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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Scott Bixby (now) in New York, and Tom McCarthy (earlier)

Hillary Clinton opens up 11-point lead in pre-debate poll – as it happened

Highlights from the second presidential debate: Trump fights dirty against Clinton

Today in Campaign 2016

Donald Trump holds as child dressed as him.
Donald Trump holds as child dressed as him. Photograph: Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images
  • Donald Trump’s running mate Mike Pence has forcefully batted down speculation that he considered dropping from the Republican ticket after video emerged on Friday of Trump bragging about touching women without their consent. Pence, a family values Christian and a discriminatory sexual moralist, said at the weekend that he was “offended” by Trump’s remarks about grabbing “pussy”, that he did not “condone” the remarks and could not defend them – which last bit rang quite true. But Pence told CNN this morning that being tapped by Trump had been “the greatest honor of my life”.
  • In a conference with Republican members of Congress, House speaker Paul Ryan has said he won’t defend Donald Trump in the 29 days until the election (he hadn’t been working overtime to do so), and he hinted that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency. Ryan told members that they should do with regard to Trump whatever they needed to to win their own races. His focus, he said, was on maintaining a House majority to block a president Clinton.
  • In a national poll conducted after the emergence of the Trump hot mic tapes but before the debate, Clinton led Trump by 11 points in a four-way race.
  • Actual billionaire and actual philanthropist Warren Buffett has hit back at Donald Trump after Trump, at the debate last night, defended his (Trump’s) practice of carrying forward huge personal income losses to avoid paying future federal income taxes.
  • Mark Burnett, the reality-television icon who produced The Apprentice, has broken his silence about the rumored existence of tapes from the show’s filming that would reveal more controversial comments by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during his time as the show’s host, declaring that he has “neither the ability not the right” to release archived footage from the show. “MGM owns Mark Burnett’s production company and the Apprentice is one of its properties,” the joint statement from MGM and Burnett states. “Despite reports to the contrary, Mark Burnett does not have the ability nor the right to release footage or other material from The Apprentice. Various contractual and legal requirements also restrict MGN’s ability to release such material.”

Months after Republicans in Colorado fomented the ‘Never Trump’ movement, the GOP nominee is neck-and-neck with Clinton in the crucial swing state. Paul Lewis and Tom Silverstone explore whether Trump’s candidacy has been damaged by his party’s civil war,

Can Hillary Clinton win in Never Trump land? – video

Republican National Committee spokesperson Sean Spicer has clarified remarks he made earlier today, in which he declared that he was unsure whether grabbing someone’s genitals without their consent - behavior bragged about by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump - is sexual assault.

Crime, boy, I don’t know.

Donald Trump, throwing shade at House speaker Paul Ryan:

You have people who can’t fix a budget, but then they start talking about their nominee.

Donald Trump has picked up a child from the audience dressed as him and brought him onstage in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and the crowd has gone nuts.

The kid is pretty cute.

Scenes from the rally in Wilkes-Barre:

Donald Trump, on voter fraud in majority-minority areas:

I just hear such reports about Philadelphia ... everybody knows what I’m talking about.

Donald Trump, speaking in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, compared the rise of his political movement to the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union.

“I think November 8 is gonna be Brexit,” Trump said, recounting that he encouraged the “leave” vote, despite not knowing what Brexit was at the time. “I think we’re gonna win the state of Pennsylvania so big, and we’re gonna spend a lot of time in the suburbs over the next couple of weeks.”

Donald Trump campaigns in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania

Watch it live here:

Ted Cruz: 'I am supporting the Republican nominee'

Onetime presidential nominee and Texas senator Ted Cruz is standing by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump despite the release of a video recording from 2005 showing the candidate bragging about sexually assaulting women.

“I am supporting the Republican nominee because I think Hillary Clinton is an absolute disaster,” Cruz told an interviewer during an agricultural tour of northwest Texas.

Cruz’s support had been an open question - the Texas senator famously withheld his support of Trump after the New York real estate tycoon clinched the Republican nomination, telling attendees of the Republican national convention in July to “vote your conscience” in the general election. Cruz endorsed Trump last month, mere weeks before the video’s release prompted numerous members of the Republican party to disavow the candidate.

“My differences with Donald I have articulated at great length during the campaign,” Cruz continued. “This is an election unlike any other but I’ll tell you, Hillary Clinton, I think, is manifestly unfit to be president.”

“The policies she’s advancing are the continuation of eight years of Barack Obama.”

The Apprentice producer: I can't release any cut footage of Donald Trump

Mark Burnett, the reality-television icon who produced The Apprentice, has broken his silence about the rumored existence of tapes from the show’s filming that would reveal more controversial comments by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during his time as the show’s host, declaring that he has “neither the ability not the right” to release archived footage from the show.

“MGM owns Mark Burnett’s production company and the Apprentice is one of its properties,” the joint statement from MGM and Burnett states. “Despite reports to the contrary, Mark Burnett does not have the ability nor the right to release footage or other material from The Apprentice. Various contractual and legal requirements also restrict MGN’s ability to release such material.”

“The recent claims that Mark Burnett has threatened anyone with litigation if they were to leak such material are completely and unequivocally false. To be clear, as previously reported in the press, which Mark Burnett has confirmed, he has consistently supported Democratic campaigns.”

Donald Trump is dominating in (unscientific, functionally worthless) post-debate online polling, and is very proud of it:

Speaking in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggested that more video recordings of him making predatory comments about women may come out in the future - and that if they do, he’s still not going anywhere.

“I was getting beaten up for 72 hours on all the networks for inappropriate words from 12 years ago, ‘locker room talk,’ whatever you want to call it,” Trump said, of a video from 2005 showing him bragging to a television host about attempting to have sex with a married journalist and sexually assaulting women.

“But I said to myself, ‘Wait a minute.’ And I just saw very inappropriate words, but Bill Clinton sexually assaulted innocent women and Hillary Clinton attacked those women viciously.”

Donald Trump’s sex boasts: ‘When you are a star they let you do anything’

“If they want to release more tapes saying inappropriate things,” Trump vowed, we’ll continue to talk about Bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things.”

The statement would seem to indicate that Trump knows of more instances that might have been recorded, and warning that even if they were to be released, he will remain at the top of the Republican ticket.

RNC chair: The Republican Party is committed to Donald Trump

In a phone call with members of the Republican National Committee at 5pm this evening, party chair Reince Priebus told Republican leadership that the party is committed to electing Donald Trump as president, a decision that was not a given in the wake of revelations that Trump had made bragging comments about sexually assaulting women in 2005.

“Over the last 24 to 48 hours, there have been a lot of false rumors that we didn’t want to engage in,” Priebus told the RNC’s members, according to Politico. “Nothing has changed in terms of our support for the nominee.”

Telling the committee’s 168 members that “I think the issue was taken care of at the debate,” Priebus expressed more support for Trump than congressional Republicans, who were told by House speaker Paul Ryan that the body’s leadership would focus on maintaining the party’s majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives in a similar conference call this morning.

An internet meme pretending that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were performing a karaoke duet has been making the rounds today, but this video imaging that the presidential nominees were singing the love theme from Dirty Dancing is something else...

In a big victory for Florida Democrats, a federal court has ruled that the state must extend its voter-registration deadline following the arrival of Hurricane Matthew last week, despite protests by Rick Scott, the state’s Republican governor, that the deadline should not be moved.

Entertainment Tonight host Nancy O’Dell has responded to Donald Trump’c characterization of remarks he made about attempting to manipulate her into sleeping with him because he helped her shop for furniture, telling viewers that there is “no room for objectification of women,” even in “the locker room.”

“I feel that it’s very important that I address you all directly,” O’Dell states in the comments, set to air tonight on Entertainment Tonight. “As a journalist for 26 years now, it is my job to bring you news about others, rather than turning the focus on myself. But by now, I’m sure that most of you have heard the audio tape which became national news and part of the presidential race. My name was mentioned and, unfortunately, the release of it has thrown me into the middle of the political arena of which I didn’t ask to be a part.”

