Mike Pence, on Ted Cruz’s endorsement of Donald Trump:
Ted Cruz is a leader of the conservative movement and one of the strongest defenders of the liberties enshrined in the Constitution. I am truly grateful for his endorsement of our ticket and look forward to working with him to advance Donald Trump’s agenda to make America great again. Ted Cruz’s support is a testament to the unity and excitement that we see every day on the campaign trail as this movement rallies behind our next president, Donald J. Trump.
Today in Campaign 2016
- In a statement posted to Facebook this afternoon, Texas senator Ted Cruz declared that “after many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.”
- “I’ve made this decision for two reasons. First, last year, I promised to support the Republican nominee. And I intend to keep my word,” Cruz said. “Second, even though I have had areas of significant disagreement with our nominee, by any measure Hillary Clinton is wholly unacceptable – that’s why I have always been #NeverHillary.”
- Trump is, as always, magnanimous in victory: “I am greatly honored by the endorsement of Senator Cruz. We have fought the battle and he was a tough and brilliant opponent. I look forward to working with him for many years to come in order to make America great again.”
- A federal judge ordered the State Department to release more than 1,000 pages emails recovered from Hillary Clinton’s personal email servers by the FBI within five days of the presidential election.
- Barack Obama vetoed a bill that would have allowed the families of 9/11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia. Obama cited the potential for the popular bipartisan bill to backfire against the US, its diplomats and military personnel. The bill sailed through both chambers of Congress by voice vote, with final House passage coming just two days before Obama led the country in marking the 15th anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001.
- Billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson plans to donate as much as $25m to a Super Pac supporting Donald Trump – more than five times what he had been expected to contribute. Adelson will give the money to Future45 for ads attacking Hillary Clinton and backing Donald Trump, the Guardian has learned. The commitment by the Las Vegas mogul will bring the total raised by Future45 to $30m, according to a donor briefed on the Pac’s fundraising.
- The Cincinnati Enquirer announced today its endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president, the first time in nearly a century that the paper has not backed the Republican nominee. The newspaper, the highest circulation print publication in that part of Ohio, outlined why Clinton gets its support - although it hasn’t always backed her.
- US intelligence officers are examining whether Carter Page, an American businessman listed as a foreign policy adviser for Trump, met with a Vladimir Putin aide to discuss the upcoming US election and with other Kremlin officials to discuss lifting sanctions if Trump is elected president, reported Yahoo. Page has oil and gas business interests in Russia, and members of Congress fear that his political discussions with Russian intelligence officials could undermine US policies. Senate minority leader Harry Reid contacted the director of the FBI, asking for the bureau to examine the “significant and disturbing ties” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, including meetings between Page and high-ranked Kremlin officials.
Subtweet alert:
#FridayFeelinghttps://t.co/83XKXaa157
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 23, 2016
Get real-time reactions during the presidential debates
During the first presidential debate on Monday, September 27, theGuardian Mobile Innovation Lab and the Guardian US opinion desk will send experimental web notifications with real-time opinions from Guardian columnists as they watch the debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
These experimental alerts, available to users of Android devices who have an updated Chrome browser installed on their phones, will supplement the news alerts sent from the Guardian’s Android app with reactions from Guardian columnists Richard Wolffe and Lucia Graves. They will be sent at key moments throughout the debate, while the Guardian app news alerts will provide only the most important updates. (The alerts can also be received through desktop Chrome browsers but unfortunately not iPhones. We’re working on a way to release iOS versions of our notifications experiments and hope to have that ready next month.)
During the debate, you will hear from the columnists with their quick takes on the candidates’ policy statements, their debating styles, and who’s winning and who’s losing.
Sound interesting? Want to sign up? Web notifications are currently only available on Chrome on Android devices or desktop. If you have an Android mobile phone (Samsung, included!), open this page in a Chrome browser and tap to sign up.
Bernie Sanders' brother to fight David Cameron's seat for Green party
Larry Sanders, the older brother of Democrat politician Bernie Sanders, is hoping to emulate his sibling’s success by standing for the Green party in David Cameron’s Oxfordshire seat.
Bernie Sanders gave Hillary Clinton an unexpectedly tough fight in the Democratic presidential primaries, riding a wave of idealism among a predominantly young voter base.
Now his brother Larry, 82, a retired social worker and former Green partycouncillor, plans to attempt a similar feat for the Greens in the byelection for the rock-solid Conservative constituency of Witney.
