When we come back, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joins us here as our special edition of SPECIAL REPORT continues live from Detroit.
BAIER: Welcome back to this special edition of SPECIAL REPORT, a Democratic town hall live from Detroit. Please join me in welcoming former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
CLINTON: Bret, how are you?
BAIER: Madame Secretary, how are you? Good to see you.
CLINTON: Good, great to see you.
BAIER: Great to have you here.
CLINTON: Hi, mayor.
Hi, Derrick (ph).
Hey, Debbie.
BAIER: Thank you for joining us.
CLINTON: Thank you for having us.
BAIER: So I want to start out with the breaking news about Michael Bloomberg deciding not to make an independent run this year. Your thoughts on that.
CLINTON: Well, I have the greatest respect for Mike Bloomberg we worked together during the eight years I was in the Senate. He has elected, as you know, shortly after I joined, and he has to make his own decisions. But I look forward to continuing to work with him, and finding ways that he can show leadership, which he has done so well over the years.
BAIER: I want to ask you questions that haven't come up in townhalls or debates. One of them is about Libya. You were the leading voice in the Obama administration for the intervention. An intervention that obviously toppled Ghadafi's dictatorship, using what you called ``smart power.'' And it's important to point out there were no U.S. casualties, minimal resources expended.
CLINTON: Right, right.
BAIER: However Libya now is in total chaos. The U.N. representative just last week said this, that ISIS had, quote, ``taken advantage of the political and security vacuum and is expanding to the west, east, and to the south, while Libya's financial resources are dwindling.'' The criminal networks, including human smuggling, are booming.``
If the intervention of Libya was one of your great foreign policy successes, is the post-intervention transition one of your greatest failures?
CLINTON: Well, Bret, let's talk about it in context, and let's remember what was going on at the time. It was during the so-called Arab Spring. People in Libya who had been living under the dictatorship of Gadhafi for 42 years were rising up. And he, as we all can remember, was a ruthless dictator with American blood on his hands.
Ronald Reagan, as you recall, tried to take him out because of the danger he posed. And once it became clear to him that the people of Libya were trying to get more freedom and hopefully a better future, he basically said he was going to hunt them down like cockroaches.
The Europeans who had a lot more of a connection with Libya, going back many decades, were absolutely intent upon working with us with NATO. For the first time, Arab countries stepped up and said, we will work with NATO, because this man has paid for efforts to undermine us, assassinate our leaders, all around bad character.
So we did join with our European and Arab partners. He was overthrown.
And let's also remember that the Libyan people have voted twice in free and fair elections for moderate leaders, trying to get themselves to a better future. Now what has happened is deeply regrettable. There have been forces coming from the outside, internal squabbles that have led to the instability that has given terrorist groups, including ISIS, a foothold in some parts of Libya.
I think it's fair to say, however, if there had not been that intervention to go after Gadhafi, we would be looking at something much more resembling Syria now, than what we faced in Libya.
BAIER: Sure. But there are people who say Libya is now a failed state, and they are concerned about ISIS getting power. Would you put U.S. troops on the ground in Libya?
CLINTON: No. no.
BAIER: To prevent ISIS from gain a foothold?
CLINTON: Not U.S. combat troops. We already are, as you know, from the headlines and the stories, using special forces, using air strikes to go after ISIS leaders.
But I want to just stress the point I was making -- leaving a dictator in place, like the Iranians and Russians have done with Assad, where we have at least 250,000 people killed, Libya, the numbers are minuscule in comparison, about 1,500 last year. There is a concerted effort. The U.N. and others are really working hard to try to unify the different elements within the country.
So it's been a couple of years. They haven't been as successful as their neighbor Tunisia, but they are attempting to move forward.
We ought to be supporting them, not only with special forces and air strikes against terrorists, but helping them secure their borders and deal with some of the internal challenges they face.
BAIER: I want to ask you about a question I asked Senator Sanders. Do you think a child should have any legal rights or protections before its born? Or do you think there should not be any restrictions on any abortions at any stage in a pregnancy?
