In her own words: 50 reasons to vote for Hillary Clinton

By Las Vegas Sun Staff (contact)

Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016 | 2 a.m.

1. “I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president. And I think that’s a good thing.” Remark during the first presidential debate.

2. "As soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina." Response to Trump during the first presidential debate.

3. “The other day, Mr. Trump accused me of playing the, quote, ‘woman card.’ Well, if fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in.” Comment on numerous occasions.

4. “That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that. I take responsibility.” Comment in a September 2017 interview with ABC News on her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

5. “We will not build a wall. Instead, we will build an economy where everyone who wants a good-paying job can get one. And we'll build a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants who are already contributing to our economy.” Line from her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

6. “I alone can fix it? Isn't he forgetting troops on the front lines? Police officers and firefighters who run toward danger? Doctors and nurses who care for us? Teachers who change lives? Entrepreneurs who see possibilities in every problem? Mothers who lost children to violence and are building a movement to keep other kids safe? He's forgetting every last one of us. Americans don't say, ‘I alone can fix it.’ We say, ‘We'll fix it together.’” Line from the acceptance speech.

7. "A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons." Line from Clinton’s acceptance speech.

8. "Let’s stand up against prejudice and paranoia. Let’s prove once again that American is great because America is good.” Line from Clinton’s acceptance speech.

9. "Our girls would grow up with a president who proudly ranks women by their looks. Just imagine what that might do to your girls and women’s confidence and self-worth. Imagine what it will do to our boys." Remark during a rally this month in Las Vegas, as Clinton asked the crowd to imagine a Trump presidency.

10. “People look at the Statue of Liberty and they see a proud symbol of our history as a nation of immigrants. A beacon of hope for people around the world. Donald sees the Statue of Liberty and sees a 4 — maybe a 5 if she loses the torch and tablet and changes her hair.” Joke during the Alfred Smith Dinner for charity last month.

11. “There is nothing like sharing a stage with Donald Trump. Donald wanted me drug tested before last night’s debate. And look, I’ve got to tell you, I am so flattered that Donald thought I used some sort of performance enhancer. Now, actually, I did. It’s called preparation.” Joke during the Alfred Smith Dinner.

12. “I’m getting ready to do something, too — I’m running for president. Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion, so you can do more than just get by. You can get ahead and stay ahead. Because when families are strong, America is strong.” Line from Clinton’s candidacy announcement in April 2015.

13. "I am not a natural politician, in case you haven't noticed, unlike my husband or President Obama. I have to do the best that I can.” Comment during a March 2016 Democratic candidate debate.

14. “The kinds of positions he is stating and the consequences of those positions and even the consequences of his statements are not just offensive to people — they are potentially dangerous. ... I have concluded he is not qualified to be president of the United States." Comment during a CNN interview in May 2016.

15. "Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different. They are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies." Line from a foreign policy speech in June 2016.

16. “I understand and respect the tradition of gun ownership. It goes back to the founding of our country. But I also believe that there can be and must be reasonable regulation. Because I support the Second Amendment doesn't mean that I want people who shouldn't have guns to be able to threaten you, kill you or members of your family. And so when I think about what we need to do, we have 33,000 people a year who die from guns. I think we need comprehensive background checks, need to close the online loophole, close the gun show loophole.” Comment during the third presidential debate.

17. “You know, I've had the great honor of traveling across the world on behalf of our country. I've been to countries where governments either forced women to have abortions, like they used to do in China, or forced women to bear children, like they used to do in Romania. And I can tell you: The government has no business in the decisions that women make with their families in accordance with their faith, with medical advice. And I will stand up for that right.” Comment during the third presidential debate.

18. “We have 11 million undocumented people. They have 4 million American citizen children, 15 million people. He said as recently as a few weeks ago in Phoenix that every undocumented person would be subject to deportation. … It means you would have to have a massive law enforcement presence, where law enforcement officers would be going school to school, home to home, business to business, rounding up people who are undocumented. And we would then have to put them on trains, on buses to get them out of our country. I think that is an idea that is not in keeping with who we are as a nation.” Comment during the third presidential debate.

19. “There's about four minutes between the order being given and the people responsible for launching nuclear weapons to do so. And that's why 10 people who have had that awesome responsibility have come out and, in an unprecedented way, said they would not trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes or to have his finger on the nuclear button.” Comment during the third presidential debate.

