Summary
We’re going to wrap up the live blog for the day. Here’s a summary of where things stand:
-
Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon, and Carly Fiorina, the businesswoman, held events to mark their entries into the 2016 presidential nominating race.
- Carson wowed spectators with choirs singing a medley of patriotic anthems and even an Eminem song, while Fiorina released a web video and did an event on Periscope.
- Fiorina contrasted herself favorably with Hillary Clinton and said the country needed a leader with imagination. Carson said Washington was broken and needed to be fixed by someone with skills like his.
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Hillary Clinton offered through a lawyer to testify during the week of 18 May – two weeks from today – before a House panel investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks. She declined a request to agree to two appearances.
- President Barack Obama launched a nonprofit for disadvantaged youths called the My Brothers Keeper Alliance, saying “we love these kids.”
- Obama proceeded to tape a Letterman appearance, lines from which had yet to trickle out. The president was to end his day with a fundraiser at the home of Advent Capital Management’s Tracy Maitland and Morgan Stanley’s Kimberley Hatchett.
- The Clintons and the Clinton foundation played defense. “We’ve never done anything knowingly inappropriate”; “no one has ever tried to influence me by helping you”; “not aware of any evidence that actions taken by Secretary Clinton...” – read more here.
Updated
Justin Amash, the young Republican congressman from Michigan and a leading opponent of government surveillance programs, endorses Rand Paul, a fellow speechifier on behalf of civil liberties and against domestic government spying, for president:
Thank you @justinamash for your endorsement of my campaign! Add yours here >>> http://t.co/JXKzzAvK14 pic.twitter.com/K0tKwxwzxK
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 4, 2015
Updated
That carlyfiorina.org web site we linked to earlier? The one that dramatizes the estimated 30,000 layoffs at Hewlett-Packard during Fiorina’s five years as CEO?
It’s the brainchild of a digital strategy director at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – but he did it on his own time, he tells The Hill:
Michael Link, assistant director of digital strategy at the SEIU, told The Hill that he created the site, which has been shared by a number of prominent Democrats on Twitter. But he stressed that it was a personal project outside of the scope of his job with the SEIU.
“It was something that I did completely unrelated to my job that I did with my own money on my own time,” he told The Hill.
“So it really has nothing to do with my job or my employer.”
Read the full piece here.
Sir Elton John to testify before Senate
Politico reports:
Lindsey Graham's appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations will hear testimony Wednesday from .... Elton John
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 4, 2015
...developing...
Updated
We have lines from the Fiorina Periscope event. Time’s Zeke Miller is tweeting.
Fiorina is anti-hotdog:
.@CarlyFiorina: "I don’t like hotdogs"
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) May 4, 2015
And anti-weed:
Sigh @moody: .@CarlyFiorina tells @katiecouric she opposes marijuana legalization. Suggests it's worse than alcohol.
— David Boaz (@David_Boaz) May 4, 2015
Coincidence?
(Second tweet from Fiorina’s earlier interview with Yahoo’s Katie Couric.)
Clinton offers Benghazi panel sole appearance
David E Kendall, a lawyer for Hillary Clinton, has written a letter to a House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks on Clinton’s behalf saying that the presidential candidate would not agree to appearing twice before the committee, as it had requested.
Trey Gowdy, the Republican chair of the House select committee on Benghazi, had asked Clinton to make one trip to the Hill to talk about the attacks and one to talk about email correspondence the panel feared may have been lost when Clinton deleted emails from a private server she used during her time at the state department.
In his reply, Kendall said Clinton would testify “during the week of May 18th or at a later date.
“On such a day, she will stay as long as necessary to answer the Committee’s questions, but will not prolong the Committee’s efforts further by appearing on two separate occasions when one will suffice.”
Kendall reminded Gowdy in the letter that Clinton had testified for more than five hours total before committees in both the House and Senate about Benghazi shortly before leaving the state department.
Kendall rejected Gowdy’s request for a second appearance by Clinton to testify. “Respectfully, there is no basis, logic, or precedent for such an unusual request,” he wrote.
Updated
Rand Paul strikes a blow for protections against unlawful search and seizure:
#MayThe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/7kM6zZXQyw
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 4, 2015
It’s a day of planes, helicopters and automobiles for the president.
Obama just landed Wall St. Heading to Ed Sullivan Theater to tape @Letterman. Intvu embargoed until showtime pic.twitter.com/ckkq0xwTee
— Nedra Pickler (@nedrapickler) May 4, 2015
Fox News ‘deeply sorry’ for Baltimore shooting report
Conflicting and confused news reports of a shooting incident in still-fraught Baltimore – including by Fox News – have been unambiguously contradicted by Baltimore police, causing a surreal scene on social media and cable TV as Barack Obama spoke about policing and young black men from New York.
The police department sent a tweet that the reports were “NOT true”, though said that a man with a handgun had been arrested at the scene of North and Pennsylvania avenues, where crowds quickly gathered following the reports.
Eyewitness reports from the scene were confused. Manuel Rapalo, a reporter for Russia Today, who was in a nearby shop when the incident occurred, told the Guardian that he heard “a gunshot” and then saw a man being handcuffed. Police quickly used pepper spray to clear the area, Rapalo said.
Not much is known about the incident at this point, as multiple outlets leapt to conclusions with little or no factual evidence. The police commander on the scene told the Baltimore Sun and other media outlets that the suspect’s own gun went off, injuring him.
Fox News hots Shepard Smith apologised on air for the network’s reporting the incident as a police shooting.
“What happened is, we screwed up,” Smith said. “For the errors that we made here, we are deeply sorry,” Smith said.
Spokespeople from the Baltimore police department and mayor’s office did not immediately responde to requests for comment. The mayor lifted a city-wide curfew on Sunday, following unrest in the wake of the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who was black, after being held in custody in a police van.
– Nicky Woolf
Updated
Meanwhile the Obama event at Lehman College has wrapped.
President Obama just finished talking, mostly about love at the end. Story up shortly.
— Steven Thrasher (@thrasherxy) May 4, 2015
Next stop for the president: Letterman.
Updated
A report of a new police shooting in Baltimore has surfaced and been debunked.
Fox News reported, falsely, that a “man [was] shot multiple times by Baltimore police.” The report, which was mistaken, was taken up on Twitter and spread widely. The Guardian has a screen grab of the false report from the Fox News web site.
It’s false report. Or, as the Baltimore Police called it, “not true.”
The reports of a man being shot at North and Pennsylvania Ave are NOT true. Officers have arrested a man for a handgun at the location
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) May 4, 2015
Updated
Obama: 'we love these kids'
Obama: “Really what this comes down to is, we love these kids.”
I want you to know, you matter. You matter to us. You matter to each other.... We are one people and we need each other. We should love every single one of our kids and then we should show that love.
Obama: equal opportunity for youth a mission 'for the rest of my life'
Obama says “this will remain a mission not just for the rest of my presidency, but for the rest of my life.”
"This will remain a mission for me and for Michelle, not just for the rest of my presidency, but for the rest of my life." - Pres Obama
— Valerie Jarrett (@vj44) May 4, 2015
“The reason is simple. We see ourselves in these young men. I grew up without a dad... the only difference between me and my young men was that I grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving... I was lucky.”
Earlier, Obama quoted James Baldwin:
“These are all our children, James Baldwin once wrote. “And we will either profit by or pay for what they become.
“That’s what My Brother’s Keeper is all about.”
Updated
Obama refers to the death of NYC police officer Brian Moore, 25, shot in Queens Village at the weekend.
“New York’s finest lost one of its own today, Brian Moore,” Obama says. He says police “deserve our gratitude and our prayers, not just today but every day. They’ve got a tough job.”
The line is applauded.
“If we’re just looking at policing, we’re looking at it too narrowly,” he says.
“It’s true for young people of color, especially boys and young men” that the “odds are stacked” against them, Obama says.
“Life chances” for young men of color are worse than for their peers “by almost any measure,” Obama says. “And that sense of unfairness, of powerlessness of people not hearing their voices, that’s helped fuel some of the protests that we’ve seen in Baltimore, and Ferguson and right here in New York.”
Obama said the catalyst of the protests was the killing of unarmed black men, and the sense of a deeper, longer-term problem.
“In too many places in this country, black boys and black men, Latino boys and Latino men, they experience being treated differently by law enforcement,” Obama says.
Obama is now at the podium at the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance event. He thanks Lehman College.
He says “some communities have consistently had the odds stacked against them. There is a tragic history in this country that has made it tougher for some.”
Prerecorded remarks of Obama speaking at the My Brother’s Keeper event have aired on CNN.
The president has yet to make his speech in the Bronx.
In the prerecorded footage, Obama is at a table with Joe Echevarria, head of the organization; Scott Davis, a student at Lehman College; and others.
Obama says young men need a “mentor, somebody who’s just paying attention to them and giving them some sense of direction.”
The president says an opportunity to participate in community service was important. “What all of them suggested is is that if we’re going to be successful, that their voices have to be part of how we design these programs.... because what we’ve got to say is powerful.”
Obama thanked John Legend, who is involved with the group and attended the event.
Updated
Many presidential candidates need many aides means many jobs.
We count five Republicans to have declared so far – Cruz, Carson, Fiorina, Paul, Rubio – with many more paying consultants including Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and who knows? even Chris Christie.
whole lotta Republican campaign consultants are getting paid right now. at least for a while.
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) May 4, 2015
While we wait for the president to appear, here’s a number with the word “poll” attached to it, and... Sanders pulls to second! In the Democratic field.
Public Policy Polling over the weekend also polled on Chris Christie’s favorability in Arizona, following Friday’s indictments and a guilty plea by former Christie allies in the Bridgegate scandal. Among Republicans in Arizona, Christie hit 22%.
Bernie Sanders polling at 16% in Arizona with 3rd place at 5%...the clear #2 in the Dem field now for what it's worth
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) May 4, 2015
The Guardian’s Steven Thrasher is listening to introductory speakers at the event to launch the nonprofit My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, with remarks upcoming from the president.
“The president is here to introduce the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a non-profit of the White House initiative to help young black men, whose fate has seemed in great doubt during the tenure of the nation’s first black President,” Steven writes:
Inside a small room on the college campus, an invitation-only crowd is awaiting the president. Including Rev. Al Shaprton and Congressman Charlie Rangel, it is, by far, the most African-American crowd this reporter has ever covered the president addressing.
Seated in the very last row are a handful of young black men, the demographic President Obama is hoping to reach.
Michael Berrios, 21, of the Bronx, just got the call on Friday that he’d be invited to see the president speak, though he was unsure if he’d get to talk to him personally.
“I’ll tell him I think this is a great idea,” Berrios said.
Asked about the recent killing of Freddie Gray, Berrios said, “We don’t want that to happen to us. At the same time, it goes both ways. We can’t just blame the cops.”
Berrios said youth need to help other youth - and he sees the new nonprofit as a way to do that.
Updated
Here’s the bit this evening we won’t get to see:
Obama is attending a fundraiser at the home of Advent Capital Management's Tracy Maitland and Morgan Stanley's Kimberley Hatchett.
— Byron Tau (@ByronTau) May 4, 2015
Summary
As our live blog coverage continues – and before we shift to our coverage of the president’s appearance in the Bronx – here’s a summary of where things stand:
- Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson announced they were running for the Republican presidential nomination.
- Fiorina, the former HP CEO, released a video on her web site calling on the country to “reimagine our government” and planned a follow-up afternoon event to air on Periscope.
- Carson, the neurosurgeon, staged a song-and-dance Detroit extravaganza, with multiple choirs performing first Eminem and then a medley of patriotic anthems. “It’s time for the people to rise up,” he said.
- Bill Clinton and the state department both asserted that there was nothing shady about foreign donations to the Clinton foundation during Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state.
Updated
Continuing the theme of that last post though, didn’t the “there is another” line refer to Princess Leia? Which means Governor Walker is saying he’s the Princess Leia of the Star Wars saga? In which case who was Luke – George Bush (either of them)? Ronald Reagan? Isn’t Reagan more of a Yoda figure? Cryptic, popular, wrinkly? Which then who does that make Obi-Wan?
Update:
is Mitt Romney Luke to Scott Walker's Leia? throw in a My Little Pony and you've got the craziest fan fic plot ever
— john r stanton (@dcbigjohn) May 4, 2015
Updated
[Note: people living not under a rock might skip the following paragraph]
4 May is celebrated as Star Wars day, because “May fourth” sounds kind of like “May the force” the first three words in the famous Star Wars benediction “May the force be with you.”
[resume reading]
Scott Walker, the thrice-elected, two-term governor of Wisconsin, is running for the Republican presidential nomination, and he wants to know where the Star Wars nerds at:
Hope for Republicans there still is. #MayTheFourthBeWithYou #StarWarsDay @StarWars -TW pic.twitter.com/DEqTUQE5gA
— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) May 4, 2015
Update: The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs makes the important point that this tweet is signed by Walker’s wife, Tonette:
This is why political campaigns shouldn't let the candidate's spouse have access to the Twitter account https://t.co/XllnY5k71p
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) May 4, 2015
Updated
Fiorina said charges being brought against six Baltimore police officers in the murder of Freddie Gray last month was an occasion for widespread relief.
“I think we were all relieved to see the six policemen charged in Baltimore,” Fiorina told reporters on a conference call Monday, according to a write-up in the Hill. She continued:
It’s heartbreaking to see what’s going on in Baltimore. Any situation in which police are engaged in violence, then police must be held accountable.
“Many of those looters ... clearly have no stake in their community. The lives and the businesses they destroyed are their neighbors.
Clinton donations: Nothing to see here
Not only has the Clinton foundation “never done anything knowingly inappropriate” in accepting donations, according to Bill Clinton;
Not only has Hillary Clinton personally reassured Bill Clinton that “no one has ever tried to influence me by helping you”;
Now we learn, according to the Associated Press, that the state department is “not aware of any evidence that actions taken by Secretary Clinton were influenced by donations... or speech honoraria” of Bill Clinton:
.@statedept: "not aware of any evidence actions taken by Sec Clinton were influenced by donations...or speech honoraria" of Bill Clinton.
— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) May 4, 2015
Sounds like everybody’s barking up the wrong tree on this. Nothing there, it looks like.
Video – Fiorina: 'We can do this together'
Updated
These graphs of polls are not to be taken as meaningful for the likely result of the presidential race, because it’s too early and the polling itself is scant and it doesn’t make sense to distinguish between such small numbers based on such small samples.
But looks cool doesn’t it:
Huckabee, Carson & Fiorina enter race in 7th, 8th & 15th place (counting “Undecided” at 4th) pic.twitter.com/2v5WrkSGfQ
— Charles Franklin (@PollsAndVotes) May 4, 2015
Updated
We want to make sure that everyone reading this blog is following Carly Fiorina on Twitter, because it’s a newsy feed:
I am running for President. http://t.co/TiEAlrWpUc
— Carly Fiorina (@CarlyFiorina) May 4, 2015
If you want to review the application of Fiorina, the former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, to be the next president of the United States, we’d refer you to her online CV, hosted exclusively on the Guardian web site. Here’s a grab of the bottom bit:
Updated
A couple hundred people are on hand in the Bronx to watch the presidential motorcade go by, Steven Thrasher reports.
Here’s where Lehman College is:
The Bronx is excited to greet the president, the Guardian’s Steven Thrasher reports:
On the 4 train platform people are quite excited as Marine One descends on the Bronx
— Steven Thrasher (@thrasherxy) May 4, 2015
CORRECTION: The violinist for the Star-Spangled Banner at the Carson event was in fact Candy Carson, Ben’s wife, not Andy Carson, as we heard the announcer say it. Here’s a picture of Mrs Carson playing:
Candy Carson on violin for the national anthem pic.twitter.com/AX4L3ST11y
— Katie Glueck (@katie_glueck) May 4, 2015
The Maryland Moment. We like that.
Ben Carson: Johns Hopkins doc. O'Malley: Bmore mayor, Md. gov Fiorina: UMd. MBA Is this the Maryland Moment? cc: @Bencjacobs, @jim_newell
— David A. Graham (@GrahamDavidA) May 4, 2015
The president has arrived in New York City for his event at Lehman College, where he will help launch the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a new non-profit organization. The Guardian’s Steven Thrasher (@thrasherxy) is in position and waiting to hear from the president.