“I released a statement on Saturday and I truly mean what I said,” O’Dell continued. “There is no room for objectification of women, or anybody for that matter - not even in the ‘locker room’.”

Trump has defended the remarks, in which he also stated that his fame allowed him to sexually assault women without punishment, by calling them “locker room remarks.”

More on the firing of Trump campaign’s Virginia chair after a protest of the RNC:

“Former Virginia State Chairman Corey Stewart is no longer affiliated with the Donald J. Trump for President campaign,” said deputy campaign manager Dave Bossie. “He is being replaced, effective immediately. Corey made this decision when he staged a stunt in front of the RNC without the knowledge or the approval of the Trump campaign.”

“We have a tremendous working relationship with the RNC,” campaign manager Kellyanne Conway added. “Chairman Reince Priebus has been an engaged and incredibly supportive ally to Mr. Trump throughout the campaign. The Chairman and his top executives, Katie Walsh and Sean Spicer, have stood shoulder to shoulder with us as we have enhanced our field team, data operation, fundraising and ground game efforts over the past couple of months.”

Is grabbing women's genitals sexual assault? Trump backers suggest it's not

The 2005 tape of Donald Trump bragging that his celebrity status allowed him to grope women with abandon has sent the Republican party reeling. But on Sunday night, the top spokespeople for the GOP and the Trump campaign had recovered their wits long enough to dispute whether Trump was actually describing a “sexual assault” in the 11-year-old recording.

Donald Trump’s sex boasts: ‘When you are a star they let you do anything’

“That’s a very unfortunate phrase, and people really should stop using it,” Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, told CNN’s Dana Bash. “He did not say the word ‘sexual assault’.”

Separately, longtime Trump supporter Senator Jeff Sessions told the conservative magazine Weekly Standard that he wouldn’t characterize unwanted touching and kissing as sexual assault. “I think that’s a stretch,” he said.

“I don’t know,” said Sean Spicer, the GOP’s top spokesperson, in reply to the same question. “I’m not a lawyer.”

Donald Trump, on victimhood:

I was getting beaten up for 72 hours for inappropriate words, locker room talk, whatever you want to call it.

Donald Trump, speaking in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, dismissed the “locker room talk” revealed by the Washington Post in which he bragged about sexually assaulting women and lambasted his critics for what he characterized as “hypocrisy” for not condemning allegations against Bill Clinton.

“Bill Clinton was the worst abuser of women to ever sit in the Oval Office. He was a predator,” Trump said. “These things aren’t written by the media - but they’re true.”

“The hypocrisy of the media and our politicians is hard to imagine. They condemn my words, but they ignore the reprehensible actions of Bill and Hillary Clinton that have destroyed so many lives.”

After relaying the story of a 1975 criminal case against an accused rapist in which Hillary Clinton was assigned by the presiding judge to serve as the man’s attorney, Trump said that her willingness to defend the man speaks to her ambition at the expense of justice.

“There’s nothing Hillary Clinton won’t do or say to obtain power, and it’s time people started to understand that.”

Donald Trump’s campaign chair in Virginia, who is running for governor and dismissed Trump’s comments bragging about sexually assaulting women as “frat boy” behavior, has reportedly been fired after organizing a protest following news that House speaker Paul Ryan will not support Trump in the coming month:

Speaking in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told a raucous crowd of opponents that rival Hillary Clinton couldn’t serve as president “if she wanted to.”

“Special prosecutor, here we come!” Trump declared, echoing statements he made during last night’s debate promising his supporters that if he were to be elected, he would appoint a special prosecutor with the goal of putting Clinton behind bars.

Highlights from the second presidential debate: Trump fights dirty against Clinton

Michigan Republican congressman Mike Bishop has released a statement declaring that he will no longer answer questions relating to Donald Trump, instead choosing to focus on his own reelection campaign:

I have lived in this community my entire life and been serving this district well before the 2016 presidential campaign began. Donald Trump was not my first or second choice during the primar process, but Republican voters chose him and I respect their decision. I have been continuously troubled by his conduct and statements, and I publicly admonished him over his disgusting comments about women... I am focusing on Michigan and the Eighth District. I will not answer any more questions regarding Donald Trump. Our families deserve a campaign that is focused on the issues, something our 2016 discussions are solely lacking this close to Election Day.”

Donald Trump campaigns in Beaver County, Pennsylvania

Watch it live here:

Rudy Giuliani, introducing Donald Trump:

We love you! She hates you! We love you!

Here’s some Onion fun:

Clinton is in Detroit, motor city, going hard on Trump for using Chinese steel.

“The steelworkers, they know that this is a big, big deal... [Trump] is putting steelworkers out of work and shutting down steel mills..

I do have some advice for Donald. If he wants to make America great again he can start by buying American steel for his construction project.

“Friends don’t let friends vote for Trump,” she says.

A protester is escorted from Clinton’s event:

Clinton is also hitting Trump on taxes, and now on his use of “cheap Chinese steel.”

Trump protesters target RNC headquarters

Supporters of the Republican presidential nominee are marching on the national party headquarters:

Clinton is onstage in Detroit now:

Updated

Trump is flying on Pence’s plane today – and no word on Pence’s ride, the press pool reports:

Donald Trump disembarked here in Pittsburgh International at 3:15pm. He arrived in the plane typically used by Mike Pence. A campaign aide said Trump didn’t use his usual plane because of “crew rest issues.” Could not confirm how Pence is traveling today.

Also spotted with Trump: Jared Kushner, Rudy Giuliani, Tiffany Trump, Stephen Miller, and Hope Hicks.

The motorcade is now en route to Ambridge for the rally, which is open press.

Here’s another elected Republican (after Mitch McConnell) with no comment on the presidential race: Representative Sean Duffy of Wisconsin’s 7th district (all of northern Wisconsin basically):

(h/t: @bencjacobs)

Updated

Sessions: 'grab them by the pussy' not sexual assault

Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, an early and ardent supporter of Donald Trump, has declared that what Trump described on the hot mic tape released Friday is not sexual assault.

Sessions, Trump and retired US Army General Keith Kellogg at Trump Tower in New York on Friday.
Sessions, Trump and retired US Army General Keith Kellogg at Trump Tower in New York on Friday. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

“I don’t characterize that as sexual assault,” he said. “I think that’s a stretch”:

A comparison has been drawn between Session’s parsing of sexual assault and the parsing by US senate candidate Todd Akin in 2012 of rape. Akin, a Republican who was trying to unseat incumbent Claire McCaskill, said that “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down” – meaning pregnancy.

McCaskill tweets that the comparisons are unfair... to Akin:

The Trump rally in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, is getting going:

McConnell on presidential race: no comment

A month before the presidential election, the senate majority leader just doesn’t have anything to say about it:

Brilliant animated gif applied to the latest 538 polls-plus forecast, which takes in economic and historical data:

Clinton camp turns fire on GOP: 'they have a lot to answer for'

The Clinton communications director advises the press that congressional Republicans have made their beds and now they’re going to sleep in them:

Updated

Here’s a live stream of Clinton’s rally in Detroit, Michigan. The warmup speakers are on – and the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui is in attendance:

The Trump campaign seems to be hacking at the remaining stitching tying it to congress. Here’s spokeswoman Katrina Pierson:

Ratings slip for second presidential debate

Viewership of the second presidential debate was down 20m from the first debate, writes the Guardian’s Sam Thielman (@samthielman):

Total viewers across the three major cable and three broadcast networks for the 90-minute debate came to more than 60m, while millions more watched on streaming services including Hulu and YouTube, according to preliminary Nielsen figures. Additional viewership on Spanish-language networks and PBS probably won’t bump the final tally over 63m, so viewership was down by a full 20m Americans who either just couldn’t bring themselves to tune in or watched football instead.

Part of the reason for the falloff was certainly at NBC, which broadcast an NFL game instead of the debate.

But while most of the might-have-been NBC loyalists went to CBS, which had the largest number of viewers by a comfortable margin, with 16.5m, ABC and Fox News were both down against the last debate with 11.5m and 9.9m viewers respectively – even with the broadcast network’s Martha Raddatz co-moderating.

Ben Jacobs mingles before the Trump event in Ambridge, which is a suburb of Pittsburgh:

Donald Trump registers 35% support in the new NBC/WSJ poll of a four-way presidential race.

The peanut gallery wonders whether he’s at risk of falling below the threshold needed to earn a debate lectern:

This is interesting. Going by HuffPost Pollster’s average of polls of a two-way race, Hillary Clinton is not only performing a lot better against Trump than Barack Obama did against Mitt Romney - her average support at this stage is also higher than Obama’s was:

Donald Trump and Ben Jacobs are in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, this afternoon. Trump is scheduled to speak at 3.30pm (we’ll have a live video stream for you).

Ben is already on the scene:

Trump attacks Ryan

Trump hits the House speaker on Twitter. This morning Ryan told members he would not be campaigning with Trump or defending him. Ryan has not withdrawn his endorsement of Trump. But he did suggest that he expected Hillary Clinton to become president, saying he would direct all his energies toward preventing a Democratic sweep that would give her a “blank check.”

Trump thinks Ryan is wasting time:

Dole stands by Trump

“Mr. Trump has expressed regret for making the comments, and I believe we should refocus on the primary issues that matter to the American people.”

– 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, in a statement to the Guardian

Dole’s right arm was damaged by German machine gun fire and his left was damaged by complications from a 2004 surgery.
Dole’s right arm was damaged by German machine gun fire and his left was damaged by complications from a 2004 surgery. Photograph: Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images

Mike Pence is speaking in Charlotte, North Carolina:

My wife? Oh yeah, she’s voting for Trump, too.

In the poll, 40% of married women said they’d support Trump. Does that seem high to you? Maybe it is – but it’s still really bad compared with past performances of Republican candidates among married women, a group Mitt Romney won in 2012 with a 53% majority.

In 2008, unmarried women went 70-29 for Barack Obama, but married women went 50-47 for John McCain.

So for a Republican to be losing married women – it could indicate a certain weakness in Trump’s candidacy.

New Clinton ads feature Republicans crossing party lines

At a moment when the presidential race looks very good for Clinton, and Democrats are talking anew about making inroads in Congress, the Clinton campaign releases at least three (that we’ve seen so far) new ads featuring Republicans – politicos, veterans, parents – who say they will vote for Clinton and explain why:

Here’s further on the revolt by some Republicans at the leadership’s perceived abandonment of the presidential nominee, via AP:

Conservative House Republicans have complained to House Speaker Paul Ryan that he and other party leaders are being too negative about presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The comments came in a conference call Monday. Two people involved in the call said California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher called Republican leaders “cowards” and said they must stop their defeatist attitude about Trump’s chances.

Another person involved in the call said the head of the Republicans campaign organization, Greg Walden of Oregon, noted that Trump’s poll numbers have been falling since his first debate with Hillary Clinton. The person said Walden said he expects even more erosion in Trump’s numbers now.

The people on the call spoke on condition of anonymity because the call was private.

Snubbed at the debate: Black Lives Matter

On Sunday night, I wanted Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to delve into real talk about race in America. After all, they debated at Washington University in St Louis, just about 20 miles from the Canfield Apartments where Michael Brown was killed.

It didn’t happen.

There was no substantive conversation on race (or on much of anything, really). Racism and police killings were never addressed directly. Black Lives Matter was outrageously never brought up. An African American woman asked the first question on presidential behavior, and a brother asked a pabulum “all lives matter”-style question about each candidate’s ability to lead all people.

