Clinton, Trump clash over their pasts and their plans in ferocious opening debate
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump meet during the first presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., tonight.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton laughs with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump following their presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., tonight.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, left, stands with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton before the first presidential debate at Hofstra University tonight in Hempstead, N.Y.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton shakes hands with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during the presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., today.
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. » Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump launched into a spirited brawl Monday night as they met on stage for the first time, each jockeying for a breakout moment in their tightening race during a highly anticipated debate that often veered into sharply personal attacks.
The candidates repeatedly shouted over each other as they argued about their histories, their plans and the comments each of them has made during the presidential race.
Clinton pointed to Trump calling climate change a hoax, diminished his accomplishments in business and attacked his championing of a tax system as custom-made to help wealthy business owners like himself. She called it “Trumped-up trickle-down economics.”
Her efforts to needle Trump were successful in drawing an angry response from the temperamental GOP nominee, but he also repeatedly put Clinton on the defensive. He painted her as a hopeless bureaucrat who led the country into disastrous trade deals, failed to stop China and Mexico from stealing American jobs and shifted her agenda to suit her ambitions.
Not even a half-hour into the debate, Clinton was urging voters to go to her website for fact checks, warning that Trump was misleading them as he talked over her to accuse Clinton of decades of failure in leadership.
“I have a feeling by the end of this debate I am going to be blamed for everything that ever happened,” Clinton said.
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“Why not?” Trump responded.
“Join the debate by saying more crazy things,” Clinton shot back.
The debate offered voters a rare moment of focus and clarity as the vastly different styles and approaches of the two nominees were on display.
Trump, who has notably stinted on detail throughout the race, is a pitch-perfect television performer. But his time onstage offered a chance to address his policy shortcomings while also posing a new challenge: Unlike debates during the Republican primary, when Trump shared time with more than a half-dozen rivals, he was alone onstage with Clinton, unable to recede to the background for long periods as he did during the GOP contest.
He responded to Clinton’s charges about his economic plans with uncharacteristically sharp policy arguments. He peppered his blunt talk about foreign governments taking advantage of the U.S. with details about value-added taxes and policy at the Federal Reserve.
But he also did not shy away from some of his more colorful lines and throughout his history in business.
When Clinton accused Trump of being “one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis” because it would help his business, Trump replied, “That’s called business.”
When Clinton accused Trump of calling climate change a hoax, Trump objected that she was mischaracterizing his past remarks, but he also launched into a blistering critique of Obama administration energy policy. He cited the bankruptcy of solar company Solyndra, which was heavily subsidized by the federal government.
“We invested in a solar company, our country, that was a disaster,” he said.
Trump deflected persistent questions about whether he would release his tax returns by claiming he was under audit, something he has repeatedly said prevented him from disclosure. Lester Holt, the moderator, pointed out that there was no prohibition on Trump releasing his tax returns during an audit.
Trump finally said he would release them, over the advice of his attorneys to keep them private, if Clinton would release 33,000 emails she deleted from the private server she used when she was secretary of state.
Clinton then went on the offensive, accusing Trump of having something to hide and suggesting a number of possibilities: He is not as wealthy as he says; he is not as charitable as he says; he has financial conflicts of interest he does not want to disclose; or he is not paying any income taxes.
“That makes me smart,” Trump said, interrupting Clinton.
Trump’s business record dominated a large portion of the debate, with Clinton eager to engage.
Trump recounted his success, including what he said was hundreds of millions of dollars in income last year, “not to be braggadocios,” he said.
Clinton pointed to his many business bankruptcies and to stories that he had stiffed contractors.
“I’m certainly relieved that my late father never did business with you,” Clinton said.
Trump said he was simply taking advantage of the laws and making sure he did not pay for substandard work.
“It’s all words. Its all sound bites,” he said, trying to build his case that Clinton was just another politician. “I built an unbelievable company.”
It was unclear whether Trump’s performance put to rest the concerns voters continue to have about how his unfiltered and inflammatory statements and shallow policy platform would play in the Oval Office.