20. “On the day when I was in the Situation Room, monitoring the raid that brought Osama bin Laden to justice, he was hosting the ‘Celebrity Apprentice.’ So I'm happy to compare my 30 years of experience, what I've done for this country, trying to help in every way I could, especially kids and families get ahead and stay ahead, with your 30 years, and I'll let the American people make that decision.” Comment during the third presidential debate.

21. “Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don't think there is a woman anywhere who doesn't know what that feels like. So we now know what Donald thinks and what he says and how he acts toward women. That's who Donald is.” Comment during the third presidential debate.

22. “He went after Mr. and Mrs. Khan, the parents of a young man who died serving our country, a Gold Star family, because of their religion. He went after John McCain, a prisoner of war, said he prefers ‘people who aren't captured.’ He went after a federal judge, born in Indiana, but who Donald said couldn't be trusted to try the fraud and racketeering case against Trump University because his parents were Mexican. ... This is a pattern, a pattern of divisiveness, of a very dark and in many ways dangerous vision of our country, where he incites violence, where he applauds people who are pushing and pulling and punching at his rallies. That is not who America is.” Comment during the third presidential debate.

23. “He lost the Iowa caucus. He lost the Wisconsin primary. He said the Republican primary was rigged against him. Then Trump University gets sued for fraud and racketeering; he claims the court system and the federal judge is rigged against him. There was even a time when he didn't get an Emmy for his TV program three years in a row and he started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged against him.” Comment during the third presidential debate.

24. “What we all saw and heard on Friday was Donald talking about women, what he thinks about women, what he does to women. And he has said that the video doesn't represent who he is. But I think it's clear to anyone who heard it that it represents exactly who he is. Because we've seen this throughout the campaign. We have seen him insult women. We've seen him rate women on their appearance, ranking them from one to 10. We've seen him embarrass women on TV and on Twitter. We saw him after the first debate spend nearly a week denigrating a former Miss Universe in the harshest, most personal terms. So, yes, this is who Donald Trump is.” Comment during the second presidential debate.

25. “Within hours I said that I was sorry about the way I talked about that, because my argument is not with his supporters. It's with him and with the hateful and divisive campaign that he has run, and the inciting of violence at his rallies, and the very brutal kinds of comments about not just women, but all Americans, all kinds of Americans.” Comment during the second presidential debate, when asked about her “basket of deplorables” remark.

26. “The kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle-down economics all over again. In fact, it would be the most extreme version, the biggest tax cuts for the top percent of the people in this country than we've ever had. I call it trumped-up trickle-down, because that's exactly what it would be. That is not how we grow the economy.” Comment during the first debate.

27. “From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia. He’s taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over one of America’s two major political parties. His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous.” Line from an August 2016 speech in Reno.

28. “Maya Angelou once said: ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’ Well, throughout his career and this campaign, Donald Trump has shown us exactly who he is. We should believe him.” Line from several speeches.

29. “The man who today is the standard bearer of the Republican Party said a federal judge was incapable of doing his job solely because of his heritage. Even the Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, described that as ‘the textbook definition of a racist comment.’” Line from the August 2016 speech in Reno.

30. “The last thing we need in the Situation Room is a loose cannon who can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction, and who buys so easily into racially-tinged rumors. Someone detached from reality should never be in charge of making decisions that are as real as they come.” Line from the August 2016 speech in Reno.

31. “Don’t worry, some will say: As president, Trump will be surrounded by smart advisers who will rein in his worst impulses. So when a tweet gets under his skin and he wants to retaliate with a cruise missile, maybe cooler heads will be there to convince him not to. Maybe.” Line from the August 2016 speech in Reno.

32. “My opponent misses something important. When we say America is exceptional, it doesn’t mean that people from other places don’t feel deep national pride, just like we do. It means that we recognize America’s unique and unparalleled ability to be a force for peace and progress, a champion for freedom and opportunity.” Line from an August 2016 speech in Cincinnati.

33. "You know better than anyone that people who look at the African American community and see only poverty, crime, and despair are missing so much. They’re missing the vibrancy of black-owned businesses, the excellence of historically black colleges and universities. They’re missing the success of black leaders in every field, and the passion of a new generation of young black activists. And yes, they are missing the strength of the black church, the solid rock on which so much is built. Well, I see you.” Line from a September 2016 speech at the National Baptist Convention in Kansas City, Mo.

34. “We must reform our criminal justice system because everyone is safer when there is respect for the law and when everyone is respected by the law. And let’s admit it, there is clear evidence that African- Americans are disproportionately killed in police incidents compared to any other group.” Line from a speech to the NAACP’s annual convention, held in July 2016 in Cincinnati.