CLINTON: Well, again, let me put this in context, because it's an important question. Right now the Supreme Court is considering a decision that would shut down a lot of the options for women in Texas, and there have been other legislatures that have taken similar steps to try to restrict a woman's right to obtain an abortion.
Under Roe v. Wade, which is rooted in the Constitution, women have this right to make this highly personal decision with their family in accordance with their faith, with their doctor.
It's not much of a right if it is totally limited and constrained.
So I think we have to continue to stand up for a woman's right to make these decisions, and to defend Planned Parenthood, which does an enormous amount of good work across our country.
BAIER: Just to be clear, there's no -- without any exceptions?
CLINTON: No -- I have been on record in favor of a late pregnancy regulation that would have exceptions for the life and health of the mother.
I object to the recent effort in Congress to pass a law saying after 20 weeks, you know, no such exceptions, because although these are rare, Bret, they sometimes arise in the most complex, difficult medical situation.
BAIER: Fetal malformities and...
CLINTON: And threats to the woman's health.
BAIER: Sure.
CLINTON: And so I think it is -- under Roe v. Wade, it is appropriate to say, in these circumstances, so long as there's an exception for the life and health of the mother.
BAIER: Okay.
Secretary Clinton, I know you have said you're not worried at all about what you call the ''security review`` of your private server and the personal e-mails during your time as secretary.
But the FBI investigation is hanging over your campaign. And there are Democrats who are worried about another shoe dropping, potentially with the worry that there's immunity for your former IT staffer Bryan Pagliano.
BAIER: You were asked a question about it at the debate last night. You chose not to answer the e-mail part, so I'd like to ask you just a few quick questions on this before we take audience questions on this specific policy.
I've heard Others say that neither you nor your lawyers had been apprised that you are a target of the investigation. Is that true?
CLINTON: Absolutely true.
BAIER: Have you or your lawyers been apprised that any members of your current or former staff are targets of the investigation?
CLINTON: Absolutely not.
BAIER: At the time you and your staff deleted nearly 32,000 emails, about half of the total volume, were you aware that the server was going to be sought as evidence by federal authorities?
CLINTON: No, but let me clarify this, because, you know, there's much misinformation going on around here. And let me just start with the basic facts. I have said it wasn't the best choice to use a personal email. It was a mistake. However, I am not alone in that. Many people in the government, past and current, have on occasion or as a practice done the same.
Nothing I sent was marked classified or that I received was marked classified. And specifically, with respect to your question, every government official, and this is a legal theory -- not just a theory, it's a legal rule, gets to choose what is personal and what is it official. What we turned over were more than 30,000 emails that I assumed were already in the government system, Bret, because they were sent to state.gov addresses.
BAIER: Sure, but there were some that were just recently discovered and turned over...
CLINTON: No, that was in the State Department, not in me. I've turned over everything.
BAIER: Let me just clarify, the State Department has redacted and declared 2,101 of your work emails classified, at least at the confidential level, 44 classified as secret, 22 classified as top secret. So you said at a March press conference in 2015: ``I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.'' So can we say definitively that that statement is not accurate?
CLINTON: No, you can't. Here's what happened, the State Department has a process for determining what is or isn't classified. If they determine it is, they mark it as classified.
BAIER: Well, who decides...
CLINTON: The State Department decides.
BAIER: But what about you when you're typing an email?
CLINTON: No, the State Department decides what is -- and let me go a step further here, I will reiterate, because it's a fact, nothing I sent or received was marked classified. Now, what happens when you ask or when you are asked to make information public is that it's reviewed and different agencies come in with their opinions.
As you know, just recently, Colin Powell's emails were retroactively classified from more than 10 years ago. As he said, that was an absurdity. I could not agree more.
BAIER: So your contention now is the 2,101 emails contained information that shouldn't be classified at any time, they should be -- now or then, you're just saying it shouldn't have been classified?
CLINTON: Well, what I'm saying is, it wasn't at the time. Now if you -- let's take Mary Smith who has some information in the government. And she is FOIAed, Freedom of Information Act, give us your information, your memos, your emails, whatever it might have been. That then goes through a process. So even though the agency she works in has none of this is classified, others start to have a chance to weigh-in.
So others might say, you know, that wasn't at the time, but now with circumstances, we don't want to release it, so, therefore, we have to classify it.
I've asked, and I echo Colin Powell in this, release it, and once the American people see it, they will know how absurd this is. So Colin Powell and I are exactly on the same page.
BAIER: We want to get to audience questions, we have got a couple more things there. Let's turn Douglas Ferrick. He's the vice president of donor relations for the United Way locally.
CLINTON: Oh, I love the United Way. Hi.
QUESTION: Hi. Welcome to Detroit, Secretary Clinton.
CLINTON: Thank you.
QUESTION: We're really glad you're here. My question surrounds how do you anticipate getting anything done in Washington when compromise is a bad word?
CLINTON: You know, this is one of the most important questions for everybody in Washington, not just the next president. I will tell you what I have done and what I intend to do.
When I was first lady, senator, secretary of state, I worked closely with Republicans, some of the most partisan Republicans. You know, after we failed to get health care done back in '93-'94, I turned around and started working with Democrats and Republicans to pass the Children's Health Insurance Plan, which has 8 million kids insured. I also worked, because I care deeply about foster care and adoption, with one of the most partisan Republicans then in the Congress, Tom DeLay.
But he cared about foster kids, I knew that. I called him up. I said, Congressman, would you work with me to reform the adoption and foster care system? He said, what do you want to do? I said, come to the White House, let's have a meeting. We were able to find common ground on that issue.
When I got to the Senate, I started working with people who had been some of the biggest critics and opponents of my husband's presidency. And we found common ground. I worked with, I think, nearly all, if not all, of the Republicans that I served with. And when I became secretary of state, I did the same.
Now, I'm not saying this is easy, but as my good friend Debbie Dingell knows, you have to work at it every single day. You have to get up. You have to try to find the relationships. You have to build on it. You have to find common ground. And that is what I will do.
Now, the other thing I will say, which is a little bit kind of funny, is when I'm not running for something, the Republicans say really nice things about me.
CLINTON: And I have like a whole archive of those comments because I did work with them, and I will work with them. I'll go anywhere to meet with anyone, any time, to find common ground. I will also stand my ground, because I will disagree with some of the things that they want to do.
But I think your point is so important. Our founders created a where they made clear no human being has all the answers. You have to work together. They had some really intense disagreements, but they kept working until they could come to some compromise. Compromise is not a dirty word. It is the way democracy has to work. And that's what I will do.
BAIER: Thank you, Douglas, for the question.
I ask this, Secretary Clinton, to Senator Sanders, who is your favorite Republican?
CLINTON: You know, I've worked with so many of them. And the women in the Senate became good friends, both Democrats and Republicans. And we worked a lot of issues, Susan Collins from Maine, for example. But I also worked with John McCain. He and I joined together to raise money for the rehabilitation hospital in San Antonio, for returning veterans.
And we also joined with others to work on some important issues. So I have good relations with a lot of Republicans. I hesitate to mention any more names, it will probably hurt them and I do want to work with them.
BAIER: That's what Senator Sanders said.
CLINTON: Yes, that's true, though.
BAIER Let's go to Alton James. He is a recruiter for Wayne State University.
CLINTON: Hi, how are you, Mr. James?
QUESTION: Good evening, Secretary Clinton. And thank you for fielding my question.
Being in education policy, Ph.D. Candidate, I really worry about the confluence of poverty and education and what that can yield in terms of crime. I know that in 1994 you supported the crime bill. And I would like to know what were your reasons for supporting, and if hypothetically that bill were on the table today, would you still in support?
CLINTON: Well, I think that, you know, as we said last night, both Senator Sanders and I supported it. I didn't have a vote, but I did support it. He voted for it. Why did we do that? Because there was a very serious crime challenge, even an epidemic in a lot of communities in our country at that time.
So there were some positive things that were in the crime bill to try to deal with the threat of crime that really had so many serious consequences for people across our country. But as my husband said last summer at the NAACP, there were problems that were solved but there were mistakes made in that bill.
And one of them was, although it was just about the federal system, it set off a chain reaction where more and more people ended up being incarcerated who, in my opinion, should not have been: low- level offenders, non-violent offenders. We have to rip away the school-to-prison pipeline and replace it with a cradle-to-college pipeline. And in order to do that...
