Today in Campaign 2016
- The US supreme court struck down one of the harshest abortion restrictions in the country and potentially paved the way to overturn dozens of measures in other states that curtail access, in what might be the most significant legal victory for reproductive rights advocates since the right to abortion was established in 1973. The 5-3 ruling will immediately prevent Texas from enforcing a law that would have closed all but nine abortion clinics. But in a coup for abortion rights supporters, the court also in effect barred lawmakers from passing health measures backed by dubious medical evidence as a way of forcing large numbers of abortion clinics to close.
- Hillary Clinton immediately hailed the decision as a “victory for women across America”. Donald Trump did not immediately comment on the decision. “By striking down politically motivated restrictions that made it nearly impossible for Texans to exercise their full reproductive rights, the court upheld every woman’s right to safe, legal abortion, no matter where she lives,” the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate said.
- Donald Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t tweeted since this morning, on abortion or any other subject.
- Clinton and Elizabeth Warren used their first joint appearance on the campaign trail to make a decidedly populist appeal to voters in the battleground state of Ohio, and to cast Donald Trump as a narcissist less concerned with working-class Americans than his own profitability. Before a raucous crowd of nearly 2,000, cheers reverberating across the half-dome of Cincinnati’s historic Union Terminal, Clinton took the stage with the senator from Massachusetts, a hero to many progressive voters.
- Warren laid into the presumptive GOP nominee, characterizing him with a now familiar line as a “small, insecure money-grubber who fights for no one but himself”.“I’m here today because I’m with her,” she said, as Clinton stood by her side. “She doesn’t whine. She doesn’t run to Twitter to call her opponents fat pigs or dummies.
- The Trump campaign pushed back hard on reports that the presumptive Republican nominee was modifying his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States Monday.“This is not accurate,” said Hope Hicks, a spokesperson for the campaign. “There has been no change from the exchanges over the weekend.”
- CNN had initially reported that Trump was planning to roll back his December proposal for “a total and complete shutdown on Muslims entering the United States” and Trump national spokesperson Katrina Pierson, a frequent television surrogate for the campaign, seemed to agree with reports while trying to spin them. Although Pierson insisted “it’s only really a change if you never knew what the ban was to begin with”, she seemed to focus on the vetting process. “If you are coming into this country and you cannot be vetted, then you should not be allowed in until you can be vetted. This is not rocket science,” she said.
Donald Trump’s new communications chief hasn’t always been the biggest fan of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee - particularly on Twitter. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, his now-deleted posts criticizing Trump as “#SleazyDonald” are still readily available:
Trump campaign denies reports he is rolling back proposed Muslim ban
The Trump campaign pushed back hard on reports that the presumptive Republican nominee was modifying his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States.
“This is not accurate,” said Hope Hicks, a spokesperson for the campaign. “There has been no change from the exchanges over the weekend.”
CNN had initially reported that Trump was planning to roll back his December proposal for “a total and complete shutdown on Muslims entering the United States” and Trump national spokesperson Katrina Pierson, a frequent television surrogate for the campaign, seemed to agree with reports while trying to spin them.
Although Pierson insisted “it’s only really a change if you never knew what the ban was to begin with”, she seemed to focus on the vetting process. “If you are coming into this country and you cannot be vetted, then you should not be allowed in until you can be vetted. This is not rocket science,” she said.
She claimed the Muslim ban was “simply an immigration position” and said of Trump: “the initial ban on Muslims immigrating into the country that can not be vetted, he still does not want to come into this country. If you can be vetted, it’s a different story.”
Pierson also wrongly claimed that there wasn’t an existing vetting process, telling CNN “we’re not going to base national security off PolitiFact or even the United Nations”.
The idea of a Muslim ban has long been controversial and has been condemned by Republican party leaders, including speaker Paul Ryan.
The ban proposal stated that there be “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”. Trump added: “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.”
Updated
The Trump campaign brought on a top Republican operative this evening as the presumptive nominee continues to professionalize his campaign. The Guardian has learned that Trump has hired Jason Miller to serve as senior advisor for communications. Miller was a top advisor on Ted Cruz’s primary campaign, serving the Texas senator as senior communications advisor and overseeing the Cruz press shop.
The move comes just a week after Trump fired his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who had long urged Trump to continue the unconventional insurgent tactics which defined his primary campaign, and put veteran operative Paul Manafort fully in control. Lewandowski had long pushed against Trump assembling a traditional media operation and instead, the presumptive Republican nominee’s only media contact was long Hope Hicks, a 27-year-old public relations professional who had never worked in politics before joining the Trump campaign. Although Trump also employs Tea Party activist Katrina Pierson as a national spokeswoman, Pierson does not serve as a contact for reporters and instead is a full-time surrogate on cable news for Trump.
Miller, a veteran of a number of congressional and statewide campaigns as well as Rudy Giuliani’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid, will help further professionalize Trump’s campaign in the run up to the general election. In recent weeks, Trump has been starting to send out rapid response emails and take a far more active role in pushing messages and rebutting attacks from Hillary Clinton to reporters. For most of the campaign, Trump had been his own rapid response person, using his Twitter account to blast rivals.
Updated
Elated cheers rang out from steps of the supreme court this morning as the justices handed down a decision that overturned a slate of restrictions that would have closed all but a handful of abortion providers in Texas. The landmark ruling is considered one of the most consequential and sweeping legal victories for reproductive rights since the court handed down Roe v Wade in 1973.
Hillary Clinton immediately hailed the decision as a “victory for women across America”. Donald Trump did not immediately comment on the decision.
“By striking down politically motivated restrictions that made it nearly impossible for Texans to exercise their full reproductive rights, the court upheld every woman’s right to safe, legal abortion, no matter where she lives,” the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate said.
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who was defeated by Clinton in the Democratic primary, also applauded the decision.
“After all the progress we have made on women’s rights, we cannot go back to the days when women in America did not have the right to control their own bodies,” Sanders said.
Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said that the opinion would be a “defining issue” for female voters, a group that Trump is struggling to court.
“I think we are going to see a record gender gap in November and this is going to be one of the main reasons and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, as well as others, will be making this an important point in the months to come,” Richards said on MSNBC after the ruling.
The group has criticized the presumptive Republican nominee for his silence following the decision - Trump has not tweeted anything since 9:39 am EDT.
'I'm right': how Brexit became partisan banter for US politicians
Was Brexit the finest example of people power successfully upending political elites, or definitive proof that the world needs even-tempered leadership in a moment of crisis?
Across the Atlantic, where Democrats and Republicans are in the midst of a bruising presidential election, it depends upon who you ask.
Politicians have always been skilled at finding a fragment of fact to support their arguments and demonstrate how unexpected world events chimed exactly with what they had been saying all along.
Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has sent spasms through the global economy and exposed obvious parallels between a divided Britain and the deeply divided US electorate .
Donald Trump, who has defied the political establishment, riding a populist wave to the top of the Republican ticket, hailed the referendum decision as a “great victory” and commended Britain for rejecting what he called the “global elite” in the US and around the world.
Trump, who was in Scotland visiting his Turnberry golf course, said: “I think really people see a big parallel. A lot of people are talking about that. Not only the United States but other countries. People want to take their country back. They want to have independence in a sense.”
He later sent a fundraising email to supporters with the subject line making the comparison even more explicit.
“These voters stood up for their nation – they put the United Kingdom first, and they took their country back,” Trump said of the Brexit vote. “With your help, we’re going to do the exact same thing on Election Day 2016 here in the United States of America.”
Hillary Clinton’s campaign seized on Trump’s handling of the situation to prosecute its most successful recent tactic, saying he can’t be trusted to stay calm in a crisis or put the nation’s interests before his own. Hours after the results of the voting were announced, as global markets were crashing, Trump convened a press conference in Turnberry to extol his golf course.
“When the pound goes down more people come to Turnberry,” he told reporters.
Bill Kristol is just throwing things against a wall at this point:
Just left McCain fundraiser in DC. Happy to donate. But question occurred to me --why Senate reelection? Why not an indie run for President?
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 27, 2016
In light of the news that Donald Trump’s campaign is “clarifying” his position on Muslim immigration, in the words of spokesperson Katrina Pierson, here’s the Guardian’s interview with Sam Clovis, the national co-chair and senior policy adviser for the Trump campaign:
Clovis said that while “it would be very easy to say we don’t want any immigration from a predominantly Muslim country”, he noted, “there are people who have tried to commit terrorist acts that come from EU countries” and that a broader approach was more appropriate.
He said: “There is a crisis of confidence in America to make sure we can keep this country safe” and this would allow the United States to “stop, take a break, have a look and make sure everything is cool”. Clovis added that then “we can start again” to admit Muslims to the United States.
The campaign adviser expressed confidence that it would be easy to determine if those seeking to enter the United States were Muslim because immigration officers could simply ask the question. “I don’t think there is anything wrong about asking about religious affiliation,” said Clovis.
He noted you could use the person’s name to determine their religion as well. Clovis said: “If they lie to you, that’s a chance you take, but you have to have some semblance of background checks to verify this.”
Democratic platform committee member Neera Tanden, told the Nation that the party’s platform has done a little bit of movement in the direction of Bernie Sanders’ policy goals - but that they’re not going nuts.
The platform represents a good-faith effort - more than good faith, really - to accommodate many of Sen. Sanders’ ideas. But we also thought it appropriate to make sure it represents some of Secretary Clinton’s ideas, where they differ, because, well, she won the primary.
Donald Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson told CNN this evening that the candidate’s well-documented proposed ban on Muslim immigration to the US isn’t “changing,” despite reports that Trump will release a statement altering the proposal to only include countries with “known links” to terrorism.
Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson: The ban was never against ALL Muslims https://t.co/wJSgobFywz https://t.co/yTA3f6fmot
— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) June 27, 2016
“It’s only really a change if you never knew what the ban was to begin with,” Pierson told CNN. “It was simply for Muslim immigration, and Mr. Trump is simply adding specifics to clarify what his position is, as opposed to what the media has been reporting what it is. There has been no change to this - Mr. Trump still wants to stop individuals from coming into this country who can not be vetted.”
This is, in a word, incorrect. Trump originally proposed the “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the US in December of last year, after a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, in which 14 people were killed. Since then, the candidate has defended his controversial proposal repeatedly, describing it as “temporary.”
