Five things Lester Holt needs to ask Hillary Clinton

Here are some questions moderator Lester Holt should ask Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in Monday’s first debate with GOP nominee Donald Trump:

{mosads}1. Over the course of the campaign, you have proposed a significantly higher corporate tax rate when U.S. corporations are currently taxed at the highest rate in the world. Many economists believe that the high corporate tax rate forces businesses to keep their profits overseas and contributes to the offshoring of factories and other job-producing private-sector ventures.

Please explain how taxing businesses even more will encourage them to create jobs in America?

2. Many of the relatives of those who were left behind to die in Benghazi while your State Department sat on requests to enter Libyan airspace to launch a rescue have stated that you lied to them about that attack.

Would you like to use this time to apologize to them for claiming that a video caused the attack, when your own emails to your daughter show that you knew it was al Qaida behind it all along? 

3. Speaking of emails, it has just come out that President Obama utilized a pseudonym in corresponding with you through your private, unauthorized email server.

When did he start communicating with you using a false name, and wasn’t this necessitated by an administration with wide recognition that any emails sent to you were not secure?

4. You are on the record doubling down on the war on coal, and extending that to increased regulation of hydraulic fracturing.

What would you say to those voters, particularly in Ohio and Pennsylvania, who have seen the economic devastation of the war on coal and now fear that under a Hillary Clinton presidency, the hopes of economic revival spawned by the shale oil/natural gas revolution will be crushed by a new set of environmental regulations?

5. When you became secretary of State, you famously called for a Russian “reset” for better relations between the United States and Russia. Yet, the world has become a dramatically more dangerous place since you were sworn into that role, and relations with Russia have deteriorated back to almost Cold War levels.

What failed in your Russian reset and given this failure, why should the American people trust you to lead foreign policy in the future? (Remember, this is not about your opponent, but about your leadership.)

And two bonus questions:

6. What part of the world is less dangerous due to your foreign policy initiatives as secretary of State?

7. Do you agree with NFL players who refuse to stand during the playing of the national anthem? If the national anthem were played right now, would you stand or would you join them in their protest?

Manning is president of Americans for Limited Government.

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