CLINTON: We need a comprehensive approach. So, yes, we have to improve the criminal justice system, we have to divert people from jail and prison. But we also have to provide educational opportunities, particularly for disadvantaged kids from the earliest ages, which is why I support quality early childhood education, universal pre-kindergarten education.
We have to work to reverse terrible situations like what you have right now in the Detroit public school. And I know this is something the mayor cares deeply about. You've got little children in classrooms infested with mold and rodents. That is unacceptable. It is indefensible. I'm calling on the governor to return control of the Detroit public schools to the people of Detroit.
CLINTON: So I want to finish with just one additional comment, because you alluded to it.
It is absolutely imperative that we make college affordable. I have a plan to do that, debt-free tuition, more help for non-tuition costs so more young people can actually start college and complete college.
CLINTON: OK. I'd be glad to tell you, absolutely, because it's different Senator Sanders. So let me give you -- if I've got time. Do I have time? Brett? OK. This is exciting, good. Alright, here's what it is.
I call it the New College Compact because everybody is going to have to do their part. I want debt-free tuition. You will never have to borrow money to attend a public college or university. The money that you will need will be provided if you cannot afford to go to college. And, right now, given the costs, that covers most people except wealthy people.
What I am saying is that we will fund debt-free tuition. You won't have to borrow money. It's different from Senator Sanders in this regard, I think the costs are too high in college and university.
Tuition has gone up 42 percent over the last 10 years. I don't understand how that can be justified. So, when Senator Sanders says ``free college'' with no pressure on the universities and college and the universities to lower their costs, I think that will only make it more expensive. So, I'm requiring that colleges and universities take a hard look at what they're charging, and if it's not related to a young person getting a degree that will lead to a job, don't charge the student. You will not be able to do that.
Secondly, I expect states to start reinvesting in higher education. We have enough prisons, they don't need to be building more prisons, they need to be investing in colleges and universities. So, they will do their part.
And, I have the funding worked out so that we're able to do this. Senator Sander relies, in order to get what he called free education, on Republican as well as Democratic governors putting in $23 billion dollars a year. Frankly I'm skeptical of that.
So, I think we can get to where we need to get to, plus, reduce student debt.
Not only have you refinance your student debt, but also make it possible for you to pay it back as a percentage of your income, which is what I got to do because I borrowed money to go to law school.
BAIER: Alright.
CLINTON: And, I wasn't stuck with the high interest rates that too many people have today.
BAIER: Thank you, Secretary. We do want to take some of the questions here. But, by the way, the question I asked Senator Sanders was, you know, the concern about the national debt, and how you pay for everything.
CLINTON: Yes, well my numbers add up, and my numbers are connected to sources of funding that we can count on, and people have looked at my plans and Senator Sanders'. Mine costs about $100 billion dollars a year, and that is all paid for because I think it would be a mistake to run up the national debt, to run up the size government by 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent without knowing how we are going to pay for it.
BAIER: Let me bring in automotive lab technician, Frank Rauth. Frank?
QUESTION: I have a single adult son who earned $29,000 dollars last year in purchased insurance through the healthcare.gov website. His policy cost approximately $240, and when he filed federal taxes this year, he owed the federal government $141 dollars because the tax break he got from the website was overestimated.
What will you do to make health insurance more affordable for someone like him?
CLINTON: Well, first of all, we have to go at the mistakes that you just referenced that your son has experienced. I've heard about those. I'm a big supporter and defender of the Affordable Care Act because I think it has given us the chance to do what I have worked for, what Senator Sanders believes in, to get to universal coverage. We're at 90 percent coverage, we have 10 percent to go.
So, I'm going to get the costs down. We are going to get out of pocket costs down, we're going to get deductibles down. We are going to require more free services within the benefit package, and we are going to right after prescription drug costs.
So, all of that should help your son and everybody else.
Here's something else I want to do. We need more competition in the healthcare marketplace. One of the ideas under the Affordable Care Act was to encourage nonprofits to get into providing health insurance. You know, Blue Shield, Blue Cross, used to be nonprofits. And, they made a perfectly good -- don't call it a profit because they were a nonprofit, but they made enough money to keep going, and to pay their executives and everybody else who worked there.