35. “I’m a big fan of Congressman Jim Clyburn’s 10-20-30 plan, steering 10 percent of federal investments to neighborhoods where 20 percent of the population has been living below the poverty line for 30 years. That should go nation-wide, because the unemployment rate among young African-Americans is twice as high for young whites.” Line from the NAACP speech.

36. “We white Americans need to do a better job of listening when African-Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers you face every day. We need to recognize our privilege and practice humility rather than assume that our experiences are everyone’s experiences. We all need to try as best we can to walk in one another’s shoes, to imagine what it would be like to sit our son or daughter down and have the talk about how carefully they need to act around police because the slightest wrong move could get them hurt or even killed.” Line from the NAACP speech.

37. “Independent experts have looked at what I've proposed and looked at what Donald's proposed, and basically they've said this: that if his tax plan, which would blow up the debt by over $5 trillion and would in some instances disadvantage middle-class families compared to the wealthy, were to go into effect, we would lose 3.5 million jobs and maybe have another recession. They've looked at my plans and they've said, OK, if we can do this, and I intend to get it done, we will have 10 million more new jobs, because we will be making investments where we can grow the economy.” Remark during the first presidential debate.

38. “Do the thousands of people that you have stiffed over the course of your business not deserve some kind of apology from someone who has taken their labor, taken the goods that they produced, and then refused to pay them?” Remark during the first presidential debate.

39. “We’d have a president who has shown very clearly how he feels about immigrants from the very first day of his campaign. He’s promised to round up millions of immigrants and kick them out, even if that means tearing apart families and hurting our economy..” Line from a speech Wednesday in Las Vegas, in which Clinton asked the crowd to imagine a Trump presidency.

40. “A few days ago in Ohio, a man named Bruce Blair introduced me at a rally. As a young Air Force Officer, Bruce Blair’s job was to sit in an underground bunker in Montana to be ready to launch nuclear weapons if the president ever gave the order. So when he hears Donald Trump talk so casually about using nuclear weapons, it chills him to the bone. He knows our commander-in-chief needs to be steady, not reckless; rational, not hot-headed.” Line from the recent Las Vegas speech.

41. “We believe that people should be respected and have dignity and have the right to marry, and so we’re going to keep working to protect the rights of women, to make sure that Planned Parenthood is not defunded.” Line from the recent Las Vegas speech.

42. “I have been speaking with police chiefs and mayors and law enforcement officers across America, and I ask them if there’s one thing – one thing – that you need, what is it? And they said, we need help to deal with people who have mental health problems. I hear it across America, and we’re going to do something about both mental health and addiction when I am your president.” Line from the recent Las Vegas speech.

43. “Apparently these people are here to protest Trump because Trump and his kids have killed a lot of animals.” Remark during an August appearance in Las Vegas, which was disrupted by animal-rights protesters. Clinton apparent was referring to big-game hunting by Trump’s children.

44. “We need more than a plan for the big banks. The middle class needs a raise.” Remark during Clinton’s Nevada Caucus victory speech in February 2016.

45. "It's phony strength to not know what you're talking about, and to make outrageous statements that will actually make our job harder, no matter how in the moment it sounds.” Remark during a CNN interview on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

46. “He describes America as an embarrassment. He said — and I quote — ‘We're becoming a third-world country.’ … Go visit with the workers building rockets. That doesn’t happen in third world countries.” Line from an August speech in Michigan, where Clinton toured rocket and aircraft manufacturing facilities.

47. “Some country is going to be the clean energy superpower of the 21st century and create millions of jobs and businesses. It’s probably going to be either China, Germany, or America. I want it to be us.” Line from the Michigan speech.

48. “We will fight to make college tuition-free for the middle class and debt-free for everyone. We will also liberate millions of people who already have student debt by making it easier to refinance and repay what you owe as a portion of your income so you don’t have to pay more than you can afford. It’s just not right that Donald Trump can ignore his debts, but students and families can’t refinance their debt.” Line from the Michigan speech.

49. “Investments at home that would make us more competitive have been completely blocked in Congress. And American workers and communities have paid the price. But the answer is not to rant and rave or cut ourselves off from the world. … So my message to every worker in Michigan and across America is this: I will stop any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages — including the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” Line from the Michigan speech.

50. “The bottom line is this: I’m running for president to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. And based on what we know from the Trump campaign, he wants America to work for him and his friends, at the expense of everyone else.” Line from the Michigan speech.