Hillary Clinton, who declared that she is "now back to being an activist citizen and part of the resistance," falsely claimed that no debate moderator ever asked Donald Trump, "so exactly how are you going to create more jobs"? It was asked in two of the three presidential debates.
In the first debate at Hofstra University, NBC News' Lester Holt devoted a segment to what he called "Achieving prosperity." Holt opened by generally asking both candidates how they would create jobs, and then he followed up twice by pressing Trump to specifically explain how he planned to bring back manufacturing jobs.
Fox News' Chris Wallace also asked both candidates about their jobs plans in the final debate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He asked Trump "why will your plan create more jobs and growth than Secretary Clinton's?" Wallace also pressed Trump to defend his promise that he would create 25 million jobs and grow the energy industry at a time of low oil prices.
Clinton made her remarks at the 2017 Women for Women International annual luncheon on May 2 during an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. The former Democratic presidential nominee talked about the 2016 campaign. She boasted about winning the popular vote, although she exaggerated a bit when she said: "And remember, I did win more than three million [more] votes than my opponent." In fact, she received nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump. She also discussed the reasons for her Electoral College defeat and, at one point, criticized the debate moderators for letting Trump off easy.
But it did happen. Twice. Both Holt and Wallace devoted an extensive part of their debates to job creation and the economy. Trump told both moderators that he would create jobs by renegotiating trade deals, cutting regulations, reducing business taxes, and repatriating corporate cash held overseas.
Clinton may not have liked Trump's answers, but the debate moderators asked the questions and Trump responded.
First Debate: ‘Achieving Prosperity’
In the first of three debates between Clinton and Trump, the moderator divided the 90-minute event into six segments that covered three topics: Achieving prosperity, America's direction and securing America.
Holt started with achieving prosperity and the first question was about jobs, asking both candidates, "Why are you a better choice than your opponent to create [jobs]"?
For the sake of brevity, we will provide some relevant excerpts from that debate here. An annotated transcript of the full debate (where we note instances when the candidates gave false or misleading answers) can be found on our transcript page.
Third Debate: Comparing Jobs Plans
Wallace began the third debate by asking the candidates about their views on the Constitution and how the Supreme Court should interpret it — leading to other questions about the Second Amendment, gun laws, and abortion. He then asked about immigration and the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee before pivoting to the economy.
Wallace asked Trump "why will your plan create more jobs and growth than Secretary Clinton's?"
The moderator also pressed Trump to defend his job-creation promises, telling the GOP nominee that "even conservative economists" believe it's unrealistic for Trump to expect that he can grow the economy at an annual rate of 4 percent, create 25 million jobs and grow the energy industry at a time of low oil prices.
Here are relevant excerpts taken from our annotated transcript of the full debate: