APPLAUSE)

The five major candidates are about to face off for the first time in a
primary race that is a lot more competitive than many people had
expected.
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Way After Months of DifficultiesOCT. 14, 2015
COOPER: Welcome. Im Anderson Cooper. Thanks for joining us.
Were just seconds away from introducing the candidates to viewers
in the United States and watching right now around the world. This
debate is airing on CNN, CNN en Espanol, and CNN International.
Its also being broadcast on the Westwood One Radio Network. Ill be
the moderator tonight. Ill also be joined in the questioning by my
CNN colleagues, our chief political correspondent, Dana Bash; CNN
en Espanol anchor Juan Carlos Lopez, and CNN anchor Don Lemon
who will share questions from Democrats nationwide. Weve 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 its time to meet the candidates.

COOPER: Joining us on stage, please welcome former Rhode Island

Governor Lincoln Chafee.
(APPLAUSE)
Former Maryland Governor Martin OMalley.
(APPLAUSE)
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 Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, Sheryl Crow.
(SINGING) (APPLAUSE)
COOPER: I want to thank Sheryl Crow. The candidates are here.
The crowd is certainly ready. The first Democratic debate will begin
right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: There is certainly a lot of excitement in this room tonight,
and no doubt around the country. We are back in the Wynn Resort in

Las Vegas in the presidential battleground state of Nevada for the

first Democratic debate of the 2016 campaign. Im Anderson Cooper.
Thanks for joining us. Weve already welcomed the candidates on
stage. They are in place at their podiums. Before we dive into the
issues, I want to quickly explain some of the groundrules tonight. As
the moderator, Ill ask questions, followups and guide the discussion.
Ill be joined in the questioning by CNNs Juan Carlos Lopez and
Dana Bash, a well as Don Lemon who will share questions from
Democrats around the country. Each candidate will get one minute
to answer questions, and 30 seconds for followups and rebuttals. Ill
give candidates time to respond if they have been singled out for
criticism. Our viewers should know that we have lights that are
visible to the candidates to warn them when their time is up. I want
the candidates to be able to introduce themselves to our audience.
Each candidate will have two minutes to introduce themselves. Lets
begin with Governor Chafee. Governor?
CHAFEE: Thank you, Anderson. Thank you, CNN, and thank you
Facebook for organizing this debate. Not only will Americans be
electing a new president next year, we also will be electing a world
leader. Voters should assess the candidates experience, character
and vision for the future as they make this important decision. Im
the only one running for president that has 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 reelected three times. As a
senator, I earned a reputation for courageous votes against the BushCheney tax cuts the 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. It happens to be Nevada, where were

having this debate. Im very proud that over my almost 30 years of
public service, I have had no scandals. Ive always been honest. I
have the courage to take the long-term view, and Ive 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-nots. I want to address climate change, a real
threat to our planet. And I believe in prosperity through peace. I
want to end these wars. I look forward to the discussion ahead.
Thank you.
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(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Thank you very much, Governor.
(APPLAUSE)
Senator Webb, you have two minutes.
WEBB: Thank you. You know, people are disgusted with the way
that money has corrupted our political process, intimidating
incumbents and empowering Wall Street every day, the turnstile
government that we see, and also the power of the financial sector in
both parties.
WEBB: Theyre looking for a leader who understands how the
system works, who has not been coopted by it, and also has a proven
record of accomplishing different things. I have a record of working
across the political aisle. Ive also spent more than half of my
professional life away from politics in the independent world of being

an author, a journalist, and a sole proprietor. In government service,

Ive fought and bled for our country in Vietnam as a Marine. I spent
years as 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, Hong, came
to this country as a refugee from war torn Vietnam learned
English, a language that was not spoken at home, and earned her
way into Cornell Law School. I have five daughters. Amy works with
disabled veterans, Sarah 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 that 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.
(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Governor OMalley, you have two minutes.
OMALLEY: My name is Martin OMalley, former Mayor of
Baltimore, former governor of Maryland, a life long 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 wouldnt do to give them healthier and

better lives. There are some things that I have learned to do better in
life than others. And, 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 principals. Thanks to President Obama, our
country has come a long way since the Wall Street crash of 2008. Our
countrys 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 deep injustice, an economic injustice
that threatens to tear our country apart, and it will not solve itself.
Injustice does not solve itself. What Im talking about is this, our
middle class is shrinking. Our poor families are becoming poorer,
and 70 percent of us are 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 isnt money, its people. Its all of our people,
and so we must invest in our country, and the potential of our kids to
make college a debt free option for all of our families, instead of
settling our kids with a lifetime of crushing debt. And, 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. And, 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.
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(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Governor OMalley, thank you very much. Senator
Sanders.
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 lower wages, and yet almost all of the new income
and wealth being created is going to the top one percent. 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 percent. Hispanic youth unemployment is 36
percent. 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)
COOPER: Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, thank you, and thanks to everyone for hosting this
first of the Democratic debates. Im Hillary Clinton. I have been
proud and privileged to serve as first lady, as a senator from New
York, and as secretary of state. Im the granddaughter of a factory
worker and the grandmother of a wonderful one-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 Godgiven potential. Ive traveled across our country over the last months
listening and learning, and Ive put forward specific plans about how
were 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 were 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. And then we have to figure out how were 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 were 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 its about time we had paid family leave for
American families and join the rest of the world. (APPLAUSE)

During the course of the evening tonight, Ill have a chance to lay out
all of my plans and the work that Ive done behind them. But for me,
this is about bringing our country together again. And I will do
everything I can to heal the divides the divides economically,
because theres too much inequality; the racial divides; the
continuing discrimination against the LGBT community so that we
work together and, yes, finally, fathers will be able to say to their
daughters, you, too, can grow up to be president.
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(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Thank you, all. It is time to start the debate.
COOPER: Are you all ready? (APPLAUSE) All right. Lets begin.
Were going to be discussing a lot of the issues, many of the issues,
important issues that you have brought up. But I want to begin with
concerns that voters have about each of the candidates here on this
stage that they have about each of you. Secretary Clinton, I want to
start with you. Plenty of politicians evolve on issues, but even some
Democrats believe you change your positions based on political
expediency. You were against same-sex marriage. Now youre for it.
You defended President Obamas immigration policies. Now you say
theyre too harsh. You supported his trade deal dozen of times. You
even called it the gold standard. Now, suddenly, last week, youre
against it. Will you say anything to get elected?
CLINTON: Well, actually, I have been very 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 whats

happening in the world. You know, taker 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, and in
looking at it, it didnt 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.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, though, with all due respect, the
question is really about political expediency. Just in July, New
Hampshire, you told the crowd youd, quote, take a back seat to no
one when it comes to progressive values. Last month in Ohio, you
said you plead guilty to, quote, being kind of moderate and center.
Do you change your political identity based on who youre talking to?
CLINTON: No. I think that, like most people that I know, I have a
range of views, but they are rooted in my values and my experience.
And I dont take a back seat to anyone when it comes to progressive
experience and progressive commitment. You know, when I left law
school, my first job was with the Childrens Defense Fund, and for all
the years since, I have been focused on how were going to un-stack
the deck, and how were gonna make it possible for more people to
have the experience I had. You know, to be able to come from a
grandfather who was a factory worker, a father who was a small
business person, and now asking the people of America to elect me
president.
COOPER: Just for the record, are you a progressive, or are you a
moderate?

CLINTON: Im a progressive. But Im a progressive who likes to get

things done. And I know...
(APPLAUSE)
...how to find common ground, and I know how to stand my ground,
and I have proved that in every position that Ive 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...
COOPER: Secretary...
CLINTON: ...reforming foster care and adoption to the Childrens
Health Insurance Program, which insures...
COOPER: ...thank you...
CLINTON: ...8 million kids. So I have a long history of getting
things done, rooted in the same values...
COOPER: ...Senator...
CLINTON: ...Ive always had.
COOPER: Senator Sanders. A Gallup poll says half the country
would not put a socialist in the White House. You call yourself a
democratic socialist. How can any kind of socialist win a general
election in the United States?
SANDERS: Well, were gonna win because first, were gonna
explain what democratic socialism is. And what democratic socialism
is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth
of 1 percent in this country own almost 90 percent almost own
almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. That it is wrong,
today, in a rigged economy, that 57 percent of all new income is

going to the top 1 percent. 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, were not gonna
separate you from your newborn baby, because we are going to have
we are gonna 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)
COOPER: Denmark is a country that has a population Denmark
is a country that has a population of 5.6 million people. The question
is really about electability here, and thats what Im trying to get at.
You the the Republican attack ad against you in a general
election it writes itself. You supported the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua. You honeymooned in the Soviet Union. And just this
weekend, you said youre not a capitalist. Doesnt doesnt that ad
write itself?
SANDERS: Well, first of all, lets look at the facts. The facts that are
very simple. Republicans win when there is a low voter turnout, and
that is what happened last November. Sixty-three percent of the
American people didnt vote, Anderson. Eighty percent of young
people didnt vote. We are bringing out huge turnouts, and creating
excitement all over this country. Democrats at the White House on
down will win, when there is excitement and a large voter turnout,
and that is what this campaign is doing.
COOPER: You dont consider yourself a capitalist, though?

