opportunity posed by climate change to grow our economy. at the center of my campaign is how we're going to raise wages. yes, of course raise the minimum wage, but we have to do so much more, including finding ways so that companies share profits with the workers who helped to make them. then we have to figure out how we're going to make the tax system a fairer one. right now, the wealthy pay too little and the middle class pays too much. so i have specific recommendations about how we're going to close those loopholes, make it clear that the wealthy will have to pay their fair share and have a series of tax

cuts for middle class families. and i want to do more to help us balance family and work. i believe in equal pay for equal work for women. but i also believe it's about time we have paid family leave for american families and join the rest of the world. during the course frt evening tonight, i'll have a chance to lay out my plans and the work that i've done behind them. for me, this is about bringing our country together again. i will do everything i can to heal the divides, the divides economically, because there's too much inequality. the racial divides, the continuing discrimination against the lbgt community so that we work together and finally fathers will be able to say to their daughters, you too can grow up to be president. [ applause ]

>> thank you, all. it is time to start the debate. are you all ready? [ applause ] >> all right. let's begin. we're going to be discussing a lot of the issues, many of the important issues that you have brought up. i want to begin with concerns that voters have about each of the candidates here on the stage that they have about each of you. secretary clinton, i'll start with you. some democrats believe you changed your positions based on political ex paid jens si. you're against same-sex marriage. you defended president obama's immigration policy. you supported his trade deal and called it the gold standard. suddenly last week you're against it. will you say anything to get elected? >> i have been consistent over the course of my entire life. i have always fought for the same values and principles, but like most human beings, including those of us who run for office, i do absorb new information, i do look at what's happening in the world. you know, take the trade deal. i did say when i was secretary

of state three years ago, that i hoped it would be the gold standard. it was just finally negotiated last week. in looking at it, it didn't meet my standards. my standards for more new good jobs for americans, for raising wages for americans and i want to make sure that i can look into the eyes of any middle class american and say this will help raise your wages and i concluded i could not. >> secretary clinton, with all due respect, the question is about political expediency. in july, new hampshire, you told the crowd you take a back seat to no one when it comes to progressive values. last month in ohio you say you pled guilty to being kind of moderate and center. do you change your political identity based on who you're talking to? >> no. i think like most people that i know, i have a range of views. but they are rooted in my values and my experience. and i don't take a back seat to anyone when it comes to progressive experience and progressive commitment. when i left law school, my first

job was with the children's defense fund. for all the years since, i have been focused on how we're going to unstack the deck and make it possible for more people to have the experience i had. to be able to come from a grandfather as a factory person and a small business person and asking the people of america to elect me president sniept are you a progressive or a moderate? >> i'm a progressive. but i like to get things done. and i know how to find common ground and i know how to stand my ground and i've proved that in every position that i've had. even dealing with republicans who never had a good word to say about me honestly. but we found ways to work together on everything from reforming foster care and adoption to the children's health insurance program, which insures 8 million kids. >> thank you. >> i have a long history of getting things done rooted in the same values i've always had. >> senator sanders, a gallup poll says half the country would

not put a socialist in the white house. how can any socialist win a general election in the you united states? >> we're going to win because we'll explain what it is. what democratic socialism is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of 1% own 90%. almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. that it is wrong today in a rigged economy that 57% of all new income is going to the top 1%. that when you look around the world, you see every other major country providing health care to all people as a right, except the united states. you see every other major country saying to moms that when you have a baby, we're not going to separate you from your newborn baby because we are going to have -- we are going to have medical and family paid leave like every other country on earth.

those are some of the principles that i believe in, and i think we should look to countries like denmark, like sweden and norway and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people. [ applause ] >> denmark is a country that has a population of 5.6 million people. the question is really about electability here. that's what i'm trying to get at. the republican attack ad against you in a general election writes itself. you supported the -- you honey moond in the soviet union and you said you're capitalist. >> let's look at the facts. the facts that are very simple. republicans win when there is a low voter turnout. that is what happened last november. 63% of the american people didn't vote, anderson. 80% of young people didn't vote. we are bringing out huge turnouts in creating excitement

all over this country. democrats, if a white house on down will win when there is excitement and a large voter turnout and that is what this campaign is doing. >> you don't consider yourself a capitalist though? >> do i consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by which so few have so much and so many have so little by which wall street's greed and recklessness wrecked this economy, no, i don't. i believe in a society where all people do well. not just a handful of billionaires. >> let me just be clear. is there anybody else on the stage who is not a capitalist? >> let me follow-up on that, anderson. when i think about capitalism, i think about all the small business that is were started because we have the opportunity and the freedom in our country for people to do that and make a good living for themselves and their families. i don't think we should confuse what we have to do every so often in america, which is save

capitalism from itself. i think what senator sanders is saying certainly makes sense in the terms of the inequality that we have. but we are not denmark. i love denmark. we are the united states of america and it's our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so it doesn't run amok and doesn't cause the kind of inequities we're seeing. but we would be making a -- >> senator sanders? >> everybody is in agreement. we are a great entrepreneurial nation. we have to encourage that. of course, we have to support small and medium-sized businesses. but you can have all of the growth that you want and it doesn't mean anything if all of the new income and wealth is going to the top 1%. so what we need to do is support small and medium-sized businesses, the backbone of our economy, but we have to make

sure that every family in this country gets a fair shake. >> we're going to have a lot more on the issues. but i want to get everybody in on the question of electability. governor chafee, you've been everything but a socialist. you were a republican, when you were elected governor, you were an independent. you've only been a democrat a little more than two years. why should democratic voters trust you won't change again? >> anderson, you're looking at a block of granite when it comes to the issues. >> it seems like sawed off granite. you've -- >> on the issue. i have not changed on the issues. i was a liberal republican, then i was an independent, and now i'm a proud democrat. but i have not changed on the issues. i open my record to scrutiny. whether a woman's right to choose, gay marriage, fiscal responsibility, aversion to foreign entanglements. using the tools of government to help the less fortunate. time and time again, i have never changed. you're looking at a block of granite when it comes to the issues. >> why change labels?

>> the party left me. there's no doubt about that. there was no room for a liberal moderate republican in that party. i even had a primary for my reelection in 2006. i won it. but the money poured in to to defeat me in rhode island. >> governor o'malley, the concern is that you tout our record as baltimore's mayor. that city exploded in riots and violence in april. the current top prosecutor in baltimore also a democrat blames your zero tolerance policies for sowing the seeds of unrest. why should they elect you after the city you ran for years. >> there's a lot of policies that have led to this unrest. anderson, when i ran for mayor of baltimore. >> when she was asked which policies, she named zero tolerance. there's a number of old policies. that distress of communities, when they don't want to say who killed a 3-year-old. it's a direct result of the

failed policies. >> let's talk about this a little bit. one of the things not reported during that heartbreaking night of unrest in baltimore was that arrests had fallen to a 38-year low prior to the freddie gray's tragic death. when i ran for mayor of baltimore in 1999, it was not because our city was doing well. it was because we allowed ourselves to become the most violent, addicted and abandoned city in america. i ran and promised people that together we could turn that around. we put our city on a path to reduce violent crime more than any other major city in america. i did not make our city immune to setbacks. but i attended a lot of funerals, including one for a family of seven who were firebombed in their sleep for picking up the phone in a poor african-american neighborhood and calling the police because of drug dealers on their corner. we've saved over a thousand lives in baltimore in the last 15 years of people working together and the vast majority

of them were young and poor and black. it wasn't easy on any day. but we saved lives and we gave our city a better future improving police and community relations every single day that i was in office. >> in one year alone, though, 100,000 arrests were made in your city, a city of 640,000 people. the aclu, the naacp sued you and city and the city actually settled saying a lot of the arrests were prout probable cause. >> the key word was the word settled. that's true. it was settled. arrests peaked in 2003, anderson. but they declined every year after that as we restored peace in our poor neighborhoods so people could actually walk and not have to worry about their kids or their loved ones being victims of violent crime. look, none of this is easy. none of us has all the answers. but together as a city, we saved a lot of lives. it was about leadership, it was about principle and about bringing people together. >> thank you.

>> thank you. nor webb in 2006, you called affirmative action state sponsored racism. given half the democratic party is nonwhite. aren't you out of step where the party is now? >> no. i believe where the democratic party traditionally has been. i decided to run as a democrat, it gives people who otherwise have no voice a voice. that is not determined by race. as a clarification, i have always supported affirmative action for african-americans. that's the way the program was originally designed because of their unique history in this country with slavery and the jim crow laws that followed. what i have discussed a number of times is the idea when we create diversity programs that include everyone of color other than white struggling whites

like the families in the appalachian mountains, we're not being true to the democratic party principle of elevating the level of consciousness among your people about the hardships that a lot of people who happen to be white have. by culture, by the way. >> senator webb, thank you very much. let's move on to the pressing issues facing our country right now. some of the biggest issues in the headlines today. we'll start with guns. the shooling in oregon earlier this month. it brought the issue of guns into the national conversation. over the last week, guns have been the most discussed political topic on facebook by 2 to 1. senator sanders, you voted against the brady bill, mandated background checks and a waiting period. you supported allowing riders to bring guns and checked bags on amtrak trains. for a decade, you said holding gun manufacturers legally responsible for mass shootings is a bad idea. now you say you're reconsidering that. which is it? shield the gun companies from lawsuits or not? >> let's begin, anderson, by

understand that bernie sanders has a d-minus voting from the nra. let's also understand that back in 1988 when i first ran for the united states congress, way back then, i told the gun owners of the state of vermont and i told the people of the state of vermont, a state with virtually no gun control that i supported a ban on assault weapons and over the years i have strongly supported instant background checks, doing away with this terrible gun shell loophole and we have to move aggressively in dealing with the straw man purchases. also, i believe, and have fought for to understand that there are thousands of people in this country today who are suicidal, who are homicidal but can't get the health care that they need, the mental health care because they don't have the insurance or they're too poor. i believe that everybody in this country has a mental crisis, has got to get mental health counseling immediately. >> do you want to shield gun companies from lawsuits or not?

>> this was a large and complicated bill. there were provisions that i think made sense. do i think that a gun shop in the state of vermont that sells legally a gun to somebody and that somebody goes out and does something crazy that that gun shop owner should be held responsib responsible? i don't. on the other hand where you have manufacturers and gun shops knowingly giving guns to criminals or aiding and abetting that, of course, we should take action. >> secretary clinton, is bernie sanders tough enough on guns? >> no, not at all. we have to look at the fact that we lose 90 people a day from gun violence. this has gone on too long and it's time the entire country stood up against the nra. the majority of our country -- [ applause ] -- support that and even the majority of gun owners do. senator sanders did vote five times against the brady bill. since it was passed more than 2 million prohibited purchases

have been prevented. he also did vote as he said for this immunity provision. i voted against it. i was in the senate at the same time. it wasn't that complicated to me. it was pretty straightforward to me that he was going to give immunity to the only industry in america, everybody else has to be accountable, but not the gun manufacturers. and we need to stand up and say enough of that. we're not going to let it continue. >> we're going to bring you all in on this. senator sanders, you have to give a response. >> there's a senator from a rural state, what i can tell secretary clinton that all the shouting in the world is not going to do what i would hope all of us want. and that is keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have those guns and end this horrible violence that we are seeing. i believe that there is a consensus in this country, a consensus who said we need to strengthen and expand instant background checks, do away with

the gun control loophole, that we have to address the issue of mental health, that we have to deal with the straw man purchasing issue and that when we develop that consensus, we can finally do something to address this. >> governor o'malley, you passed gun legislation as governor of maryland. but you had a democratic controlled legislature. president obama couldn't convince them after the massacres in charleston and newtown and aurora. >> anderson, had to overcome a lot of opposition to get this done. it's fine to talk about all of these things and i'm glad we're talking about these things. but i've actually done them. we passed comprehensive gun legislation, not by looking at the pollings or what the polls said. we actually did it. anderson, here tonight in our audience are two people that make this issue very, very real. sandy and lonnie phillips are here from colorado. their daughter jessie was one of those who lost their lives in

that awful mass shooting in aurora. now, to try to transform their grief, they went to court where sometimes progress does happen when you file in court, but in this case you want to talk about a rigged game, senator, the game was rigged. a man had sold 4,000 rounds of military ammunition to this person that killed their daughter, riddled her body with five bullets and he didn't ask where it was going. not only was the case thrown out of court, they were slapped with $200,000 in court fees because of the way that the nra gets its way in our congress and we take a back seat. it's time to stand up and pass comprehensive gun safety legislation. >> senator sanders, i want you to be able to respond. 30 seconds. >> i think the governor gave a very good example about the weaknesses in that law. and i think we have to take another look at it. but here is the point, governor.

we can raise our voices. but i come from a rural state and the views on gun control in rural states are different than in urban states, whether we like it or not. our job is to bring people together around strong common sense gun legislation. i think there is a vast majority in this country who want to do the right thing, and i intend to lead the country in bringing our people together. >> senator, excuse me. >> senator, it was not about rural and urban. >> it's exactly about that. >> have you ever been to the eastern shore? have you ever been to western maryland? we were able to pass this and still respect the hunting traditions of people who live in our rural areas. we did it by leading with principle. not by pandering to the nra and backing down. >> voting -- >> i don't think i'm pandering. but you have not been in the united states congress. when you -- >> check it out.

if you think that we can simply go forward and pass something tomorrow without bringing people together, you are mistaken. >> somebody has a different viewpoint. senator webb, your rating from the nra, you once had an a-rating. you said gun violence goes down when more carry guns. would earn couraging people to be armed -- >> there are two fundamental issues involved in this discussion. we need to pay respect to both of them. the first is the issue of who should be kept from having guns and using firearms. we have done not a good job on that. a lot of them are criminals. and a lot of the people getting killed are members of gangs inside our urban areas and a lot of them are mentally incapacitat incapacitated. the shooting in virginia tech in '07, this individual had received medical care for mental illness from three different professionals who were not allowed to share the information.

we do need background checks, we need to keep the people who should not have guns away from them. but we have to respect the tradition in this country of people who want to defend themselves and their family from violence. people are going back and forth here for ten minutes here. there are people at high levels in this government who have bodyguards 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. the average american does not have that and deserves the right to be able to protect their family. >> governor chafee, you have an f-rating from the nra. what do you think about what senator webb said. >> i have a good record for voting for common sense gun safety legislation. despite the tragedies that happen time and time again, when legislators step up to pass common sense gun safety legislation, the gun lobby moves in and tells the people they're coming to take away your guns. and they're successful at it. in colorado and other states, the legislators that vote for

common sense gun safety measures then get defeated. i saw it in rhode island. i would bring the gun lobby in and say we've got to change this. where can we find common ground? the nra, whoever it is. the leaders. come on, we've got to change this. we're not coming to take away your guns. we believe in the second amendment. let's find common ground here. >> anderson, when the nra wrote to everyone -- to the members in our state and told people with hunting traditions lies about what our comprehensive gun safety legislation is, i wrote right back to them and laid out what it actually did. that's why not only did we pass it, but the nra didn't dare to petition it to referendum because we built a consensus. >> i want to move to another crisis making headlines. secretary clinton, russia. they're challenging the u.s. and syria. according to u.s. intelligence, they've lied about who they're bombing. you spearheaded the reset with russia. what would your response to

vladimir putin be right now in syria? >> first of all, we got a lot of business done with the russians when medvedev was the president and not putin. we got a nuclear arms deal, the iranian sanctions, an ability to bring important material and equipment to our soldiers in afghanistan. there's no doubt that when putin came back in and said he was going to be president, that did change the relationship. we have to stand up to his bullying and specifically in syria, it is important and i applaud the administration because they are engaged in talks right now with the russians to make it clear that they've got to be part of the solution to try to end that bloody conflict and to provide safe zones so that people are not going to have to be flooding out of syria at the rate they are. i think it's important to that the united states make it very clear to putin that it's not acceptable for him to be in syria, creating more chaos,

bombing people on behalf of assad and we can't do that if we don't take more of a leadership position, which is what i'm advocatin advocating. >> senator sanders, what would you do differently? >> let's understand when we talk about syria, you're talking about a quagmire in a quagmire. you're talking about groups of people trying to overthrow assad, other groups of people fighting isis. you're talking about people who are fighting isis using their guns to overthrow assad and vice versa. i'm the former chairman, anderson, of the veterans committee. in that capacity, i learned a powerful lesson about the cost of war. i will do everything that i can to make sure that the united states does not get involved in another quagmire like we did in iraq. the worst foreign policy drummed up in the history of this country. we should be putting together a coalition of arab countries who should be leading the effort. we should be supportive.