This first debate of the fall general election campaign was preceded by a Super Bowl-level of hype and the audience for the 90-minute session was expected to approach that of the nation’s biggest annual television gathering, with perhaps as many as 100 million viewers tuning in.
History shows that debates tend to reinforce pre-existing perceptions rather than move a mass of voters or cause a significant number to change their minds and switch support.
Still, in a competitive contest between two candidates who evince passionately held views — both positive and negative — the prospect of a direct, face-to-face confrontation produced one of the most widely anticipated political events in memory. The event fell just over six weeks before election day Nov. 8.
Adding to the drama was the asymmetric nature of the confrontation.
Clinton, who has spent the better part of four decades in public life, was unquestionably the better-versed in matters of policy and substance. But a large swath of the public views her with suspicion and questions her honesty and openness.
The challenge for Clinton was to allay those concerns in the relatively brief time allotted and forge the sort of empathetic connection that came so naturally to her husband, Bill Clinton, the former president, but has largely eluded the former first lady throughout her political career.
Much of the pre-debate focus fell on the moderator, NBC’s Lester Holt, and whether he would fact-check the candidates or leave the two to point out each other’s falsehoods or hyperbole. Holt generally avoided doing the kind of real-time fact checks that some of the more aggressive moderators attempted during primary debates. Often as he moved to interject, he was drowned out by the candidates arguing.
Clinton entered the debate in the stronger political position, holding a consistent lead in most national surveys and, more significant, an advantage in the route to 270 electoral college votes.
The two major independent candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein, were excluded from the debate stage, having failed to meet the level of support in polls that was set by the debate organizers as a threshold to participate.
Clinton and Trump are scheduled to debate twice more, on Oct. 9 in St. Louis and Oct. 19 in Las Vegas.
Their running mates, Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, are set to debate a single time, Oct. 4 in Farmville, Va.
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(Barabak reported from San Francisco, Halper from Washington and Finnegan from Hempstead, N.Y. Staff writer Noah Bierman of the Tribune Washington Bureau contributed to this report from Washington.)
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©2016 Tribune Co.
124 responses to “Clinton, Trump clash over their pasts and their plans in ferocious opening debate”
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Trump is going through a major meltdown before billions of people on national television.
And Hillary is lying before billions of people on national TV.
Half time of the football game. Anything happening? Is this debate in the library.
What? Didn’t have the guts to watch the Chump get his ass kicked as he is.You are like your champion all talk and no action. The debate was like a NFL team playing a high school team. Major embarrassment.
Waste of time. Trump doing fine and this was just a warm up. Down and dirty next debate. Classified emails not even discussed. The trap is set.
sarge22 – That’s quite an analysis! So you mean that he blew the first debate and turned it into a complete disaster for himself to set a trap? Even by your low standard, that’s remarkable.
Low standards perfectly describe HiLIARy supporters. Trump’s first one on one debate not bad at all. Tough going up against a born liar. HiLIARy lied and four men died. Never forget.
You are the ultimate example of undereducated and misinformed. Hilliary just kicked the shi- of the useless ba-tar-.
You didn’t have the stomach to watch your baby getting the beating of his life.
Falcons whipped the Saints 45-32. Personal attacks are so typical of born losers. No (-)’s needed in comments by the under educated and misinformed.
Fuc–n pu–y
Low standards. Need I say more.
Trump deflated like the gasbag he is.
lol, true dat
so true
Puh-leese!!! And the Drumpf tells the truth?? He’s got the balls to say jobs were given to Mexico and China during the trade deals? Did he forget his hats, ties and suits are made in China and Mexico? Oh?? Sorry!! He has no control where those items are manufactured!! Serial liar! Drumpf will make America HATE again!! What an idiot! Business man?? Not!! Pathetic!
Go ask Sean Hannity if I am for the Iraq war. Go ahead ,go call him up. He’s my buddy and he’s fair and balanced. Sean, helppppppp.
Calling on Sean Hannity to verify his truthfulness was one of Donald Trumps weirder moments.
Guess he thought he could use his “phone a friend.” Reality TV only gets you so far.
Keaukaha, Fact check. Billions of people?
Mr. Trump is acting every bit the psychotic he is. He’s spectacularly unfit for the presidency.