Flight 1070 for @BarackObama on #AF1 complete. #JFK pic.twitter.com/h8QtBPR3vG
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) May 4, 2015
The morning is through on the East Coast and so is our Ben Carson coverage, for the time being. We wanted to leave you with a piece by Ryan Felton for the Guardian, which questions Carson’s record as a surgeon.
Ben Carson’s patients claim malpractice in star doctor’s path to politics:
Yet even with a legacy as one of the world’s most-respected neurosurgeons, Maryland court records show Carson has been involved in at least a half-dozen malpractice cases, some of which remain pending, while others were either settled or dismissed for untold sums.
That ratio is typical in Carson’s field, experts say, but a number of Carson’s former patients and their families involved in the claims offered the Guardian a conflicting account of his near-perfect medical path toward presidential politics, detailing their continued suffering from paralysis, seizure, an uncontrollable bladder and more life-altering ordeals.
Read the full piece here.
Summary
How did Carson position himself as a candidate? He said deficits are bad and that if he were elected he would run the government like a business – not that he has much experience running a business (unless you count his time on the Kellogg’s and Costco boards or his time running medical centers inside Johns Hopkins, which don’t get us wrong is no easy trick, but it’s not running a business).
Carson mostly used his time to appeal to his audience’s sense that things are wrong in Washington and that they have a little voice inside of them that knows exactly why, and they should listen to that voice. A classic throw-the-bums-out pitch. Carson also came on strong on god and on America.
Updated
Carson event ends
The official Ben Carson presidential launch event is over. That was the best one of those we’re likely to see for awhile. From Eminem to the dueling choirs singing a medley of patriotic standards to the methodical speaker to his wife with the violin, right up to the Chorus Line finish. Good stuff.
Updated
The grand finale: An ensemble rendition of the climactic lines from the Battle Hymn of the Republic, “Glory, glory Hallelujah,” as a giant American flag curtain drops to the stage.
Top that, Fiorina.
Carson says he has the experience required to be president, in part because of his 16 years on the Kellogg’s board, and his pioneering work as a neurosurgeon. He’s said to have been the first surgeon to separate twins conjoined at the head.
“I’m not even asking everybody to vote for me, I’m just asking everybody to listen to what I’m saying, what politicians are saying, and make a decision based on your intellect,” Carson says.
“God bless you and god bless the United States of America,” Carson concludes. His family and staff join him onstage. And heeere come the singers again.
Updated
“We are going to be doing different things than you’ve seen before,” Carson says. It’s not a stretch to say that he’s proved that here today.
Carson platform: make government a 'well-run business'
“I’m going to tell you what we’re going to do if god ordains that we end up in the White House,” Carson says:
We are going to change the government into something that looks more like a well-run business than a Behemoth.
He says by “we” he means him and Terry Giles, his campaign chief, and former attorney to Richard Pryor. Giles “ litigated — and sometimes mitigated — some of the most sensationally nasty celebrity and political dramas of the last several decades” the Texas Tribune reports.
Carson introduces the rest of his team.
Carson begins to address the killing of Freddie Gray last month in Baltimore and ensuing protests, but then kind of folds and starts talking about U-1 versus U-6 unemployment rates.
“These past couple weeks there’s been a great deal of turmoil in Baltimore, where I spent 36 years of my life,” Carson begins:
We need to start thinking I believe that the real issue here is that people are losing hope. And they don’t feel that life is going to be good for them .. so when an opportunity comes to loot, to riot, to get mine, they take it – not believing that there is a much better way to get what you want.
Interestingly enough, many of these people buy hook line and sinker that our economy is getting much better. That our unemployment rate is at 5.5%... You can make the unemployment rate anything you want it to be, based on the numbers you include and exclude.
Carson says that slick politicians and the media collude to make the unemployment situation look better than it is.
He’s making a classic anti-government appeal, asking voters to use their own brains and common sense to see that Washington has been not working in their interests which he will.
Updated
Carson has a touch of the megachurch pastor – the headset and clasped hands and invocations of god – a touch of the TED talk-er – the headset and clasped hands and canned quotations – and a touch of the politician. Fox media watcher Howard Kurtz likes it:
Ben Carson's soft-spoken, storytelling style as he roams the stage is very effective, whether you agree with him or not
— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) May 4, 2015
Carson pitches himself as an outsider to government with a “can-do attitude” who thinks “it’s time for the people to rise up and take the government back.”
“I’m not an anti-government person by any stretch of the imagination,” Carson says. “I think the government as described in the Constitution is beautiful.”
He said the government had been allowed to expand by the political class. “The political class won’t like me saying that,” he says. “I’ll tell you a secret. The political class comes from both parties... and it includes unfortunately the media now.”
Carson says, have you ever thought about how the only business explicitly protected in the Constitution is the media?
Because our founders envisioned a press that was on the side of the people, not a press that was on the side of the Democrats or the Republicans, or the Federalists or the anti-Federalists.
And this is a direct appeal to media. You guys have an almost sacred position in a true democracy. Please don’t abuse it.”
Carson narrates the dramatic story of his early childhood. His parents were happy at first, he said, but “some years later my mother discovered he was a bigamist. Had another family.”
“Consequently we were thrown into a situation of dire poverty,” Carson says. The family moved into a tenement with cousins in Boston.
“Both our older cousins were killed,” Carson says. “I remember when our favorite drug dealer was killed.”
“You know they used to bring us candy, so we like the drug dealers.”
“The rats. Roaches. You know in the upscale areas they used to call them water bugs, but we knew what they were.”
Carson: 'I'm a candidate for president'
Carson is introducing his family. Very casual. It’s as if that explosion of song and flags and god we just saw belonged to someone else.
Carson introduces his sons.
BJ is an entrepreneur and Merlin is owner of a company that does placemats. My youngest son, Royce, is right here. Royce is a CPA.
Then he drops the news:
I’m Ben Carson, and I’m a candidate for president of the United States.
The Carson event has switched to a video introduction. The commercial calls Carson “a leader who derives his strength from god and his duty from the American people.”
Then it wraps and there he is, onstage, standing hand-in-hand with his wife Candy.
“This is of course my wife, Candy, who is also a Detroiter,” Carson says.
She gives a big smile and a little fist pump. “Go Tigers,” she says. That’s a baseball team.
This early portion of your program has continued to include the beloved classics “America, America” by Bates and Ward; Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” and now the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Even if Carson doesn’t win the White House, this should be good for a Tony.
Ben Carson is either running for president or to become the next Rogers and Hammerstein. Now he’s got another choir, performing You’ll Never Walk Alone from the 1945 musical Carousel.
Any Liverpool fans out there?
Updated
Ok Eminem is done. Now it’s back to church music. Devotional choir stuff. “You are the source of my strength. You are the strength of my life. I lift my hands in total praise to You.” This song:
This is the first presidential announcement, if not the first stage spectacle period, to have progressed from Eminem to Richard Smallwood, we would recklessly wager.
Carson Kicks Off Campaign With Eminem Song
Where do I vote?
The choir Selected of God directed by pastor Larry Callahan is singing Eminem a capella. Stay tuned.
Updated
And now a pastor is delivering a prayer at the Carson event. So so far that’s
✔️ honor guard
✔️ Star-Spangled Banner
✔️ prayer
And he’s done and it’s another song by the choir, who are great. The event is at the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts.
Uh-oh. They’re going to sing Eminem. Lose Yourself. The intro is playing now.
Updated
Carson event begins
The Carson event is up and running in Detroit – you can watch it on C-Span. We began with an honor guard with a flag and rifles. Now Candy Carson on the violin and the choir Selected of God directed by pastor Larry Callahan are singing the Star Spangled Banner. They just hit the high note.
Updated
Fiorina: Clinton 'clearly not trustworthy'
Say what you will about Carly Fiorina – “Hewlett-Packard stock was trading at $52.34 when she took over as CEO on 30 July 1999 and at $20.84 on 7 January 2005 when the board forced her out of the company, a drop of 60%,” for example – she knows how to throw a punch.
It’s an important quality, they say, for a vice-presidential candidate especially, not that the thought has crossed Fiorina’s mind.
“Our founders never intended us to have a professional political class,” Fiorina said on ABC News Monday morning, sniffing at footage of Hillary Clinton. “We know the only way to reimagine our government is to reimagine who is leading it.”
“I have a lot of admiration for Hillary Clinton, but she clearly is not trustworthy,” Fiorina added.