SANDERS: 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 Streets greed and recklessness wrecked this economy?
No, I dont. I believe in a society where all people do well. Not just a
handful of billionaires.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Just let me just be clear. Is there anybody else on the
stage who is not a capitalist?
CLINTON: Well, let me just follow-up on that, Anderson, because
when I think about capitalism, I think about all the small businesses
that were started because we have the opportunity and the freedom
in our country for people to do that and to make a good living for
themselves and their families. And I dont think we should confuse
what we have to do every so often in America, which is save
capitalism from itself. And 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 its our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that
it doesnt run amok and doesnt cause the kind of inequities were
seeing in our economic system. But we would be making a grave
mistake to turn our backs on what built the greatest middle class in
the history...
COOPER: Senator Sanders?
CLINTON: ... of the world.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: I think everybody is in agreement that we are a great
entrepreneurial nation. We have got 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 doesnt mean anything if
all of the new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent. 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...
COOPER: Were going to get...
SANDERS: ... not just for billionaires.
COOPER: Were going to have a lot more on these issues. But I do
want to just quickly get everybody in on the question of electability.
Governor Chafee, youve been everything but a socialist. When you
were senator from Rhode Island, you were a Republican. When you
were elected governor, you were an independent. Youve only been a
Democrat for little more than two years. Why should Democratic
voters trust you wont change again?
CHAFEE: Anderson, youre looking at a block of granite when it
comes to the issues. Whether its... (CROSSTALK)
COOPER: It seems like pretty soft granite. I mean, youve been a
Republican, youve been an independent.
CHAFEE: Did you hear what I said? On the issues. I have not
changed on the issues. I was a liberal Republican, then I was an
independent, and now Im a proud Democrat. But I have not changed
on the issues. And I open my record to scrutiny. Whether its on the
environment, a womans 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. Youre looking at a block of granite when it comes to

the issues. So I have not changed.
COOPER: Then why change labels?
CHAFEE: The party left me. Theres 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 defeat me in Rhode Island as a Republican. Thats what we were
up against.
COOPER: Governor OMalley, the concern of voters about you is
that you tout our record as Baltimores mayor. As we all know, we all
saw it. 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
Americans trust you with the country when they see whats going on
in the city that you ran for more than seven years?
OMALLEY: Yes, actually, I believe what she said was that theres a
lot of policies that have led to this unrest. But, Anderson, when I ran
for mayor of Baltimore in 1999...
COOPER: She actually just for the record, when she was asked
which policies, to name two, she said zero tolerance. I mean, theres a
number of old policies that were seeing the results of. That distress
of communities, where communities dont want to step forward and
say who killed a 3-year-old, its a direct result of these failed policies.
OMALLEY: Well, lets talk about this a little bit. One of the things
that was not reported during that heartbreaking night of unrest in
Baltimore was that arrests had actually fallen to a 38-year low in the
year prior to the Freddie Grays tragic death. Anderson, when I ran

for mayor of Baltimore back 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. And I ran and
promised people that together we could turn that around. And we
put our city on a path to reduce violent crime, or part one (ph) crime
by more than any other major city in America over the next 10 years.
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. Weve 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 wasnt 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.
COOPER: 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,
sued the city, and the city actually settled, saying a lot of those arrests
were without probable cause.
OMALLEY: Well, I think the key word in your followup there was
the word settle. Thats true. It was settled. Arrests peaked in 2003,
Anderson, but they declined every year after that as we restored
peace in our poorer neighborhoods so that people could actually walk
and not have to worry about their kids or their loved ones of 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 it was about bringing
people together.
COOPER: Thank you, Governor.

OMALLEY: Thank you. COOPER: Senator Webb, in 2006, you

called affirmative action state-sponsored racism. In 2010, you
wrote an op/ed saying it discriminates against whites. Given that
nearly half the Democratic Party is non-white, arent you out of step
with where the Democratic Party is now?
WEBB: No, actually I believe that I am where the Democratic Party
traditionally has been. The Democratic Party, and the reason Ive
decided to run as a Democrat, has been the party that gives people
who otherwise have no voice in the corridors of power a voice. And
that is not determined by race. And as a clarification, I have always
supported affirmative action for African Americans. Thats 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 that when we
create diversity programs that include everyone, quote, of color,
other than whites, struggling whites like the families in the
Appalachian mountains, were not being true to the Democratic Party
principle of elevating the level of consciousness among our people
about the hardships that a lot of people who happen to be have by
culture, by the way.
COOPER: Senator Webb, thank you very much. Lets move on to
some of the most pressing issues facing our country right now, some
of the biggest issues right now in the headlines today. Were going to
start with guns. The shooting in Oregon earlier this month, once
again 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 two to one. Senator Sanders, you voted against the
Brady bill that mandated background checks and a waiting period.
You also supported allowing riders to bring guns in checked bags on
Amtrak trains. For a decade, you said that holding gun

manufacturers legally responsible for mass shootings is a bad idea.

Now, you say youre reconsidering that. Which is it: shield the gun
companies from lawsuits or not?
SANDERS: Lets begin, Anderson, by understanding that Bernie
Sanders has a D-minus voting rating (ph) from the NRA. Lets 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 which
has virtually no gun control, that I supported a ban on assault
weapons. And over the years, I have strongly avoided instant
background checks, doing away with this terrible gun show loophole.
And I think weve got to move aggressively at the federal level in
dealing with the straw man purchasers. Also I believe, and Ive
fought for, to understand that there are thousands of people in this
country today who are suicidal, who are homicidal, but cant get the
healthcare that they need, the mental healthcare, because they dont
have insurance or theyre too poor. I believe that everybody in this
country who has a mental crisis has got to get mental health
counseling immediately. COOPER: Do you want to shield gun
companies from lawsuits?
SANDERS: Of course not. This was a large and complicated bill.
There were provisions in it that I think made sense. For example, 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 responsible? I dont. On the
other hand, where you have manufacturers and where you have gun
shops knowingly giving guns to criminals or aiding and abetting that,
of course we should take action.

COOPER: Secretary Clinton, is Bernie Sanders tough enough on

guns?
CLINTON: No, not at all. I think that we have to look at the fact that
we lose 90 people a day from gun violence. This has gone on too long
and its time the entire country stood up against the NRA. The
majority of our country...
(APPLAUSE) ... supports background checks, 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 wasnt 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. Were not going to let it continue.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Were going to bring you all in on this. But, Senator
Sanders, you have to give a response.
SANDERS: As 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 has said we need to strengthen and expand
instant background checks, do away with this gun show loophole,
that we have to address the issue of mental health, that we have to
deal with the strawman purchasing issue, and that when we develop

that consensus, we can finally, finally do something to address this

issue.
COOPER: Governor OMalley, you passed gun legislation as
governor of Maryland, but you had a Democratic-controlled
legislature. President Obama couldnt convince Congress to pass gun
legislation after the massacres in Aurora, in Newtown, and
Charleston. How can you?
OMALLEY: And, Anderson, I also had to overcome a lot of
opposition in the leadership of my own party to get this done. Look,
its fine to talk about all of these things and Im glad were talking
about these things but Ive actually done them. We passed
comprehensive gun safety legislation, not by looking at the pollings
or looking at what the polls said. We actually did it. And, Anderson,
here tonight in our audience are two people that make this issue
very, very real. Sandy and Lonnie Phillips are here from Colorado.
And 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 a
rigged game, Senator? The game was rigged. A man had sold 4,000
rounds of military ammunition to this this person that killed their
daughter, riddled her body with five bullets, and he didnt even ask
where it was going. And not only did their case get 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
backseat. Its time to stand up and pass comprehensive gun safety
legislation as a nation.
(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Senator Sanders, I want you to be able to respond, 30

seconds.
SANDERS: 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, commonsense 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.
OMALLEY: Senator Senator, excuse me. (CROSSTALK)
OMALLEY: Senator, it is not about rural Senator, it was not
about rural and urban.
SANDERS: Its exactly about rural.
OMALLEY: 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.
SANDERS: Governor...
OMALLEY: And we did it by leading with principle, not by
pandering to the NRA and backing down to the
NRA. SANDERS: Well, as somebody who has a D-minus voting
record... (CROSSTALK)
OMALLEY: And I have an F from the NRA, Senator.

SANDERS: I dont think I am pandering. But you have not been in

the United States Congress.
OMALLEY: Well, maybe thats a healthy thing.
(LAUGHTER)
SANDERS: And when you want to, check it out. And if you think
if you think that we can simply go forward and pass something
tomorrow without bringing people together, you are sorely mistaken.
COOPER: Let me bring in somebody who has a different viewpoint.
Senator Webb, your rating from the NRA, you once had an A rating
from the NRA. Youve said gun violence goes down when more
people are allowed to carry guns. Would encouraging more people to
be armed be part of your response to a mass shooting?
WEBB: Look, there are two fundamental issues that are 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.
And we have done not a good job on that. A lot of them are criminals.
And a lot of the people are getting killed are members of gangs inside
our urban areas. And a lot of them are mentally incapacitated. And
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.
WEBB: So 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.
COOPER: Senator...

WEBB: May I? People are going back and forth here for 10 minutes
here. There are people at high levels in this government who have
bodyguards 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The average
American does not have that, and deserves the right to be able to
protect their family.
COOPER: Senator Governor Chafee, you have an F rating from
the NRA, what do you think about what Senator Webb just said?
CHAFEE: Yes, I have a good record of voting for gun commonsense
safety legislation, but the reality is, despite these tragedies that
happen time and time again, when legislators step up to pass
commonsense gun safety legislation, the gun lobby moves in and tells
the people theyre coming to take away your guns. And, theyre
successful at it, in Colorado and others states, the legislators that
vote for commonsense gun safety measures then get defeated. I even
saw in Rhode Island. So, I would bring the gun lobby in and say
weve got to change this. Where can we find common ground? Wayne
Lapierre from the NRA, whoever it is, the leaders. Come one, weve
go to change this. Were not coming to take away your guns, we
believe in the Second Amendment, but lets find common ground
here.
COOPER: I want to...
OMALLEY: ...Anderson, when the NRA wrote to everyone in our
state when the NRA wrote to 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. And thats why, not only did we pass it, but the NRA
didnt...
SANDERS: ...Excuse me...

OMALLEY: ...dare to petition a referendum...

Continue reading the main story

Clinton, OMalley and Sanders on the Issues

The three leading Democratic presidential candidates overlap significantly in their

positions on key issues, each pushing a liberal agenda by different degrees.

SANDERS: ...I want to make...

OMALLEY: ...Because we built a public consensus...
COOPER: ...I want to move on to another issue, which is in the
headlines right now, another crisis making headlines. Secretary
Clinton, Russia, theyre challenging the U.S. in Syria. According to
U.S. intelligence, theyve lied about who theyre bombing. You
spearheaded the reset with Russia. Did you underestimate the
Russians, and as president, what would your response to Vladimir
Putin be right now in Syria?

CLINTON: Well, 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, we got the Iranian sanctions, we got an ability to
bring important material and equipment to our soldiers in
Afghanistan. Theres 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
theyve 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. And, I think its
important too that the United States make it very clear to Putin that
its not acceptable for him to be in Syria creating more chaos,
bombing people on behalf of Assad, and we cant do that if we dont
take more of a leadership position, which is what Im advocating.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, what would you do differently.
SANDERS: Well, lets understand that when we talk about Syria,
youre talking about a quagmire in a quagmire. Youre talking about
groups of people trying to overthrow Assad, other groups of people
fighting ISIS. Youre talking about people who are fighting ISIS using
their guns to overthrow Assad, and vice versa. Im the former
chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee, and in that capacity I
learned a very powerful lesson about the cost of war, and 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 blunder 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.

COOPER: On this issue of foreign policy, I want to go to...

CLINTON: ...Well, nobody does. Nobody does, Senator Sanders.
COOPER: I want to go to Dana Bash. Dana?
BASH: Governor Chafee, you were the only Republican in the
Senate 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 that her vote was a mistake.
Why isnt that good enough? CHAFEE: Well, we just heard Senator
Sanders say that its the worst decision in American history. Thats
very significant, the worst decision in American history, I just heard
from Senator Sanders. So, as we look ahead, if youre going to make
those poor judgment calls, a critical time in our history, we just
finished with the Vietnam era, getting back into another quagmire
if youre looking ahead, and youre looking at someone who 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, thats an indication of how someone will
perform in the future. And thats whats important.
(APPLAUSE)
BASH: Secretary Clinton, hes questioning your judgment.
CLINTON: 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...
(APPLAUSE)
...in the Situation Room, going over some very difficult issues. You
know, I I agree completely. We dont 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, that 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 while youre talking about the tough
decision that President Obama had to make about Osama bin Laden,
where I was one of his few advisers, or putting together that coalition
to impose sanctions on Iran I think I have a lot of evidence...
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: Senator Sanders Senator Sanders, I want to bring you in
here. My question for you is, as a congressman, you voted against the
Iraq War. You voted against the Gulf War. Youre just talking about
Syria, but under what circumstances would a President Sanders
actually use force?
SANDERS: 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
overthrow Saddam Hussein and get involved in the I would urge
people to go to berniesanders.com, hear what I said in 2002. And I
say, without any joy in my heart, that much of what I thought would
happen about the destabilization, in fact, did happen. So I think...
BASH: All right.
(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: I think the president is trying very hard to thread a

tough needle here, and that is to support those people who are
against Assad, against ISIS, without getting us on the ground there,
and thats the direction I believe we should have (inaudible).
COOPER: But, Senator Sanders, you didnt answer the question.
Under what under what circumstances would you actually use
force?
SANDERS: Well, obviously, I voted, when President Clinton said,
lets stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, I voted for that. I voted to
make sure that Osama bin Laden was held accountable in
Afghanistan. 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.
(UNKNOWN): Youre at work with our allies.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Im gonna bring you all in on this. Governor Governor
OMalley, Secretary Clinton...
SANDERS: I dont believe that any...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Secretary Clinton voted to authorize military force in
Iraq, supported more troops in Afghanistan. As Secretary of State,
she wanted to arm Syrian rebels and push for the bombing of Libya.
Is she too quick to use military force?

OMALLEY: Anderson, no president no 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 and 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 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. And I remember
being at a dinner shortly before that invasion. People were talking at
and saying, itll take us just a couple years to rebuild democracy,
and 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 to take a at
the expense of democratic principle, we hurt ourselves, and we hurt
our (inaudible).
COOPER: Does she does she want to use military force too
rapidly?
OMALLEY: I believe that, 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 nofly zones, and I believe, especially with the Russian air force in the
air, it could lead to an escalation because of an accident that we
would deeply regret. I support President Obama. I think we have to
play a long game, and I think, ultimately you want to talk about
blunders? I think Assads invasion of Syria will be seen as a blunder.
COOPER: Governor OMalley, just for the record, on the campaign
trail, youve been saying that Secretary Clinton is always quick for the

 for the military intervention. Senator Secretary Clinton, you can

respond.
CLINTON: Well, first of all, I...
WEBB: Anderson, can I come into this discussion at some point?
COOPER: Well yes, youll be coming in next, but she was directly
quoted, Senator.
WEBB: Thank you. Ive been standing over here for about ten
minutes, trying.
COOPER: OK. WEBB: Its just its gone back and forth over
there.COOPER: Secretary?
CLINTON: Well, I am in the middle, here, and...
(LAUGHTER)
Lots of things coming from all directions.
WEBB: You got the lucky (inaudible).
CLINTON: You know, I have to say, I was very pleased when
Governor OMalley endorsed me for president in 2008, and I enjoyed
his strong support in that campaign. And I consider him, obviously, a
friend. Let me say because theres 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 Im 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. Its about how
you balance the risks.

COOPER: Thank you.

CLINTON: And 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.
COOPER: Thank you, Secretary.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Senator Webb, you said as president you would never
have used military force in Libya and that the attack on the U.S.
consulate in Benghazi was, in your words, inevitable. Should
Secretary Clinton have seen that attack coming?
WEBB: Look, lets start Ive been trying to get in this conversation
for about 10 minutes lets 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 into the
region about whether we are acquiescing in Iran becoming a stronger
piece of the formula in that part of the world. Now, I say this as
someone who spent five years in the Pentagon and who opposed the
war in Iraq, whose son fought in Iraq, Ive 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. And 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.
COOPER: Senator...
WEBB: And I would say this. Ive been waiting for 10 minutes. I will
say this.
COOPER: Youre over your time as of now.
WEBB: I will well, youve let a lot of people go over their time. I
would say this...
COOPER: You agreed to these debate rules.
WEBB: ... to the unelected, 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.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, I want you to be able to respond.
SANDERS: Pardon me?
COOPER: Id like you to be able to respond and get in on this.
SANDERS: Well, I think Mr. Putin is going to regret what he is
doing. I think that when he gets into that...
COOPER: He doesnt seem to be the type of guy to regret a lot.
SANDERS: Well, I think hes already regretting what he did in
Crimea and what he is doing in the Ukraine. I think he is really
regretting the decline of his economy. And I think what he is trying to
do now is save some face. But 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 now.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, on the campaign trail, Governor Webb
has said that he would never have used military force in Libya and
that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was inevitable.
Should you have seen that attack coming?
CLINTON: Well, lets remember what was going on. We had a
murderous dictator, Gadhafi, who had American blood on his hands,
as Im sure you remember, 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 side 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 lead 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 Ill say this for the Libyan people...
COOPER: But American citizens did lose their lives in Benghazi.
CLINTON: But let Ill get to that. But I think its important, since
I understand Senator Webbs 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. And 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. But unless you believe the United States should not
send diplomats to any place that is dangerous, which I do not, then

when we send them forth, there is always the potential for danger
and risk.
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COOPER: Governor OMalley?

WEBB: Can I...
(CROSSTALK)
OMALLEY: Anderson, I think we are learning...
(CROSSTALK)
OMALLEY: Anderson, I think theres lessons to be learned from
Benghazi. And 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. And I
believe thats what Chris Stevens was trying to do. But he did not
have the tools. We have failed as a country to invest in the human
intelligence that would allow us to make not only better decisions in
Libya, but better decisions in Syria today. And its a huge national
security failing. COOPER: Senator Webb, I want you to be able to
respond.
WEBB: Thank you.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Senator Webb? 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 risk. 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. And if people think it was a wise
thing to do, try to get to the Tripoli airport today. You cant do it.
COOPER: Secretary (sic) Webb, you served in Vietnam. Youre a
marine. Once a marine, always a marine. You served as a marine in
Vietnam. Youre a decorated war hero. You eventually became
secretary of the navy. During the Vietnam War, the man standing
next to you, Senator Sanders, applied for status as a conscientious
objector. Given his history, can he serve as a credible commander-inchief?
WEBB: Everybody makes their decisions when the time there is
conscription. And as long as they go through the legal process that
our country requires, I respect that. And it would be for the voters to
decide whether Senator Sanders or anyone else should be president.
I will say this, coming from the position that Ive come from, from a
military family, with my brother a marine, my son was a marine in
Iraq, I served as a marine, spending five years in the Pentagon, I am
comfortable that I am the most qualified person standing up here
today to be your commander-in-chief.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, tell an American soldier who is
watching right now tonight in Afghanistan why you can be
commander-in- chief given that you applied for conscientious
objector status.
SANDERS: Well, first of all, let me applaud my good friend Jim
Webb for his service to this country in so many ways.