It’s hard to believe that anyone – even one person – is planning to vote for him.
Now they are at race. Clinton want trust with law enforcement, she wants law enforcement to trust criminals. She wants to trust people that shoot each other. She yammers about the leading cause of death among young African American by guns, but who does it? They murder themselves, oh but cops should trust them.
The Chump is doing a good job expressing your shared beliefs of bigotry on national television as we comment. You may hate Hilllary but she is clearly the more intelligent and presidential of the two.
if you like liars or politicians that put our national security in jeopardy?
So, stop and frisk is the magic elixir to solve crime huh?? Perhaps, a tad more analysis is needed, when most sociologists will tell you that there is a direct correlation between jobs and crime. Further, that this so-called strategy to take guns off the street is just a bold faced lie, when it actually amounts to 1/5th of one percent were ever to have be found with guns. Facts folks, not pithy platitudes….
Say please may I have them and maybe the criminals will turn in all their illegal weapons and drugs. If you do not empower law enforcement insanity will continue.
Did you even read the comment, 1/5 of one percent of all people stopped had guns?? My tutu could randomly collect more guns than that….
Are we to take you statistics as a given? Did you even read my comment? If you do not empower law enforcement insanity will continue. If you were to stop every car coming out of the west side of Oahu I would put money that you would find more than 1/5 of one percent was carrying a weapon or drugs. You are trying to sound smart with statistics that mean nothing in the real world.
He had less rouge tonight. A more soft shade, less racoon orange.
You mean the sheman? No amount of make-up will hide those rings under her eyes.
First segment about jobs and trade Trump is winning.
Except that he refused to answer the central question that was asked him repeatedly: How would you bring jobs back?
If you thinks silence is winning, then … OK.
He answered it: Tax the companies products they want to bring here from their foreign factories
Right. Whatever you say.
Winning? His temperament is about to go through the roof. He is getting his assed kicked.
He is drinking more water than Marco Rubio.That’s what he gets for opening his mouth before engaging his brain.
He is arguing with the moderator and I am truly embarrassed for him. His family in the crowd must be going through a humiliating experience. I can’t believe that he is the republican candidate for the POTUS.
I admire him for standing up for himself.
Take a moment to think about this. Hellary is lying. IF everything she says she is going to do is true it just means that she has been doing nothing all her career and Obama has failed to come up with these very same ideas. Same old same old. All waha.
Never has a man said so much with so little by way of details…..the man acts like a really rude and angry tooth fairy.
What is your worth? Somehow this tooth fairy made millions.
He inherited millions. As has been documented, if he had just kept the money he inherited, in a stock index fund over the years, he would have made much more money. Further, and even more telling, the one publicly traded company he ran, lost almost 95 percent of its worth.
And my net worth is well into the seven figures, only difference is I grew up in Halawa Housing and never inherited a nickel. And what about you–your net worth is!?
Maybe you should run for POTUS! You can bs all you like and so can I. I too am a rich man and never inherited a nickel. Only difference is I grew up near Manana Housing. If you are a better man than Trump prove it and be a politician with your 7 figure worth.
Clinton claims implicit bias against blacks . But it is not racist – it is rooted in statistics that about 30% of young blacks are involved with the justice system.
Do you live every minute of every day in your racist cesspool?
Statistics are not racist.
You are hopeless. Obviously.
They are to Klastri. Everything he disagrees with is either racist or sexist.
Hitaxpayer – You’re lying, of course. But that’s what you do.
I already suggested that you learn the self discipline to not read my comments. I could not care less what your opinion of them is.
His attorney should advise him to shut up.
Hillary’s attorney should advise her to stop lying.
Impossible.
She’s not the one that is losing it on national television.
She never had it. Low energy and fake smile. Give her some water. Maybe a shower.
can’t stand both of them , help me lord……….
Now why keeps Trump drawing up his snot in his nose. It is disturbing. Does he not know how to blow his nose? Or did he snort something? Very strange.
Allaha are you having a meltdown too?
