CLINTON on Trump’s charge that she called for open borders in a 2013 speech to a Brazilian bank: ‘‘I was talking about energy.’’
THE FACTS She was talking about more than energy, but apparently less than an open border that immigrants can spill across, according to a partial transcript released by WikiLeaks. Clinton said in the speech ‘‘my dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, sometime in the future with energy that is as green as sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.’’ The remarks suggest a broad interest in open trade but were not necessarily evidence she would support the unfettered movement of people, as Trump charged.
CLINTON on her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal: ‘‘It didn’t meet my test.’’
THE FACTS It met her test when she was secretary of state and she promoted it worldwide. Hacked e-mails from Clinton’s campaign, released Wednesday by WikiLeaks, showed that Jake Sullivan, her top foreign policy adviser, called her a ‘‘big champion’’ of the deal and worried about how to handle the issue in the face of Senator Bernie Sanders’ opposition. She later flip-flopped into opposition during the Democratic primaries against Sanders. Clinton says she no longer backs the proposed trade deal as written because it does not provide enough protections for US workers on wages, jobs, and the country’s national security. Yet the final deal also includes some of the strongest labor protections of any US trade agreement.
CLINTON said Trump used undocumented workers to build Trump Tower.
THE FACTS While it’s true that he hired undocumented Polish workers for the project, the laborers were used to demolish the Bonwit Teller Building on Fifth Avenue to make way for the tower.
TRUMP on Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state: “She’s guilty of a very, very serious crime.’’
THE FACTS Clinton was not found “guilty’’ of any crimes over her handling of the e-mails; she wasn’t even prosecuted. The FBI investigated the issue for more than a year before deciding this summer that while her handling of classified information in her e-mails was “extremely careless,’’ there was no evidence of a crime. The Justice Department closed the case.
TRUMP ‘‘Her plan is going to raise taxes and even double your taxes.’’
THE FACTS Clinton’s plan wouldn’t raise taxes at all for 95 percent of Americans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The very wealthiest would take the greatest hit, though a doubling is highly questionable. Two-thirds of her proposed increases would hit the top 0.1 percent of richest Americans, the center estimates. The main components of her plan: a minimum 30 percent tax on those earning at least $1 million a year, and a 5 percent surcharge for those earning more than $5 million a year.
TRUMP ‘‘Last week, as you know, the end of last week, they came out with an anemic jobs report. A terrible jobs report.’’
THE FACTS The September jobs report is viewed by most economists as encouraging. Employers added 156,000 jobs; the rate ticked up to 5 percent because more jobless Americans felt confident to start looking for jobs, they said.
SOURCES: Associated Press, The New York Times