Trump seemed to think that all black and Hispanic people live in the “inner city”, which have mostly been gentrified by white people. But he was right when he said black and hispanic Americans are “living in hell”. However, it’s a hell caused by 2016’s sorry political process in general and by Trump in particular. Muslims, queers, women, immigrants and the poor are also stuck in in this American Hades.

Read the full piece here:

Note: we’ve deleted a block about an email from the purported John Podesta trove released by Wikileaks last week. The email expressed fear that Republicans would nominate someone other than Trump. But it was not sent by Podesta, as the blog block may have suggested. It came from a former aide with only a sideline voice in the campaign. Apologies for the confusion.

Updated

Ryan not conceding Clinton win, his office advises

House speaker Paul Ryan’s office has nudged back at reports that he has effectively conceded that Hillary Clinton will win the presidential race.

He’s not conceding that Hillary Clinton will be the next president, AP reports hearing from the speaker’s office.

Ryan told members of Congress on a conference call this morning that he would be spending “his entire energy making sure that Hillary Clinton does not get a blank check with a Democrat-controlled Congress,” according to people on the call.

This race is pumpkins.
This race is pumpkins. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Trump campaign: 'nothing's changed'

Trump spokesman Jason Miller echoes the candidate himself: we don’t need elected Republicans anyway, we have the people behind us.

Buffett slams Trump on taxes

Actual billionaire and actual philanthropist Warren Buffett has hit back at Donald Trump after Trump, at the debate last night, defended his (Trump’s) practice of carrying forward huge personal income losses to avoid paying future federal income taxes.

I’ve never done that, Buffett says in a statement. Also, I gave $2.9bn to charity in 2015. Also, I’m currently under IRS audit but that does not prevent me from releasing tax records.

In May in Omaha.
In May in Omaha. Photograph: John Peterson/AP

Updated

Republican revolt over notion of abandoning Trump – report

We have reports now of Republican fury after the conference call with speaker Paul Ryan in which he said he wouldn’t defend Trump and just wanted to prevent giving Hillary Clinton a blank check. Here’s the New York Times’ Jonathan Martin:

It seems like people are always saying the Republican party is falling apart / about to fall apart/ threatening to fall apart etc. But an open split with the presidential nominee that causes further splits between the leadership and rank-and-file as well as splits in the rank-and-file possibly culminating in historic losses up-and-down the ballot... well we’re getting ahead of ourselves aren’t we.

Barack Obama: Clinton went high

After Trump listed accusations of assault against Bill Clinton at the debate last night, Hillary Clinton quoted a line from Michelle Obama in her speech at the DNC convention (the first lady has also used the line on the stump), which the Clinton campaign also tweeted before the debate:

At the debate Trump replied to Clinton by saying that Michelle Obama had made nasty ads against Clinton in the 2008 campaign. Fact check: wrong-o:

Reactions to Clinton landslide poll

Updated

Surely it couldn’t get worse for Trump?

Clinton up 11 in NBC News poll of four-way race

In a national poll conducted after the emergence of the Trump hot mic tapes but before the debate, Clinton led Trump by 11 points in a four-way race.

Clinton led by 14 points in a two-way race.

And Republicans in Congress took a beating:

October 2009 was still the Obama honeymoon.

Trust the instruments...

HuffPost Pollster’s head-to-head average.
HuffPost Pollster’s head-to-head average. Photograph: HuffPost Pollster

Immigration = all the prizes. This year at least.

Ryan spokeswoman: 'there is no update in his position'

“The speaker is going to spend the next month focused entirely on protecting our congressional majorities,” a spokeswoman for House speaker Paul Ryan tells the Guardian.

On whether he still endorses Trump: “There is no update in his position at this time.”

According to someone on the call:

The speaker told members, “you all need to do what’s best for you in your district.”

He said he will not defend Trump or campaign with him for the next thirty days.

He will spend his entire energy making sure that Hillary Clinton does not get a blank check with a Democrat-controlled Congress.