Yep , even though i dislike liberal politics i am disappointed how Trump abused the rules, interrupting and fighting the moderator and talking overtime, but not answering questions. They should turn of the microphone if a candidate ignores the moderator and keep blabbing on, like Trump did repeatedly. I think Trump lost and now i don’t know who i will vote for.
It took the debate to make you see that? You were willing to support a n idiot for POTUS and now after the first debate you have a revelation?
Who cares about your moderation.
I’d vote for the moderator…
He’s flat out lying about saying that Mrs. Clinton doesn’t have the look to be President. It’s like he doesn’t believe that he’s on video saying that. He’s lying in every answer. He’s a psychotic.
To be gender sensitive: She does not have the look of a president, instead she has the look of a presidentess.
Are you an adult?
Why, you never heard of the feminists fighting for gender sensitivity in our vocabulary? I thought you are so up-to-date on issues.
By saying Trump is hiding something, Hillary took it right out of Trump’s ‘plant the seed of doubt’ playbook. Hillary does her homework and it showed. Trump winged it and it was obvious. BTW, her make-up was flawless.
I think you may have hit the key point of tonight’s debate. One of the candidates prepared very well and answered the questions that were asked for the most part. The other candidate obviously did not have much of a grasp of the questions about specific issues that were asked. It was obvious but in the long run, (well, at least six weeks) I don’t think it will matter too much to either candidates’ supporters. I don’t think tonight will change anybody’s mind but it was kind of entertaining.
Agreed and agreed.
Yup
I would agree that Hellary was better prepared. BUT, if you read between the lines you would know that it is all hot air and false promises. She or Obama have never thought to work on these promises till this election? Either someone has been slacking or is lying to get elected.
I thought she still looked short and fat.
Oh god, that was just a base debacle of Romanesque proportions for Trump. It was breathtaking for someone to be so utterly unprepared and lacking a raccoon sense of decorum. For Pete Sake, he wanted to argue with the moderator and just lacked any sense of cohesion and and lucidity.
Wassup SA??
sarge22 is frantically searching breitbart for an article he can cut and paste in reply to your spot-on observation.
“Internet polls conducted by major media outlets overwhelmingly show Trump as the winner. At the time of writing (these polls are still open to the public), a CNBC poll with over a million responses shows the Republican candidate winning with 67% to Clinton’s 33%; a TIME poll with about 1.6 million votes has him leading his Democratic opponent 55% to 45%; he is also ahead in a Fox News poll that surveyed over 13,000 people, with 50% to Clinton’s 34%” Fortune; Polls Paint Different Pictures of Who Won Last Night’s Debate
Ironically the briebart poll said HRC won the debate.
Predictably, this was a complete, utter disaster for Mr. Trump. I’m thinking now that Trump will back out of the next two debates. Tonight showed Trump’s spectacular ignorance in domestic and foreign policy.
He’s a psychotic.
Hillary smiles at the most inappropriate times. Trump could have given some low blows to Clinton, but he didn’t. Saying having a private server was a “mistake ” is the most ridiculous statement. You do not knowingly deny the “mistake “, nor should your people take the 5th and then not testify.
I’m sorry that you don’t understand anything about the Fifth Amendment. Mrs. Clinton (obvious to anyone who understands the first thing about this) had no influence of any kind of whether staff exercised the Fifth Amendment. Anyone would do that if they had competent counsel. That’s why the Fifth Amendment exists.
It’s not up to you to decide how others exercise their rights.
Clinton broke the law. The DOJ is protecting her. It’s outrageous.
Nalo, Trump did better than I expected. He could have done a lot worse, and Hillary’s “polispeak” was nothing more than rehearsed bylines. I’m guessing opinion will give her the nod on this first one, but it wasn’t the runaway slaughter we’re hearing about from some here. The polls, even though they’re almost useless, will still be interesting. Would have been great to see Johnson up there..
So, he can deny climate change and have another chance to abuse the expanse of the executive office, which he did on several occasions, once being held in contempt of court?
Don’t bother. You’re hooked and landed. Many, around 70%, are not.
It is very hard to do, but I think I have to somewhat agree with that klastri that Trump lost and may back out of future debates.
