QUESTIONS FOR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
Q: Secretary Clinton, there is a disturbing pattern in your public life since you came on the national stage. It includes defensiveness and withholding of details even when controversies would blow over much faster with full disclosure. These habits have the potential to consume and destroy a presidency. What have you learned from these controversies, and who will be advising you on matters like these?
Q: You have proposed expensive expansions of both Social Security and college aid. How can we make needed investments in areas such as infrastructure and science if entitlements consume so much of the budget? How is it “progressive” to dedicate so much of federal spending, much of it borrowed, to programs that move wealth up the generational ladder? And by having the federal government foot the tuition bill for families making less than $125,000, aren’t you inviting colleges to hike their tuition?
Q: You’ve given many speeches on Wall Street for huge amounts of money, and you sparked an uproar at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas by securing a $225,000 speaking fee shortly after the state raised tuition 17%. How do you square raking in this type of money, at venues like these, with your stated desire to be a champion of ordinary Americans, including students with steep loans to pay off?
Q: As secretary of State, you lobbied President Obama to surge U.S. troops into Afghanistan in 2009, and you also anticipated the risks of too quick a drawdown. You’ve also endorsed keeping a residual force in Afghanistan through 2017. Recently, you ruled out deploying ground troops to Iraq or Syria, a position that unwisely constrains a future Clinton administration. With the Taliban showing signs of resurgence in key provinces, are you equally inclined to rule out surging more troops into Afghanistan?
Q: You once called the Trans-Pacific Partnership the “gold standard” of trade deals. Now you are against it. What changed?
Q: When you were first lady, you supported the 1994 crime bill, which included a three-strikes provision that jailed certain repeat offenders for life, contributing to the country’s mass incarceration problem. Was your support for this legislation a mistake, and do you regret using the term “superpredator” in your defense of it?
Q: When you were secretary of State, a memo went out under your name that advised employees to “avoid conducting official department business from your personal email accounts.” Do you understand why many voters believe that you think you are above the rules?
Q: Mr. Trump, you are asking Americans to vote for you without a record as a public official. You haven’t released your tax returns or detailed medical records, even though at 70 you’d be the oldest person to assume the presidency. Do voters not deserve this information about a candidate?
Q: Benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare make up nearly two-thirds of all federal spending. You have broken with Republican orthodoxy that entitlements need to be restrained. As Baby Boomers retire and as deficits are projected to surge back up toward $1 trillion per year, how will you keep the U.S. from a serious debt crisis?
Q: You’ve made a series of conflicting or confusing statements on Syria, suggesting deployment of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. ground troops but then saying you’d sit back to see what happens or stay out it altogether. What specifically would you do to end the humanitarian crisis in Syria and defeat the Islamic State there?
Q: You recently endorsed “stop-and-frisk” as a way of curbing crime and reducing unrest on the streets of America, much of which has been triggered by troubling and biased police practices. Yet stop-andfrisk has been discontinued in New York and other cities after findings that it disproportionately violates the rights of black citizens. How do you envision stop-and-frisk working any differently than previous failed attempts?
Q: You have referred to human-caused climate change as a hoax, despite overwhelming evidence that the globe is warming. What do you know that the world’s top climate scientists don’t?
Q: You have repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton for her misstatements. Yet when Clinton is confronted with incontrovertible proof that something she has said is false, she adapts her story to that reality. You don’t. For example, you claim to have opposed the Iraq War before it started, but you are on tape publicly backing the war. Do you not recognize the difference between fact and fiction, or do you not care?
Q: Modern presidents endure a constant barrage of criticism from the press, public and other politicians. You’ve shown yourself to be unable or unwilling to stop lashing out at people, even Gold Star parents, who find fault with you. As president, would you be consumed with trying to get even with your critics?
Q: You’ve encouraged hackers from Russia, a hostile foreign power, to tamper with the American election. And you’ve twice made veiled references to the possibility of your opponent being shot. What is wrong with you?