but i do not support american ground troops in syria. >> on this issue of foreign policy -- >> nobody does, senator sanders. >> i want to go to dana bash. >> governor choafee, you were te only republican to vote against the iraq war. you say secretary clinton should be disqualified from the presidency because she voted in favor of using force in iraq. she has since said her vote was a mistake. why isn't that good enough? >> we heard senator sanders say it's the worst decision in american history. that's very significant. the worst decision in american had is tri. i just heard from senator sanders. as we look ahead, if you're going to make those poor judgment calls at critical times in our history, we just finished with the vietnam era, getting back into another quagmire, if you're looking ahead and looking at someone that made that poor decision in 2002 to go into iraq when there was no real evidence of weapons of mass destruction in iraq, i know, because i did

my homework, and so that's an indication of how someone will perform in the future. that's what's important. >> secretary clinton, he's questioning your judgment. >> well, i recall very well-being on a debate stage, i think, about 25 times with then senator obama debating this very issue. after the election he asked me to become secretary of state. he valued my judgment and i spent a lot of time with him in the situation room going over some very difficult issues. you know, i agree completely. we don't want american troops on the ground in syria. i never said that. what i said was we had to put together a coalition, in fact, something that i worked on before i left the state department to do. and yes, it should include arabs, people in the region. because what i worry about is what will happen with isis gaining more territory, having more reach and frankly, posing a

threat to our friends and neighbors in the region and far beyond. so i think you're talking about the tough decision president obama had to make over osama bin laden and putting together that coalition to impose sanctions on iran, i think i have a lot of evidence what i would do as president. >> my question for you is as a congressman, you voted against the iraq war. you voted against the gulf war. you're just talking about syria. but under what circumstances would a president sanders actually use force? >> let me just respond to something the secretary said. first of all, she is talking about, as i understand it, a no-fly zone in syria, which i think is a very dangerous situation. could lead to real problems. second of all, i heard the same evidence from president bush and dick cheney and don rumsfeld

about why we should overflow saddam hussein and get involved in the war. i would urge people to go to bernie sanders.com and hear what i said in 2002. i say without any joy in my heart much of what i thought would happen about the destabilization in fact did happen. i think the president is trying very hard to thread a tough needle here. that is to support those people who are against assad, against isis without getting us on the ground there and that's the direction i believe we should have to go. >> senator sanders, you didn't answer the question. under what circumstances would you actually use force? >> obviously i voted when president clinton said let's stop the cleansing. i voted for that. i voted that osama bin laden was held accountable when our country is threatened or when our allies are threatened. i believe that we need coalitions to come together to

address the major crises of this country. i do not support the united states getting involved in unilateral action. >> i'm going to bring you all in on this. governor o'malley, secretary -- secretary clinton voted to support more troops in afghanistan. as secretary of state, we wanted to warm syrian rebels. is she too quick to use military force? >> anderson, no president or commander in chief should take the military option off the table. even if most of us would agree that it should be the last option. what disturbed people so much about -- i would agree with senator sanders on this. leading us into iraq under false pretenses and telling us as a people that there were weapons of mass destruction there was one of the worst blunders in modern american history. but the reason why people remain angry about it is because people feel like a lot of our

legislators got railroaded in a war fever and by polls. i remember being at a dinner shortly before that invasion. people were talking and saying it will take us just a couple years to rebuild democracy. i thought has this world gone mad? whenever we go and contrary to john quincy adams' advice, searching the world for monsters to destroy and when we use political might at the expense of democratic principle, we hurt ourselves. >> does she want to use military force too rapidly? >> i believe as president, i would not be so quick to pull for a military tool. i believe that a no-fly zone in syria at this time actually secretary would be a mistake. you have to enforce no-fly zones and i believe especially with the russian air force in the air, it could lead to an escalation because of an accident we would deeply regret. i support president obama. i think we have to play a long game and ultimately, you want to talk about blunders, i think assad's invasion of syria will be seen as a blunder. >> on the campaign trail, you've

been saying that secretary clinton is quick fosh the military. secretary clinton, can you respond? >> can i get in the discussion at some point? >> yes. you'll be next. >> i've been standing over here for ten minutes trying. it's gone back and forth over there. >> i am in the middle here. lots of things coming from all directions. >> you've got the -- >> i have to say, i was very pleased when governor o'malley endorsed me for president in 2008. and i enjoyed his strong support in that campaign. i consider him, obviously a friend. let me say because there's a lot of loose talk going on here. we are already flying in syria just as we are flying in iraq. the president has made a very tough decision. what i believe and why i have advocated that the no-fly zone, which of course would be in a coalition, be put on the table is because i'm trying to figure

out what leverage we have to get russia to the table. you know, diplomacy is not about getting to the perfect solution. it's about how you balance the risks. >> thank you. >> i think we have an opportunity here and i know that inside the administration this is being hotly debated to get that leverage to try to get the russians to have to deal with everybody in the region and begin to move toward a political diplomatic solution in syria. >> senator webb, you said as president you would never use military force in libya and the attack on benghazi was in your words en inevitable. >> let's start i'm trying to get in this conversation. let's start with why russia is in syria right now. there are three strategic failings that have allowed this to occur. the first was the invasion of iraq which destabilized ethnic elements in iraq and empowered iran. the second was the arab spring which created huge vacuums in libya and in syria that allowed

terrorist movements to move in there and the third was the recent deal allowing iran to move forward and eventually acquire a nuclear weapon which sent bad signals, bad body language about whether we're acquiescing in iran becoming a strong piece of the formula in that world. i say as someone five years in the pentagon and opposed the war in iraq, whose son fought in iraq, i fought in vietnam. but if you want a place where we need to be in terms of our national strategy, a focus, the greatest strategic threat that we have right now is resolving our relationship with china. we need to do this because of their aggression in the region. we need to do it because of the way they treat their own people. i would say this. i've been waiting for ten minutes. i will say this. >> you're over your time. >> you've let a lot of people go over their time. >> i would say -- >> you agreed to the debate

rules. >> on the elected authoritarian government of china, you do not own the south china sea. you do not have the right to conduct cyber warfare against tens of millions of american citizens and in a webb administration, we will do something about that. >> senator sanders, i want you to be able to respond. >> pardon me? >> i'd like you to be able to respond and get in on this. >> well, i think mr. putin is going to regret what he is doing. i think that when he gets into that -- >> he doesn't seem the type of guy to regret a lot. >> well, i think he's already regretting what he did in crimea and what he's doing in the ukraine. i think he's really regretting the decline of his economy and i think what he is trying to do now is save some face. i think when russians get killed in syria and when he gets bogged down, i think the russian people are going to give him a message

that maybe they should come home, maybe they should start working with the united states to rectify the situation. >> secretary clinton, on the campaign trail, governor webb said he wouldn't have used force in libya and the attack was inevitable. should you have seen that coming? >> let's remember what was going on. we had a murderous dictator, ka gaddy with american blood on his hands threatening to massacre large numbers of the libyan people. we had our closest allies in europe burning up the phone lines begging us to help them try to prevent what they saw as a mass genocide in their words, and we had the arabs standing by our sides saying, we want you to help us deal with gadhafi. our response, which i think was smart power at its best, is that the united states will not leave this. we will provide essential unique

capabilities that we have, but the europeans and the arabs had to be first over the line. we did not put one single american soldier on the ground in libya. and i'll say this for the libyan people -- >> american citizens did lose their lives in benghazi. >> i'll get to that. but i think it's important, since i understand senator webb's very strong feelings about this, to explain where we were then and to point out that i think president obama made the right decision at the time. and the libyan people had a free election the first time since 1951. you know what, they voted for moderates, they voted with the hope of democracy. because of the arab spring, because of a lot of other things. there was turmoil to be followed. unless you believe the united states should not send diplomats to anyplace that is dangerous, which i do not, then when we send them forth, there is always the potential for danger and risk. >> governor o'malley?