It was certainly quite the debate I thought it would be. Lester Holt made a good point regarding Trump’s refusal to share his tax information. He has no justifiable reason to withhold his tax information from the voting public. Is that a transparent candidate? Sure, both candidates have been under fire but Trump obviously is hiding something. He says he is being smart in laying the least amount in taxes. But at whose expense? That’s right, at the expense of all the hardworking Americans who toil day in and day out to make a small wage while he may possibly be skating by all of them on cushy tax shelters afforded ONLY to the wealthy few.
But yet he offered to release his returns immediately if Hillary released her emails. Ought to be easy enough, if they were as harmless as she’s said. Or maybe she’d lose more than she’d gain?
Trump pulled out the old ” I’ll show you.my peepee if you show me your peeper first”.
And if she really wanted to see it, what’s stopping her? C’mon, think for yourself..
Team Trump is not happy with his performance…lol.
Was I hallucinating, or did I hear Trump say, “China should go into North Korea.” ? Aa in, invade North Korea.
He did say that. But he was babbling incoherently by that point. The last 30 minutes was basically a meltdown into insanity.
Yes, it is as if, Alice jumped down the rabbit hole and meet a drunk monkey, and they decided to smoke crack and eat BBQ corn nuts while they sipped a very flat liter of Mountain Dew. Entirely bizarre and unexplainable.
RELEASE YOUR TAX RETURNS. WE WANNA SEE HOW YOU ZEROED OUT 625 MILLION DOLLARS TO PAY 0 WHILE MIDDLE CLASS PAID AN AVERAGE OF $3200.
CAPS LOCK BROKE?
sarge22, Caps lock might be broke, but I got the message. So did you, right?
RELEASE YOUR 33,000 EMAILS. Do you get the message?
sarge22, if you saw the debate, then you and I know who got lickings, right?
sarge22, I’ll decipher for you. this is what NanakuliBoss wrote: Release your tax returns. We wanna see how you zeroed out 625 million dollars to pay 0 while middle class paid an average of $3200. Now did you get the message? RELEASE YOUR 33,000 EMAILS? Sorry, sarge, that wasn’t in NanakuliBoss’ message.
What’s the big deal about releasing tax returns? Whatever he has in his tax returns is legal or the IRS would be investigating him. Sure he’s rich, so what? Many presidents were rich – does the name Kennedy ring a bell?
I wanna see how Hillary kept the Reddit forums quiet about her deleting of 33,000 emails
Half of all American’s paid nothing in Fed Taxes. So, Trump knows, understands and identifies more with that group. He’s even joined them. If half of American pays no taxes, why should I?
Norman Ornstein, a conservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said, “was angry, rambling, fidgety and often simply incoherent. His bar was to look even modestly like a president, in carriage and temperament, plus a very, very low bar on fundamental knowledge. He failed on them all.”
Arthur Lupia, a political scientist at the University of Michigan wrote: “Her raising of numerous hypotheses about why Trump was not releasing his tax returns was brilliant stagecraft. By raising the ideas as questions, rather than making assertions, the presentation can set the stage for days of questioning about the topic.”
Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory, wrote that Trump’s “performance would not persuade anyone”
NYT
Wassup SA?
“Internet polls conducted by major media outlets overwhelmingly show Trump as the winner. At the time of writing (these polls are still open to the public), a CNBC poll with over a million responses shows the Republican candidate winning with 67% to Clinton’s 33%; a TIME poll with about 1.6 million votes has him leading his Democratic opponent 55% to 45%; he is also ahead in a Fox News poll that surveyed over 13,000 people, with 50% to Clinton’s 34%”.. Fortune; Polls Paint Different Pictures of Who Won Last Night’s Debate
It’s extraordinarily difficult to debate an aggressive, stream-of-consciousness celebrity when facts don’t matter, and no insult or insinuation is too far. But Hillary apparently did her homework, and if there’s one thing we learned during the primary, it’s that Trump hates it when debaters attack his wealth or his business.
So she went there. She smacked his wealth and business success, and he just couldn’t help himself. For several agonizing minutes, he threw a wall of words at viewers while she just watched — with a satisfied, frozen smile. By the end of the debate he was all over the place — on the defensive on multiple fronts.