A majority of Republicans would prefer a different nominee at the top of the party’s ticket this Election Day, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that shows a mere 45% of Republicans are satisfied with Donald Trump’s nomination.
According to the survey, conducted June 19-23, 52% of Republicans said that they would prefer a different nominee. The results are neatly flipped for Democrats, 52% of whom are satisfied with presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and 45% of whom wish someone else had been nominated.
The survey breaks down Trump’s support by educational cohort, finding that a solid 58% of Republicans with a high-school education or less are satisfied with Trump as the party’s presumptive nominee, compared to 60% of Republicans with a college degree wishing for a different nominee.
The numbers will likely add fuel to the #NeverTrump fire, with some Republicans opposed Trump’s nomination pushing for the inclusion of a so-called “conscience clause” in the rules of the upcoming Republican National Convention in Cleveland, which would allow delegates bound to Trump to vote for an alternative for reasons of conscience.
Nearly six in 10 white Republicans think there is too much attention paid to race in the US these days, according to a report released today. By contrast, a majority of black Americans believe race is not discussed enough.
The report, conducted earlier this year by the Pew Research Center, looked at opinions of race and race relations among people who are white, black and Hispanic.
With Obama’s historic tenure as the nation’s first black president coming to a close, 63% of white Republicans said that the president’s policies had worsened race relations compared to 5% of white Democrats. Just over half of black people surveyed believed Obama made progress towards improvement and 34% said he tried.
Obama has been vocal about the impact of racial inequality on the United States, especially via his criminal justice reform efforts. “By just about every measure, the life chances for black and Hispanic youth still lag far behind those of their white peers,” Obama said during a speech to the NAACP last year.
Meanwhile, national tragedies such as the massacre of nine black worshippers in a South Carolina church last year or the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and other unarmed black men have made discussions of race a greater part of the national conversation in the past few years.
Report: Donald Trump's campaign to 'replace' proposed ban on Muslims
From CNN’s Jim Acosta:
Trump campaign is preparing policy memo replacing ban on Muslims. Instead ban will be on countries with known terrorism links, we are told.
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) June 27, 2016
Pete Coors and Mike Shanahan, the kingpins of Colorado’s twin cultural pillars (beer and football, respectively) are set to host a fundraiser this coming Friday for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Denver.
According to the Denver Post, the entry price for the fundraiser will be steep: $10,000 per couple to attend the lunchtime event at Shanahan’s 25,000-square-foot Cherry Hills mansion, and $50,000 for a photo reception with the candidate.
Coors is a brewery executive and scion of the eponymous beer dynasty, whose own run for political office in 2004 ended in failure; Shanahan is the former coach of the Denver Broncos.
Updated
Donald Trump’s son, Eric, has sent out a fundraising email denying that his claims about the campaign’s previous fundraising emails are a fiction.
“Hillary Clinton’s campaign machine and her liberal media allies are desperate,” the junior Trump wrote in an email with the subject line “They Say We’re Lying.”
“First, they claimed we raised too little. Then, when donors like you helped us to raise $11 million in just a few days, they claimed we were lying,” he continued (bold and italics included.) “The truth is we did better than $11 million and no amount of spin from Crooked Hillary’s machine can change that fact. We cannot let them get away with this.”
Trump wrote in the email that the campaign has set the “Trump-sized goal” of raising another $10 million before the Federal Election Commission’s next fundraising deadline on Thursday. “Afterwards, our results will be covered heavily by the media,” Trump concluded.
With its tiny mailing list compared to other campaigns and lack of technological sophistication, experts in digital fundraising have questioned Trump’s claims that the presidential campaign was able to raise more than $3 million off of a single email.
Bernie Sanders' press secretary quits campaign
In yet another indicator that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign is functionally over, the Vermont senator’s press secretary has officially left the campaign.
Symone Sanders - no relation - told CNN that there were no hard feelings about the departure, which was effective Sunday. “I just believe my time with the campaign has come to an end,” she said. “I’m very proud of the work we have done and am now looking forward to helping elect down-ballot Democrats and do all I can to ensure a Democrat is the 45th president of the United States.”
Sanders’ decision to leave, first reported by Fusion, comes nearly three weeks after the end of the Democratic primary season, in which the senator won the hearts of millions of voters, particularly college students, but failed to close a 3.7 million-vote gap between himself and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Although Sanders has declared that he plans to vote for Clinton in the November general election, he has not yet officially suspended his campaign or endorsed Clinton.
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs has more on Ohio governor John Kasich’s convention plans...
Ohio governor John Kasich has not asked for a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in his home state in July and has “zero expectations” of receiving one, the Guardian has learned. The absence of Kasich, the popular Republican governor who was one of the last remaining rivals to Trump in the presidential primary, would be an almost unprecedented snub and represent a major blow to Trump’s efforts to unite the GOP around him.
In a statement, top Kasich adviser John Weaver told the Guardian: “We have not asked for a speaking slot and have zero expectations of receiving one.” Weaver added: “Governor Kasich will have a full schedule of events around the convention aimed at helping Republicans keep control of Congress and winning down ballot. Of course, this will be on top of his responsibilities as governor in regard to security issues in Cleveland.”