It will be a tall order. “It hasn’t always been the richest turf for the Green party,” a party spokesman said. To become MP for Witney, he would have to overturn Cameron’s 22,700-vote majority in a seat where the last Green candidate won just 5.1% of the vote.
But as Sanders points out, he has branding on his side. “Because of Bernard, I’ve become famous, and I will get more attention from the media, and that’s to be used to get the Green party’s policies across,” he told the Guardian.
You may have missed this yesterday, but PBS’ Frontline released a sneak preview of remarks from an upcoming documentary special on the 2016 presidential campaign, in which supporters of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump point to his humiliation at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner as the moment when he decided that he would run for president.
In this clip, former The Apprentice contestant and current director of African-American outreach Omarosa tells Frontline that Trump is running for vengeance against “everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him.”
“It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”
We honestly forgot this whole exchange!
If @TedCruz doesn’t clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016
Face the Nation’s John Dickerson asked House speaker Paul Ryan about Donald Trump’s proposal to expand New York’s controversial-and-since-retired “stop and frisk” policy nationwide. The speaker’s answer: We’ll see.
“I think Chicago should make that decision,” Ryan said. “New York made that decision and - and a lot of people in New York thought it was successful.”
“I think you have to make sure that there’s - there are reasonable suspicion standards,” Ryan continued, when asked if it was a good idea. “I think it has to be done the right way. I think local police, in local communities, need to make those decisions. You can talk to New Yorkers and talk to former mayors of New York who thought it worked well.”
“Obviously, it cannot be done along racial lines, along ethnic lines,” Ryan said, apparently unfamiliar with how stop-and-frisk policies were found in 2013 to disproportionately target African American and Latino neighborhoods by a federal judge. “It’s got to be done along security lines where those reasonable suspicion standards are met. But again, I just don’t think that’s something we should pass a law here to do. That’s something that local communities have to decide how best to keep them safe.”
Donald Trump's campaign manager: 'Hell froze over today'
Hell froze over today, and it is feels like heaven. #thankyou #NeverHillary https://t.co/BzvDZ0FIAx
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) September 23, 2016
Ted Cruz’s former communications director:
Cruz's former comms guy, @rickwtyler, to me just now: "It's mourning in America for conservatives. We lost our leader today."
— Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) September 23, 2016
Glenn Beck is despondent:
Donald Trump 'greatly honored' by endorsement from Ted Cruz
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has released a statement in response to Texas senator Ted Cruz’s late-breaking announcement that he plans to vote for Trump in the general election.
I am greatly honored by the endorsement of Senator Cruz. We have fought the battle and he was a tough and brilliant opponent. I look forward to working with him for many years to come in order to make America great again.
In July, Trump said that he would not accept Cruz’s endorsement if he offered it:
He’s fine. I don’t want his endorsement. If he gives it, I will not accept it, just so you understand. I will not accept it. It won’t matter. Honestly, he should have done it. Because nobody cares. And he would have been in better shape for four years from now. I don’t see him winning anyway, frankly. But if he did, it’s fine.
Here was the scene in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Republican National Convention when Ted Cruz withheld his endorsement from Donald Trump in July:
The mood within the arena changed dramatically when Cruz, while delivering what sounded like the opening speech of a second presidential campaign, declined to make the case for Trump’s election.
“Please, don’t stay home in November,” he said. “Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”
Factions of the audience had already grown impatient, drowning Cruz out with jeers and chants of “Trump! Trump!” as he spoke at length with an impassioned pitch for conservative values without making a single mention of the Republican nominee.
Cruz at first made light of the protests, telling the crowd: “I appreciate the enthusiasm of the New York delegation.” It was a reference to his infamous skirmish with voters in Trump’s home state, whom the senator had knocked during his campaign as holding “New York values”.
The crowd nonetheless appeared to be holding out hope for a last-minute change of heart, even as aides to Cruz had repeatedly cautioned he would not be endorsing Trump in his speech.
Cruz instead issued a lengthy rebuke of Barack Obama, criticizing the president’s record on domestic issues and foreign policy. He also addressed the heightened tensions among Americans amid frayed race relations, before making an appeal for new leadership in broader terms.
“We’re not fighting for one particular candidate or one particular campaign,” Cruz said.
“We deserve leaders who stand for principle, unite us all behind shared values, cast aside anger for love. That is the standard we should expect, from everybody.”