Updated

Ouch. Huma Abedin bestie and Bill Clinton aide / Clinton foundation operative Doug Band purportedly writes, in the trove of purported John Podesta emails released by Wikileaks, that Chelsea Clinton was acting “like a spoiled brat kid”:

Don’t go away! Upcoming various news teases:

Updated

Ryan says he won't defend Trump, hints Clinton will win

In a conference with Republican members of Congress, House speaker Paul Ryan has said he won’t defend Donald Trump in the 29 days until the election (he hadn’t been working overtime to do so), and he hinted that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency.

Ryan told members that they should do with regard to Trump whatever they needed to to win their own races. His focus, he said, was on maintaining a House majority to block a president Clinton.

Clinton’s Twitter responded immediately to the news, pointing out that Ryan has not un-endorsed the presidential nominee:

Ryan does seem open to charges of wishy-washiness on the Trump question. He has not campaigned with Trump; their first event together, scheduled for Friday, fell apart with the emergence of the Trump hot mic video. But Ryan has endorsed Trump and repeatedly voiced optimism about their ability to work together.

Politico reported this morning that Ryan has gone as far as discussing revoking his Trump endorsement, an action dozens of his colleagues have taken. But not Ryan – not yet.

Updated

Trump tried to arrange showdown between women and Bill Clinton

After a splashy media appearance prior to the debate in which Donald Trump appeared with accusers of Bill Clinton, the plan was to have the women file in with Trump’s family, so they would come face-to-face with Clinton on national TV, the Washington Post reports. But the debate commission intervened:

Donald Trump’s campaign sought to intimidate Hillary Clinton and embarrass her husband by seating women who have accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual abuse in the Trump family’s box at the presidential debate here Sunday night, according to four people involved in the discussions.

The campaign’s plan, which was closely held and unknown to several of Trump’s top aides, was thwarted just minutes before it could be executed when officials with the Commission on Presidential Debates intervened. The commission officials warned that, if the Trump campaign tried to seat the accusers in the elevated family box, security officers would remove the women, according to the people involved, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential.

The gambit to give Bill Clinton’s accusers prime seats was devised by Trump campaign chief executive Stephen K. Bannon and Jared Kushner, the candidate’s son-in-law, and approved personally by Trump. The four women — three of whom have alleged Bill Clinton sexually assaulted or harassed them years ago — were to walk in the debate hall at the same time as the 42nd president and confront him in front of a national television audience.

Read the full piece here.

“Charisma Ken” Bone strikes again:

If you watched the debate last night you may have noticed a question near the end about energy policy posed by Mr Bone, above. The Internet thought he was cute and made of him a meme, and now he’s on CNN.

What do you think? Are we allowed this moment of KenBoneReprieve? Or are we hiding?

Updated

Nebraska governor nixes Pence fundraiser

The governor of Nebraska, Pete Ricketts, has nixed a fundraiser with Mike Pence scheduled for Tuesday, Politico reports.

Ricketts is part of an influential clan of Republican mega-donors headed up by his father, Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, that has been extremely wary of Donald Trump this election cycle, although they tossed $1m Trump’s way last month.

In the primaries the family gave millions to outside groups supporting Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and then funded efforts to block Trump.

Trump did not like that:

A journalist encountered a survivor of abuse weeping in a bathroom at the debate and interviewed her about why she was crying:

Updated

Trump camp dismisses jail threat for Clinton as mere "quip"

Donald Trump’s campaign manager is walking back the Republican candidate’s threat during presidential debate to throw Hillary Clinton in jail if he is elected, the AP reports:

Kellyanne Conway said Monday that such a decision isn’t up to Trump. She said Trump’s threat “was a quip.”

Trump made the threat in Sunday’s debate, after Clinton said it’s good that someone with Trump’s temperament isn’t president. Trump responded: “Because you’d be in jail.”

Conway, speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” also stopped short of confirming Trump’s vow to appoint a special prosecutor to look into Clinton’s email practices if he becomes president.

