Jan. 15 Democratic debate transcript

Williams: Time for the rebuttal has expired.
Senator Obama, a fresh question here.
It may not come as news to you that there's a lot of false information about you circulating on the Internet.
We received one e-mail, in particular -- usually once several weeks; we've received three of them this week. This particular one alleges, among other things, that you are trying to hide the fact that you're a Muslim, that you took the oath of office on the Koran and not the Bible... that you will not pledge allegiance to the flag or generally respect it.
How do you -- how does your campaign go on about combating this kind of thing?

Sen. Obama:  Well, look, first of all, let's make clear what the facts are: I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible.

Williams: I figured.

Sen. Obama:  I pledge allegiance and lead the pledge of allegiance sometimes in the United States Senate when I'm presiding.
I haven't been there lately because I've been in Iowa and New Hampshire.
But you know, look, in the Internet age, there are going to be lives that are spread all over the place. I have been victimized by these lies. Fortunately, the American people are I think smarter than folks give them credit for. You know, it's a testimony -- these e-mails were going out in Iowa. They were going out in New Hampshire. And we did just fine.

If we didn't do well, for example, in New Hampshire, it wasn't because of these e-mails. It was because we didn't do what we needed to do in our campaign.

So my job is to tell the truth, to be straight with the American people about how I intend to end climate change, what I'm going to do with respect to providing health care for every American, how we're going to provide tax relief to hard-working Americans who are really feeling the pinch, and to present my vision for where the country needs to go.

If I'm doing that effectively, then I place my trust in the American people that they will sort out the lies from the truth, and they will make a good decision.

Williams: Senator Obama, thank you.
At this point, we are going to take the first of exactly three breaks in the two-hour broadcast tonight. On the other side of this break, among the topics we will take on the economy, when we continue from Las Vegas after this.

(Commercial break)

Williams: We are back live in Las Vegas, Nevada, with the three top candidates for the Democratic nomination for president. Brian Williams with Tim Russert, Natalie Morales.

We're going to continue the questioning here on the topic of the economy. And then, within this portion of the broadcast, we're going to try something new for this series, and that is, the candidates will have two questions each to ask of their fellow candidates.

So while they think about that, we will start off with the economy and a question for you, Senator Clinton.
This evening on NBC Nightly News, our lead story was about the fact that Citigroup and Merrill Lynch have both "gone overseas," as some put it, hat in hand, looking for $20 billion in investment to stay afloat from, among other things, the government of Singapore, Korea, Japan, and the Saudi Prince Alwaleed, the man -- Rudolph Giuliani turned his money back after 9/11.

This is -- strikes a lot of Americans as just plain wrong.
At the end of our report we said this may end up in Congress.
What can be done? And does it strike you as fundamentally wrong, that much foreign ownership of these American flagship brands?