But as it became clear Cruz would not be backing Trump, most of the crowd revolted and drowned out the final moments of his speech with boos that reverberated across the basketball arena. Cruz put on a brave face, wrapping up his remarks and thanking the audience, but the damage had been done. In the midst of the uproar, Heidi Cruz had to be escorted out by security due to fears for her safety.
As the convention broke for the night, Trump accused his former rival of failing to honor a pledge all the GOP candidates had made to support the eventual nominee:
Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn't honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2016
This tweet was just retweeted by Hillary Clinton’s official account:
I’ve released 9 years of tax returns. RT if you agree it’s time for Donald Trump to release his! https://t.co/08whtFVC0r
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 19, 2016
Donald Trump, in July:
I don’t want his endorsement. If he gives it, I will not accept it.
We could do this all day.
It's indisputable that if Trump's the nominee, Hillary wins by double digits. I'm not prepared to give Hillary the White House #Decision2016
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 15, 2016
A small sampling of Ted Cruz’s Twitter mentions:
@tedcruz I'm so disappointed Ted. I thought you would continue to fight for us. I supported you. Sad day for principled conservatives.
— K.A. (@TXScoutMama) September 23, 2016
@tedcruz I always wondered what a cuck was, and now I have a face to go with the name.
— Jon Macqueen (@jonmacqueen) September 23, 2016
@tedcruz ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaahahahahahahahahaaaaohohohohoho
— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) September 23, 2016
#TBT: “Donald, you’re a sniveling coward.”
Ted Cruz: 'I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump'
Texas senator Ted Cruz has announced in a Facebook post that “after many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience,” he will cast his vote in the upcoming presidential election for Donald Trump, the Republican nominee with whom Cruz was once engaged in a bitter, months-long battle for the party’s nomination.
Cruz’s decision is the result of two considerations, according to the senator. First, his longstanding pledge during the Republican presidential primary to support the eventual nominee - although he declined at the time to say that he would endorse Trump by name - and second, his distate for Hillary Clinton.
“Even though I have had areas of significant disagreement with our nominee, by any measure Hillary Clinton is wholly unacceptable,” Cruz said in the post. “That’s why I have always been #NeverHillary.”
Citing policy differences concerning the supreme court, Obamacare, fossil fuels, immigration, national security and “internet freedom” - a reference to a United Nations agreement that enacts a long-term framework to protect the internet from control by a single government - as “vital issues where the candidates’ positions present a clear choice for the American people,” Cruz wrote in the post that “if Clinton wins, we know - with 100% certainty - that she would deliver on her left-wing promises, with devastating results for our country.”
“Our country is in crisis,” Cruz concluded, calling Clinton “manifestly unfit to be president.”
“Donald Trump is the only thing standing in her way.”
Updated
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs has more on Texas senator Ted Cruz’s rumored upcoming endorsement of bitter rival Donald Trump’s presidential bid:
Ted Cruz is likely to announce his support for Donald Trump in the coming days, a source familiar with the decision told the Guardian.
The source was not sure if the Texas senator will deliver an outright endorsement or a more tepid statement of support, but said Cruz would most likely go the “whole hog” with an announcement first reported by the website Politico on Friday.
Cruz finished second to Trump in the Republican primary and then pointedly refused to endorse him in his speech to the party’s convention in Cleveland in July. The Texas senator was booed from the floor.
The next day, he insisted he was “not a servile puppy dog”.
Cruz, a hardliner who played a lead role in the government shutdown of 2013, has long warned that Trump is not a conservative but rather a big-government liberal.
Trump has repeatedly attacked Cruz, not just politically but personally. In the course of the primary, he criticised Cruz’s wife, Heidi, for her looks and implied that the Texas senator’s father was somehow involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. In both instances, Cruz fired back.
US officials probe Trump adviser's ties to Kremlin
US intelligence officers are examining whether Carter Page, an American businessman listed as a foreign policy adviser for Trump, met with a Vladimir Putin aide to discuss the upcoming US election and with other Kremlin officials to discuss lifting sanctions if Trump is elected president, reports Yahoo.
Page has oil and gas business interests in Russia, and members of Congress fear that his political discussions with Russian intelligence officials could undermine US policies. Senate minority leader Harry Reid contacted the director of the FBI, asking for the bureau to examine the “significant and disturbing ties” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, including meetings between Page and high-ranked Kremlin officials, say Yahoo.