>> anderson, i think we're learning -- >> things to be learned from benghazi. those lessons are that we need to do a much better job as a nation of having human intelligence on the ground so that we know who the emerging next generation leaders are that are coming up to replace a dictator when his time on this planet ends. i believe that's what chris stevens was trying to do. he did not have the tools. we have failed as a country to invest in the human intelligence that would allow us to not only make better decisions in libya but better decisions in syria today. it's a huge national security failing. >> senator webb, i'd like you to -- >> senator webb? >> this is not about benghazi per se. to me it is the inevitability of something like benghazi occurring in the way that we intervened in libya. we had no treaties at risk. we had no americans at rising being. there was no threat of attack or imminent attack. there is plenty of time for a

president to come to the congress and request authority to use military force in that situation. i called for it on the senate floor again and again. i called for it in senate hearings. it is not a wise thing to do. if people think it was a wise thing to dorks try to g-- do, ge tripoli airport. once a marine, always a marine. you served as a american. during the vietnam war the man standing next to you, senator sanders stood as a conscientious object or. could he be a commander in chief. >> as long as they go through the legal process that our country requires, i respect that. it would be for theers to decide whether he should be president. i will say this, coming from the position that i've come -- come from from a military family,

with my brother a marine, my son was in iraq, i served as a marine. five years in the pentagon, i'm comfortable that i'm the most qualified person to be your commander in chief. >> senator sanders, tell an american soldier who is watching tonight in afghanistan why you can be commander in chief. >> let me applaud my good friend jim webb for his service to this country in so many ways. [ applause ] jim and i under jim's leadership as indicated passed the most significant veterans education bill in recent history. we followed suit a few years later passing under my leadership of the most significant veterans health care legislation in the modern history of this country. [ applause ] when i was a young man, i'm not a young man today. when i was a young man, i strongly opposed the war in vietnam. not the brave men like jim who

fought in that war. but the policy which got us involved in that war. i am not a pacifist, anderson, i supported the war in afghanistan. i supported president clinton's effort to deal with ethnic cleansing in kosovo. i support air strikes in syria and what the president is trying to do. yes, i happen to believe from the bottom of my heart that war should be the last resort that we have got to exercise diplomacy. but yes i am prepared to take this country into war if that is necessary. >> 30 seconds for each of you. governor chafee, who or what is the greatest national security threat of the united states. i want to go down the line. >> i have to answer one thing about the iran deal. i'm a strong proponent of what president obama -- he said because of that the iran deal that enabled russia to come in. no, that's not true. i respect your foreign policy chops. russia is aligned with iran and

with assad and the shias in syria. that iran deal did not allow -- >> try to give you 30 seconds to respond. >> i believe that the signal that we sent to the region when the iran nuclear deal was concluded was that we are accepting iran's greater position in this very important balance of power among our greatest ally, israel and the sunnis represented by the saudi regime and iran. it was a position of weakness and i think it encouraged the acts that we've seen in the past several weeks. >> 30 seconds for governor chafee. what is the greatest national security threat to the united states? >> it's certainly the chaos in the middle east. no doubt about it. it all started with the iraq invasion. >> governor o'malley? >> i believe nuclear iran along with the spread of isil, climate change makes cascading threats worse. >> secretary clinton, the

greatest national security threat? >> it has to be continued threat from the spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear material that can fall into the wrong hands. i know the terrorists are constantly speaking it. that's why we have to stay vigilant. also united around the world to prevent that. >> senator sanders. >> the scientific community is telling us, if we do not address the climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, the planet we'll be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable. >> senator webb. >> our relation with china. our greatest day-to-day threat is cyber warfare against this country. our greatest military operational threat is resolving these situations in the middle east. >> all right. we'll take a short break. do these candidates see eye to eye on an issue driving a wedge between republicans? that when we come back. the executives and management

treat us like we're disposable. replaceable. they think i'm worthless. that we don't matter. they cut our benefits cut our hours and force us into part-time jobs and erratic schedules. they get big profits, we get left behind. we get left behind.

[ applause ] welcome back. we are live in nevada in las vegas at the wynn resort for the first democratic presidential debate. the questions continue. we begin with secretary clinton. secretary clinton, you are going to be testifying before congress next week about your e-mails. for the last eight months, you haven't been able to put this

behind you. dismissed it, what does that say about your ability to handle more challenging crises? >> i've taken responsibility for t i did say it was a mistake. what i did was allowed by the state department but it wasn't the best choice. i have been as transparent as i know to be, turning over 55,000 pages of my e-mails, asking that they be made public. you're right, i am going to be testifying. i've been asking to testify for some time. to do it in public. that was not originally agreed to. but let's just take a minute here and point out that this committee is basically an arm of the republican national committee. it is a partisan vehicle as admitted by the house republican majority leader, mr. mccarthy to drive down my poll numbers. big surprise. that's what they have attempted

it to do. i am still standing. i am happy to be part of this debate. i intend to keep talking about the issues that matter to the american people. you know, i believe strongly that we need to be talking about what people talk to me about. like how are we going to make college affordable, pay do you know student debt, get health care for everybody. >> secretary clinton, with all due respect, it's a little hard, isn't it hard to call this just a partisan issue. there's an fbi investigation and president obama himself two days ago said this is a legitimate issue. >> i never said it wasn't legitimate. i said that i have answered all the questions and i will be doing so again before this committee. i think it would be really unfair not to look at the entire picture. this committee has spent $4.5 million of taxpayer money and they said that they were trying to figure out what we could do better to protect our diplomats so something like benghazi wouldn't happen again.

there were already seven committee reports about what to do. so i think it's pretty clear what their obvious goal is. >> thank you. >> i'll be there. i'll answer their questions. but tonight i want to talk not about my e-mails but about what the american people want for the next president of the united states. >> let me say something. i think the secretary is right. and that is that the american people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails. >> thank you. me too. me too. [ applause ] >> the middle class, anderson, let me say something about the media as well. i go around the country, talk to a whole lot of people. middle class in this country is collapsing. we have 27 million people living in poverty. we have massive wealth and inequality. it's cost us millions of decent

jobs. the american people want to know whether we're going to have a democracy as a as a result. -- enough of the e-mails. let's talk about the real issues facing america. >> thank you, bernie. thank you. [ applause ] >> anderson -- [ applause ] >> it's obviously very popular in this crowd and it's -- hold on. >> i know that plays well in this room. but i got to be honest, governor chafee for the record on the campaign trail, you said this is a huge issue standing here in front of secretary clinton, are you willing to say that to her face? >> absolutely. we have to repair american credibility after we said that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction and he didn't. there's an issue of credibility. any time anyone is running to be a world leader, which the american president is, credibility is an issue.

outsi out there with the world. i think we need somebody with the best and ethical standards as our next president. that's how i feel. >> secretary clinton, do you want to respond? >> no. >> governor o'malley. [ applause ] >> again, popular in the room. but a lot of people want to know these answers. governor o'malley, you expressed concern on the campaign trail. the democratic party is, being defined by hillary clinton's e-mail scandal. you heard her answer. do you feel that way tonight? >> i believe that now that we're having debates anderson, that we don't have to be defined by the e-mail scandal and what the fbi is asking about. instead, we can talk about affordable college. making college debt-free and all the issues which is why, and i see the chair of the dnc here, look how glad we are actually to be talking about the issues that matter most to people around the

kitchen table. we need to get cages wages to go up. >> thank you, governor. >> we need to make america 100% clean and electric by 2016. >> i want to start off with don lemon. >> anderson, thank you very much. not sure how to follow that. this question is about something that tripped the candidates up on the campaign trail. can you hear me? can't hear me in the room. here we go again. >> as i said -- my question for the candidates is, do black lives matter or do all lives matter? >> the question is do black lives matter or owl lives matter? >> let's put that question to senator sanders? >> black lives matter. the reason those words matter is the african-american community knows on any given day, a person like sandra bland can get into a car and three days later, she'll

end up dead in jail. >> the racism. we need major -- which we have more people in jail in china. i intend to tackle that issue to make sure that our people have education and jobs rather than jail cells. >> governor o'malley, governor o'malley, the question from arthur was do black lives matter, do all lives matter? >> anderson, the point that the black lives matter movement is making is a very, very legitimate and serious point. that is that as a nation we have undervalued the lives of black lives, people of color. when i ran for mayor of baltimore and we had -- we were bearing over 350 young men

mostly young and poor and black. when i appeared in front of them as a mayor, if we were burying white young poor men in these numbers, we would be marching in the streets and there would be a different reaction. black lives matter and we have a lot of work to do to reform our criminal justice system and to address race relations in our country. >> secretary clinton, what would you do for african-americans in this country that president obama couldn't? >> well, relations. >> secretary clinton, what would you do for race relations that president obama hasn't? >> i think president obama has been a great moral leader on these issues and has laid out an agenda that the republicans have returned. what we need to be doing is not on reform criminal justice, i have talked about that at some length, including things like body cameras, but we also need to be following the recommendations of the commission that president obama empanelled on policing. there is an agenda there that we need to be following up on.

similarly, we need to tackle mass incarceration. and this may be the on bipartisan issue in the congress this year. we actually have people on both sides of the aisle who have reached the same conclusion that we cannot keep imprisoning more people than anybody else in the world. but i believe in a tthat the de and the discussion has to go further, anderson, because we've got to do more about the lives of these children. that's why i started off by saying we need to be committed by making it possible for every child to live up to his or her god given potential. that is really hard to do if you don't have early childhood education, if you don't have schools able to meet the needs of the people or good housing. there's a long list. we need a new new deal for communities of color. >> senator webb? >> i hope i get that kind of time here. as a president of the united states, every life in this country matters. at the same time i believe i can

say to you i have had a long history of working with the situation with african-americans. we're talking about criminal justice reform. i risked my political life raising the issue of criminal justice reform. when i ran for the senate in '06, i had democratic consult t consultants telling me i was committing political suicide. we raised the issue and it wasn't until then the republicans started joining in. i represented an african-american marine who was convicted for six years, three years into this he took his life. i cleared his life and i put the african-american soldier on the mall and made that recommendation and fought for it. so if you want someone who can stand up in front of you right now and say i have done the hard job, i have taken the risks, i am your person.

>> senator sanders, let's talk about income inequality. wages and income are flat. you argued the gap between rich and poor is wider than any time since the 1920s. we've had a democratic president for seven years. what are you going to do that president obama couldn't? >> first of all, let's remember when bush left office, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. the world financial system was on the verge of collapse. that's where we were. are we better off today than we were then? absolutely. but the truth is for the last 40 years the great middle class of this country has been disappearing. and in my view what we need to do is create millions of jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, pay equity for women workers and our disastrous trade policies, which

have cost us millions of jobs and make every public college and university in this country tuition free. [ applause ] >> i need to jump in. >> i'll let you jump in in a moment. secretary clinton, how would you address this issue? if all candor you and your husband are part of 1%. how can you credibly represent the views of the middle class? >> both bill and i have been very blessed. neither of us came from wealthy families and we've worked really hard our entire lives and i want to make sure every single person in this country has the same opportunities that he and i have had, to make the most of their god-given potential and to have the chances that they should have in america for a good education, good job training and then good jobs. i have a five-point economic plan because this inequality challenge we face, we have faced it it at other points. it's absolutely right. it hasn't been this bad since the 1920s. but if you look at the republicans versus the democrats

when it comes to economic policy, there is no comparison. >> thank you. >> the economy does better when you have a democrat in the white house and that's why we need to have a democrat in the white house in january 2017. >> governor o'malley. >> anderson, i want to associate myself with many of the items that the senator from vermont mentioned and i did them in our state. we waged the minimum wage, passed a living wage, went four years without a penny for college tuition. but there's another piece that the senator left out tonight and that is that we need to separate the casino speculative megabank gambling, we have to assure our money from the commercial bank, reinstating glass-steagall. secretary clinton mentioned my support eight years ago. i was proud to support you eight years ago. but something happened in between. that is a wall street crash that

wiped out millions in jobs and savings for families and we are still just as vulnerable paul volcker says today. we need to reinstate glass-steagall. >> for viewers at home, glass-steagall is the depressionry banking laws repealed in 1999, prevented commercial banks from investment banking. senator sanders wants to break up the big banks. you don't. you say continue to monitor them. why is your plan better? >> of course we have to deal with the fact that the banks are too big to fail. we can never let the middle-class failures bail out the speculative activity that we saw. but we have to worry about aig, a big insurance company, lehman brothers, an investment bank. there's this whole area of

shadow banking. that's where the experts tell me the next potential problem could come with. i'm with senator sanders and governor o'malley. the plan that i put forward would empower regulators to break up big banks if we thought they posed a risk. but i want to make sure we're going to cover everybody, not what caused a problem last time but what could cause it next time. >> senator clinton just said her policy is tougher than yours. >> well, that's not true. >> why? >> let us be clear that the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior of wall street where fraud is a business model helped to destroy this economy and the lives of millions of people. check the record. in the 1990s, and all due respect, in the 1990s when i had the republican leadership and wall street spending billions of dollars in lobbying, when the

clinton administration, when alan greenspan said what a great idea it would be to allow these huge banks to merge, bernie sanders fought them and helped lead the opposition to deregulation. today it is my view that when you have the three largest banks in america are much bigger than they were when we bailed them out for being too big to fail, we have got to break them up! >> senator clinton, you have to respond. he brought you up. >> you know, i respect the pass and intensity. i went to wall street in december of 2007 before the big crash that we had and i basically said cut it out. quit foreclosing on homes, quit engaging in these kinds of speculative behaviors. i took on the bush administration for the same thing. so i have thought deeply and long about what we're going to do to do exactly what i think both the senator and governor want, which is to rein in and

stop this risk. my plan would have the potential of actually sending the executives to jail. nobody went to jail after $100 billion in fines were paid. and would give regulators the authority to go after the big banks. i will say it tonight, if only you look at the big banks, you may be missing the forest through the trees. we've got to look at all the other financial institutions. >> give me a second. in my view, secretary clinton, you do not -- congress does not regulate wall street. wall street regulates congress and we have got to break off these bank, going to them and say please do the right thing is kind of naive. >> i think dodd frank was a very good start. i think we have to implement it, we have to prevent the republicans from ripping it apart, save the consumer financial protection board, which is finally beginning to act to protect consumers.

we have work to do, you'll get no argument from me. but i know if we don't come in with a very tough and comprehensive approach like the plan i'm recommending, we're going to be behind instead of ahead in the next crisis to be. >> governor o'malley? >> the big banks, once we repealed glass-steagall, the banks were controlling 16% of our gdp, they're now 65% of our gdp. right before this debate secretary clinton's campaign put out a lot of reversals on positions of keystone and many things but one of them we still have a great difference, secretary, is you are not for glass-steagall, you are not for putting a fire wall behind the speculative, risky shadow bank behavior. i am. the people need a president on their side ready to protect the economy from the recklessness on wall street. >> senator clinton, i have to let you respond. >> well, you know, everybody on

this stage has changed a position or two. we've been around a cumulative quite some period of time. you know, we know that if you are learning, you're going to change your position. i never took a position on keystone until i took a position on keystone but i have been on the forefront of dealing with climate change starting in 2009 when president obama and i crashed a meeting with the chinese and got them to sign up to the first international agreement to combat climate change that they'd ever joined. so i'm not taking a back seat to anybody on my values, my principles and the results that i get. >> senator sanders, in 2008 congressional leaders were told without the 2008 bailout the u.s. was possibly days away for a possible multi-down. despite that, you voted against it. as president would you stand by

your principal? >> i remember that very well. hank paulson, bernanke came in and say, guys, the economy is going to collapse because wall street is going under and is going to take the economy with them. i said, hank, your guys, your millionaire and billionaire friends caused this problem, how about your millionaire and billionaire fans paying for the bailout, not working families in this country. so, no, i would not have let the economy collapse. but it was wrong to ask the middle class to bail out wall street. by the way, i want wall street to help kids in this country go to college free with a wall street speculation tax. >> we'll talk about that in a minute. senator, is the system rigged? >> there is a reality that i think we all need to recognize with respect to the power of the financial sector. let me go back a minute and say

that on this tarp program, i introduced legislation calling for a windfall profits tax on the executives of any of these companies that got more than $5 million, that it was time for them once they got their compensation and their bonus to split the rest of the money they made with the nurses and the truck drivers and the soldiers who bailed them out. with respect to the financial sector, i know my time has run out but in speaking of changing positions and the position on how this debate has occurred is kind of frustrating because unless somebody mentions my name i can't get into the discussion. >> you agreed to the rules and you're wasting time. >> i'm trying to set a mark here so maybe we can get into a little more later on. this hasn't been equal time. but if you want to look at what's happened, if you look at the facts in terms of how we're going to deal with this, since that crash, in the last ten years the amount of the world's capital economy that wall street

manages has gone from 44% to 55%. that means the wall street money managers are not risking themselves the same way the american people are when they're going to get their compensation. they're managing money from all over the world. y hawe have to take that into consideration when we regulate it. >> senator chafee, you voted for the very bill in 1999 that made them bigger. >> i had just arrived in the senate -- >> are you saying you didn't know what you were voting for? >> it was my very first vote and it was 92-5 -- >> with all due respect, what does that say about you that you're casting a vote that you didn't know what you were voting for? >> i think you're being rough, i had just arrived, my dad had just died, i just arrived at the city and it was 90-5.

