Turmoil over leaked audio tapes and e-mails has detracted from the usual issues in a presidential election, but the issues still matter. Here, in their own words, is how Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump frame their positions on some of the country’s most pressing matters.
Abortion
Clinton: “Women’s personal health decisions should be made by a woman, her family, and her faith, with the counsel of her doctor. Hillary will fight back against Republican attempts to restrict access to quality, affordable reproductive health care.” (HillaryClinton.com)
Trump: “Let me be clear—I am pro-life. I support that position with exceptions allowed for rape, incest, or the life of the mother being at risk. I did not always hold this position, but I had a significant personal experience that brought the precious gift of life into perspective for me.” (DonaldTrump.com)
Immigration
Clinton: According to her campaign website, Clinton “will introduce comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to full and equal citizenship within her first 100 days in office. It will treat every person with dignity, fix the family visa backlog, uphold the rule of law, protect our borders and national security, and bring millions of hardworking people into the formal economy.”
Trump: On Dec. 7, 2015, Trump issued a press release “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” But he later said he would only ban immigration of Muslims from “terror states.” His website currently states his intention to “suspend the issuance of visas to any place where adequate screening cannot occur, until proven and effective vetting mechanisms can be put into place.”
Supreme Court Justices
Clinton: “Regardless of who wins in the fall, the balance of the court hangs on this election. So, if you care about a woman’s right to safe and legal abortion; protecting voting rights; marriage equality; getting the outsized influence of money out of politics; giving more people access to health care; keeping families together; or preserving any other fundamental right, it’s time to register to vote.” (HillaryClinton.com)
Trump: “We have a very clear choice in this election,” Trump said in September. “The freedoms we cherish and the constitutional values and principles our country was founded on are in jeopardy. The responsibility is greater than ever to protect and uphold these freedoms and I will appoint justices, who like Justice Scalia, will protect our liberty with the highest regard for the Constitution.”
Criminal Justice System
Clinton: “Too many young African American and Latino men,” Clinton said in a Sept. 26, 2016, debate, have “ended up in jail for nonviolent offenses.” She advocated reducing mandatory minimum sentences, “which have put too many people away for too long for doing too little.”
Trump: An aspect of maintaining law and order should be the use of “stop-and-frisk” procedures, Trump said in the same debate. “We need law and order in the inner cities because the people that are most affected by [urban violence and unrest] are African American and Hispanic people.”
Religious Liberty
Clinton: “As Americans, we hold fast to the belief that everyone has the right to worship however he or she sees fit,” Clinton wrote in a Deseret News op-ed in August. “I’ve been fighting to defend religious freedom for years.”
Trump: “The Little Sisters of the Poor, or any religious order for that matter, will always have their religious liberty protected on my watch and will not have to face bullying from the government because of their religious beliefs.”
(DonaldTrump.com)