(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: Jim and I, under Jims leadership, as he indicated,
passed the most significant veterans education bill in recent history.
We followed suit with a few years later passing, under my leadership,
the most significant veterans health care legislation in the modern
history of this country.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: When I was a young man Im 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. That was my view then.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: I am not a pacifist, Anderson. I supported the war in
Afghanistan. I supported President Clintons 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.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Very quickly, 30 seconds for each of you. Governor
Chafee, who or what is the greatest national security threat to the
United States? I want to go down the line.
CHAFEE: OK. I just have to answer one thing that Senator Webb
said about the Iran deal, because Im a strong proponent of what
President Obama and he said that because of that the Iran deal

that enabled Russia to come in. No, thats not true, Senator Webb. I
respect your foreign policy chops. But Russia is aligned with Iran and
with Assad and the Alawite Shias in Syria. So that Iran deal did not
allow Russia to come in.
COOPER: OK. Senator, I can give you 30 seconds to respond.
WEBB: I believe that the signal that we sent to the region when the
Iran nuclear deal was concluded was that we are accepting Irans
greater position on 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 weve seen in the past several weeks.
COOPER: Thirty seconds for each of you. Governor Chafee, what is
the greatest national security threat to the United States?
CHAFEE: Its certainly the chaos in the Middle East. Theres no
doubt about it.
COOPER: OK.
CHAFEE: And it all started with the Iraq invasion.
COOPER: Governor OMalley?
OMALLEY: I believe that nuclear Iran remains the biggest threat,
along with the threat of ISIL; climate change, of course, makes
cascading threats even more (inaudible).
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, the greatest national security threat?
CLINTON: I I think 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 seeking it, and thats why

we have to stay vigilant, but also united around the world to prevent
that.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, greatest national security threat?
SANDERS: The scientific community is telling us that if we do not
address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy
system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that
were going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well
not be habitable. That is a major crisis.
COOPER: Senator Webb?
WEBB: Our greatest long-term strategic challenge is our relation
with China. Our greatest day-to-day threat is cyber warfare against
this country. Our greatest military-operational threat is resolving the
situations in the Middle East.
COOPER: All right. Were going to take a short break. Do these
candidates see eye to eye on an issue that is driving a big wedge
between Republicans? That is next. Well be right back.
(APPLAUSE) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And 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 havent been able
to put this issue behind you. You dismissed it; you joked about it; you
called it a mistake. What does that say about your ability to handle
far more challenging crises as president?

CLINTON: Well, Ive taken responsibility for it. I did say it was a
mistake. What I did was allowed by the State Department, but it
wasnt the best choice. And 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. And youre right. I am going to be testifying. Ive been
asking to testify for some time and to do it in public, which was not
originally agreed to. But lets just take a minute here and point out
that this committee is basically an arm of the Republican National
Committee. (APPLAUSE) It is a partisan vehicle, as admitted by the
House Republican majority leader, Mr. McCarthy, to drive down my
poll numbers. Big surprise. And thats what they have attempted to
do. I am still standing. I am happy to be part of this debate.
(APPLAUSE) And 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? How are we going to pay down
student debt?
COOPER: Secretary...
CLINTON: How are we going to get health care for everybody...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, Secretary Clinton, with all due respect,
its a little hard I mean, isnt it a little bit hard to call this just a
partisan issue? Theres an FBI investigation, and President Obama
himself just two days ago said this is a legitimate issue.
CLINTON: Well, I never said it wasnt legitimate. I said that I have
answered all the questions and I will certainly be doing so again
before this committee. But 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 that something
like Benghazi wouldnt happen again. There were already seven
committee reports about what to do. So I think its pretty clear what
their obvious goal is.
COOPER: Thank you.
CLINTON: But Ill be there. Ill answer their questions. But tonight,
I want to talk not about my e-mails, but about what the American
people want from the next president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Senator Sanders?
SANDERS: Let me say this. (APPLAUSE)
Let me say let me say something that may not be great politics. But
I think the secretary is right, and that is that the American people are
sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.
Continue reading the main story

Highlights From the Debate

Catch up on analysis of the first Democratic presidential debate featuring Hillary

Rodham Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin OMalley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee.
(APPLAUSE) CLINTON: Thank you. Me, too. Me, too.
SANDERS: You know? The middle class Anderson, and 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

income inequality. Our trade policies have cost us millions of decent

jobs. The American people want to know whether were going to have
a democracy or an oligarchy as a result of Citizens Union. Enough of
the e-mails. Lets talk about the real issues facing America.
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: Thank you, Bernie. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Its obviously very popular in this crowd, and its hold
on.
(APPLAUSE)
I know that plays well in this room. But I got to be honest, Governor
Chafee, for the record, on the campaign trail, youve said a different
thing. You said this is a huge issue. Standing here in front of
Secretary Clinton, are you willing to say that to her face?
CHAFEE: Absolutely. We have to repair American credibility after
we told the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction, which he didnt. So theres an issue of American
credibility out there. So any time someone is running to be our
leader, and a world leader, which the American president is,
credibility is an issue out there with the world. And we have repair
work to be done. I think we need someone that has the best in ethical
standards as our next president. Thats how I feel.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, do you want to respond?
CLINTON: No.
COOPER: Governor Governor...

(APPLAUSE)
Governor OMalley...
(APPLAUSE)
Governor, its popular in the room, but a lot of people do want to
know these answers. Governor OMalley, you expressed concern on
the campaign trail that the Democratic Party is, and I quote, being
defined by Hillary Clintons email scandal. You heard her answer,
do you still feel that way tonight?
OMALLEY: I believe that now that were finally having debates,
Anderson, that we dont have to be defined by the email scandal, and
how long what the FBIs 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 the most to people
around the kitchen table. We need to get wages to go up, college
more affordable...
COOPER: ...Thank you, governor.
OMALLEY: ...we need to make American 100 percent clean electric
by 2050.
COOPER: I want to talk about issues of race in America, for that I
want to start of with Don Lemon.
LEMON: Alright, Anderson, thank you very much. Im not sure how
to follow that, but this question is about something that has tripped
some of the candidates up out on the campaign trail. Can you hear
me? Cant hear me in the room. OK, here we go again, as I said...

WILKINS: ...law school. My question for the candidates is, do black

lives matter, or do all lives matter?
COOPER: The question from Arthur...
LEMON: ...There we go...
COOPER: ...Do black lives matter, or do all lives matter? Lets put
that question to Senator Sanders.
SANDERS: Black lives matter.
(CHEERING)
SANDERS: And the reason the reason those words matter is the
African American community knows that on any given day some
innocent person like Sandra Bland can get into a car, and then three
days later shes going to end up dead in jail, or their kids...
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: ...are going to get shot. We need to combat institutional
racism from top to bottom, and we need major, major reforms in a
broken criminal justice system...
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: ...In which we have more people in jail than China. And,
I intended to tackle that issue. To make sure that our people have
education and jobs rather than jail cells.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Governor OMalley, the question from Arthur was do
black lives matter, or do all lives matter?

OMALLEY: Anderson, the point that the Black Lives Matter

movement is making is a very, very legitimate and serious point, and
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 we
burying over 350 young men ever single year, mostly young, and
poor, and black, and I said to our legislature, at the time when I
appeared in front of them as a mayor, that if we were burying white,
young, poor men in these number 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.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, what would you do for African
Americans in this country that President Obama couldnt?
CLINTON: Well, I think that President Obama has been a great
moral leader on these issues, and has laid out an agenda that has
been obstructed by the Republicans at every turn, so...
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: ...So, what we need to be doing is not only reforming
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 commissioner 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 only bi-partisan issue in the congress this year. We
actually have people on both sides of the aisle who have reached the
same conclusion, that we can not keep imprisoning more people than
anybody else in the world. But, I believe that the debate, and the

discussion has to go further, Anderson, because weve got to do more

about the lives of these children. Thats why I started off by saying we
need to be committed to making it possible for every child to live up
to his or her god given potential. That is...
COOPER: ...Thank you, Senator...
CLINTON: ...really hard to do if you dont have early childhood
education...
COOPER: Senator...
CLINTON: ...if you dont have schools that are able to meet the
needs of the people, or good housing, theres a long list...
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: ...We need a new New Deal for communities of color...
COOPER: Senator Webb?
WEBB: I hope I can 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 of African Americans. Were talking about criminal justice
reform, I risked my political life raising the issue of criminal justice
reform when I ran for the Senate in Virginia in 2006. I had
democratic party political consultants telling me I was committing
political suicide. We led that issue in the congress. We started a
national debate on it. And it wasnt until then that the Republican
Party started joining in. I also represented a so-called war criminal,
an African American Marine who was wounded who was convicted
of murder in Vietnam, for six years. He took his life three years into
this. I cleared his name after after three years.

COOPER: Thanks, sir.

WEBB: And I put the African American soldier on the Mall. I made
that recommendation and fought for it. So, if you want someone who
is 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.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, lets talk about income inequality.
Wages and incomes are flat. Youve argued that the gap between rich
and poor is wider than at any time since the 1920s. Weve had a
Democratic president for seven years. What are you going to be able
to do that President Obama didnt?
SANDERS: Well, first of all, lets remember where we were when
Bush left office. We were losing 800,000 jobs a month. And I know
my Republican friends seem to have some amnesia on this issue, but
the worlds financial crisis was on the worlds financial markets
system was on the verge of collapse. Thats where we were. Are we
better off today than we were then? Absolutely. But the truth is that
for the 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)
COOPER: Secretary Clinton... (CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Ill let you jump in a moment. Everybody will get in on
this in a moment. Secretary Clinton, how would you address this
issue? In all candor, you and your husband are part of the one

percent. How can you credibly represent the views of the middle
class?
CLINTON: Well, you know, both Bill and I have been very blessed.
Neither of us came from wealthy families and weve 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 at other
points. Its absolutely right. It hasnt 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. The economy does
better when you have a Democrat in the White House and thats why
we need to have a Democrat in the White House in January 2017.
COOPER: Governor OMalley, (inaudible).
OMALLEY: Yes. Anderson, I want to associate myself with many of
the items that the senator from Vermont mentioned, and I actually
did them in our state. We raised the minimum wage, passed the
living wage, invested more in infrastructure, went four years in a row
without a pennys increase in college tuition. But theres another
piece that Senator Sanders left out tonight, but hes been excellent
about underscoring that. And that is that we need to separate the
casino, speculative, mega-bank gambling that we have to insure with
our money, from the commercial banking namely, reinstating
Glass-Steagall. Secretary Clinton mentioned my support eight years
ago. And Secretary, I was proud to support you eight years ago, but
something happened in between, and that is, Anderson, a Wall Street
crash that wiped out millions of jobs and millions of savings for