Why didn’t he have a better answer ready for the birther nonsense? Has he still not done any homework on foreign policy? I felt like I was watching the political Titanic hit the iceberg, back up, and hit it again. Just for fun. After the first 20 minutes, it may have been the most lopsided debate I’ve ever seen — and not because Clinton was particularly effective. She could bait him effectively, but most of her canned lines fell flat. Her zinger about preparing for the debate and preparing for president sounded self-righteous. But you don’t need to be good when your opponent is bad.
However — and this is a very, very big however — he stumbled badly in multiple primary debates and yet still powered through. He may power through again. As Ramesh notes below, he did hit a number of his themes (though curiously barely attacked Clinton on her e-mails and Benghazi — and his attacks on the Iran deal were weak, at best), and he was somewhat effective early. His base isn’t deserting him, and he’s already proved he can weather multiple horrific news cycles. So . . . long story short? It’s still 2016. There are still twists and turns left in the race. But tonight Trump lost, and it wasn’t that close.
Who wrote this incredibly damming piece against Trump???! Yes, there you have it the ultra conservative National Review.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/440438/donald-trump-just-kept-getting-worse
Hillary knew every question that was being asked. Lester did his job supporting Hillary and not asking her any follow-up questions. It is rigged, but she’s such a poor candidate sh can still lose. New blood is needed in Washington. If Hillary is elected, nothing will change, bt the rich will get richer. That’s the irony. She’s suppose to represent the “working class”. That’s a real joke.
exactly, look at the Clinton Foundation. another racket
Money Laundering Scheme Exposed: 14 Pro-Clinton Super PACs and Non-Profits Implicated….http://www.thecitizensaudit.com/2016/09/19/money-laundering-david-brock/
You’re lying. Lester Holt is a registered Republican. Mr. Trump was simply unable to answer questions. Despite him having the “best words” and “best brain” (Trump’s words) he failed miserably. You can’t admit it. Too bad.
The American people were the big losers tonight. Both Trump and Clinton are power-mad liars and neither deserves to be President. The debate organizers should really do us a favor and invite Gary Johnson, the only sane candidate (who they deliberately excluded) from the Libertarian Party to participate in the next debate as the voice of reason and statesmanship.
”What is Aleppo?” Gary Johnson has excluded himself from ever being invited to debate much less ever be elected President of the US.
After the debacle last night anyone not willing to acknowledge that Johnson would clearly be the better choice is lying to themselves.
the debate tonight by both candidates will not change peoples minds, so the so called polls will not change, on how they did well lets see CNN and wall street had Hillary won, but the ABC,MSNBC the drudge report showed trump won the debate. so those are some of the polls after the debate.
It changed Allalah’s mind.
The debate was amusing but nothings change folks. Like our rail project, people’s minds are already made up and cast in concrete as to whom they’ll vote for. Sit back and enjoy rounds two and three.
This debate was a major embarrassment for our nation. We are doomed.
Oh please. Grow up.
I was expressing an opinion on what I observed as a thinking, mature adult. I’m not sure what you were watching, perhaps you should wake up.
Trump did a good job. He won the debate despite playing to a loaded deck. She played all her cards. Wait until the next debate. She used up all her ammo. She’s got nothing left. The Don is just starting on her. More drip, drip, drip.
Les-less. Posting at 5:44am you must finally turn off the cartoons on TV and get to work. Watching cartoons all night is really affecting your ability to figure out what is real and not real. You really have man crush on Dishonest Donald.
I don’t know about the rest of you but I could care less about a rich man’s tax returns. I want to know what someone is going to do about MY tax return. One of those on the stage wants to tax me more and one wants to tax me less. ‘Nuf said…
Ever hear of the wolf in sheep’s clothing? You are a true fool to think Dishonest Donald can rebuild the infrastructure like he claims he will without raising your taxes. Roads, bridges, airports, etc are all funded by federal taxes. And he is going to spend billions upgrading the military. Dishonest Donald doesn’t pay any federal taxes according to his own statements.
For Donald T. –
“First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.” M. Gandhi