let me talk about income inequality. we've had a lot of talk about it but no one is saying how we're going to fix it. it started with the bush tax cuts that favored the wealthy. 0.6% of americans are at the top echelon. that's less than 1% but they generate 30% of the revenue. and they're doing fine. so there's still a lot more money to be had from this top echelon. i'm saying let's have another tier and put that back into the tax bracket and that will generate $42 billion. then we can help the middle class and hard-working americans. >> cnn visited college campuses along with facebook and not surprisingly college affordability was the most pressing issue. senator sanders, you mentioned you have plan to make college free for everyone. isn't clinton contract sized that saying she's not in favor

of making a college free for donald trump's kids. do you think taxpayers should pick up the tab for wealthy children? >> donald trump and his billionaire friend under my policies are going to pay a hell of a lot more in taxes today -- taxes in the future than they're paying today. but in terms of education, this is what i think. this is the year 2015. a college degree today, dana, is the equivalent of what a high school degree was 50 years ago. what we said 50 years ago and a hundred years ago is that every kid in this country should be able to get a high school education regardless of the income of their family. i think we have to say that is true for everybody going to college. i think we don't need a complicated system which the secretary is talking about the income goes down, income goes down, if you're poor you have to work, so forth and so on. i pay for my program through a tax on wall street speculation, which will not only make public

colleges and universities tuition free, it will substantially lower interest rates on college debt, a major crisis in this country. >> secretary clinton, it's not just college tuition that senator sanders is talking about expanding social security and giving all americans medicare. what's wrong with that? >> well, let me address college affordability because i have a plan that i think will really zero in on what the problems are. first, all the 40 million americans who currently have student debt will be able to refinance their debt to a low interest rate. that will save thousands of dollars for people who are now struggling under this cumbersome, burdensome college debt. as a young student in nevada said to mee the hardest thing about going to college should not be paying for it. how do we make it more affordable? my plan would enable anyone to go to a public college or

university twice free. you would not have to borrow money for tuition. but i do believe, and maybe it's because i worked when i went through college, i worked when i went through law school, i think it's important for everybody to have some part of getting this accomplished. that's why i call it a compact. i would like students to work ten hours a week in order to make it possible for them to afford their education and i want colleges to get their costs down. they're outrageously high in what they're charging. >> the question was not just about tuition, though. it was about senator sanders' plan to expand social security, to make medicare available to all americans. is that something that you would support? and if not, why not? >> well, i fully support social security and the most important fight we're going to have is defending it against continuing republican efforts to privatize it. >> do you want to privatize it? >> i want to enhance the benefits for the poorest recipients of social security. we have a lot of women on social

security, particularly widowed and single women who didn't make a lot of money during their careers and they are impoverished and they need more help from the social security system. and i will focus -- i will focus on helping those people who need the most. i'm going to defend social security, make for ways to make sure it's solvent in the future. we also need to talk about health care. we agree on the goals but disagree on the means. >> some republicans and democrats were talking about cutting social security and benefits for disabled benefits. i founded a caucus called the defending social security caucus. my view is that when you have millions of seniors in this country trying to get by, and i don't know how they do on $11,000, $12,000, $13,000 a year, you don't cut social security, you are expand it.

and the way you expand it is by lifting the caps on taxable incomes so you do away with the absurdity of a millionaire paying the same amount into the system. you do that until social security is solvent -- >> i want to bring it over to carlos lopez. the highest number of undocumented immigrants. carlos? >> gracias, anderson. in 2013 you voted for reform. but in 2007 when the bush white house was on board, you voted against it. why should latino voters trust you now when you left them at the altar? >> i didn't leave anybody at the altar. i voted against that piece of legislation because it had guesswork or provisions in it

which the law center talked about being semi-slavery. guest works are are coming in, working under terrible conditions but if they stand up for their rights, they're thrown out of the country. i was not the only progressive to vote against that legislation for that reason. tom harkin, a good friend of secretary clinton's and mine. >> tom harkin isn't running for president. >> i know that. we need comprehensive immigration reform, a path toward citizenship, we need to take people out of the shadows. >> secretary clinton, governor o'malley wants to open up obama care to millions of undocumented immigrants and their children, including almost 90,000 people right here in nevada. >> first of all, i want to make sure every child gets health

care, that's why i helped to create the children's health insurance program and i want to support states that are expanding health care and including undocumented children and others. i want to open up the opportunity for immigrants to be able to buy in to the exchanges under the affordable care act. i think to go beyond that, as i understand what governor o'malley has recommended so that they would get the same subsidies, i think that raises so many issues, it would be very difficult to administer. it needs to be part of comprehensive reform when we get to it. >> i think what you've heard up here is some of the old thinking about immigration reform and the gridlock. i have put out a policy for comprehensive immigration reform. we are a nation of immigrants.

we are made stronger by immigrants. do you think for a second that simply because somebody standing in a broken queue on naturalization they aren't going to go to the hospital and that isn't going to fall on our insurance rates? i'm for a generous, compassionate america, we need immigration reform. >> do you support the undocumented immigrants getting obama? >> i wouldn't have a problem with that. my wife was an immigrant, she was a refugee. her family escaped from vietnam on a boat, her entire family, after the communists took over when hundreds of thousands of them were out there and thousands were dying. she went to two refugee camps, she never spoke english but she

ended up going to cornel a corn going to law school. i introduced an amendment in the '07 immigration bill giving a pathway to citizenship to those people who can come here and put down their roots and met a series of standards. we lost but i introduced that in '07. we need a comprehensive reform and we need to be able to define our borders. >> secretary clinton? >> i want to follow up because i think underneath juan carlos' important question, there is such a difference between everything you're hearing here on this stage and what we hear from the republicans who have demonized hard-working immigrants, who have insulted them. i came to las vegas in early made, met with a group of da dreamers. i wish everyone in america could meet with these young people to hear their stories, know their incredible talent and determination. i would go further than even the

executive orders that president obama has signed when i'm president. >> two of your rivals, governor o'malley and senator sanders want to provide tuition. >> i would encourage states to do the same thing. >> you believe undocumented immigrants should get in-state college tuition? >> if they did the same. >> we did this in my state of maryland. [ applause ] and a lot of the xenophobes, like some that we've heard, like donald trump, that carnival barker in the republican party tried to mischaracterize it as free tuition for illegal immigrants. but we took our case to the people when it was petitioned to referendum and we won with 58% of the vote. the more our children learn, the

more they will earn and that's true of children who will yet to be naturalized but will become children. >> you served as two years of the chairman while veterans died while awaiting health care. why did it take 18 inspector general reports and a cnn investigation and others before you and your colleagues took action? >> well, i was chairman for two years. and when i was chairman, we did take action. what we did is pass a $15 billion piece of legislation, which brought in many, many new doctors and nurses into the v.a. so that veterans in this country could get the health care when they needed it and not be on long waiting lines. and the other part of that legislation said that if a veteran is living more than 40 miles away from a v.a. facility, that veteran could get health care from a community health center or the private sector.

as a result of that legislation, we went further than any time in recent history in improving health care to the men and women of this country who put their lives on the line to defend us. >> governor chafee, you and hillary clinton both voted for the patriot act which created the nsa surveillance program, you emphasized civil liberties and privacy. are those two in opposition? >> no, that was another 99-1 vote. we did what we needed to tap phones as long as you had a warrant. as long as you're getting a warrant, you should be able to get surveillance. but you need a warrant. in the patriot act, sense 215 started to get broadened too far. i would be in favor of addressing and reforming section 215 of the patriot act. >> secretary clinton do you regret your vote on the patriot act? >> no, i don't.

i think that it was necessary to make sure that we were able after 9/11 to put in place the security that we needed, and it is true that it did require that there be a process. what happened, however, is that the bush administration began to chip away at that process and i began to speak out about their use of warrantless surveillance and the other behavior that they engaged in. we always have to keep the balance of civil liberties, privacy and security. it's not easy in a democracy but we have to keep it in mind. >> senator sanders, you're the only one on this stage who voted against the patriot act. if elected, would you shut down the nsa surveillance program? >> absolutely, of course. well, i would shut down what exists right now is that virtually every telephone call in this country ends up in a file at the nsa. that is unacceptable to me.

but it's not just government surveillance. i think the government is involved in our e-mails, is involved in our web sites, corporate america is doing it as well. if we are a free country, we have the right to be free. yes, we have to defend ourselves against terrorism, but there are ways to do that without impinging on our constitutional rights and our privacy rights. >> governor chafee, edward snowden, is he a traitor or hero? >> no, i would bring him home. >> no jail time? >> the american government was acting illegal. that's what the federal courts have said. snowden showed the federal government was acting illegally. >> senator clinton. >> he broke the laws of the united states. he could have been a whistleblower, raised all the issues that he has raised and i think there would have been a positive response to that.