Have you visited carlyfiorina.org? You may want to check it out. Suffice to say she didn’t build that.
If that’s your “shot,” to adopt the argot of our times, then here’s your “chaser”: a report by the Guardian’s Rory Carroll and Rupert Neate investigating the central premise of the Fiorina candidacy, that her record as CEO of Hewlett-Packard qualifies her to run the country.
But those who watched what Fiorina did to HP – mishandling the $25bn acquisition of Compaq, getting ousted by the board in 2005 with a $21m golden parachute, repeatedly being named one of the worst CEOs in American corporate history – say those supposed accomplishments are already coming back to “haunt” her run for the White House.
“She put herself ahead of the interests of the company and I fear she would do the same as president,” Jason Burnett, a grandson of the late HP co-founder David Packard and a member of the Packard Foundation board of trustees, told the Guardian. “I don’t want her to do harm to this country.”
Read the full piece here.
Updated
Bill Clinton: 'we have never done anything knowingly inappropriate'
Former president Bill Clinton has defended accusations that the Clinton foundation inappropriately took money from Russian interests and other foreign donors by saying the foundation had not done anything inappropriate, at least not that they knew of at the time.
A book critical of Hillary Clinton and a New York Times investigation last month revealed money flowing to the Clinton foundation during Clinton’s time as secretary of state from Russian entities that wanted the state department to approve the acquisition of a uranium mine and other deals. Further questions were raised about a Canadian charity said to have channeled money of unreported origin to the Clinton foundation. The foundation has denied wrongdoing.
Bill Clinton repeated that denial in an interview with Cynthia McFadden of NBC News in Nairobi, Kenya, where he is promoting work by the Clinton Global Initiative.
“There is no doubt in my mind that we have never done anything knowingly inappropriate in terms of taking money to influence any kind of American government policy,” Clinton told McFadden. “That just hasn’t happened.”
Asked why the Clinton foundation had recently narrowed its list of foreign countries from which it would accept donations to a select list of six, prominently excluding Saudi Arabia, Clinton said the change in policy was “absolutely not” an acknowledgment of error.
“It’s an acknowledgement that we’re going to come as close as we can during her presidential campaign to following the rules we followed when she became secretary of state,” Clinton told McFadden.
Tune in tomorrow for @CynthiaMcFadden's exclusive interview with President @billclinton pic.twitter.com/wYshtitPXz
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) May 3, 2015
Clinton said his wife, Hillary Clinton, had assured him that their dealings were above-board. “No one has ever tried to influence me by helping you,” Bill Clinton quoted Hillary Clinton as saying.
Clinton also said he had no plans to stop making speeches for big fees.
“I gotta pay our bills,” he said. “And I also give a lot of it to the foundation every year.”
Updated
Democrat John Kerry caught consorting with the enemy.
Here is John Kerry selfie-ing with a baby elephant http://t.co/ttkjWRSmKd pic.twitter.com/wkhZr4nRa5
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 4, 2015
We should stipulate that that 9.30am we mentioned in the intro for Carson is local Detroit time. If you’re reading us on the east coast of the United States, that means you still have an hour to prepare. If you’re reading us in the UK or points distant, ditto. If you’re reading us on the west coast, good morning!
Good morning, and welcome to your day in next year’s politics. Have two candidates for president ever launched their campaigns on the same day? If your palms are sweating a bit from the excitement, you might not want to read today’s blog in one uninterrupted dose. Hearts are going to be racing. Pupils are going to be dilating. It will be important to stay hydrated.
Ben Carson, the pioneering neurosurgeon and expert tweaker of the presidential nose, has scheduled a 9.30am announcement in Detroit, the city where he grew up with little money, one parent and an evidently giant brain.
And already Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard executive and preacher of the gospel of everyone’s potential, has taken to the web – she’s a former tech executive, after all – to tell us what we’ve been waiting to hear.
But wait, there’s more. Barack Obama, the man they both want to succeed, has a date tonight with assorted megabucks types in New York. To get there, he’ll be stopping first to make remarks at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, where our correspondent Steven Thrasher will be on hand to listen.
Then the president is scheduled to stop by David Letterman, alarmingly hilarious snippets of which we’re sure to have for you before the afternoon is out.
We’ll cover it all live right here.
