Our next President and the runner-up finally say something meaningful
Wolf Blitzer: Good evening America, and welcome to CNN’s 2016 Presidential Town Hall Meeting here at the Dora, Alabama, Town Hall. I’d like to thank Dora Mayor Robert “Robbie” Busby and the City Council for hosting this event.
Donald Trump: Dora is a great American city, well, not really a city, it’s too small for a city, New York is great city, a big city, it’s the best city in the world, but Dora is a small town, one of the small towns that makes America a great, great country.
Blitzer: Mr. Trump...Mr. Trump, the debate hasn’t started yet, you’ll have a chance to speak when it’s your…
Hillary Clinton: Wolf, if I may, with all due respect to Mr. Trump, Dora IS a great city, a small town with bright future as we walk together into a new America!
Blitzer: Ms. Clinton, I...
Trump: All I know is that my good friends, the Chinese, a great people, the Chinese are great, great people, and they are building cars that we should be building in America, cars like my 1989 Chrysler LeBaron. It’s such a great car.
Blitzer: M…
Clinton: Oh give me a break, Donald®. To move forward as a nation we must move forward in future cars, not look into the past. My administration’s Clean Regional Alternative Power initiative will build a nationwide infrastructure to create green jobs and renewable power for a network of small, efficient cars.
Bli:
Trump: We didn’t build this country thinking small. Ford is building a massive plant. So I have a friend who builds plants and then I have to go. I have a friend who builds plants, that’s what he does, he’s the biggest in the world, he builds plants like automobile plants, computer plants, that’s all he does.
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Clinton: When I say jobs, I. Mean. Jobs! We will work together to make more things in America. We’re going to ensure we have the most competitive auto and auto parts industries in the world. We’ve got to liberate the American consumer by protecting and helping the American worker. Let me talk about the carrots. Not just the carrots that American farmers grow and eat, that we all eat, if you like carrots, but the carrots I’ll use to grow new, clean cars and new jobs that will make all of us proud.
Trump: Let me tell you something about plants. My friend, he doesn’t build apartments, he doesn’t build office space, he builds plants. I said to him the other day, “How are you doing?” He goes, “Unbelievable.” Oh, great, that’s good, thinking about the United States, right, because he’s based in the United States. So I said, “Good, so the country is doing well.” He said, “No, no, not our country, you’ve got to see what I’m doing in Mexico.” He said: “The business there is unbelievable, the new plants we are building. People moving from the United States.” That’s what he does. One-story plants. You understand?
Clinton: I understand that a wall around American prosperity won’t keep it in but will keep it out. I will defend American jobs and American workers by saying ‘no’ to bad trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and unfair trade practices, like when China dumps cheap steel in our markets or uses weak ‘rules of origin’ to undercut our car makers. We’re going to ensure we have the most competitive auto and auto parts industries in the world, and we’re going to take money back from overseas and break down walls with the strength of unions and the American workers.
Trump: They send their cars over by the millions, and what do we do? When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn’t exist, folks. They beat us all the time. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically. I love the Mexican people, they’re great people, and I understand that you’re building a nice $2.5 billion car factory in Mexico and that you’re going to take your cars and sell them to the United States zero tax, just flow them across the border.” And you say to yourself, “How does that help us,” right? “How does that help us? Where is that good?” It’s not.
Clinton: Exactly.
Trump: What?
Clinton: Unions helped bring back the auto industry, and they will help bring back America, from coast to coast.
Trump: We got to make the country rich. Special interests can’t touch me, because I’m really incredibly rich, and there’s nothing they can offer me that would make me take jobs away from America.
Clinton: Donald.
Trump: Hillary.
Clinton: I think I love you.
Trump: Would you like to see my LeBaron?
Clinton: Yes. Yes I would.
Wolf Blitzer: That’s all the time we have for CNN’s 2016 Presidential Town Hall Meeting here in Dora, Alabama. I’d like to thank Dora Mayor Robert “Robbie” Busby and the City Council for hosting this event.
David Traver Adolphus is a freelance automotive researcher who recently quit his full time job writing about old cars to pursue his lifelong dream of writing about old AND new cars. Follow him on Twitter as @proscriptus.