Clinton Shuts Down Snippy Trump On NAFTA: ‘You Live In Your Own Reality’

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks during the presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., Monday, Sept. 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Less than 30 minutes into the first general election debate on Monday night, Donald Trump took the bait in a tense exchange with Hillary Clinton on the issue of trade.

Describing the economic effects of her husband signing the North American Free Trade Agreement, Clinton said manufacturing jobs increased, “if you look at the facts,” and she scrutinized all trade deals that came across her desk as a senator from New York.

“So I know how to really work to get new jobs and to get exports that help to create more new jobs,” Clinton finished.

Trump interjected: “Well, you haven’t done it in 30 years or 26 years or whatever –”

“Well, I’ve been a senator –” Clinton started to respond.

Trump fired back: “You haven’t done it.”

“And I have been a secretary of state –” Clinton continued.

Trump interrupted again, raising his voice to say, “Excuse me, your husband signed NAFTA, which was one of the worst things that ever happened.”

“Well, that’s your opinion,” Clinton replied cooly.

The New York real estate mogul went on to admonish Clinton for initially supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a policy plan she now opposes.

“Donald, I know you live in your own reality, but those are not the facts. The facts are, I said I hoped it would be a good deal, but when it was negotiated, which I was not responsible for, I concluded it wasn’t,” Clinton said.

Trump wasn’t content to let the matter go, asking the former secretary of state multiple times: “So, is it President Obama’s fault?”

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for ajoguy ajoguy says:

    I watched the first 35 minutes. I think all the perpetrators of domestic violence and those who hold the primitive view that it’s always the woman who’s partially to blame that must be loving this, who think he’s doing great and that he’s “on fire”. To me, it’s a scary, kinda funny, retrograde re-enactment of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” only Donald is playing both George and Martha. Hillary is like this even-keeled observer who is very much present and there.

  2. NAFTA was a fucking disaster, and cost the US millions upon millions of jobs. On the day it was signed, moving vans came to factories and unbolted machines. Idiotic crap like this story, fact free but with that glossy internationalist sheen of the elites, is infuriating wrong. It’s particularly amusing that Clinton’s reply is termed “cool”. It basically was “lame” or “unprepared”.

  3. Trump’s RDF - Reality Distortion Field

  4. 2 Pinocchios to Hillary on this claim, Trump has no actual reality, he lives in an ever putrefying pool of puss. Before any one shapeless, lifeless reality sinks in, it morphs into a morbid state of lifelessness never to be heard of again.

  5. The Republican Party has fielded a lunatic.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

9 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for ajoguy Avatar for nickdanger Avatar for matthew1961 Avatar for leftflank Avatar for randyabraham Avatar for sniffit Avatar for arrendis Avatar for longtimeobserver Avatar for dddinah Avatar for fiftygigs Avatar for benthere Avatar for tena Avatar for clare

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: