Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

In Las Vegas, Bill Clinton calls wife’s email controversy ‘biggest load of bull’

Asian-American and Pacific Islander community focus of presidential town hall

Presidential Election Forum

L.E. Baskow

President Bill Clinton greets the crowd as he speaks during a presidential election forum The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Friday, August 12, 2016. .

Presidential Election Forum

President Bill Clinton speaks about the work his wife Hillary will do if elected during a presidential election forum The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Friday, August 12, 2016. . Launch slideshow »

The presidential race zeroed in on the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community today, with former President Bill Clinton and Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes making appearances at a town hall today in Las Vegas on behalf of the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, respectively.

The town hall, hosted by the Asian American Journalists Association and Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote at Caesars Palace, highlighted the role that the AAPI community could play this year as a deciding factor in the election, both here in Nevada and across the country.

In recent years, the AAPI community has gone from “marginalized to the margin of victory,” said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif.. “The political rhetoric has become so toxic this cycle that we in the AAPI community cannot afford to sit on the sidelines.”

Chu noted the role the AAPI community played in helping re-elect Democratic Sen. Harry Reid in 2010, adding that the AAPI community could be the margin of victory this year, too, and beyond.

Rep. Dina Titus told the crowd how much it meant to her that this presidential town hall, the first of its kind, was being held in the heart of her district, which is home to Chinatown, Japantown, and Koreatown as well as a growing number of Filipinos along Maryland Parkway.

Nevada isn’t particularly known for having a large AAPI community, but Gloria Caoile, co-founder of APIAVote, highlighted the importance its 301,000 members play here.

“Everywhere you look in this infrastructure called Nevada, we are there,” Caoile said. “We make Nevada rock."

She said she didn’t want what happened in Las Vegas today to stay here. “You want the whole world to know,” she said.

Throughout the 3 1/2-hour-long forum, the two representatives made a case for why either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton would be the best candidate to help the AAPI community. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein also spoke at the town hall.

In a measured, policy-heavy address, Bill Clinton stressed how Hillary Clinton would help small businesses, implement comprehensive immigration reform, and support quality, affordable education.

He talked about her plan for free college education for children of families that make $125,000 or less a year and to make sure that everyone graduates from college debt free. He also zeroed in on the apprenticeship and training programs that Clinton has highlighted throughout her campaign, including on trips here to Las Vegas.

Zeroing in on Trump, Clinton said that “along with the heartbreak," the Republican nominee’s proposal to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants would drive the country into a recession.

He acknowledged the differences that the American people might have but stressed the importance of disagreement to democracy. “If you read the American Constitution it should be subtitled ‘let’s make a deal,’” Clinton said.

At the same time, Clinton had to answer tough questions from audience members over his wife’s position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and over the continued concern many Americans have about how she handled her private email server while secretary of state.

Asked about the trade agreement, Clinton said he understood the resistance to multinational trade agreements. He said that people are skeptical because companies themselves are no longer stakeholder but shareholder based, and companies using those agreements not just to expand operations to other countries, but to move them overseas entirely.

On the ongoing email server controversy, Clinton called it the “biggest load of bull I’ve ever heard,” pointing to several key national security endorsements she’s received from Republican officials as evidence of the confidence they have in her.

"If the people that worked with you in every walk of life, and then people who know you in your official capacity all have good things to say, it seems that should offset people who have a vested interest in tearing you down,” he said.

Meanwhile, Reyes, speaking as a Trump surrogate, had to explain why the Republican presidential nominee had recently referred to the Philippines as a “terrorist nation."

Reyes, who is of Filipino descent, said that when Trump said that, he was referring to the “terrorist elements that do exist in the Philippines,” not the country as a whole.

“What Mr. Trump was trying to communicate, and I have the full authority to make this clarification, is that he welcomes law-abiding Filipinos who want to come and have a better life and better opportunities, whether they want to live here or send money back to the Philippines,” Reyes said.

But he spent much of the speech trying to build bridges with the crowd, talking about his AAPI heritage, making jokes about commonalities in the AAPI community, and explaining his Republican values.

"We may not agree on everything. Some of you we might not agree on anything,” Reyes said. "But it’s important we come and listen, with humility and respect.”

He said that he wasn’t always a supporter of Trump, and he doesn’t agree with everything he says. However, he said that Trump would put checks on regulators that put pressure on Asian-American small businesses, promote high quality education, and combat affirmative action in colleges, which he said unfairly targets AAPI students.

“Mr. Trump believes in an America first, no exceptions,” Reyes said.

Earlier in the afternoon, third-party presidential candidates Johnson and Stein sat down for a question-and-answer discussion with a moderator to present their visions for the future of the country.

Johnson called it the “craziest election of all time and space,” and, in an appeal to voters unsatisfied with the two major party candidates, reminded them that “a wasted vote is voting for someone you don’t believe in.”

He talked about trying to get his polling numbers high enough — above 15 percent — in order to appear in the presidential debates alongside Trump and Clinton. Ross Perot was the last third-party candidates to do so in 1992.

He touched on a host of issues, from supporting the legalization of marijuana to starkly opposing any new taxes. He called free trade the “opposite of crony capitalism,” saying that it was devoid of government interference.

Stein, meanwhile, built her case on the intersection of the environment and the economy, saying that she would fight for a “Green New Deal.”

She talked about how the environment was a crucial issue for Asian and Pacific Island countries due to rising sea levels attributed to climate change. She said that the country could pay for clean energy technologies by cutting spending on health care — which a cleaner environment would reduce the need for.

“The key thing here is to have a national leader who’s actually telling the truth about the No. 1 true emergency of the climate,” Stein said.

Stein called solar her favorite clean energy technology — a pointed statement here in Nevada, where the solar industry has been a subject of ongoing controversy.

She talked about how she believed that everyone should be able to have solar on their homes — regardless of where they live — and that the government should help make that financially possible.

Like Johnson, Stein positioned herself as an alternative, particularly to disillusioned Bernie Sanders supporters, to the two main presidential candidates.

“Americans are looking for something else,” Stein said. “They’re looking for an honest broker that they can trust. I would say democracy needs a moral compass."

Hours before she spoke at Caesars Palace, the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office denied an appeal by the Nevada Green Party to place Stein on the state’s November ballot. Her campaign is still in the process of trying to get on ballots in other states across the country.

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