The news comes as two senior Democrats, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committe, and Representative Adam Schiff, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, released a joint statement on how they believe Russian intelligence agencies are trying to influence the US election.
“Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election,” they said.
“At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election... orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from very senior levels of the Russian government,” they said.
Many in the FBI believe that hacking of the Democratic National Convention emails just days before the DNC began was by Russia.
As Yahoo reports:
US intelligence agencies have also received reports that Page met with another top Putin aide while in Moscow — Igor Diveykin. A former Russian security official, Diveykin now serves as deputy chief for internal policy and is believed by U.S. officials to have responsibility for intelligence collected by Russian agencies about the U.S. election, the Western intelligence source said.
Conservative blogger Eric Erickson had refused to back Trump, but it seems he’s found someone to support this election: independent Evan McMullin. He writes on his site The Insurgent, calling McMullin the “sane alternative”:
The reality is Evan McMullin’s candidacy is a long shot. His best shot is winning a few states to throw the race to the House of Representatives where, though he may not get the Presidency, he might ensure neither Trump nor Hillary get it. To do this he would have to win a few blue states, which though difficult is not impossible. Surprisingly, he is already beginning to register in polls in red states like Utah and purple states like Virginia.
Frankly, Evan McMullin may actually serve a more important role in 2016. Though he may not win, he might at least provide disaffected conservatives an excuse to show up and vote down ballot. Saving the Senate and House of Representatives from the Democrats has to be a priority for conservatives, but many are so disgusted by 2016 that they will not even show up in November.
McMullin gives people a reason to show up. He gives conservatives someone they can vote for without holding their nose. He gives people someone to vote for instead of reconciling themselves to voting against someone. McMullin’s candidacy is not the lesser of an evil, but an alternative against evil. For many, that will be enough.
A lot of people have been writing me, begging me to reconsider Donald Trump. They think this is the last best chance to get this nation right. They think we will turn a corner after which we cannot turn back. In truth, I have concluded we are already past the point of redemption when the best either party can do is offer up Clinton or Trump. We are beyond the point of looking to five black robed masters to save us from ourselves when we put up either a Clinton or a Trump. The seriousness and virtue of the voter is in the grave already and too many yearn for an idolized past that never existed in a future that is not theirs, but God’s, to shape.
I am realistic that Evan McMullin has a limited change of winning. But I am idealistic enough to hope for better than Clinton or Trump.
More rumors are swirling around that Ted Cruz will shortly endorse Donald Trump for president, with Politico reporting that “multiple sources close to Cruz” say it is coming as early as today.
Cruz and Trump had a particularly brutal primary fight, with Trump insinuating that Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy and that his wife was unattractive.
As Politico reports:
It is unclear whether Cruz will say only that he is voting for the Republican nominee, as other lawmakers have done, or offer a more full-throated endorsement, but the idea of throwing any support to Trump is controversial within Cruzworld.
“If he announces he endorses, it destroys his political brand,” said someone who had worked for Cruz’s campaign.
A former Cruz backer, conservative radio host Steve Deace, is tweeting his disappointment at news that the Texas Senator may back the party’s controversial nominee.
I hope I'm wrong, but I think a man I admire will today make the worst political miscalculation I've ever witnessed.
— Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) September 23, 2016
I really hope the Cruz advisers that pressured him for months to do this know their base as well as they seem to think they do.
— Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) September 23, 2016
People may love Cruz endorsing Trump. You never know. I hope so, but doubt it. Last thing I want to see is another champion tarnished.
— Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) September 23, 2016
Trump confirmed his full SCOTUS wishlist, with a total of 21 names, including those he’d released back in May.
- Keith Blackwell
- Charles Canady
- Steven Colloton
- Allison Eid
- Neil Gorsuch
- Raymond Gruender
- Thomas Hardiman
- Raymond Kethledge
- Joan Larsen
- Mike Lee
- Thomas Lee
- Edward Mansfield
- Federico Moreno
- William Pryor
- Margaret A. Ryan
- Amul Thapar
- Timothy Tymkovich
- David Stras
- Diane Sykes
- Don Willett
- Robert Young
Mike Lee is a senator and good friend of Ted Cruz and has not yet endorsed Trump. When asked about why he was hesitant to back him, the Republican from Utah said, “We can get into the fact that he accused my best friend’s father of conspiring to kill JFK,” Lee said, referring to conspiracy theories against Cruz’s father.