Kasich’s statement comes the day after Trump told the New York Times that he would require the Ohio governor and Texas senator Ted Cruz to endorse him in order to speak in Cleveland. “If there’s no endorsement, then I would not invite them to speak,” Trump said of Kasich and Cruz, his last two opponents for the Republican nomination.
Political conventions normally give prize speaking slots to major political figures in the state where the convention is held. In 2012, Florida senator Marco Rubio introduced Mitt Romney when he accepted the Republican nomination in Rubio’s home state in Tampa, while other major Florida elected officials like former governor Jeb Bush and Representative Connie Mack got prized slots earlier in the evening. In 2008, Minnesota senator Norm Coleman spoke on two different nights when Republicans assembled in St Paul.
But, in addition to being Ohio’s governor, Kasich is also a former presidential candidate. Traditionally, defeated candidates for the nomination get speaking slots as well even after the most bitter and hard-fought campaigns. John McCain had a major speaking role in the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia despite waging a vicious primary battle against George W Bush.
In not speaking at the convention, Kasich joins a number of other prominent Republicans who also will not be appearing, including Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn and Utah representative Mia Love, once considered a potential vice-presidential pick for Trump.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown called on Elizabeth Warren, who defeated him in the state’s senate race in 2012, to take a DNA test to prove that she is part Native American, as Donald Trump continued to refer to Warren as “Pocahontas”.
“As you know, she’s not Native American. She’s not 1/32 Cherokee,” said Brown during a conference call with reporters organized by the Republican National Committee in response to Hillary Clinton and Warren’s first joint appearance.
Trump revived the controversy over Warren’s ancestry earlier this year after the Democratic senator lambasted him as “loud”, “nasty” and “racist”.
During the 2012 senate race, Brown made an issue of Warren’s Native American ancestry, which she could not prove and struggled to defend. The campaign implied then as it did again on Monday that Warren may have benefited from affirmative action based on her claim that she was Native American.
“Harvard can release the records, she can authorize the release of those records, or she can take a DNA test ... It’s a reverse form of racism, quite frankly,” “ Brown said, referring to Warren’s time at Harvard law school.
Brown was among the earliest Republicans to endorse Trump, and the billionaire real-estate developer has said the former senator would make a “very good” vice president.
Brown also said on the call that it “awkward” and “uncomfortable” to watch Warren, hailed as the scourge of Wall Street, campaign alongside Hillary Clinton, who he called the “Queen of Wall Street”.
“I found her audition to be very uncomfortable… how does [Warren] reconcile these differences?” Brown said of the possibility of her joining Clinton on the Democratic ticket.
Brown said Clinton and Warren’s alliance after the senator withheld her support during the primary race was evidence that the Democrat had a “Bernie Sanders problem”.
Scots stick it to Trump
Here’s a sampler of reaction on Scottish Twitter to Donald Trump last week tweeting how wild the country was going over the Brexit vote.
“Soggy expired dog food coupon” is pretty good.
The Scots have a mean twitter game when it comes to Donald Trumphttps://t.co/5us1mt0nfZ
— USA TODAY Multimedia (@usatodayvideo) June 27, 2016
But they missed some!
We voted remain, ya genetic cul-de-sac. https://t.co/8B7eylcVGh
— Kid Canaveral (@KidCanaveral) June 24, 2016
And not all the razzing was on Twitter:
@IrvineWelsh this cop wants me badly he's seen my cunt pic.twitter.com/kzlO05VZ7O
— Janey Godley (@JaneyGodley) June 25, 2016
Kasich does not expect to address convention – aide
Developing...
Top Kasich aide @JWGOP tells @GuardianUS that Kasich has "zero expectations" of speaking at RNC. Story TK pic.twitter.com/u1R1Xj0fxo
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) June 27, 2016
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has shared a photo of his afternoon at the NYC Pride march with Hillary Clinton, New York City’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, and a pride flag.
(Cuomo and NYC mayor Bill de Blasio have a running big, ugly, public fight, currently less active it seemed.)
Gee, I wonder who that tall man is who's being blocked by the flag pic.twitter.com/YIEBgRIq7V
— Josefa Velasquez (@J__Velasquez) June 26, 2016
RNC takes up Trump's question about Warren's race
Scott Brown, the Trump surrogate rolled out by the Republican national committee to rebut Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, has made a splash with a very Trumplike call for DNA evidence proving that Warren has Native American heritage (see earlier).
On a call with reporters organized by the RNC, Brown demanded evidence from Warren:
Scott Brown, on RNC call, says Warren could get Harvard to release records or “take a DNA test” to prove she’s part Native American.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) June 27, 2016
An RNC call. Not Trump camp. RNC. The RNC embracing Trump's 'Pocahontas' slur. Good god do they all deserve to lose. https://t.co/wEwvwuYJDY
— Zeddonymous (@ZeddRebel) June 27, 2016
Update: Note that Brown first made Warren’s claim to Native American heritage a campaign issue during the 2012 Massachusetts senate race in which he lost to her.
Updated
Clinton: “a great day to hit the campaign trail”:
A great day to hit the campaign trail in Ohio with @ElizabethForMA. pic.twitter.com/VizBSUNMxg
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 27, 2016
Trump reverts to calling Warren 'Pocahontas'
Using the verb “reverts” may imply there was more of a hiatus than there actually was. Trump tweeted dyspeptically about Senator Elizabeth Warren this morning, saying she “lied on heritage” but not calling her “Pocahontas” as is his wont. The nickname is a reference to Warren’s disputed Native American heritage.