Conway said Trump was “channeling the frustration of thousands of voters he hears every day.”

Why does it seem so frequently to take so many people to explain what Trump means by what Trump says?

Do you think this is too blue for the blog?

(h/t @bencjacobs)

The Cincinnati, Ohio, paper has a pretty great write-up of watching last night’s debate at home with the chairman of the state Republican party, who has not been particularly enjoying the election, and the chairman’s wife, who is no Democrat but won’t allow any Trump signs in their yard:

Kate leans forward, her mouth tight, her eyes wide. “It’s locker room talk,” Trump insists. A hint of a wry smile forms. “No, I have not” acted in the way described, Trump says. Kate chuckles ruefully.

One of Matt and Kate’s dogs vomits.

“Trump was so bad, he made the dog throw up,” Kate calls, dashing for the paper towels.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Read the full piece here. (h/t: @bencjacobs)

The single most-repeated tidbit of electoral college trivia may be that no Republican has won the White House without winning Ohio, where Clinton has just passed Trump, sort of (it’s such a tight race), in the polling averages:

HuffPost pollster’s average of polling of a two-way race in Ohio.
HuffPost pollster’s average of polling of a two-way race in Ohio. Photograph: HuffPost pollster

Pro athletes: that's not locker room talk

Current and former professional athletes have spoken out after Donald Trump defended his comments on using fame to grope women without their consent as “locker room” talk during Sunday’s presidential debate, reports the Guardian’s Nicole Puglise:

“As an athlete, I’ve been in locker rooms my entire adult life and uh, that’s not locker room talk,” Oakland Athletics pitcher Sean Doolittle wrote on Twitter. Many others echoed his sentiments.

Clippers coach Doc Rivers, when asked by TMZ about Trump’s comments, quipped : “That’s a new locker room for me.”

Read the full piece here:

Pence: 'absolutely false' he considered dropping out

Donald Trump’s running mate Mike Pence has forcefully batted down speculation that he considered dropping from the Republican ticket after video emerged on Friday of Trump bragging about touching women without their consent.

Pence, a family values Christian and a discriminatory sexual moralist, said at the weekend that he was “offended” by Trump’s remarks about grabbing “pussy”, that he did not “condone” the remarks and could not defend them – which last bit rang quite true.

But Pence told CNN this morning that being tapped by Trump had been “the greatest honor of my life”.

He also said he was nominated by his party, which is technically true:

It’s absolutely false to suggest that at any point in time we considered dropping off this ticket. It’s the greatest honor of my life, to have been nominated by my party to be the next vice president of the United States of America.

Update for the record: Pence remains horrified and disgusted by Bill Clinton:

Updated

Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Hillary Clinton is to make stops in Detroit, Michigan, and in Columbus, Ohio, today, while Donald Trump will be in Ambridge and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Other campaign trail events include Clinton running mate Tim Kaine appearing with musician Dave Matthews in the Denver Metro area; Chelsea Clinton campaigning in Racine, Wisconsin, and Rochester, Minnesota; and Trump running mate Mike Pence in Charlotte and Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Did you watch the debate? Clinton spoke with reporters aboard her plane afterward:

‘Nothing surprises me about him’

Clinton says Trump delivered ‘avalanche of falsehoods’ during debate

Our news coverage of the big night is here:

Pence not dropping out – report

A cancellation by Trump running mate Mike Pence of a fundraising event on Monday, and Trump’s announcement onstage that he had not spoken with and totally disagreed with Pence about their Syria policy vis-à-vis Russia, and Trump’s coarse hot mic video, and the exodus of Republicans from the Trump cause, fuelled speculation that perhaps Pence would ditch Trump too.

Pence is staying, reports CNN:

Clinton ad: ‘Locker room talk’

A new ad from the Clinton campaign hits Trump for denying that he had described on a hot mic tape touching women without their consent. “I don’t think you understood what was said,” Trump says, flatly:

Read Lucia Graves this morning for analysis:

Thank you for reading and please join us in the comments.

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