“We can go through the fact that he’s made statements that some have identified correctly as religiously intolerant. We can get into the fact that he’s wildly unpopular in my state, in part because my state consists of people who are members of a religious minority church. A people who were ordered exterminated by the governor of Missouri in 1838. And, statements like that make them nervous,” said Lee.
Ohio paper Cincinnati Enquirer endorses Clinton
The Cincinnati Enquirer announced today its endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president, the first time in nearly a century that the paper has not backed the Republican nominee.
The newspaper, the highest circulation print publication in that part of Ohio, outlined why Clinton gets its support - although it hasn’t always backed her:
We have our issues with Clinton. Her refusal to acknowledge her poor judgment in using a private email server and mishandling classified information is troubling. So is her lack of transparency. We were critical of her 275-day streak without a press conference, which just ended this month. And she should have removed herself from or restructured the Clinton Foundation after allegations arose that foreign entities were trading monetary donations for political influence and special access.
But our reservations about Clinton pale in comparison to our fears about Trump.
This editorial board has been consistent in its criticism of his policies and temperament beginning with the Republican primary. We’ve condemned his childish insults; offensive remarks to women, Hispanics and African-Americans; and the way he has played on many Americans’ fears and prejudices to further himself politically. Trump brands himself as an outsider untainted by special interests, but we see a man utterly corrupted by self-interest. His narcissistic bid for the presidency is more about making himself great than America. Trump tears our country and many of its people down with his words so that he can build himself up. What else are we left to believe about a man who tells the American public that he alone can fix what ails us?
The editorial board even filmed a Facebook Live video to discuss its endorsement.
Seems Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, is doing his own debate prep. In an interview with MSNBC, reporter Kasie Hunt asked Johnson about the debates, to which Johnson poked out his tongue and declared that he could act ridiculous and still do well because he’d be offering another option.
I interviewed Gary Johnson this week. We talked about Trump, Clinton, Syria - and the debates, to which he said: 😛 https://t.co/W0VKER4FgY
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) September 23, 2016
The founder of Oculus Rift is secretly funding a pro-Trump political organization aimed at created aggressive anti-Clinton internet memes and “shitposting” about her, reports the Daily Beast.
Palmer Luckey, who sold his VR for $2 billion to Facebook in 2014, is funding the group known as Nimble America.
He posted on Donald Trump’s Reddit community about the group under a pseudonym, talking about the secret power billionaires can wield:
“The American Revolution was funded by wealthy individuals...The same has been true of many movements for freedom in history. You can’t fight the American elite without serious firepower. They will outspend you and destroy you by any and all means.”
Trump's SCOTUS wishlist
An early copy of Donald Trump’s possible Supreme Court judge picks (Merrick Garland, of course, nowhere to be found) if he’s elected president, thanks to NBC News.
Senator Mike Lee: Currently serves on The Senate Judiciary Committee, previously Assistant US Attorney in Utah. Lee, who is battling re-election for his seat, already hosed down Trump’s plan. “Sen Lee already has the job he wants which is why he is campaigning to represent the great people of Utah again this year,” said his spokesman.
Neil Gorsuch: serves as a judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Margaret A. Ryan: previously served in the Marine Corps, has served as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces since 2006.
Edward Mansfield: is a justice of the Iowa Supreme Court.
Keith Blackwell: serves as for justice the Supreme Court of Georgia.
Charles Canady: serves as a justice for the Supreme Court of Florida.
Timothy Tymkovich: is the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Amul Thapar: serves a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
Federico Moreno serves a judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida and is a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States.
Robert Young serves as the chief justice for the Supreme Court of Michigan.
President Obama offered up some debate advice to Hillary Clinton in an interview with Good Morning America:
Be yourself and explain what motivates you.
Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin - who recently sat down for a chat with the Guardian - is pushing hard for the internet vote.
Not at all. And Harambe is still polling pretty well. Maybe HE could get onto the debate stage if he were still with us. RIP, Harambe. https://t.co/cS8WXbQCrQ
— Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) September 23, 2016
The Guardian’s national security editor Spencer Ackerman spoke with Clinton’s campaign about her national security agenda.
A key priority of Hillary Clinton’s proposed intelligence surge will be to kill or capture Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, her campaign has told the Guardian.
During the past year, Clinton, the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential nominee, has placed bolstering the vast US intelligence apparatus at the center of her national security agenda.