>> should he do jail time? >> in addition, he stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands. so i don't think he should be brought home without facing the music. >> governor o'malley, snowden. >> snowden put a lot of lives atleat le risk and broke the law. whistle blowers do not run to get protection from putin. >> i think snowden played an important role in educating the role to the extent our civil liberties and and rights are being violated. i think what he did should be taken into consideration before.

>> senator webb? >> i would leave his ultimate judgment to the legal system. i believe we have a serious problem with regard to collection of personal information in america. i introduced two amendments saying we understand the realities of how you have to collect this broad information in the internet age but after a person period of time you need to destroy the personal information that you have if criminal justice proceedings have not been brought against them. we have a vast data bank of information that is ripe for people with bad intentions to be able to use and they need to be destroyed. >> another question for each of you. governor chafee, name the one way your administration would not be a third term of president obama. >> certainly ending the wars. we've got to stop these wars. we have to have a new dynamic, a new paradigm. we just spent half a billion

dollars arming and training the rebel soldiers in georgia, they quickly joined the other side. >> president obama is requesting -- >> i'd like to finish my answer. also, we just bombed a hospital. we've had drone strikes that have hit weddings. we need a new paradigm in the middle east. >> governor o'malley, how would you be different from president obama's administration. >> i would follow through on the promise to protect the main street economy from wall street, separate out the too big to jail and too big to fail banks, put in place a modern glass-steagall that creates a fire wall so this wreckage of economy can never happen again. >> secretary clinton, how would you not be a third term of president obama? >> well, i think that's pretty obvious. i think being the first woman

president would be quite a change from the presidents we've had up until this point, including president obama. >> is there a policy difference? >> well, there's a lot that i would like to do to build on the successes of president obama, but also as i'm laying out, to go beyond. and that's in my economic plans, how i would deal with the prescription drug companies, how i would deal with college, how i would deal with a full range of issues that i've been talking about throughout this campaign to go further. >> senator sanders. >> i have a lot of respect for president obama. i have worked with him time and time again on many, many issues, but here's where i do disagree. i believe that the power of corporate america, the power of wall street, the power of the drug companies, the power of the corporate media is so great that the only way we really transform america and do the things that the middle class and working class desperately need is through a political revolution when millions of people begin to

come together and stand up and say our government is going to work for all of us, not just a handful of billionaires. >> senator webb, how would you not be a third term for obama? >> i got a great deal of admiration and affection for senator sanders, but, bernie, i don't think the revolution is going to come and i don't think the congress is going to pay for a lot of this stuff. if there would be a major difference between my administration and the obama administration, it would be in the use of executive authority. i came up as a committee council in congress, used to put dozens of bill through the house floor every year as a committee counsel on the veteran's committee. i have a strong system about how our system works and how we need to lead and energize the congressional process instead of allowing these divisions to continue to paralyze what we're doing. i would work with both parties in the congress and work through

them. >> senator sanders, he cited you. you don't hear a lot of democratic candidates talking about revolution. what do you mean? >> what i mean is we need to have one of the larger voter turnouts in the world, not one of the lowest. we need to raise public consciousness. we need the american people to know what's going on in washington in a way in a today they do not know. and when people come together in a way that does not exist now and are prepared to take on the big money interest, then we could bring the kind of change we need. >> anderson, i have talked about a revolution. what we need is a green energy revolution. we need to move america to a 100% clean electric grid by 2050 and create 5 million jobs along the way. >> we'll talk more about environmental change and climate issues coming up. some of the candidates have tried marijuana, as have probably everybody in this room. does it influence their views on legalizati

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and welcome back to this cnn democratic presidential debate. it has been quite a night so far. we are in the final block of this debate. all the candidates are back, which i'm very happy to see. [ laughter ] it's a long story. let's continue. secretary clinton, welcome back. >> well, thank you. you know, it does take me a little longer. that's all i can say. >> secretary clinton, governor o'malley said the presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth between two royal families. this year has been the year of the outsider in families. why should democrats embrace an insider like yourself? >> i can't think of anything more of an outsider than electing the first woman president, but i'm not just running because i would be the first woman president. i'm running because i have a lifetime of experience in

getting results and fighting for people, fighting for kid, for women, for families, ifighting o even the odds and i know what it takes to get things done. i know how to find common ground and i know how to stand my ground and i think we're going to need both of those in washington to get anything that we're talking about up here accomplished. so i'm very happy that i have both the commitment of a lifetime and the experience of a lifetime to bring together to offer the american people. >> governor o'malley, do you want to tell secretary clinton why she shouldn't get the crown? >> actually, we had this conversation and i will share with you that i've traveled all around the country, anderson and there's two phrases i keep hearing again and again and again. they're they're the phrases "new leadership" and "getting things done." we cannot be this dissatisfied with our gridlock national politics and an economy where 70% of us are earning the same or less than we were 12 years

ago and think that a resort to old names is going to move us forward. i respect what secretary clinton and her husband have done for our country but i think we need to move forward. >> i would not ask anyone to vote on me because of my last name. i would ask them to look at what i've accomplished in the senate and as secretary of state of state. i am not coampaigning because m last name is clinton. i'm campaigning because i think i have the right combination of what this country needs and i could take the right fight to the republicans because we cannot afford for a republican to succeed president obama as president of the united states. >> i think there is profound

frustration all across this country. i am the only candidate that is not a billionaire who has raised substantial amounts of money and i do not have a super pac. i did not raise money from millionaires and billionaires. there are 4,000 house parties, 100,000 people in this country watching this debate tonight who want real change in this country. >> a lot of questions, we have about climate change. i want to go to don lemon. >> governor o'malley, this is from alice from tempe arizona. >> as a young person i'm very concerned about climate change and how it will fact my future. >> please tell anna how you would protect the environment better than the other candidates on the stage. >> anna, i have put together a plan to move us forward to a

clean electric grid by 2050. our nation must solve this one. i put forward the plan that would extend the investor tax credits for solar and for wind. you go across iowa, you see 30% of their energy now comes from wind. we're here in las vegas, one of the most sustainable cities in america doing important things in terms of green building architecture and design. we can get there as a nation but it's going to require presidential leadership. i intend to sign my very first order in office, moving up to 100% clean electric grid by 2050. we can do it. >> senator webb, you're pro coal, pro offshore drilling, pro

keystone pipeline. are you out of step with the democratic party sm. >> the question is how are we going to solve energy problems here and the global environment if you really want to address climate change? when i was in the senate, i was an all of the above energy voter. we introduced legislation to bring in alternate energy as well as nuclear power. i'm a strong proponent of nuclear power. it is safe, it is clean. and really, we are not going to solve climate change simply with the laws here. we've done a good job in this country since 1970. if you look at china and india, they're the greatest polluters in the world. 15 out of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in one of those two countries. we need to solve this in a global way. it's a global problem and i have been very strong on doing that. the agreements, the so-called agreements we have had with china are illusory in terms of the immediate requirements of the chinese government itself.

let's solve this problem in an international way and then we really will is a way to address climate change. >> senator sanders, are you tougher on climate change than secretary clinton? >> i will tell you this, and pope francis made this point, we need to move boldly. along with senator boxer, we introduced the first piece of climate legislation which called for a tax on carbon. nothing is going to happen unless we are prepared to deal with campaign finance reform because the fossil fuel industry is funding the republican party, which denies the reality of climate change and certainly is not prepared to go forward aggressively. this is a moral issue. we have got to be extremely grief with working with china, india, russia. the future of the planet is at stake. >> senator clinton, i want you to respond. >> that's exactly what i've been

doing. when we met in copenhagen in 2009 and literally president obama and i were hunting for the chinese, going throughout this huge convention center because we knew we had to get them to agree to something because there will be no effective efforts again climate change unless china and india join with the rest of the world. they told us they'd left for the airport. we found out they were having a secret meeting. we marched up, broke in and said we've been looking all over for you, let's sit down and come up with what we need to do and we did come up with the first agreement. thanks to president obama's leadership, it has gone much further. the first bilateral agreement president obama made with the chinese was significant. it needs to go further. we must get verifiable

commitments to fight climate change from every country there. >> dana bash. >> secretary clinton, you now support mandated paid family leave. carly fiorina, the first female ceo of a fortune 500 company says forced paid family leave will -- >> i'm surprised he said that. >> on the federal level. >> she's from a state that is as big as many countries in the world. this is typical republican scare tactics. we can define a system and pay for it that does not put the