families. And we are still just as vulnerable Paul Volcker says today.
We need to reinstate Glass-Steagall and thats a huge difference on
this stage among us as candidates.
COOPER: Just for viewers at home who may not be reading up on
this, Glass-Steagall is the Depression-era banking law repealed in
1999 that prevented commercial banks from engaging in investment
banking and insurance activities. Secretary Clinton, he raises a
fundamental difference on this stage. Senator Sanders wants to break
up the big Wall Street banks. You dont. You say charge the banks
more, continue to monitor them. Why is your plan better?
CLINTON: Well, my plan is more comprehensive. And frankly, its
tougher because of course we have to deal with the problem that the
banks are still too big to fail. We can never let the American taxpayer
and middle class families ever have to bail out the kind of speculative
behavior that we saw. But we also have to worry about some of the
other players AIG, a big insurance company; Lehman Brothers, an
investment bank. Theres this whole area called shadow banking.
Thats where the experts tell me the next potential problem could
come from.
CLINTON: So Im with both Senator Sanders and Governor
OMalley in putting a lot of attention onto the banks. And the plan
that I have put forward would actually empower regulators to break
up big banks if we thought they posed a risk. But I want to make sure
were going to cover everybody, not what caused the problem last
time, but what could cause it next time.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Senator Sanders, Secretary Clinton just said that her
policy is tougher than yours.

SANDERS: Well, thats not true.

(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: Why?
SANDERS: 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.
(APPLAUSE)
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. (APPLAUSE) Today, it is my
view that when you have the three...
COOPER: Senator...
SANDERS: ...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.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, you have to be able to respond. He
brought you up.
CLINTON: Yeah. You know, I I respect the passion an intensity. I
represented Wall Street, as a senator from New York, and 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 were gonna do to do exactly what I think both the
senator and the governor want, which is to rein in and stop this risk.
And my plan would have the potential of actually sending the
executives to jail. Nobody went to jail after $100 billion in fines were
paid...
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: (inaudible)
CLINTON: ...and would give regulators the authority to go after the
big banks.
COOPER: Thank you. Thank you. Senator Sanders...
CLINTON: But Im telling you I will say it tonight. If only you
look at the big banks, you may be missing the forest for the trees.
(CROSSTALK)
WEBB: Bernie, say my name so I can get into this.
SANDERS: I will, just a second.
WEBB: OK. Thank you.
(LAUGHTER)
SANDERS: Ill tell him. In my view, Secretary Clinton, you do not
Congress does not regulate Wall Street. Wall Street regulates
Congress. (APPLAUSE) And we have gotta break off these banks.
Going to them...

CLINTON: So...
SANDERS: ...and saying, please, do the right thing...
CLINTON: ...no, thats not what... SANDERS: ...is kind of naive.
CLINTON: ...that I think Dodd-Frank was a
very... WEBB: Anderson, I need to jump in (inaudible).
CLINTON: ...good start, and I think that we have to implement it.
We have to prevent the Republicans from ripping it apart. We have
to save the Consumer Financial Protection board, which is finally
beginning to act to protect consumers. (APPLAUSE) We have work
to do. Youve got no argument from me. But I know, if we dont come
in with a very tough and comprehensive approach, like the plan Im
recommending, were gonna be behind instead of ahead...
COOPER: Governor OMalley? Where do you stand?
CLINTON: ...on what the next crisis could be.
OMALLEY: Anderson, look, this is the big banks I mean, once
we repealed Glass-Steagall back in the late 1999s (ph), the big banks,
the six of them, went from controlling, what, the equivalent of 15
percent of our GDP to now 65 percent of our GDP. And (inaudible)
right before this debate, Secretary Clintons campaign put out a lot of
reversals on positions on Keystone and many other things. But one of
them that we still have a great difference on, Madam Secretary, is
that you are not for Glass-Steagall. You are not for putting a firewall
between this speculative, risky shadow banking behavior. I am, and
the people of our country need a president whos on their side,
willing to protect the Main Street economy from recklessness on Wall
Street. We have to fulfill...

COOPER: Secretary Clinton...

OMALLEY: ...our promise.
COOPER: I have to let you respond.
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: Well, you know, everybody on this stage has changed a
position or two. Weve been around a cumulative quite some period
of time.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, we know that if you are learning, youre gonna 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 (ph) a meeting with the Chinese and got them to sign up to
the first international agreement to combat climate change that
theyd ever joined. So Im...
COOPER: Thank you.
CLINTON: ...not taking a back seat to anybody on my values...
COOPER: Thank...
CLINTON: ...my principles and the results that I get.
COOPER: Senator Sanders...
(APPLAUSE)
Senator Sanders, in 2008, congressional leaders were told, without
the 2008 bailout, the U.S. was possibly days away from a complete

meltdown. Despite that, you still voted against it. As president, would
you stand by your principles if it risked the countrys financial
stability?
SANDERS: Well, I remember that meeting very well. I remember it
like it was yesterday. Hank Paulson, Bernanke came in, and they say,
guys, the economy is going to collapse because Wall Street is going
under. Its gonna take the economy with them. And you know what I
said to Hank Paulson? I said, Hank, your guys you come from
Goldman Sachs. Your millionaire and billionaire friends caused this
problem. How about your millionaire and billionaire friends paying
for the bailout, not working families in this country? So to answer
your question, no, I would not have let the economy collapse. But it
was wrong to ask the middle class to bail out Wall Street. And by the
way, I want Wall Street now to help kids in this country go to college,
public colleges and universities, free with a Wall Street speculation
tax.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Were going to talk about that in a minute. But, Senator
Webb, I want to get you in. You have said neither party has the guts
to take on Wall Street. Is the system rigged?
WEBB: There is a reality that I think we all need to recognize with
respect to the power of the financial sector. And let me just go back a
minute and say that on this TARP program, I introduced a piece of
legislation calling for a windfall profits tax on the executives of any of
these companies that got more than $5 billion, 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 mean, I know that 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
cant get into the discussion.
COOPER: You agreed to these rules and youre wasting time. So if
you would finish your answer, well move on.
WEBB: All right. Well, Im trying to set a mark here so maybe we
can get into a little more later on. This hasnt been equal time. But if
you want to look at what has happened, if we look at the facts in
terms of how were going to deal with this, since that crash, in the
last 10 years, the amount of the worlds capital economy that Wall
Street manages has gone from 44 percent to 55 percent. That means
the Wall Street money managers are not risking themselves as the
same way the American people are when theyre going to get their
compensation. Theyre managing money from all over the world. We
have to take that into consideration when were looking at ways to
regulate it.
COOPER: Governor Chafee, you have attacked Secretary Clinton for
being too close to Wall Street banks. In 1999 you voted for the very
bill that made banks bigger.
Continue reading the main story
INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC

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History suggests that each partys eventual nominee will emerge from 2015 in one of the
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OPEN INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC

CHAFEE: The Glass-Steagall was my very first vote, Id just arrived,

my dad had died in office, I was appointed to the office, it was my
very first vote.
COOPER: Are you saying you didnt know what you were voting
for?
CHAFEE: Id just arrived at the Senate. I think wed get some
takeovers, and that was one. It was my very first vote, and it was 925. It was the...
COOPER: Well, with all due respect, Governor...
CHAFEE: But let me just say...
COOPER: ... what does that say about you that youre casting a vote
for something you werent really sure about?

CHAFEE: I think youre being a little rough. Id just arrived at the

United States Senate. Id been mayor of my city. My dad had died. Id
been appointed by the governor. It was the first vote and it was 90-5,
because it was a conference report. But let me just say about income
inequality. Weve had a lot of talk over the last few minutes, hours, or
tens of minutes, but no one is saying how were going to fix it. And it
all started with the Bush tax cuts that favored the wealthy. So lets go
back to the tax code. And 0.6 percent of Americans are at the top
echelon, over 464,000, 0.6 Americans. Thats less than 1 percent. But
they generate 30 percent of the revenue. And theyre doing fine.
COOPER: Thank you, Governor.
CHAFEE: So theres still a lot more money to be had from this top
echelon. Im saying lets have another tier and put that back into the
tax bracket. And that will generate $42 billion.
COOPER: I want to bring in Dana Bash.
CHAFEE: And then we can help the middle class and hard-earning
Americans hard-working Americans.
COOPER: Dana?
BASH: Thank you. CNN visited college campuses, along with
Facebook. And not surprisingly college affordability was among the
most pressing issue. Senator Sanders, youve mentioned a couple of
times you do have a plan to make public colleges free for everyone.
Secretary Clinton has criticized that in saying shes not in favor of
making a college free for Donald Trumps kids. Do you think
taxpayers should pick up the tab for wealthy children?

