'Excuse me, can I finish please?' Sanders, Clinton face-off in debate

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders held a fierce and substantive debate on Sunday night, disagreeing over trade, guns, the auto industry and Wall Street.

Sparks flew thick and fast during the Democratic party’s last presidential debate as frontrunner Hillary Clinton and her main rival Bernie Sanders engaged in a feisty exchange of words.

Vying to earn the Democratic nomination as the party’s presidential candidate for the November 8 election, Clinton and Sanders sparred over trade and auto bailout along with foreign policy issues, during Sunday’s debate in Michigan.

“Excuse me, I’m talking. Can I finish, please?” the Vermont senator said, drawing boos from the crowd after Clinton tried to cut in during their heated exchange over support for the $700 billion (Rs 47 lakh crore) Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Sanders’ harsh tone and remarks came after one of the toughest attacks on him by the former secretary of state.

“If everybody had voted the way he did, I believe the auto industry would have collapsed, taking four million jobs with it,” said 68-year-old Clinton who seems set to be the first woman presidential nominee of a major party and is leading so far in both the delegate count and the number of states won.

Contrary to general expectations that Clinton would have a smooth run during the nomination process, Sanders has emerged as a strong opposition to her White House ambitions.

“Your story is voting for every disastrous trade agreement, and voting for corporate America. Did I vote against the Wall Street bailout? When billionaires on Wall Street destroyed this economy, they went to Congress and said, ‘please, we’ll be good boys, bail us out’.

“You know what I said? I said, ‘let the billionaires themselves bail out Wall Street’. It shouldn’t be the middle class of America,” said 74-year-old Sanders.

“But ultimately, if you look at our records, I stood up to corporate America time and time again. I understood that these trade agreements were going to destroy the middle class of this country. That is one of the major differences that we have,” Sanders said.

“In fact, without the export-import bank, supporting businesses of all sizes -- I believe more jobs would be lost here at home and more jobs literally would be exported.

Instead of exporting products, we would be exporting jobs,” Clinton said adding she has the most comprehensive plan to combat climate change.

“It sets some very big goals. What I am looking at is how we make the transition from where we are today to where we must be. I worked with President Obama during the four years I was secretary of state to begin to put pressure on China and India and other countries to join with us to have a global agreement which we finally got in Paris,” she said.

“I am going to set the goals. I will push everybody as hard as I can to achieve those goals. We will make progress on clean renewable energy and create millions of jobs through that,” Clinton said.