burden on small businesses. i remember as a mother i had a baby wake up who was sick and i was supposed to be in court. we can face the challenges that so many mothers face. i see my good friend in the front row, she's been a champion of this. we need a consensus of this through the campaign, which is why i'm talking about it everywhere i go and join the rest of the advanced world in having it. >> secretary clinton, even many who agree with you might say this is very hard to do, especially in today's day and age. there are so many people who say, really, another government program? is that what you're suggesting and at the expense of taxpayer money? >> when people say that, it always the republicans or sympathizers who say you can't have paid leave, you can't provide health care. they don't mind have big government to interfere with a

woman's right to choose and take down planned parenthood. they're fine with big government when it comes to that. i'm sick of that. we can do these things. we should not be perilized by the republicans and their co constant refrain big government this and that except for what they want to impose on the american people. we're going to make the wealthy pay for it. that is the way to get it done. >> senator sanders. >> dana, here's the point, every other country on earth, even the smaller ones, say when a mother has a baby, the mother should stay home for the baby. we are the only country that is an embarrassment that we do not provide paid medical leave. the isn't is right. republicans tell us we can't do anything except give tax breaks to billionaires and cut social security, medicare and medicaid. that's not what the american

people want. >> governor o'malley. >> anderson, if our state we actually expanded family leave and i have to agree with secretary clinton and senator sanders. the genius of our nation is that we find ways in every generation to include more of our people more fully in the economic life of our country and we need to do that for our families and especially so that women aren't penalized in having to drop out of the workforce. my wife katie is here with our four kids and, man, that was a juggle when we had little kids and keeping jobs and moving forward. we would be a stronger nation economically if we had paid family leave. >> the issue now in this state is recreational marijuana. i want to go to carlos lopez. >> senator sanders, here in nevada there will be a measure to legalize marijuana on the 2016 ballot. you said it smoked marijuana twice, it didn't quite work for you. if you were a nevada resident,

how would you vote? >> i suspect i would vote yes. and i would vote yes because i am seeing in this country too many lives being destroyed for non-violent offenses. we have a criminal justice system that lets ceos on wall street walk away and yet we are imprisoning or giving jail sentences to young people who are smoking marijuana. i think we have to think through this war on drugs, which has done an enormous amount of damage. weep ne we need to rethink our criminal justice system and we've got a lot of work to do in that area. >> secretary clinton, you told cristiania amanpour you didn't smoke marijuana when you were young and you're not going to now. are you ready to take a position

tonight sp. >> no. i think we have the opportunity through the states that are pursuing recreational marijuana to find out a lot more than we know today. i do support the use of medical marijuana, and i think even there we need to do a lot more research so that we know exactly how we're going to help people, for whom medical marijuana provides relief. so i think we're just at the beginning but i agree completely with the idea that we have got to stop imprisoning people who use marijuana. therefore, we need more state, cities and the federal government to begin to address this so that we don't have this terrible result that senator sands a sanders was talking about where we have a huge population in our prisons for non-violent, low-level offenses that are primarily based on marijuana.

>> president obama has had a difficult time getting republicans to compromise on just about every agenda. how will you approach this going forward and will it be any different? senator. >> the republican party since i've been in the senate and since president obama has been in office has played a terrible, terrible role of being total obstructionist. every effort that he has made that some of us have made, they have said no, no, no. now, in my view the only way we can take on the right wing republicans, who by the way i hope will not continue to control the senate and the house when one of us is elected president, but the only way we can get things done is by having millions of people coming together. if we want free tuition at public colleges and universities, millions of young

people are going to have to demand it and give the republicans an offer they can't refuse. if we want to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, workers are going to have to come together and look the republicans in the eye and say we know what's going on, if you vote against us, you are out of a job. >> we'll take a shot break and hear more from the candidates in a moment. you tuck here... you tuck there. if you're a toe tucker... because of toenail fungus, ask your doctor now about prescription kerydin. used daily, kerydin drops may kill the fungus at the site of infection and get to the root of your toe tucking. kerydin may cause irritation at the treated site.

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. and welcome back to this final round of the cnn democratic presidential debate. each of you will have closing statements, you'll have 90 seconds. if you can, just 15 seconds if you can. governor chafee, franklin delano roosevelt said i ask you to judge me by the enemies i have made. you all have made a few enemies over your career. which enemies are you most proud of? >> i guess the coal lobby.

i've worked hard for climate change, but in my time in the senate i tried to bring them to the table. i'm proud to be a dodge for the coal lobby. >> senator o'malley? >> the national rifle association. >> secretary clinton? >> in addition to the nra, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the iranians, probably the republicans. [ cheers and applause ] >> senator sanders? >> as someone who has taken on probably every special interest that there is in washington, i would lump wall street and the pharmaceutical industry at the top of my list of people who do not like me. >> senator webb? >> i would have to say the enemy soldier that threw the grenade that wounded me but he's not around right now to talk to.

>> all right. time for closing statements. each of you will have 90 seconds. governor chafee, let's begin with you. >> thank you anderson, cnn and facebook for sponsoring this debate. america has many challenges, ending the perpetual wars, addressing climate change, income inequality, funding education, funding infrastructure, funding health care, helping black americans, helping native americans, we have many challenges. who is best able to confront these challenges? i've served in government at many levels. i know what it like to solve problems at the local level because i did it as mayor. i know who to get legislation passed through congress because i did it as a senator and i did it as governor of rhode island. but in 30 years of public service, i have no scandals. i have high ethical standards. what i'm most proud of is my

judgment. there was a lot of pressure in the iraq vote. i did not believe that the evidence was there that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we live now with the consequences. so that kind of judgment is what we want in a president going forward, and i'm running for president to end the wars. i want to be the peacemaker. i am a proven peacemaker. please go to chafee 2016 to learn more about me. thank you. >> governor chafee, thank you very. senator webb, your final statement for 90 seconds. >> thank you. ladies and gentlemen, it's been a pleasure to be with you tonight. you've heard a tlot of promises up here, a lot of rhetoric. they seem to happen from campaigns and once they're over people start from scratch again and get things done. if you look at my record in and ot of government, i've always been willing to take on a

complicated, something unpopular issue to work them through to find a solution. criminal justice reform. we had a lot of discussion about criminal justice reform. we did it in other ways. we needed a national political strategy for our economy, our social policy and social justice and, by the way, for how you run and manage the most complex bureaucracy in the world, which is the federal government. i know how to lead. i did it in van, i did in the senate and if you will help me overcome this cavalcade of financial irregularities and money that is poisoning our political process, i am ready to do that for you in the white house. >> senator webb, thank you very. governor o'malley, 90 seconds. >> anderson, thank you. i am very, very grateful to have been able to be on this stage with this distinguished group of candidates tonight. and what you heard tonight,

anderson, was a very -- and all of you watching at home, was a very, very different debate from the sort of debate that you heard from the two presidential republican debates. [ applause ] >> on this stage you didn't hear anyone denigrate women, you didn't hear anyone make racist comments about new immigrants, you didn't hear anyone speak ill of anyone because of their religious belief. what you heard was an honest debate of what will move us forward, to lead to a clean electric grid by 2050, and employ more of our people, rebuild our cities and towns, education our children at higher and better levels and include

more people in the economic and social life in our country. i truly believe we are standing on the threshold on a new era of american progress. talk to our young people under 30. you'll never find among them people that want to bash immigrants or people that want to deny rights to gay couples. that tells me we are moving to a more connected, generous and compassionate place and we need to speak to the goodness within our country. [ applause ] >> governor o'malley, thank you very much. senator sanders, final closing thoughts, 90 seconds. >> this is a great country, but we have many, many serious problems. we should not be the country that has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major company and more wealth and income inequality than any other country. we should not be the only major country on earth that does not

guarantee health care of our people as a right of citizenship and should not be the only major country that does not provide medical and -- family and parent an leave to all of our families. at the end of our day here is a truth that very few candidates will say is that nobody up here, certainly no republican, can address the major crises facing our country unless millions of people begin to stand up to the billionaire class that has so much power over our economy and our political life. jim webb is right. money is pouring in to this campaign through super pacs. we are doing it the old fashioned way, 650,000 individual contributions. and if people want to help us out, berniesanders.com. we are averaging 30 bucks apiece. we would appreciate your help.

[ cheers and applause ] >> secretary clinton. >> thank you very much, anderson. and thanks to all the viewers who tuned in tonight. i think what you did see is that in this debate, we tried to deal with some of the very tough issues facing our country. that's in stark contrast to the republicans, who are currently running for president. what you have to ask yourself is who amongst us has the vision for actually making the changes that are going to improve the lives of the american people, who has the tenacity and the ability and the proven track record of getting that done. now, i revere my late mother and she gave me a lot of good advice, but one of the best pieces of advice she gave me was, you know, the issue is not whether or not you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up. america's bee