Then, they all became for-profit. We need to get more companies, more nonprofits, to fill this space. The ones that knew what they were doing have provided good services, but a lot of them have failed because they didn't have the right support. So, I want more competition and I want competition from nonprofits so that we can really give the insurance companies a lot of pressure to get the costs down.
BAIER: OK, Secretary Clinton, you are not winning in these states with millennials, and some also with young women. Why is Senator Sanders doing better?
CLINTON: Well, look, I think it's great that both of us are bringing a lot of people into the process. And, I applaud Senator Sanders for really getting a very big turnout among young people.
I love to see that, and I'm going to continue to attract young people. I'm proud of those who are supporting me. And, I tell young people all the time, you may not be for me now, but I'm for you regardless, and I'm going to keep working to try to help young people because, after all, this election is about their future.
Final thing I would say about this is I think a lot of young people -- we heard an allusion, the father talking about his son, you know, a lot of young people are saying that is going, you know?
They get out of the Great Recession and into the job market and there are no jobs. They are burdened with student debt, the ones that got student debt. They're feeling the economy doesn't work for them, the government doesn't work for them. I don't blame them for being really disturbed by what's going on in our country. That's why I'm not overpromising.
I'm telling you what I can do, and how I think I can actually deliver results because I want to rebuild people's confidence in our country and where we are headed in the future.
BAIER: Secretary Clinton, here is our youngest questioned. Samuel is 13 years old and he is in middle school.
CLINTON: Samuel?
BAIER: Samuel.
CLINTON: Thank you.
BAIER: And he is covering and following this election very closely. Samuel.
CLINTON: Hi, Samuel.
QUESTION: Thank you. Secretary Clinton, when you think of Senator Sanders, do you consider him an enemy, or an ally.
CLINTON: Oh, an ally for sure. And here's how I think about it, Samuel. We have differences, and we are passionate about our positions, and our differences.
And, you know, like we saw in the debate last night, we air those differences about issues. Compare that to the Republicans and how they behave.
You know, I am very proud of the campaign that Senator Sanders and I are running. And, I have said publicly, I will repeat that tonight. I hope to win the nomination. If I am so fortunate, I hope to work with him, the issues he has raised, the passion he has demonstrated, the people he has attracted, are going to be very important in the general election, but equally following the election to try to get things done.
So, I certainly consider him an ally.
BAIER: Would you tap him to be your V.P. choice?
CLINTON: Oh, let's not get ahead of ourselves, you know?
CLINTON: My gosh, you know? I don't want to think any further ahead than tomorrow, and the Michigan primary. I can't do that.
CLINTON: But, I do want to tell Samuel an experience that kind of illustrates what I'm talking about.
You know, then Senator Obama and I ran a really tough campaign against each other to the very end. He won, I lost. So, when I dropped out, I said I would support him, and I began to do that. I nominated him at the convention in Denver. I worked really hard to get him elected. And, it wasn't easy to convince a lot of my supporters to immediately move to supporting the Senator Obama, but I made the case. I made the case in public, I made the case in private, and the vast majority did what I thought was the right thing, to support him to be president.
So, when you get through a primary, despite the emotions that are engineered in your supporters, you have to take stock of where you are and who is running on the other side.
And, what that person represents, and I think if any of the remaining candidates on the Republican side is nominated, then I think my supporters, Senator Sanders' supporters, we are going to find a lot of common cause to prevent that person from ever being president of the United States.
BAIER: Secretary Clinton, thank you for your time.
CLINTON: Oh my gosh, it went by so fast, Bret.
BAIER: It did go by fast.
CLINTON: Thank you.
BAIER: Thank you very much for being here.
CLINTON: Thank you.
BAIER: We look forward to having you back on Fox.
CLINTON: Thank you so much. Thank you all.
BAIER: Thank you all. That wraps up our special edition of ``Special Report''. We'll have all the coverage tomorrow from the Michigan primary from New York, good night from Detroit.
to stop with the bullshit please.