Days before the first presidential debate – and after the New York area escaped without mass casualties from multiple bombings – her campaign has for the first time expanded on how her policies would work.
Since its 2015 inception, the “intelligence surge” has evolved from an idea of expanding intelligence assets directed against the Islamic State and its adjuncts to a broader initiative with a significant domestic component, aimed at uncovering and preventing attacks directed or inspired by terrorist groups.
Much of it remains undefined. Its challenge, say Clinton campaign advisers, is to match and thwart the way terrorism has transitioned from large-scale attacks directed by established terrorist groups to small-scale assaults by unconnected, self-radicalized perpetrators that are comparatively difficult to detect.
Overseas, the Clinton campaign discusses the intelligence surge in terms of accelerating a focus on the Middle East.
It seeks to expand intelligence sharing, particularly across European governments hindered by the lack of a continental intelligence infrastructure, concerning flows of jihadists, money and weapons.
And it will support an intensified hunt for Baghdadi expending “significant resources”, reminiscent of Barack Obama’s successful push to find and kill al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
“She really would put a concerted focus on that, really going after him in particular,” said Laura Rosenberger, a senior Clinton foreign policy adviser and former state department and National Security Council official.
Read the rest here.
Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House.
Humbling at Hofstra?
Preparation for Monday’s first presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York means a fairly quiet Friday, with no official events planned for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.
Instead, it’s debate prep day.
For Clinton that means less mock debate and more conversations about how to handle the different forms of possible Trump attacks, with the motto of prepare, prepare, prepare, says Politico:
In the end, it might not be anything Clinton says that matters. Many longtime aides credited the power of her reaction shot – a comically disapproving maternal glare honed from her years as a first lady enduring another long spiel by somebody else – as one of her most valuable weapons in communicating gravitas and strength in the face of Trump’s expected insults.
Trump’s technique is often to question the validity of the moderators and the event itself, say campaign reporters from NBC News:
The GOP nominee has been fond of describing himself as a “counter-puncher,” but Trump’s debate strategy during the primary seemed simply to keep punching at rivals while reiterating portions of his stump speech. He sparred with nearly every Republican who he shared the stage with throughout the GOP primary process and mostly stayed away from specific policies in lieu of rhetorical red meat for his supporters. And he was generous with his use of nicknames for his opponents: “low energy” Jeb Bush, “lyin’ Ted” Cruz and “liddle Marco” Rubio.’
The debate is a hot ticket. NBC’s Today show says Chelsea Clinton will be there, but it is unknown if husband Bill will attend. Team Trump will have wife Melania and all five kids in attendance. And billionaire Mark Cuban, who’s been engaging in Twitter rants against Trump, will also be there:
Just got a front row seat to watch @HillaryClinton overwhelm @realDonaldTrump at the "Humbling at Hofstra" on Monday. It Is On !
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) September 23, 2016
LA Times endorses Clinton
In advance of Monday’s debate (or perhaps Facebook’s voter registration day today), the LA Times announced it would endorse Clinton in the upcoming election, calling Trump’s ignorance of the issues “manifest”:
The election of Hillary Clinton as the first female president of the United States would surely be as exhilarating as it is long overdue, a watershed moment in American history after centuries of discrimination against women. But that’s not the chief reason to vote for her. She deserves America’s support because she is the overwhelmingly better candidate. Against a Romney or a McCain, she would almost certainly be our choice. Against Trump? The question answers itself.
Clinton’s new ad: Trump insults women
The Clinton campaign released a new video today, similar to the “role models” ad where children watched TV while Donald Trump’s most heinous comments play. But today’s focus is on females, playing a collection of Trump’s worst quotes about a women’s physical appearance over footage of young women looking at themselves in the mirror.
“Does she have a good body? No. Does she have a fat [ass], absolutely,” says Trump, while a young pre-teen girl studies her body.
“Do you treat women with respect?” asks an interviewer.
“Ah ... I can’t say that either,” replied Trump.
The latest Pew Research Center poll shows distaste for either Clinton or Trump is the most common reason for vote for the opposing candidate in this election.
Today’s movements
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine hosts a rally in Houston, Texas, while Chelsea Clinton kicks off a phone banking event in Flint, Michigan, a town still recovering from the lead poisoning water crisis, and holds a press availability with Flint mayor Karen Weaver.
Neither Mike Pence nor Trump are hosting events today, although Trump has a rally in Roanoke, Virginia tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