SANDERS: Well, let me tell you, Donald Trump and his billionaire
friends under my policies are going to pay a hell of a lot more in taxes
today taxes in the future than theyre paying today.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: 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. And 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 dont need a complicated system, which the
secretary is talking about, the income goes down, the income goes
down, if youre poor you have to work, and so forth and so on. I pay
for my program, by the way, 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.
(APPLAUSE)
BASH: And, Secretary Clinton, its not just college tuition that
Senator Sanders is talking about, expanding Social Security and
giving all Americans Medicare. Whats wrong with that?
CLINTON: 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 me, the hardest thing about going to college should

not be paying for it. So then we have to make it more affordable. How
do we make it more affordable? My plan would enable anyone to go
to a public college or university tuition free. You would not have to
borrow money for tuition. But I do believe and maybe its because
I worked when I went through college; I worked when I went through
law school I think its important for everybody to have some part
of getting this accomplished. Thats why I call it a compact.
BASH: Secretary Clinton...
CLINTON: But, yes, I would like students to work 10 hours a week...
BASH: Can you answer the...
SANDERS: ... in order to make it possible for them to afford their
education. And I want colleges to get their costs down. They are
outrageously high in what theyre charging.
BASH: Secretary Clinton, 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?
CLINTON: Well, I fully support Social Security. And the most
important fight were going to have is defending it against continuing
Republican efforts to privatize it.
BASH: Do you want to expand it?
CLINTON: 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 didnt 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 it the most. And of
course Im going to defend Social Security. Im going to look for ways
to try to make sure its solvent into the future. And we also need to
talk about health care at some time, because we agree on the goals,
we just disagree on the means.
SANDERS: When the Republicans when the Republicans in the
Congress and some Democrats were talking about cutting Social
Security and benefits for disabled veterans, for the so-called chained
CPI, 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 dont know how they do on $11,000,
$12,000, $13,000 a year you dont cut Social Security, you expand
it. And the way you expand it is by lifting the cap on taxable incomes
so that you do away with the absurdity of a millionaire paying the
same amount into the system as somebody making $118,000. You do
that, Social Security is solvent until 2061 and you can expand
benefits.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Senator Sanders, I want to bring it over to Juan Carlos
Lopez from CNN en Espanol. Were obviously in Nevada. Its had the
highest percentage of undocumented immigrants of any state in the
country as of last year. Juan Carlos?
LOPEZ: Gracias, Anderson. Senator Sanders, in 2013, you voted for
immigration reform. But in 2007, when Democrats controlled
Congress and the Bush White House was onboard, you voted against
it. Why should Latino voters trust you now when you left them at the
altar at the moment when reform was very close?

SANDERS: I didnt leave anybody at the altar. I voted against that

piece of legislation because it had guest-worker provisions in it which
the Southern Poverty Law Center talked about being semi-slavery.
Guest workers are coming in, theyre working under terrible
conditions, but if they stand up for their rights, theyre thrown out of
the country. I was not the only progressive to vote against that
legislation for that reason. Tom Harkin, a very good friend of Hillary
Clintons and mine, one of the leading labor advocates, also voted
against that.
LOPEZ: Tom Harkin isnt running for president. You are.
SANDERS: I know that. But point being is that progressives did
vote against that for that reason. My view right now and always
has been is that when you have 11 million undocumented people in
this country, we need comprehensive immigration reform, we need a
path toward citizenship, we need to take people out of the shadows.
OMALLEY: And Juan Carlos Juan Carlos...
LOPEZ: Secretary Clinton Secretary Clinton, Governor OMalley
wants to open up Obamacare to millions of undocumented
immigrants and their children, including almost 90,000 people right
here in Nevada. Do you?
CLINTON: Well, first of all, I want to make sure every child gets
health care. Thats why I helped to create the Childrens 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 OMalley has recommended, so that
they would get the same subsidies. I think that is it raises so many

issues. It would be very difficult to administer, it needs to be part of a

comprehensive immigration reform, when we finally do get to it.
LOPEZ: Governor OMalley?
OMALLEY: Juan Carlos, I think what youve heard up here is some
of the old thinking on immigration reform, and thats why its
gridlocked. We need to understand that our country is stronger in
every generation by the arrival of new American immigrants. That is
why I have put out a policy for comprehensive immigration reform,
that is why I would go further than President Obama has on DACA,
and DAPA. I mean, we are a nation of immigrants, we are made
stronger by immigrants. Do you think for a second that simply
because somebodys standing in a broken que on naturalization
theyre not going to go to the hospital, and that care isnt going to fall
on to our insurance rates? I am for a generous, compassionate
America that says were all in this together. We need comprehensive
COOPER: Senator Webb...
OMALLEY: ...immigration reform. Itll make wages go up in
America $250 for every year...
LOPEZ: Senator Webb, do you support the undocumented
immigrants getting Obamacare?
WEBB: I wouldnt have a problem with that. Let me start by saying
my wife is an immigrant. She was a refugee, her family escaped from
Vietnam on a boat her entire extended family, after the
communists took over, when hundreds of thousands of people were
out there and thousands of them were dying. Went to two refugee
camps, she never spoke English in her home, and she ended, as I
said, graduating from Cornell Law School. Thats not only American

dream, thats a value that we have with a good immigration system in

place. No country has is a country without defining its borders. We
need to resolve this issue. I actually introduced an amendment in the
2007 immigration bill...
LOPEZ: ...Thank you, Senator.
WEBB: ...Giving a pathway to citizenship to those people who had
come here, and put down their roots, and met as a series of
standards...
COOPER: ...Thank you, Senator.
WEBB: ...lost (ph) I introduced that in 2007 We need a
comprehensive reform, and we need to be able to define our
borders.COOPER: Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: I want to follow up because I think underneath Juan
Carlos important questions, there is such a difference between
everything youre hearing here on this stage, and what we hear from
the Republicans.
(APPLAUSE)
OMALLEY: Here. Here.
(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: Demonize hard-working immigrants who have insulted
them. You know, I came to Las Vegas in, I think, May. Early may.
Met with a group of DREAMers, I wish everybody in America could
meet with this young people, to hear their stories, to know their
incredible talent, their determination, and thats why I would go
further...

COOPER: ...Secretary...
CLINTON: ...than even the executive orders that President Obama
has signed when Im president.
(CROSS TALK)
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, let me ask you. Two of your rivals from
your left, Governor OMalley, and Senator Sanders, want to provide
instate college tuition to undocumented immigrants. Where do you
stand on that?
CLINTON: My plan would support any state that takes that
position, and would work with those states and encourage more
states to do the same thing.
COOPER: So, on the record, you believe that undocumented
immigrants should get instate college tuition.
CLINTON: If their states agree, then we want more states to do the
same thing. COOPER: Governor OMalley? OMALLEY: Anderson,
we actually did this in my state of Maryland. We passed...
(APPLAUSE)
OMALLEY: We passed a state version of the DREAM Act...
(CHEERING)
OMALLEY: ...And a lot of the xenophobes, the immigrant haters
like some that weve heard like, Donald Trump, that carnival barker
in the Republican party...
(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE)

OMALLEY: 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 percent of the vote.
The more our children learn, the more they will earn, and thats true
of children who have yet to be naturalized...
COOPER: ...Senator...
OMALLEY: ...but will become American citizens...
COOPER: Senator Sanders, you talked about your record on the
Veteran affairs committee. You served on that committee for the last
eight years, including two years as its chairman while veterans died
waiting for health care. You and Senator McCain ultimately
addressed the issue with bi-partisan legislation. Why did it take 18
Inspector General reports, and a CNN investigation, and others,
before you and your colleagues took action?
SANDERS: Well, I was chairman for two years, and when I was
chairman we did take action. What we did is pass a $15 billion dollar
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 the community health center, or the private sector.
As a result of that legislation, we went further in than any time in
recent history in improving health care for the men and women of
this country who put their lives on the line to defend them.
COOPER: Governor Chafee, you and Hillary Clinton both voted for
the Patriot Act which created the NSA surveillance program. Youve

emphasized civil liberties, privacy during your campaign. Arent

these two things in conflict?
CHAFEE: No, that was another 99 to one vote for the Patriot Act,
and it was seen as at the time modernizing our ability to do what
weve always done to tap phones which always required a warrant.
And I voted for that.
COOPER: Do you regret that vote?
CHAFEE: No, no. As long as youre getting a warrant, I believe that
under the Fourth Amendment, you should be able to do surveillance,
but you need a warrant. Thats what the Fourth Amendment says.
And in the Patriot Act, section 215 started to get broadened too far.
So I would be in favor of addressing and reforming section 215 of the
Patriot Act.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, do you regret your vote on the Patriot
Act?
CLINTON: No, I dont. 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. Its not easy in a democracy, but we have to keep it in mind.
COOPER: Senator Senator Sanders, youre the only one on this
stage who voted against the Patriot Act in 2001...
(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: It was 99 to one and I was maybe the one. I dont know.
COOPER: ... and the reauthorization votes. Let me ask you, if
elected, would you shut down the NSA surveillance program?
SANDERS: Im sorry?
COOPER: Would you shut down the NSA surveillance program?
SANDERS: Absolutely. Of course. COOPER: You would, point
blank.
SANDERS: Well, I would shut down make Id 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 its not
just government surveillance. I think the government is involved in
our e-mails; is involved in our websites. 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.
OMALLEY (?): Anderson, the NSA...
COOPER: Governor Chafee, Edward Snowden, is he a traitor or a
hero?
CHAFEE: No, I would bring him home. The courts have ruled that
what he did what he did was say the American...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Bring him home, no jail time?

CHAFEE: ... the American government was acting illegally. Thats

what the federal courts have said; what Snowden did showed that the
American government was acting illegally for the Fourth
Amendment. So I would bring him home.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, hero or traitor?
CLINTON: He broke the laws of the United States. He could have
been a whistleblower. He could have gotten all of the protections of
being a whistleblower. He could have raised all the issues that he has
raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that.
COOPER: Should he do jail time? ClINTON: In addition in
addition, he stole very important information that has unfortunately
fallen into a lot of the wrong hands. So I dont think he should be
brought home without facing the music.
COOPER: Governor OMalley, Snowden?
(APPLAUSE)
OMALLEY: Anderson, Snowden put a lot of Americans lives at
risk. Snowden broke the law. Whistleblowers do not run to Russia
and try to get protection from Putin. If he really believes that, he
should be back here.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, Edward Snowden?
SANDERS: I think Snowden played a very important role in
educating the American people to the degree in which our civil
liberties and our constitutional rights are being
undermined. COOPER: Is he a hero?

