Today in Campaign 2016
- Another Republican throws his hat in the ring: Evan McMullin, a little known former CIA operative and GOP policy wonk, is launching a third-party bid for president as a conservative #NeverTrump alternative to Donald Trump.
- “It’s never too late to do the right thing, and America deserves much better than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton can offer us,” McMullin said in his announcement. “I humbly offer myself as a leader who can give millions of disaffected Americans a conservative choice for president.”
- In an attempt to reset a campaign recently flogged by a series of controversies, Trump outlined an economic vision for the US, including dramatically slashing taxes, and took sharp aim at Hillary Clinton. In a nearly hour-long speech, unusually reading from a teleprompter, the Republican presidential nominee suggested Detroit itself was an example of “the living, breathing example of my opponent’s failed economic agenda”.
- “The unemployment rate [in Detroit] is more than twice the national average,” Trump said. “Half of all Detroit residents do not work. Detroit tops the list of the most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime. These are the silenced victims whose stories are never told by Hillary Clinton.”
- Many longtime Republican foreign policy and national security officials have issued their most vociferous repudiation of Donald Trump to date, saying the GOP presidential nominee, if elected, “would be the most reckless President in American history”. An open letter released today and signed by 50 fixtures from decades of Republican Pentagons, state departments, White Houses and treasuries rejected Trump’s “alarming ignorance” of basic international affairs, his competence at understanding US national interests, and his temperament.
- “From a foreign policy perspective, Donald Trump is not qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief,” states the letter, which was first reported by the New York Times and includes several top aides from the George W Bush administration.
- The president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was arrested after staging a sit-in at the Roanoke office of Virginia congressman Bob Goodlatte to demand a hearing on the Voting Rights Act, which was signed into law 51 years ago on Saturday. Cornell Brooks, the NAACP president, and Stephen Green, national director of the group’s youth and college division, were arrested shortly after the congressman’s office closed at 5pm, Green said in an email. He said the men were charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor, and released.
- “I’m feeling very strongly about today’s action,” Green said in an email after the arrest. “The energy from the youth during today’s action empowered me to remain resilient through this civil disobedience.”
Hillary Clinton announced that her campaign has received donations from two million people, a number her team is touting as a “major milestone” – proof that her well-oiled machine is powered by grassroots activism.
In her remarks in St Petersburg, Florida, Clinton said: “I am excited about what we’re going to do together, but I need your help. We are very proud of our campaign, we have more than 2 million people who’ve donated, $6.2m donations.”
By comparison, her opponent, Bernie Sanders, said he received donations from 2.5 million Americans who gave nearly $8m in individual contributions.
Clinton’s campaign attributes the achievement to a surge of donations in July. More than 900,000 people donated to Hillary for America, in July, according to recently released numbers by the campaign. Of those people, more than 54% of them were first time donors to the campaign. The average campaign donation was in July was $44.
Clinton had her best fundraising month yet in July, raking in $90m between her campaign and the joint fundraising committees with the Democratic party. Clinton enters the final stretch of the campaign with more than $58m cash on hand.
But Donald Trump also had his best month yet in July, raising nearly $80m, which has apparently set off alarm bells in Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters.
With less than 100 days to go before Election Day, let the mad cash dash officially begin!
Donald Trump’s campaign has responded to a letter from 50 top Republicans who expressed concern about his candidacy, dismissing the missive as “politically motivated” and penned by the individuals responsible for America’s more notable foreign policy blunders of the past 15 years.
“The names on this letter are the ones the American people should look to for answers on why the world is a mess,” Trump wrote in a statement. “We thank them for coming forward so everyone in the country knows who deserves the blame for making the world such a dangerous place. They are nothing more than the failed Washington elite looking to hold into their power, and it’s time they are held accountable for their actions.”
“These insiders - along with Hillary Clinton - are the owners of the disastrous decisions to invade Iraq, allow Americans to die in Benghazi, and they are the ones who allowed the rise of ISIS,” Trump continued.
The “stay on-message after the economic address” portion of the campaign lasted at least six hours:
Many people are saying that the Iranians killed the scientist who helped the U.S. because of Hillary Clinton's hacked emails.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 8, 2016
The Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman and Sabrina Siddiqui have more on the letter from 50 key Republicans warning against Donald Trump’s candidacy:
The Clinton campaign has also sought to cast a spotlight on Trump’s competence to be commander-in-chief as voters grow increasingly alarmed over national security. The Democratic national convention featured a cadre of generals, admirals and former officials from Republican administrations making the case against Trump in primetime, honing in on his erratic behavior and wayward statements on US foreign policy.
The Clinton campaign also released a video stringing together clips of both national security officials and former Republican presidential candidates, from Mitt Romney to Marco Rubio, stating that Trump was fundamentally unqualified to be president and should not have access to the nuclear codes.
Trump called the letter “politically motivated” in a statement, saying its signatories were members of a “failed Washington elite” struggling to hold on to its influence.
“The names on this letter are the ones the American people should look to for answers on why the world is a mess, and we thank them for coming forward so everyone in the country knows who deserves the blame for making the world such a dangerous place,” Trump said.
“These insiders – along with Hillary Clinton – are the owners of the disastrous decisions to invade Iraq, allow Americans to die in Benghazi, and they are the ones who allowed the rise of ISIS.”
Trump further committed to a foreign policy that would stand up to dictators, rebuild the military and pursue peace over war.
“Together, we will break up the rigged system in Washington, make America safe again, and we will Make America Great Again,” he said.
The New Yorker writer who profiled Donald Trump in the 90s delves into the Republican’s mentality, and explains to the Guardian’s Alex Needham why he thinks he’s destined to drop out.
Born in 1950, Mark Singer has been a writer for the New Yorker since 1974 (“There was no reason to leave,” he tells me as we sit outside a café near his home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side). In 1996, his then editor Tina Brown commissioned him to write a profile of Trump with the words “He’s totally full of shit, you’ll love him!” After months getting a full immersion into Trump’s world, one highlight being a ludicrous meeting between Trump and Aleksandr Lebed, in which Trump proudly showed the Russian general and Kremlin fixer a shoe he’d been given by Shaquille O’Neal – Singer wrote a 10,000-word profile that nailed the narcissism, superficiality and cynicism with which the world is now so alarmingly familiar. It concluded that Trump had “aspired to and achieved the ultimate luxury, an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul”.
Naturally, Trump didn’t appreciate Singer’s efforts, attacking him in his book Trump: the Art of the Comeback, in a letter to the New York Times (“he was not born with great writing ability”), and finally in an irate missive that read: “Mark, you are a total loser! And your book (and writings) sucks!”
These last two sentences are proudly printed on the back of Singer’s new book Trump and Me, which revisits his profile in the light of Trump’s presidential campaign. Given Singer’s probing wit and Trump’s essential ridiculousness, it is very funny, though the implications of a Trump presidency seem increasingly less amusing in the light of the hatred he has unleashed. “I am afraid. Everybody I know is afraid,” Singer says. “If Hillary Clinton wins, listening to the sigh of relief just on this island, we might have a carbon dioxide overload crisis. You’ll see these trees shooting up.”
Singer says that Trump is “the most unapologetic … there has to be a word stronger than hypocrite, there really does.” He is despairing that some voters – stoked by the email scandal and the WikiLeaks revelations about her attempts to undermine Bernie Sanders – think Hillary Clinton is more dishonest than Trump. This, he says, “is what really makes you want to blow your brains out. It makes you want to go back and find patient zero and think, when was the moment where we stopped being willing to fund public education in this country, that it became so egregious that we no longer could have people who understood the constitution, the checks and balances? Trump says: ‘I love the ill-educated.’ You bet he does.”
While campaigning in Florida, Hillary Clinton responded to Donald Trump’s major economic address from Detroit earlier today, characterizing it as “old, tired ideas” repackaged by a candidate with no experience in policy.
“His tax plans will give super big tax breaks to large corporations and the really wealthy, just like him and the guys who wrote the speech, right?” Clinton said of Trump’s plan. “He wants to roll back regulations on Wall Street. He wants to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has saved billions of dollars for Americans. He wants to basically just repackage trickle down economics.”
Dismissing Trump’s platform as a repackaging of “trickle down economics,” Clinton vowed “to make the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes for a change.
“They are just playing the same old siren song,” Clinton continued. “And why they haven’t learned we are not interested in economic plans that only help the top one percent, it’s time to help everybody else in America get ahead and stay ahead.”
Hillary Clinton campaigns in Florida
Watch live here:
There’s rarely a great deal of agreement in Washington, but the importance of keeping Trump’s fingers off the nuclear button is fast becoming a consensus, writes the Guardian’s Lucia Graves.
As the first woman to clinch a major party nomination, Hillary Clinton’s candidacy is already historic – and increasingly it looks like Donald Trump’s is too. But not in a flattering way.
If last week came the point at which he self-immolated the campaign and beloved Trump brand, this week may be remembered as the time he finally drove his party’s national security leadership to support the Democratic candidate for president en masse, either by voting for her expressly or by abstaining.
National security is an issue that Republican presidential candidates have historically been able to dominate but Trump may be the first guy in recent history to blow that for the party. Even more remarkable is that top neoconservatives in the party are all taking the Democrat’s side: Clinton has said Trump “shouldn’t have his finger on the button” of our nuclear arsenal. It looks like even Republican top brass agrees.
On Thursday a long list of GOP national security hands wrote a letter saying Trump would be “the most reckless president in American history” and that electing him in November would but the nation’s security at risk. Some of the 50 signatories said they’d vote for Clinton while others deemed it better to abstain from voting entirely. But all were in fundamental agreement on one main point: “Trump is not qualified and would be dangerous.”
This comes after Evan McMullin, a former CIA official who recently worked for the House Republican conference, filed papers to run for president as an independent candidate. He doesn’t support Clinton, and having missed the ballot-access deadlines in most states, the move is expected to have little effect on the race other than to help the former secretary of state by cutting into Trump’s margins. But that’s just fine with McMullin, who says, “It’s never too late to do the right thing.”
Fact-checking Donald Trump’s speech on his economic plan
Donald Trump outlined his economic vision for the US on Monday, including plans to dramatically slash taxes. Here we fact-check his key claims.
“When we were governed by the ‘America first’ policy, Detroit was absolutely booming.”
The United States has never been governed by an “America first” policy, though Trump likely means this rhetorically to say the US has shed some of its protectionist and isolationist tendencies over the past century. The America First Committee was an isolationist group in the early 1940s that wanted the US not to enter the second world war and was led by aviator Charles Lindbergh, who sympathized with the racial ideas of the Nazis.
“Our roads and our bridges fell into disrepair, yet we found the money to resettle millions of refugees at taxpayer expense.”
American infrastructure has deteriorated significantly over several decades, in part due to many years of neglect by state and federal officials of both parties. Nevertheless, in 2014, the most recent year on record, federal, state and local governments spent $416bn on infrastructure, including $96bn from the federal government, according to the Congressional Budget Office, an increase from previous years.
These figures dwarf spending on refugee resettlement, according to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, which found that the Office of Refugee Resettlement spent $1.56bn in the fiscal year of 2015.
“Detroit has per capita income of about $15,000, about half of the national average.”
According to the Census’ American community survey, Detroit’s per capita income in 2014, the most recent year on record, was $14,810, which is just over half the national per capita income of the past 12 months, $28,555. Median household income in Detroit is $25,769, about half the national average, $53,657.
“40% of the city’s residents live in poverty, over 2.5 times the national average.”
In 2014, 39.3% of Detroit residents were living below the poverty line, compared to 14.8% nationally, according to the Census Bureau.
Poll: Clinton leads Trump in Georgua
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in the deep-red state of Georgia by seven points, according to a JMC Analytics poll released this afternoon. If accurate, the poll appears to show that a Democratic presidential nominee has a shot of winning the state for the first time since 1992.
Clinton leads Trump 44% to 37%, according to the poll, with 10% of respondents undecided. Third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein take 7% and 1%, respectively.
Among black voters, Clinton leads Trump by a massive margin, 84% to 6%, and woman, 48% to 35%, while Trump leads Clinton among whites, 52% to 25%, and by a negligible among among men, 41% to 40%.
The poll is the second in one week to show Clinton leading in Georgia: In an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released on Friday, Clinton lead Trump 44% to 40%.
Many longtime Republican foreign-policy and national-security officials have issued their most vociferous repudiation of Donald Trump to date, saying the GOP presidential nominee, if elected, “would be the most reckless President in American history,” the Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman in New York and Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington report.
An open letter released on Monday and signed by 50 fixtures from decades of Republican Pentagons, State Departments, White Houses and Treasuries rejected Trump’s “alarming ignorance” of basic international affairs; his competence at understanding the US’ national interests; and his temperament.
“From a foreign policy perspective, Donald Trump is not qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief,” states the letter, which was first reported by the New York Times and includes several top aides from the George W Bush administration.
“Indeed, we are convinced that he would be a dangerous President and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.”
The former officials, many of whom are likely candidates to staff any Republican president’s administration, added that Trump “lacks the character, values, and experience” to hold the highest office in the land. It was the latest sign of traditional Republicans, usually a fractious group, striking at Trump while the nominee reels under signs of cratering poll numbers and self-inflicted political wounds.
Many of the signatories have made their doubts known before. A March letter published at the online national-security salon War on The Rocks sounded warnings on Trump’s character, policies and fitness for office. It included many who signed the current letter, including George W Bush’s homeland-security secretary Michael Chertoff; ex-Pentagon undersecretary for policy and ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman; Condoleezza Rice aide Philip Zelikow; John McCain advisers Richard Fontaine and Kori Schake; and former US ambassador to Iraq Robert Blackwill.
But the previous letter was penned in the midst of the Republican primary, when several other candidates remained competitive in the race. For dozens of high-profile intelligence officials to rebuke their own party’s nominee with the general election officially underway is yet another indication of the unprecedented nature of Trump’s candidacy.
The new letter also arrives amid heightened concerns over Trump posture toward Russia -- the former reality TV star has lavished unusual praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin, while his campaign manager Paul Manafort has been scrutinized for holding ties to Russian politicians. Former CIA acting director Michael Morrell, who endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton this weekend, has insinuated that Putin is manipulating an unwitting Trump.
Signing the new letter are former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden, who has let his antipathy to Trump be highly public in recent months, and John Negroponte, a senior official in the Reagan, George HW Bush and Clinton administrations and George W Bush’s first director of national intelligence. So did George W Bush’s White House Iraq and Afghanistan adviser, Meghan O’Sullivan, who is held in high esteem amongst congressional Republican internationalists.
The new letter also contains harsher language than the old. While the March letter compared Trump to a “racketeer,” the new one flatly says Trump “lacks the temperament to be President.” It also calls into question his fitness to wield “command of the US nuclear arsenal.”
“Unlike previous Presidents who had limited experience in foreign affairs, Mr. Trump has shown no interest in educating himself,” the letter states. “He continues to display an alarming ignorance of basic facts of contemporary international politics.”
The Clinton campaign has also sought to cast a spotlight on Trump’s competence to be commander-in-chief as voters grow increasingly alarmed over national security. The Democratic National Convention featured a cadre of generals, admirals and former officials from Republican administrations making the case against Trump in primetime, honing in on his erratic behavior and wayward statements on US foreign policy.
The Clinton campaign also released a video stringing together clips of both national security officials and former Republican presidential candidates, from Mitt Romney to Marco Rubio, stating that Trump was fundamentally unqualified to be president and should not have access to the nuclear codes.
Video: Donald Trump sought to regain momentum with an economic speech in which he floated new tax breaks and cuts to regulation, as protesters repeatedly interrupted him.
He told the Detroit Economic Club, a traditional venue for political candidates to discuss their economic vision, that his plan would include imposing a temporary moratorium on new federal regulations, and reducing rates for income and corporate taxes.
Currently the New York Time’s Fiverthirtyeight blog has Clinton’s odds of winning the election - if it was held today - at 94%. A spate of new polls are all looking very positive for Team Clinton.
- A poll from Georgia by JMC Analytics - usually a very strongly Republican state - has Clinton at 44% to Trump’s 37%. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, nabbed 7% of the vote.
- A state poll by Susquehanna Polling and Research in Pennsylvania has Clinton at 47%, Trump at 37%. Of the respondents, 46% classified themselves as conservative.
- The latest polls in Utah - from back in June - put Clinton and Trump neck and neck. Why does that matter? Because many are speculating that the announcement of Evan McMullin, the new independent candidate who announced his run for president today and is Mormon, is to tip Utah over to Clinton.
A New York resident was angered to discover his twelve-foot, T-shaped Donald Trump sign had been destroyed over the weekend. Sam Pirozzolo, who lives in Staten Island, says the act impinged on his “freedom of speech.” He has pledged to build an even bigger sign.
Clinton insults Trump’s new economic policies as a speech written by “six guys named Steve.”
“Old tired ideas [he’s making] sound new... he wants to basically repackage trickle down economics,” says Clinton in Florida.
“Trickle down economic does not help our economy grow, it does not help the vast majority of Americans, but it does really help the most wealthy... we’re going to turn that upside down, we’re going to make the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes for a change,” says Clinton.
The crowd started cheering “Hillary” so loudly, she has to pause.
“Don’t let a friend vote Trump,” says Clinton.
“I’ve got an idea for young people,” says Clinton at her rally in Florida. “If you want to start a business, you’re going to put a moratorium on your student loan payments so you can actually borrow the money to get the business started,” she said.
“As you can tell I’m pretty excited to start new businesses and create new jobs,” yells a smiling Clinton.
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Clinton hosts rally in St Petersburg, Florida
Hillary Clinton will tomorrow visit the Miami suburb of Wynwood, where the Zika virus is being carried by local mosquitoes, she revealed in an online question and answer session with her VP pick Tim Kaine.
She explained how she would respond to the Zika crisis in Miami.
We need to step up mosquito control and abatement, provide families with critical health services, including access to contraception, develop a vaccine and treatment, and ensure people know how to protect themselves and their kids. But we can’t do any of that without the right resources.
The Quora q&a session answered questions such as why is gun control so divisive and if it’s actually economically viable to bring back manufacturing jobs.
Clinton seeks Kissinger endorsement
Hillary Clinton is sniffing out the possibilities of Republican endorsements such as Condoleezza Rice and Henry Kissinger, according to a report in Politico.
Condoleezza Rice, James Baker, George Shultz and Henry Kissinger are among a handful of so-called Republican “elders” with foreign policy and national security experience — people who have held Cabinet-level or otherwise high-ranking positions in past administrations — who have yet to come out for or against Trump.
A person close to Clinton said her team has sent out feelers to the GOP elders,
although it wasn’t clear if those efforts were preliminary or more formal requests for endorsement, or if they were undertaken through intermediaries. Clinton campaign aides did not respond when asked if they had solicited endorsements or tried to persuade the elders to speak out against Trump.
Clinton has spoken before about her friendship with Kissinger, who regularly gave her advice when she was Secretary of State. Kissinger, who served as Secretary of State under President Nixon, is a long-time foe of liberals because of his support of the Vietnam War.
“I’m proud to say Henry Kissinger is not my friend,” said Bernie Sanders during the presidential primaries.
The spokesman for the Florida Republican Party resigned because of Donald Trump.
“I’m thankful for my almost two years with the Florida GOP, however, moving on gives me a great, new opportunity to continue promoting free market solutions while avoiding efforts that support Donald Trump,” said Wadi Gaitan, who used to work as a senior GOP House aide on Latino and immigration issues.
Gaitan is heading to LIBRE Initiative, a conservative group aimed at Latino voters.
Over a dozen mainly female protesters who interrupted Donald Trump’s economic speech in Detroit today are from the Michigan People’s Campaign.
On its website’s about page, MPC is described as a “statewide organization building a movement to put people and the plant before profits.”
“You want to close Michigan plants and outsource our jobs! ” yelled Jacquie Maxwell, a Grosse Pointe auto worker, according to a press release from the organization. “How are we supposed to raise our families without good jobs? Is that what you call winning?” she said.
It was hard to understand what the protesters were shouting due to noise issues, however one would start shouting every few minutes throughout the 50 minute speech.
“Why are you blaming the victims of sexual harassment?” said Sarah Messer, a local food service worker from Detroit, according to the press release. “Why shouldn’t women be safe at our work? It’s not our fault!”
There was one male proteser in the group.
14th protester is a guy. Escorted out while shouting "TINY HANDS!"
— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) August 8, 2016
Former Republican Michigan governor endorses Clinton
On the day that Trump spoke at the Detroit Economic Club, former Republican Michigan governor William Milliken announced his endorsement of Hillary Clinton.
“This nation has long prided itself on its abiding commitments to tolerance, civility and equality. We face a critically important choice in this year’s presidential election that will define whether we maintain our commitment to those ideals or embark on a path that has doomed other governments and nations throughout history,” he said in a statement released to Detroit Free Press.
“I am saddened and dismayed that the Republican Party this year has nominated a candidate who has repeatedly demonstrated that he does not embrace those ideals ... Because I feel so strongly about our nation’s future, I will be joining the growing list of former and present government officials in casting my vote for Hillary Clinton for president in 2016,” said Milliken.
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But let’s also focus on the content! Trump’s got a new tax plan. And, it looks rather similar to Paul Ryan’s tax policies, note several commentators.
Three brackets with 33% top rate, eliminating the estate tax, corporate tax rate down; Trump's tax plan is Paul Ryan's tax plan.
— Mike Konczal (@rortybomb) August 8, 2016
“I want to apologize to all of you and to Trump about the interruptions, that is not ... what the Detroit Economic Club is about,” says a rather embarrassed host of the event, addressing the issue of the dozen protesters that distracted pretty majorly from Trump’s speech.
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“We are here to show that America is bigger and better and stronger than ever before,” says Trump, ending his speech.
At least a dozen protesters have interrupted Trump’s speech so far during his address to the Detroit Economic Club. All of the protesters are women and it seems carefully planned, since a new one starts shouting every few minutes.
Trump is doing his best to ignore the protesters, unlike in usual rallies where he draws attention to them.
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Trump introduces his plan for childcare costs to be claimed in income taxes, and notes that daughter Ivanka is in the audience. He also notes the other experts in the audience, and points out he is the law and order candidate.
“Without security, there can be no prosperity,” says Trump.
Another protester starts shouting.
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Is Detroit the best location for this speech?
Who is the intended audience for Trump's increasing emphasis on urban crime and poverty? It isn't people living in Detroit.
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) August 8, 2016
As Trump talks withdrawing from TPP, only tepid applause from many audience members @deteconomicclub. Many noticeably not applauding.
— Candace Smith (@CandaceSmith_) August 8, 2016
“We will put our coal miners and our steel workers back to work,” says Trump. He argues that Clinton’s energy plans will cut thousands of jobs and wages.
He calls for lifting restrictions on energy businesses.
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“Trade has big benefits and I am in favor, totally, of trade...Isolation is not an option,” said Trump.
Another protester (is this 12 or 13?) can be heard yelling. Trump quietened down and did not say anything until protester removed.
Trump says Clinton will back the TPP, despite what she says, because “she is bought, controlled and paid for by her donors and special interests”.
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“A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for TPP. And it’s also a vote for Nafta,” says Trump, although Clinton said during the primary season that she does not back the Trans Pacific Partnership.
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“Let’s talk about South Korea,” says Trump, who says it’s a perfect illustration of failed economic issues with the US.
“So-called experts, who’ve been wrong about every trade deal for decades,” says Trump.
“Instead of creating 70,000 jobs, it has killed nearly 100,000 jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute,” he says, noting that trade from South Korea has jumped while US trade has fallen.
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“I will also immediately cancel all illegal and overreaching executive orders,” says Trump.
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Just to clarify, Trump is actually raising taxes from his original tax plan. His higher taxes, announced today, are in line with GOP policy.
Rates in Trump's original tax plan:
— Tamara Keith (@tamarakeithNPR) August 8, 2016
0%
10%
20%
25%
New Plan:
12%
25%
33%
Current top tax bracket: 39.6%
Wow, Trump just literally raised taxes, on his old plan last week: New rates: 12, 25, 33 percent.
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) August 8, 2016
Trump’s initial rate: 10, 20 and 25 pct.
Trump just announced if he becomes president he will announce a moratorium on new regulations.
“We’re going to bring back trillions of dollars from business parked overseas,” says Trump, saying money returned from US businesses overseas will only be hit with a 10% tax.
“Finally, no family will have to pay the death tax,” says Trump. “American workers have paid taxes their whole lives. They’re not going to be taxed again at their death. We will repeal it.”
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Trump is rolling off some facts about US taxes and income:
American households are earning more than $4000 less than today than they were 16 years ago, he says. The average worker pays 31% of their wage to income and payroll taxes. State and local taxes amount to another 10%, he says.
Another protester. Number 11.
Trump speaks about high company taxes he says small businesses currently struggle with.
“In other words, we punish companies for making products in America but let them ship products in tax free. This, ladies and gentleman, is backwards,” said Trump.
“Under my plan, no American company will pay more than 15% of their business income in taxes. In other words we are reducing your taxes from 35% to 15%,” says Trump, to loud applause from the audience, the biggest cheer so far.
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A ninth protester – they do sound female, from what I can hear – shouts and interrupts Trump’s speech.
“This is all very well planned out,” said Trump. Another protester.
“I will say, the Bernie Sanders people had far more energy and spirit,” says Trump.
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A seventh interruption from protesters.
Trump criticizes Hillary Clinton’s record upstate New York as senator there.
“What’s happened to upstate New York is a disaster,” says Trump. (This reporter travelled to Rome, New York, to attend a Trump rally and while there Trump read out the stats about high unemployment to a very packed crowd of supporters.)
An eighth interruption. Trump inhales and continues.
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Donald Trump just announced an official change in his top tax rate proposal, from 25% to 33%, in line with the House Republicans’ proposal.
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Another protester. There have been six interruptions so far. Trump is not taking the bait, is trying to keep talking.
“We will make America grow again,” says Trump. “In the days ahead, we will provide more details on this plan.”
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“As part of this reform, we will eliminate the carried interest reduction,” Trump announces to boos, except it seems the boos are aimed specifically at another protester, the fifth so far.
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“The one common feature of every Hillary Clinton idea is that it punishes you for working and doing business in the United States. Every policy she has tilts the playing fields towards other countries,” says Trump.
Clinton “seeks to label us, divide us and pull us apart,” says Trump, as another protester – the fourth so far – starts screaming from the audience. Trump doesn’t address the protester directly, although he starts reading his speech more loudly and then stops, trying to remain calm.
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More shouting from the the crowd, and silence from Trump. Seems like another protester.
“This is what happens when you go from 35 people to close to 2,000 people, I guess,” says Trump.
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“She is the candidate of the past. Ours is the campaign of the future,” says Trump.
“This is a city controlled by Democratic politicians, on every level.”
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Trump talks about the growth of factories in China, and the closing of factories in Detroit.
“Our roads and bridges fell into disrepair yet we found the money to settle millions of refugees at taxpayer expense,” says Trump.
Trump says the poverty rate is 2.5 times the national average and the unemployment rate is double the national average. As Trump speaks about the levels of crime in Detroit, a protester in the crowd starts screaming. Trump doesn’t say anything to protester, just pauses and then thanks the crowd once the protester is (presumably) ejected.
“The city of Detroit is a living breathing example of my opponent’s failed economic agenda,” says Trump. “Every policy that has failed this city, and so many others, is a policy supported by Hillary Clinton.”
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“Such a crowd, beautiful,” declares Donald Trump, as he takes to the podium in Detroit for his big economic speech.
Trump says he is here to speak about “economic renewal”.
“The city of Detroit is where our story begins. The people of Detroit helped to power America to its position of global dominance in the 20th century,” says Trump.
Seems like there may have been a protester in the crowd, much yelling rather than cheering. Trump shakes his head and then thanks the crowd. He’s clearly reading this speech off a teleprompter, speaking much slower and calmer than his normally frantic speeches.
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Mike Pence is here! He’s taken to the stage first, to describe it as an “historic forum”.
“Simply put, today you will hear your keynote speaker outline a vision, a new economic vision to make America great again,” says Pence.
He says he and Trump have become “fast friends”.
“Seems like someone I’ve known all my life, honestly,” says Pence.
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Video: Donald Trump gives economic speech in Detroit
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As we wait for Donald Trump’s economic speech in Detroit to kick off - touted as the biggest speech of his campaign so far - reporters on the Trump beat are reporting the Republican nominee will be rolling out a new tax plan.
He’s already deleted his old policy from his website:
Trump has now deleted his original plan for website 7/X pic.twitter.com/HxyT8PAn5R
— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) August 8, 2016
The Wall Street Journal reports the new economic plan will allow parents to deduct the cost of childcare from their income taxes. Ivanka Trump, when introducing her dad to the RNC in Cleveland, noted that Trump would help families with the cost of childcare, but it had not previously been an official policy.
Trump is also expected to announce a cut in income taxes for individuals and businesses.
You too can be like Bill Clinton at the DNC and delight in the simple joy of thousands of balloons falling on your head.
The Clinton campaign posted a 360 degree video to its Facebook page of the balloon drop. The image quality isn’t great but it gets the feeling across.
Former CIA chief Mike Morrell - who came out in support of Hillary Clinton last week - spoke on ABC news this morning, calling Donald Trump an “unwitting agent of the Russian Federation” and explaining exactly how he believes Russian president Vladimir Putin has played Trump.
Fmr. CIA chief: Putin sees Trump as "unwitting agent of the Russian Federation" https://t.co/XLjzs4zHQz #ThisWeek https://t.co/UhpB88pR4o
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 8, 2016
A coder is trying to copy the style of the Birther movement to create a damaging conspiracy to Donald Trump’s campaign, explains an article from The Daily Beast:
Donald Trump absolutely, unequivocally did not donate money to the North American Man-Boy Love Association.
But that’s not what “some people” are saying.
“Speaking of tax returns, did you hear Donald Trump is refusing to release them because Donald Trump has donated to NAMBLA? That’s what all the best sources, the most tremendous sources are saying,” said EnoughTrumpSpam’s AutoModerator.
AutoModerator is, of course, a robot that’s been fed code to spit out this exact, completely baseless and fact-free conspiracy theory about Donald Trump every single time somebody brings up taxes. It started on Reddit, but in just a couple of days, the conspiracy theory has flooded Twitter and other corners of the web. “Trump and NAMBLA” saw a spike on Google Trends this week.
And it’s not just an effort to get Trump to release his tax returns. It’s a way to show off how Trump’s conspiracy rhetoric is always precisely worded, but also based on nothing at all.
George P Bush backs Trump
George Bush has come out in support of President Trump - but it’s not either of the two former presidents.
Instead, George P Bush, son of Jeb!, spoke at a training session for the Texas State Republican Executive Committee, becoming the first in the Bush family to publicly back the Republican nominee.
“It’s time to put it aside,” said Bush, speaking about the primary season, where his father Jeb was publicly humiliated by Trump.
“From Team Bush, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but you know what? You get back up and you help the man that won, and you make sure that we stop Hillary Clinton,” said Bush.
Neither of the former Bush presidents, or Jeb, attended the recent Republican National Convention as a stand against Trump.
Updated
McMullin launches 2016 campaign website and social media
Former CIA agent Evan McMullin updated his Twitter profile and launched a campaign site, as part of his morning announcement that he is running for president.
His Twitter bio now reads:
Former CIA operative, businessman, House Chief Policy Director. Standing up to run for president because it’s never too late to do the right thing.
After having less than 1,000 followers on Twitter this morning, McMullin now has over 7,700 followers (large portion of which are probably the country’s political reporters, who’d never heard of him until today).
On his website, evanmcmullin.com, people can sign up to his campaign:
“It’s never too late to do the right thing. And if we work together, there’s nothing we can’t achieve,” it reads.
It says the site has been “PAID FOR BY MCMULLIN FOR PRESIDENT, INC.”
He’s also launched brand new Facebook and Instagram accounts, although neither have any content posted yet and both have less than 200 followers.
Evan McMullin confirms he is running for president
Evan McMullin will launch a third-party bid for president as a conservative alternative to Donald Trump.
McMullin, who until recently was employed as the chief policy director of the House Republican Conference, told ABC News there was still time to mount a campaign that could prove to be a spoiler in certain red states where Trump has lost ground in recent polls.
“In a year where Americans have lost faith in the candidates of both major parties, it’s time for a generation of new leadership to step up,” he said in a statement. “It’s never too late to do the right thing, and America deserves much better than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton can offer us.”
“I humbly offer myself as a leader who can give millions of disaffected Americans a conservative choice for President.”
McMullin’s candidacy is being pushed by backers of the Never Trump movement, which formed before the former reality TV star wrapped up the Republican nomination but has struggled until now to vet an alternative candidate.
Better for America, the group formed by Never Trump proponents, indicated that some influential Republicans would come out in support of McMullin following his announcement. He is expected to file paperwork on Monday afternoon, but would nonetheless face hurdles getting on the ballot in states where the deadline has already passed.
Updated
A source with knowledge of the plans has confirmed to the Guardian that Evan McMullin is planning to run.
“The House Republican Conference has zero knowledge of his intentions,” said House GOP spokesperson Nate Hodson, adding that McMullin is no longer employed with them.
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the 2016 campaign.
Is a little-known Republican policy director – and former CIA agent – about to throw his hat in the presidential ring?
MSNBC’s Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough had the scoop this morning that Evan McMullin, a former Goldman Sachs employee, is planning to announce himself as an independent conservative presidential candidate as a specific contrast to Donald Trump.
McMullin has an MBA from Wharton business school, which Trump attended as an undergraduate, but he is much more aligned with the policies and beliefs of the Republican party, and is currently working as the chief policy director of the House Republican conference. He is 40 years old, unmarried and has never previously run for office. His candidacy is reportedly being pushed by the Never Trump supporters in the party.
Last March he gave a Ted Talk at London Business School:
BuzzFeed is also reporting that McMullin is planning to run, pointing out that he has been critical of Trump in the past and has called the Republican candidate an “authoritarian”.
Authoritarians like @realDonaldTrump use promises of law & order to justify infringing on civil rights as they consolidate control by force.
— Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) July 22, 2016
McMullin has also spoken publicly about the important role Muslim Americans have played in counter-terrorism since 9/11.
Neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton have addressed the rumors this morning.
Elsewhere on Monday:
-
Trump will give a major economic speech in Detroit at 11.30am ET, a city that seems to fit with his pledge to make manufacturing cities great again. Reporter Ryan Felton will be there.
- Trump’s VP Mike Pence will host two rallies in Iowa, where the duo held a joint rally on Friday.
- Hillary Clinton is in Florida, touring a brewery in St Petersburg at 2.30pm ET, then hosting a 3.30pm rally, before hearing to Kissimmee for a 6.30pm ET rally.
We’ll have live coverage of all this and more throughout the day.
This blog was amended on 8 August 2016. It originally stated incorrectly that Donald Trump has an MBA from Wharton School of Business. In fact he attended classes there as an undergraduate.
Updated