Trump is standing by the nickname, the hurtful connotations of which appear truly invisible to him, unless he is simply indifferent to them. “We call her Pocahontas for a reason,” Trump says in an interview with NBC:
NBC News Exclusive:
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 27, 2016
Trump to @HallieJackson: Elizabeth Warren "racist," "fraud," reups "Pocahontas" nickname: pic.twitter.com/QMPEqxzLP8
Warren was once listed on a roster of Harvard law school professors as having Native American heritage, a centerpiece of her family lore, but that heritage has been called into question and she has not identified a specific Native ancestor.
A discouraging update:
Scott Brown challenging Elizabeth Warren to take a DNA test to prove her native american heritage.
— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) June 27, 2016
Updated
Clinton and Sanders campaign managers hang out, bond
Bernie Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver and Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook have been bonding in almost-daily phone calls and they met for dinner Friday night in Burlington, Vermont, AP reports:
It seemed like a surprising party of two.
There was Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s top campaign aide, known for his calm temperament and fiercely disciplined ways, and Jeff Weaver, a combative political fighter often called Bernie Sanders’ alter ego, sharing a Friday night dinner at The Farmhouse Tap & Grill in Burlington, Vermont.
But over the long months of a frequently contentious primary, the two rival Democratic campaign managers struck up an unusually friendly relationship, founded on exhaustion, goofy jokes and a shared affection for their home state of Vermont.
They talk almost daily, text frequently and email often.
Now, as Sanders lingers in the presidential race, refusing to concede the nomination to Clinton even as he says he’ll vote for her on Election Day, the competing campaign managers have become a powerful political odd couple, responsible for engineering a graceful conclusion to a hard-fought Democratic contest.
“I’ve really come to respect him,” Mook said. “There were some tense moments, but he was always honest, straightforward and very easy to work with.”
Weaver is equally effusive in his praise.
“I think he’s the kind of guy who is doing what he does for the right reasons,” Weaver said about Mook. “He believes in the cause and he believes in making the world a better place.”
Read the full piece here.
Trump calls Warren a 'sellout'
Here’s kind of an interesting line of attack by the Trump campaign on the emergent Clinton-Warren axis. Trump accuses Warren of selling out her beliefs and “pandering to the Sanders wing” by standing next to Clinton, whom Trump says is a vessel for Wall Street interests and a proponent of trade agreements that hurt the American worker.
“Warren’s campaigning for Clinton stands in stark contrast to the liberal ideals she once practiced,” Trump says.
Here’s the full statement from the Trump campaign, titled “Sellout Warren”:
As Clinton tries to salvage support among the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democrat Party, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has become a turncoat for the causes she supposedly supports. While Warren claims that Wall Street businesses have too much influence in D.C., by paying “barely disguised bribes,” through campaign contributions. The Clinton campaign has accepted over $41 million this cycle from Wall Street interests. Warren is also campaigning for the author of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal she has routinely slammed. This is a trade deal that Clinton has expressed support for in over 45 public speeches. Warren’s campaigning for Clinton stands in stark contrast to the liberal ideals she once practiced. This sad attempt at pandering to the Sanders wing is another example of a typical political calculation by D.C. insiders. Mr. Trump has been against TPP from the start of his campaign because he understands how detrimental it would be to American workers. He will continue to fight for the American people and serve them over the special interests in Washington, D.C.
(h/t: @bencjacobs)
Trump statement hitting warren does so without "Pocahontas" pic.twitter.com/g2dJRmfM8d
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) June 27, 2016
It's now noteworthy that the presumptive Republican nominee can issue a press release without using an ethnic slur https://t.co/03INNtH4NK
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) June 27, 2016
Update: that didn’t last long:
Donald Trump calls @HallieJackson to say this on Elizabeth Warren: "She's a racist...we call her Pocahontas for a reason."
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) June 27, 2016
Updated
This is confusing. Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson defends her boss’s handling of the Brexit vote by alluding to criticism of Clinton’s handling of the Benghazi incident:
Trump spox @KatrinaPierson: "Perhaps Mr. Trump could have blamed Brexit on a video that never existed" pic.twitter.com/QDjPoUPTz2
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) June 27, 2016
B R E X I T
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) June 27, 2016
E
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H A I L
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I https://t.co/k7rHHjLiRg
Updated
Trump will travel to Ohio after all.
After coming in for criticism for making no visits to the Buckeye State since March, Trump will participate in an upcoming rally in St Clairsville, a 95% white blue-collar town with more in common with West Virginia across the river than the Ohio metropolises to the west.
Trump will be up against the spectacle this morning in Cincinnati of Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren onstage together.
Trump announces his first trip to Ohio since the March primary pic.twitter.com/WrbTOgVUJf
— Adam Wollner (@AdamWollner) June 27, 2016
Update: as for Trump’s planned visit Tuesday to Monesson, Pennsylvania, Nate Cohn of the New York Times observes that the city lies on a fault line separating blue Obama territory and red territory, and Trump could conceivably flip it. Trump plans to speak on trade, “Declaring American Economic Independence”, his campaign reports:
Despite huge losses in the region, Obama was still very competitive in a lot of the area along the Monongahela River, south of Pittsburgh
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) June 27, 2016
Updated
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court has vacated a conviction on corruption charges of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, who was originally found guilty of taking $175,000 in cash and gifts – a Ferrarri loaner, for example, and payment towards a daughter’s wedding – from a businessman, in return, a jury decided, for McDonnell’s arranging access to officials. The businessman was hawking a dietary supplement.
McDonnell’s lawyers argued there was no quid-pro-quo and that the governor’s actions did not violate federal bribery statutes. The court found that the conviction hinged on instructions to a jury that were too broad.
The case raises questions about what kinds of gifts, exactly, a politician may accept, and what constitutes a favor in return. It appears more politicians may be about to get Ferrari rides:
In today's McDonnell ruling, a donor can legally give unlimited $$ to a candidate as a personal gift if no "official act" involved
— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) June 27, 2016
Good news for Hillary! https://t.co/F2rEBxpOgK
— David Freddoso (@freddoso) June 27, 2016
Updated
Dole joins Twitter
The 1996 Republican nominee is up and tweeting:
I'm proof that it's never too late to join Twitter. #myfirstTweet
— Senator Bob Dole (@SenatorDole) June 27, 2016
Democrats accuse Benghazi committee Republicans of 'grave abuses'
The House select committee on Benghazi, led by dogged truth seeker Trey Gowdy, a Republican from South Carolina, earlier this month had to postpone the release of a summary report on its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s role in the disaster and the contents of her email.
The Democrats on the committee are out with their side today. They accuse the Republicans on the committee of “grave abuses” including concealing exculpatory evidence:
Republicans excluded Democrats from interviews, concealed exculpatory evidence, withheld interview transcripts, leaked inaccurate information, issued unilateral subpoenas, sent armed Marshals to the home of a cooperative witness, and even conducted political fundraising by exploiting the deaths of four Americans. In one of the most serious abuses, Chairman Gowdy personally and publicly accused Secretary Clinton of compromising a highly classified intelligence source. Although the Intelligence Community quickly debunked his claim, Chairman Gowdy has yet to apologize to Secretary Clinton for his slanderous accusation.
Read further:
Latest abuse of authority by House Republicans is ridiculous & a desperate distraction from a failed investigation https://t.co/8j4yZ0zifp
— Benghazi Democrats (@BenghaziDems) June 10, 2016
Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, used the Survivor song Eye of the Tiger without permission at a rally he held for Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue same-sex couples marriage licenses.
Huckabee got sued and had to pay out $25,000 in a settlement, CNN reports.
(h/t @bencjacobs)
Clinton: abortion ruling 'is a reminder of how much is at stake'
In a 5-3 ruling, the Supreme Court has prevented Texas from enforcing a restrictive anti-abortion law that would have closed all but nine abortion clinics in the state.
“The Supreme Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt is a victory for women across America,” Clinton said in a statement:
By striking down politically motivated restrictions that made it nearly impossible for Texans to exercise their full reproductive rights, the Court upheld every woman’s right to safe, legal abortion, no matter where she lives.
The statement drew a contrast with Trump:
Donald Trump has said women should be punished for having abortions. He also pledged to defund Planned Parenthood and appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
Today’s decision is a reminder of how much is at stake in this election.
The Trump campaign has yet to issue a statement on the ruling.
A high concentration of political gravity in one hug:
Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, working their first joint rope line, share a quick hug before Warren heads out pic.twitter.com/YxmSL8kahf
— Monica Alba (@albamonica) June 27, 2016
Brown to make rebuttal to Clinton-Warren
You’ve heard Clinton and Warren make their argument. Now listen to the other side, from the mouth of... brief US senator Scott Brown.
The Republican national committee has scheduled a conference call with media this afternoon with Brown, who won a special election to the senate in 2010 before losing to Warren for senate in Massachusetts (2012) and then losing to Jeanne Shaheen for senate in New Hampshire (2014).
We’ll listen to Brown and let you know what he says.
Clinton says Trump tried to turn Brexit into 'an infomercial'
Clinton delivers a sustained criticism of Trump as conclusion to her speech:
“I have this old fashioned idea. If you’re running for president, you should say what you want to do and how you will get it done,” she says.
Ask yourself what are Donald Trump’s plans? Well, best I can tell, he has no credible strategy for creating jobs... he says he’s for our workers. But Trump’s own products are made in countries that are not called America.”
This time she names Trump suits, furniture and barware, all manufactured overseas. That’s not “America First”, she says.
Then Clinton runs down a list of ways she says Trump is wrong, from “playing coy” with white supremacists to mocking people with disabilities, favoring banning Muslims, abolishing gun-free zones at schools, defaulting on the national debt, rolling back marriage equality...
I could go on and on.. Whose reaction to the horrific mass shoting in Orlando was to publicly congratulate himself... and on Friday [after Brexit announcement], he crowed from his golf course about how the disruption could end up creating higher profits for that golf course, even though within 24 hours Americans lost [tens of billions] from their 401Ks.
“He tried to turn a glogal economic challenge into an infomercial,” Clinton says. “Imagine him being in charge.. imagine him trying to figure out what to do in case of an emergency”.
Clinton is describing the America of tomorrow that she envisions, under her presidency. It will have the most competitive auto-parts industry in the world, every home will have high-speed broadband Internet and the USA will be the clean-energy superpower of the 21st century.
She’s coughing a bit. She continues:
“Cincinnati is already one of the biggest cities in the country to run 100% on clean energy. Congratulations!... I hope you don’t mind if I go around across the country and say if you can do it in Cincinnati you can do it anywhere!”
Clinton deploys the “Woman card” line:
If fighting for families is playing the woman card, deal me in”.
People chant along and there’s lots of clapping and a “Hillary! Hillary!” chant breaks out.
Clinton promise: 'not raise' taxes on middle class; 'raise taxes' on wealthy
Clinton: “I got into this race because I wanted to even the odds for people who have the odds stacked against them...”
We’ve got to go big and we’ve got to go bold. We need to take the frustration, the fear, the anxiety and yes the anger... we’ve got to work together.
Let’s set five ambition goals for the economy, Clinton says, lapsing into the economic policy program she’s laid out elsewhere: 1/ jobs and infrastructure spending; 2/ debt-free college & college debt relief 3/ profit-sharing & less outsourcing 4/ tax Wall Street & Buffett rule 5/ family leave & health care
Then Clinton makes a classic campaign-trail tax pledge, notable for the political comfort she feels at drawing such a line. She promises to tax the rich and not to tax the middle class:
I’ve made a pledge: I will not raise taxes on the middle class, but we are going to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.”
Clinton: Warren speaks for 'every American who is frustrated'
Clinton, perhaps targeting the kind of frustrated blue collar voter whose support for Trump has been apparent, calls Warren a premier defender of the disenfranchised:
Some of the best TV since Elizabeth came to the senate is actually on CSPAN.... She is speaking for every American who is frustrated and fed up. She is speaking for all of us. And we thank her for that.
Clinton also expressed admiration for Warren’s ability to attack Trump:
And I must say. I do just love to see how she gets under Donald Trump’s thin skin. As Elizabeth made clear, Donald Trump proves every day, he’s not in it for the American people, he’s only in it for himself. And Elizabeth reminds us of that.. because... she exposes him for what he is. Temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be president of the United States.
“Elizabeth and I came of age around the same time,” Clinton says.
Warren appears to have left the stage. Clearing the way for the candidate.
Clinton says “no one works harder to make sure Wall Street never, never wrecks Main Street again...” She talks about Warren’s consumer financial protection bureau. “It has already returned over $10.8bn to 25m Americans who have been hurt by illegal financial practices,” Clinton says.
“We need to make sure that basic bargain is alive and well in 2016. Elizabeth is leading the fight to liberate millions of Americans from the burden of student debt and to make sure Washington never again profits off our students.”
Warren leads the crowd in a “Hillary! Hillary!” cheer.
Donald Trump cheats his workers and wants to abolish the minimum wage. HIllary Clinton believes no one should work full time and live in poverty and that means raising the minimum wage.. Hillary fights for us!
Donald Trump calls African Americans thugs, Muslims terrorists, Latinos criminals and rapists and women bimbos. Hillary Clinton believes racism .. and bigotry have no place in our country. She fights for us and we will fight for Hillary Clinton.
The crowd is into it.
Thank you Cincinnati! Clinton says. That’s a tough speech to follow.
Warren: Trump 'will crush you into the dirt'
Warren with a sharp attack on Trump:
Donald Trump says “we’ll make America great again.”
“It’s stamped on front of his goofy hat. You want to see goofy? Look at him in that hat.” [Trump has taken to referring to Warren as ‘goofy Elizabeth Warren”.]
When Donald Trump says great, I think, great for who, exactly?... For families that don’t fly to Scotland for golf? ... He means make it even greater for rich guys like Donald Trump... great for the guys... great for the guys who always want more...
Watch out because he will crush you into the dirt to get whatever he wants. That’s who he is.
Then she repeats her “small, insecure moneygrubber” line about Trump and the crowd really cheers.
What kind of a man? A nasty man who will never become president of the United States. Because Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States.... She knows how to beat a thin-skinned bully who is driven by greed and hate. She knows you beat a bully not by tucking tail and but by standing ground and fighting back.
Warren says Clinton has been hit by “one right-wing attack or another for 25 years, but she has never backed down. She doesn’t whine, she doesn’t run to Twitter to call her enemies fat pigs or dummies. No...” she remembers the people who need her most.
Hillary has brains. She has guts. She has thick skin and steady hands. But most of all, she has a good heart. And that’s what AMerica needs. And that’s why I’m with her.
“Hillary Clinton is a granddaughter of a factory worker who’s going to make it all the way to the White House,” Warren says. It’s an applause line.
Clinton is standing next to Warren as Warren speaks. Clinton is nodding attentively as Warren talks about “fat tax breaks for CEO bonuses”.
Here’s Warren and Clinton in Cincinnati.
They’re both wearing Democratic blue ( Clinton appears to be more in purple, many photos above to review).
Warren is calling for protecting and expanding social security. She’s talking about her biography and professional background.
Updated
Here’s a live video stream of the Clinton-Warren event in Cincinnati, which is scheduled to start soon:
We’re trialling our first Guardian US politics Snapchat update from the Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren event today.
Sabrina Saddiqui is recording live in Ohio. She’s behind the scenes at the event, speaking to the crowd and commenting on the speeches.
Follow her and watch the event by adding guardian_us as a friend on Snapchat, or scan the code. Send us a message and let us know how we’re doing.
Democratic unity shaping up more quickly than in 2008 – poll
Bernie Sanders supporters may not include many “party-unity-my-ass” types, in the model of the Hillary Clinton Pumas, who, in 2008, resisted backing Barack Obama after he beat her to the nomination.
The 81% of Sanders backers who now say they’re with her, in a new Washington Post-ABC poll, “is a higher number than in any poll of 2008 Clinton backers who rallied to Obama”, writes the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake. “The high that year was 74%, in October”.
Sanders has done a bit to rally his followers, if not behind Clinton then at least against Donald Trump, whom Sanders has repeatedly said must be defeated at all costs. The Clinton camp would say there’s a lot more to be done.
81% of Sanders backers say they'll vote Clinton. Much quicker Dem rallying effect than '08. https://t.co/RvFtAXLCwg pic.twitter.com/TQdOoRylyE
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) June 27, 2016
A second poll backs up the WaPo/ ABC finding:
45% of Sanders backers now have a positive view of Cilnton vs. 33% with negative view, per NBC/WSJ poll https://t.co/hxEFIxOgA2
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) June 27, 2016
Look who’s tweeting.
Donald Trump usually refers to Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas”, in reference to the senator’s disputed Native American background. But this morning he’s behaving: Warren now “lied on heritage”.
Crooked Hillary is wheeling out one of the least productive senators in the U.S. Senate, goofy Elizabeth Warren, who lied on heritage.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2016
Trump is telegraphing discontent with the media this morning, in what seems to be a bit of a bender of focus on the forces Trump perceives to be arrayed against him, namely pollsters and the media.
On Sunday night, Trump tweeted negatively about a new ABC / Washington Post poll finding that nearly two-thirds of Americans think he is unqualified to be president. He called the poll “dirty” and a “disgrace”.
Trump has been grappling with seriously bad polling numbers for a couple weeks now, and the struggle has been something to watch from the outside. At first he used the word “phony” to describe the polls, then he said “I haven’t started yet”, and now it’s “dirty” and “disgrace” with a side helping of a media conspiracy against him:
The media is unrelenting. They will only go with and report a story in a negative light. I called Brexit (Hillary was wrong), watch November
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2016
Trump pays special tribute to CNN, which last week hired the campaign manager Trump fired. Somehow Trump knows what’s on CNN, though he does not watch it:
.@CNN is all negative when it comes to me. I don't watch it anymore.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2016
Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Senator Elizabeth Warren will join Hillary Clinton for their first joint campaign event today in Cincinnati, Ohio, a key toss-up state Clinton has been visiting regularly since sewing up the Democratic nomination.
Donald Trump has not visited the state since March. “Trump has now visited Scotland more than Ohio since becoming the Republican party’s presumptive nominee,” local WCPO Cincinnati observed on Monday morning. Perhaps Trump figures he can get all the Buckeye fuel he needs out of next month’s convention in Cleveland.
Trump is not entirely neglecting a traditional swing-state campaigning strategy, however. His team announced an event on Tuesday outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a state the Clinton camp has expressed confidence about keeping in the Democratic column even as a pro-Clinton Super Pac makes eight-figure ad buys there. If Trump’s strategy is “you never know”, Clinton’s is “you can never be too sure”.
Speaking of swing states: a CBS News/YouGov poll of four swing states out this morning finds Clinton and Trump basically tied in Colorado and North Carolina, and Clinton a bit ahead in Florida and Wisconsin. Here’s the breakdown:
Clinton ahead in Wisconsin; tight races in Colorado, Florida and North Carolina https://t.co/EcQOpF3OU0 pic.twitter.com/XKsulypZMQ
— YouGovUS (@YouGovUS) June 26, 2016
The Clinton campaign is out with a new ad hitting Trump for his Scotland golf course do on Friday as the world awoke to news that Britain had voted to leave the EU. “In a volatile world, the last thing we need isa volatile president,” the narrator intones.
At the weekend, Trump campaign manager (is that his title these days?) Paul Manafort teased some news to come: “This week we will be making some major announcements about people that are taking over and major positions in our national campaign and state campaigns,” he said.
Clinton walked briefly in the Pride march in New York City on Sunday. As Clinton passed the corner of Christopher Street and Bleecker, the Guardian’s Nicole Puglise wrote, an announcer asked the crowd to “make some noise if you’re voting for Secretary Clinton”. Attendees shouted and whooped.
Barack Obama is suddenly quite popular, his approval rating continuing to climb. It would help Clinton if he can keep this up:
Poll: 56% approve of President Obama pic.twitter.com/54yR1gULd1
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) June 27, 2016
The same poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans think Trump is unqualified to be president while 61% think Clinton is qualified. Trump did not say the poll was “skewed”, but he did call it a “dirty” and a “disgrace”:
The "dirty" poll done by @ABC @washingtonpost is a disgrace. Even they admit that many more Democrats were polled. Other polls were good.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2016
McConnell mum on Trump ‘qualified’ question
“Our primary voters have made their decision ... there’s a lot of work to be done”.
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