SANDERS: He did he did break the law, and I think there should
be a penalty to that. But I think what he did in educating us should
be taken into consideration before he is (inaudible)
. COOPER: Senator Webb, Edward Snowden?
WEBB: I well, I I would leave his ultimate judgment to the
legal system. Heres what I do believe. We have a serious problem in
terms of the collection of personal information in this country. And
one of the things that I did during the FISA bill in 2007, the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, was introduce with Russ Feingold two
amendments basically saying, We understand the realities of how
you have to collect this broad information in the Internet age, but
after a certain period of time, you need to destroy the personal
information that you have if people have not been brought if
criminal justice proceedings have not been brought against them.
Weve got 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.
COOPER: Another another question for each of you, starting with
Governor Chafee. Name the one thing the one way that your
administration would not be a third term of President Obama.
CHAFEE: Certainly, ending the wars. Weve got to stop these wars.
You have to have a new dynamic, a new paradigm. We just spent a
half-billion dollars arming and training soldiers, the rebel soldiers in
Syria. They quickly join the other side. We bombed the...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: President Obamas generals right now are suggesting
keeping troops in Afghanistan after the time he wanted them pulled
out. Would you keep them there?

CHAFEE: Id like to finish my question my answer. And also we

just bombed a hospital. Weve had drone strikes that hit civilian
weddings. So I would change how we our approach to the Middle
East. We need a new paradigm in the Middle East.
COOPER: Governor OMalley, how would you be different than
President Obamas administration?
OMALLEY: I would follow through on the promise that the
American people thought we made as Democratic Party, to protect
the Main Street economy from recklessness on Wall Street. I would
push to separate out these too-big-to-jail, too-big-to-fail banks, and
put in place Glass-Steagall, a modern Glass-Steagall that creates a
firewall so that this wreckage of our economy can never happen
again.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, how would you not be a third term of
President Obama?
CLINTON: Well, I think thats pretty obvious. I think being the first
woman president would be quite a change from the presidents weve
had up until this point, including President Obama.
COOPER: Is there a policy difference?
CLINTON: Well, theres a lot that I would like to do to build on the
successes of President Obama, but also, as Im laying out, to go
beyond. And thats 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 Ive been talking about
throughout this campaign to go further.
COOPER: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: I have a lot of respect for president Obama. I have

worked with him time and time again on many, many issues. But
heres 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.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Senator Webb, how would you not be a third term for
Obama?
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WEBB: I got a great deal of admiration and affection for Senator

Sanders, but I Bernie, I dont think the revolutions going to come.
And I dont think the Congress is going to pay for a lot of this stuff.
And 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 counsel in the Congress, used to
put dozens of bills through the House floor every year as a committee
counsel on the Veterans Committee. I have a very strong feeling
about how our federal system works and how we need to lead and
energize the congressional process instead of allowing these divisions
to continue to paralyze what were doing. So I would lead working

with both parties in the Congress and working through them in the
traditional way that our Constitution sets (ph).
COOPER: Senator Sanders, he cited you. You dont hear a lot of
Democratic presidential candidates talking about revolution. What
do you mean?
SANDERS: What I mean is that 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 whats
going on in Washington in a way that today they do not know.
(APPLAUSE) 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.
OMALLEY: Anderson, I actually have talked about a revolution.
What we need is a green energy revolution. We need to move
America to a 100 percent clean electric grid by 2050 and create 5
million jobs along the way.
COOPER: And we want to and were going to talk more about
climate change and environmental issues coming up. Some of the
candidates have tried marijuana, as have pretty much probably
everybody in this room.
(LAUGHTER)
Others have not. Does that influence does it influence their views
on legalization? Find out that and others ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: 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 Im very happy to see.
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: Its a long story. Lets continue, shall we? Secretary
Clinton, welcome back.
CLINTON: Well, thank you.
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: You know, it does take me a little longer. Thats all I can
say.
COOPER: Thats right. Secretary Clinton, Governor OMalley says
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
politics, just ask Bernie Sanders. Why should Democrats embrace an
insider like yourself?
CLINTON: Well, I cant think of anything more of an outsider than
electing the first woman president, but Im not just running because I
would be the first woman president.
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: Im running because I have a lifetime of experience in
getting results and fighting for people, fighting for kids, for women,
for families, fighting to 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 were going to need both of those in
Washington to get anything that were talking about up here

accomplished. So Im 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.
COOPER: Governor OMalley, do you want to tell Secretary Clinton
why she shouldnt get the crown?
OMALLEY: Well, actually, you know, we had this conversation.
And I will share with you that Ive traveled all around the country,
Anderson, and theres two phrases I keep hearing again and again
and again. And theyre the phrases new leadership and getting
things done. We cannot be this dissatisfied with our gridlocked
national politics and an economy where 70 percent 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 our country
needs new leadership to move forward.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, you have to be able to respond, if you
want.
CLINTON: Well, I would not ask anyone to vote for me based on my
last name. I would ask them to listen to what Im proposing, look at
what Ive accomplished in the Senate, as secretary of of state, and
then draw your own conclusion. I certainly am not campaigning to
become president because my last name is Clinton. Im campaigning
because I think I have the right combination of what the country
needs, at this point, and I think I can take the fight to the
Republicans, because we cannot afford a Republican to succeed
Barack Obama as president of the United States.
COOPER: (inaudible). (APPLAUSE) Senator Sanders, does she have
the right stuff?

SANDERS: I think I think that there is profound frustration all

over this country with establishment politics. I am the only candidate
running for president who is not a billionaire, who has raised
substantial sums of money, and I do not have a super PAC.
(APPLAUSE)
I am not raising money from millionaires and billionaires, and in
fact, tonight, in terms of what a political revolution is about, there
are 4,000 house parties 100,000 people in this country
watching this debate tonight who want real change in this country.
COOPER: weve got we a lot of questions weve got about
climate change, and were gonna go to Don Lemon. Don?
LEMON: All right. This one is for Martin OMalley. Anderson,
Governor OMalley, this is from Anna Bettis from Tempe, Arizona.
Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: As a young person, Im very concerned about climate
change and how it will affect my future. As a presidential candidate,
what will you do to address climate change?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, Governor OMalley, please tell Anna how you would
protect the environment better than all the other candidates up on
that stage.
OMALLEY: Yeah. Anna, I have put forward a plan and Im the
only candidate, I believe, in either party to do this to move
America forward to a 100 percent clean electric grid by 2050. We did
not land a man on the moon with an all-of-the-above strategy. It was

an intentional engineering challenge, and we solved it as a nation.

And our nation must solve this one. So I put forward the plan that
would extend the investor tax credits for solar and for wind. If you go
across Iowa, you see that 30 percent of their energy now comes from
wind. Were 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 its going
to require presidential leadership. And as president, I intend to sign
as my very first order in office the an order that moves us as a
nation and dedicates our resources to solving this problem and
moving us to a 100 percent clean electric grid by 2050.
COOPER: Governor...
OMALLEY: We can do it.
COOPER: ...Governor OMalley, thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
Senator Webb, you have a very different view than just about
anybody else on this stage, and unlike a lot of Democrats. Youre procoal, youre pro-offshore drilling, youre pro-Keystone pipeline. Are
again, are you the question is, are you out of step with the
Democratic party?
WEBB: Well, the the question really is how are we going to solve
energy problems here and in the global environment if you really
want to address climate change? And 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. Im 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. Weve done a good

job in this country since 1970. If you look at China and India, theyre
the greatest polluters in the world. Fifteen 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. Its a global problem and I have
been very strong on on doing that. The the agreements the socalled agreements that we have had with China are illusory in terms
of the immediate requirements of the of the Chinese government
itself. So lets solve this problem in an international way, and then we
really will have a a way to address climate change.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, are you tougher on on climate change
than Secretary Clinton?
SANDERS: Well, I will tell you this. I believe and Pope Francis
made this point. This is a moral issue. The scientists are telling us
that we need to move extremely boldly. I am proud that, along with
Senator Barbara Boxer, a few years ago, we introduced the first piece
of climate change legislation which called for a tax on carbon. And let
me also tell you that nothing is gonna 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...
(APPLAUSE)
...and certainly is not prepared to go forward aggressively. This is a
moral issue. We have got to be extremely aggressive in working with
China, India, Russia.
COOPER: Senator thank you, Senator.
SANDERS: The planet the future of the planet is at stake.

COOPER: Secretary Clinton, I want you to be able to respond, then

Im gonna go to (ph) (inaudible).
CLINTON: Well, that thats exactly what Ive 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 against climate change
unless China and India join with the rest of the world. They told us
theyd left for the airport; we found out they were having a secret
meeting. We marched up, we broke in, we said, Weve been looking
all over for you. Lets sit down and talk about what we need to do.
And we did come up with the first international agreement that
China has signed. Thanks to President Obamas leadership, its now
gone much further.
COOPER: Thank you. CLINTON: And I do think that the bilateral
agreement that President Obama made with the Chinese was
significant. Now, it needs to go further, and there will be an
international meeting at the end of this year, and we must get
verifiable commitments to fight climate change from every country
gathered there.
COOPER: Dana Bash?
BASH: Secretary Clinton, you now support mandated paid family
leave.
CLINTON: Mm-hmm.
BASH: Carly Fiorina, the first female CEO of a Fortune 50 company,
argues, if the government requires paid leave, it will force small
businesses to, quote, hire fewer people and create fewer jobs. What

do you say not only to Carly Fiorina, but also a small-business owner
out there who says, you know, I like this idea, but I just cant afford
it?
CLINTON: Well, Im surprised she says that, because California has
had a paid leave program for a number of years. And its...
BASH: Its on the federal level.
CLINTON: Well, but all well, on a state level, a state as big as
many countries in the world. And it has not had the ill effects that the
Republicans are always saying it will have. And I think this is this
is typical Republican scare tactics. We can design a system and pay
for it that does not put the burden on small businesses. I remember
as a young mother, you know, having a baby wake up who was sick
and Im supposed to be in court, because I was practicing law. I know
what its like. And I think we need to recognize the incredible
challenges that so many parents face, particularly working moms. I
see my good friend, Senator Gillibrand, in the front row. Shes been a
champion of this. We need to get a consensus through this campaign,
which is why Im talking about it everywhere I go, and we need to
join the rest of the advanced world in having it.
BASH: But Secretary Secretary Clinton, even many people who
agree with you might say, look, this is very hard to do, especially in
todays day and age. There are so many people who say, Really?
Another government program? Is that what youre proposing? And at
the expense of taxpayer money?
CLINTON: Well, look, you know, when people say that its always
the Republicans or their sympathizers who say, You cant have paid
leave, you cant provide health care. They dont mind having big
government to interfere with a womans right to choose and to try to

take down Planned Parenthood. Theyre fine with big government

when it comes to that. Im sick of it. (APPLAUSE) You know, we can
do these things.
(APPLAUSE)
We should not be paralyzed we should not be paralyzed by the
Republicans and their constant refrain, big government this, big
government that, that except for what they want to impose on the
American people. I know we can afford it, because were going to
make the wealthy pay for it. That is the way to get it done.
COOPER: Thank you. Senator Sanders?
SANDERS: Yeah, Dana, heres the point: Every other major country
on Earth, every one, including some small countries, say that when a
mother has a baby, she should stay home with that baby. We are the
only major country. That is an international embarrassment that we
do not provide family paid family and medical leave.
(APPLAUSE)
Second of all, the secretary is right. Republicans tell us we cant do
anything except give tax breaks to billionaires and cut Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Thats not what the American
people want.
COOPER: Governor OMalley?
OMALLEY: Anderson, in our state, we actually expanded family
leave. And I have to agree with Secretary Clinton and Senator
Sanders. Look, 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 arent 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 and keeping jobs and
moving forwards. We would be a stronger nation economically if we
had paid family leave.
COOPER: Governor, thank you. The issue now, particularly in this
state, is recreational marijuana. I want to go to Juan Carlos Lopez.
LOPEZ: Thank you, Anderson. Senator Sanders, right here in
Nevada, there will be a measure to legalize recreational marijuana on
the 2016 ballot.
Youve said you smoked marijuana twice; it didnt quite work for you.
If you were a Nevada resident, how would you vote?
SANDERS: I suspect I would vote yes.
(APPLAUSE)
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...
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: ...which has done an enormous amount of damage. We
need to rethink our criminal justice system, we weve got a lot of
work to do in that area.
OMALLEY: Juan Carlos?

(APPLAUSE)
LOPEZ: Secretary Clinton, you told Christiane Amanpour you didnt
smoke pot when you were young, and youre not going to start now.
(LAUGHTER)
LOPEZ: When asked about legalizing recreational marijuana, you
told her lets wait and see how it plays out in Colorado and
Washington. Its been more than a year since youve said that. Are
you ready to take a position tonight?
CLINTON: No. I think that 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 were going to help people for whom medical marijuana
provides relief. So, I think were 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 states, cities, and the
federal government to begin to address this so that we dont have this
terrible result that Senator Sanders was talking about where we have
a huge population in our prisons for nonviolent, low-level offenses
that are primarily due to marijuana.
COOPER: Secretary Clinton, thank you. I want to go to Don Lemon
with another Facebook question.
LEMON: Alright, Anderson. This is for Senator Sanders, OK? This is
from Carrie (ph) Kang (ph) from Manassas, Virginia, would like
would like to ask the Senator, 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?
SANDERS: The Republican party, since Ive been in the Senate, and
since President Obama has been in office, has played a terrible,
terrible role of being total obstructionists. 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
are, by the way, I hope will not continue to control the Senate and the
House when one of us elected President...
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: ...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 cant refuse. If
we want to raise the minimum wage to $15 bucks an hour, workers
are going to have to come together and look the Republicans in the
eye, and say, We know whats going on. You vote against us, you are
out of your job.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Were going to hear from all the candidates coming up.
Were going to take a short break. More from the candidates in a
moment.
(APPLAUSE) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And welcome back to the final round of the CNN
Democratic presidential debate. This is a question to each of you.
Each of you, by the way, are going to have closing statements to
make. Each of you will have 90 seconds. But a final question to each

of you. If you can, just try to 15 seconds if you can. Governor

Chafee, Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, I ask you to judge me
by the enemies I have made. Youve all made a few people upset
over your political careers. Which enemy are you most proud of?
(LAUGHTER)
CHAFEE: I guess the coal lobby. Ive worked hard for climate
change and I want to work with the coal lobby. But in my time in the
Senate, tried to bring them to the table so that we could address
carbon dioxide. Im proud to be at odds with the coal lobby.
COOPER: Governor OMalley?
OMALLEY: The National Rifle Association.
(APPLAUSE) COOPER: Secretary Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, in addition to the NRA, the health insurance
companies, the drug companies, the Iranians. (LAUGHTER)
Probably the Republicans.
(LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Senator Sanders?
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 life of people who do
not like me.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Senator Webb?

WEBB: Id have to say the enemy soldier that threw the grenade
that wounded me, but hes not around right now to talk to.
COOPER: All right. Time for closing statements. Each of you will
have 90 seconds. Governor Chafee, lets begin with you.
CHAFEE: Thank you, Anderson. Thank you, CNN. And thank you,
Facebook, for sponsoring this debate. America has many challenges
confronting us ending the perpetual wars, addressing climate
change, addressing income inequality, funding education, funding
infrastructure, funding healthcare, helping black Americans, helping
Native Americans. We have many challenges. Who is best able to
confront these challenges? Ive served in government at many levels.
I know what its like to solve problems at the local level because I did
it as mayor. I know how to get legislation passed through Congress
because I did it as a senator. I know how to turn around a state
because I did as governor of Rhode Island. But what Im most proud
of is that in 30 years of public service, I have had no scandals. I have
high ethical standards. And what Im most proud of is my judgment,
particularly in the Iraq war vote. There was a lot of pressure
political pressure, public pressure. But I did my homework and I did
not believe that the evidence was there that Saddam Hussein had
weapons of mass destruction. And we live now with the
consequences.
CHAFEE: So that kind of judgment is what we want in a president
going forward. And Im 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. (APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Governor Chafee, thank you very much. Senator Webb,
your final statement for 90 seconds.

WEBB: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, its been a pleasure to be

with you tonight. Youve heard a lot of promises up here; youve
heard a lot of rhetoric. They all seem to happen during campaigns,
and then once the elections over, people start from scratch again and
try to get things done. One of the things I can promise you, if you
look at my record, in and out of government, is that Ive always been
willing to take on a complicated, something unpopular issues, and
work them through, the complex issues, and work them through in
order to have the solution. We did it with criminal justice reform.
Weve had a lot of discussion here about criminal justice reform. We
did it in other ways. We need a national political strategy for our
economy, for our social policy, for 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 Vietnam, I did it in the Pentagon, I did it in the Senate, and if you
will help me overcome this cavalcade of of financial irregularities
and money that is poisoning our political process, I am ready to do
that for you in the White House.
COOPER: Senator Webb, thank you very much. Governor OMalley,
you have 90 seconds.
OMALLEY: 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, very and all of you watching at home was a very, very
different debate than from the sort of debate you heard from the two
presidential Republican debates.
(APPLAUSE)
On this stage on this stage, you didnt hear anyone denigrate
women, you didnt hear anyone make racist comments about new

American immigrants, you didnt hear anyone speak ill of another

American because of their religious belief. What you heard instead
on this stage tonight was an honest search for the answers that will
move our country forward, to move us to a 100 percent clean electric
energy grid by 2050, to take the actions that we have always taken as
Americans so that we can actually attack injustice in our country,
employ more of our people, rebuild our cities and towns, educate our
children at higher and better levels, and include more of our people
in the economic, social, and political life of our country. I truly
believe that we are standing on the threshold of a new era of
American progress. Unless youve become discouraged about our
gridlock in Congress, talk to our young people under 30, because
youll never find among them people that want to bash immigrants or
people that want to deny rights to gay couples.
(APPLAUSE)
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)
COOPER: Governor OMalley, thank you very much. Senator
Sanders, final, closing thoughts, 90 seconds.
SANDERS: 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 country 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 to all of our
people as a right of citizenship and we should not be the only major
country that does not provide medical and and parental leave

family and parental leave to all of our families. Now, at the end of our
day, here is the 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.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Secretary Clinton?
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. Thats 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. Its
whether you get back up. Americas been knocked down. That Great
Recession, 9 million people lost their jobs, 5 million lost their homes,
$13 trillion in wealth disappeared. And although weve made
progress, were standing but not running the way America needs to.
My mission as president will be to raise incomes for hard-working
middle-class families and to make sure that we get back to the basic

bargain I was raised with: If you work hard and you do your part, you
should be able to get ahead and stay ahead. Please join me in this
campaign. Please come and make it clear that Americas best days
are still ahead. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: Well, that does it for this Democratic presidential debate.
On behalf of everyone at CNN, we want to thank the candidates, our
debate partners at Facebook, the Wynn Resort, and the Democratic
National Committee. Thanks also to Dana Bash, Juan Carlos Lopez,
and Don Lemon. Well be back in Las Vegas December 15th, when
CNN hosts our next Republican presidential debate. That will be
moderated by my colleague, Wolf Blitzer. END