Today in Campaign 2016
As votes roll in across the pond, here’s a quick rundown of today in the American presidential campaign:
- Donald Trump’s presidential campaign announced that the presumptive Republican nominee had “fully extinguished” his loans to his presidential campaign. In forgiving the loans, Trump sent a major signal to Republican donors who were worried that he would use campaign contributions to reimburse himself. So far, Trump has only raised $17m in individual contributions, many of which have come from small donors buying hats from his campaign.
- CNN hired Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager fired by Donald Trump, as a political commentator, a move that has angered members of the press who highlight the fact that Lewandowski has signed a non-disparagement agreement with Trump’s campaign.
- Democratic lawmakers ended their sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives after 26 hours, giving up their bid to force House speaker Paul Ryan to allow the chamber to vote on a pair of proposed gun-control measures.
- At a speech in New York City, a defiant Bernie Sanders declared that “we have got to work tirelessly to make sure that Trump is not president - but that is not good enough.” Sanders did not concede, or much deviate from his typical stump speech in front of the 1,500-person audience at a Times Square theater.
That’s it for tonight - keep your eyes on #Brexit!
All eyes are on the UK tonight, for obvious reasons - including those of Hillary Clinton, although her interest is more, well, domestic in nature.
The former secretary of state’s presidential campaign, in a bid to mock opponent Donald Trump as he makes a business trip to Scotland, has released a video emphasizing his widespread unpopularity in the UK.
“Donald Trump has always been seen as something of a grotesque American curiosity,” a news anchor intones. “His remarks are divisive, stupid and wrong,” David Cameron shouts. “Donald Trump is a fool,” mocks a member of Parliament.
Donald Trump has released yet another fundraising email, this time with the subject line “Lying Crooked Hillary”:
“Hillary Clinton is a world-class liar. This much is a fact,” the email reads.
“We know we cannot count on the media to spread the very important message that Hillary Clinton is a liar and can’t be trusted,” it continues, “And that’s why we’ve decided to take that message directly to the American people. We’ve unveiled a brand new website, LyingCrookedHillary.com, and we’re rolling out a series of videos – one on each of her biggest, phoniest fibs and fabrications.”
The attached video, highlighting the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that claimed four American lives, proclaims that “Hillary has no shame!”
Bernie Sanders: Defeating Donald Trump 'is not good enough'
Bernie Sanders, as he promised, addresses the rise of Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
“We understand that Trump is so - I mean, it’s hard almost to imagine - a man who has such limited capabilities becoming president,” Sanders says, sounding horrified. “What is even uglier is that you think about the struggles that we have gone through as a nation - the hundreds of years fighting against racism, fighting against sexism, and that this guy is making the cornerstone of his campaign bigotry!”
Trump, Sanders says, “is insulting Mexicans and Latinos, insulting Muslims, insulting women, insulting African Americans ... We have got to work tirelessly to make sure that Trump is not president - but that is not good enough! What we have got to do is to continue the vision of transforming this country.”
“And most importantly, I know that we can do that, is for all of us to get involved in the political prrocess. We need great peopel on school boards on city councils,” Sanders says.
“Let me just say: The struggle continues!” Sanders says, as David Bowie’s Starman plays and he exits the stage after a 75-minute speech.
Updated
If the theme of tonight’s speech is “Where We Go From Here,” it’s fair to wonder, one hour into Bernie Sanders’ address, if we will ever get there.
“How long do we have to tolerate that kind of greed, which has done so much harm to this country?” Sanders says of Wall Street banks. “We gotta break them up!”
The audience, indefatigable, leaps to its feet and chants “BREAK THEM UP! BREAK THEM UP! BREAK THEM UP!”
“A corrupt campaign finance system breeds corrupt public policy,” Bernie Sanders says. “So right now, you have profitable corporations making billions of dollars a year in profit, that in a given year, put their money in the Cayman Islands and in a given year do not pay a nickel in federal taxes!”
“Children sleep out in the street and are undernourished and corporations do not pay a nickel in federal taxes - that, together, we are going to change.”
“This campaign is about building a broad-based grassroots campaign organization,” Sanders says. “This campaign is about bringing millions of people into the political process. This campaign is about empowering people to understand that democracy is not a spectator sport, and that when we stand together, we can transform this country.”
“Right now,” Sanders says, “there are meetings of the Democratic platform committee - we have five people on it. The platform that will come out of the Democratic convention will be, by far, the most progressive platform in the history of the party.”
“But the platform is 50 or 60 pages of paper,” Sanders says. “That platform doesn’t mean anything unless we make certain that those ideas are incorporated into public policy!”
The audience leaps to its feat.
“We’re gonna take a hard look at our disastrous trade policies, making sure that the TPP is dead!” Sanders says, of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “And, in Orlando, appropriately enough, we’re gonna fight to make sure that we ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons, that we end the gun-show loophole.”
“If you were talking to somebody from another world, and you had to explain the Republican rules on guns, and you said that we have lists of people who can’t get on planes,” Sanders says, “but no problem, they can walk into a gun store, people would think you were crazy!”
Bernie Sanders has gone into full stump-speech-mode, railing against the pharmaceutical industry for the high cost of healthcare, and intimating that the mainstream media fails to cover the high prices of prescription drugs because of advertising revenue.
“I was very proud to see that now a majority of Democrats in fact support a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system,” Sanders says. “Here is an issue that together we have brought to the floor, and it ain’t never gonna go away.”
“We have got to make public colleges and universities tuition-free!” Sanders says, reiterating another popular plank of his candidacy. “I have no doubt, I have zero doubt that this is a fight that we’re going to win.”
Speaking of the six-figure debt of many college graduates, Sanders says: “That is nonsense - it is unacceptable.”
“I think it makes a lot more sense to invest in education for all of our people than to give tax breaks to billionaires!” Sanders says, to sustained applause. “And what started year ago is a radical idea - nobody thinks its radical anymore.”
Updated
“You know, I think most Americans would agree that when we talk about what constitutes a great nation, it is not the number of billionaires that you have, it is not the number of nuclear weapons you have, it is how you treat the most vulnerable people in the country,” Bernie Sanders says, again reiterating nearly verbatim a frequent adage from his stump speech.
“And year after year after year, the numbers cry out at us,” Sanders says. “This country today has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth. These children are the future of this country, and they are growing up in extremely bad conditions. Housing is inadequate, nutrition is inadequate, childcare is inadequate. That is not acceptable if you are a patriotic person who loves this county - you’ve gotta love the children of this country!”
The audience leaps to its feat for roughly the twentieth time.
“There are schools in America where more of the kids in those schools end up in jail than they do graduating college,” Sanders continues, before dropping another frequent invocation: “Maybe its time for us to invest in jobs and education for our young people, not jails and incarceration!”
“Some people think that it is idealistic, that it is utopian, to talk about making a moral economy in which the function of the economy is to provide wealth for children and the elderly and the middle class,” Sanders says.
“That is the practicality of what we have got to do, and what we can do!”
“We cannot allow ourselves to become used to the fact that we’ve got hundreds of thousands of children in this country who are homeless!” Sanders says. “That is our greatest danger - becoming used to it and thinking that it is normal. It is not normal - it is an outrage!”
“Never, ever lose your sense of outrage!”
The audience goes wild - “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!”
Finally touching on the issue of “where we go from here,” Bernie Sanders tells the crowd that he has “great people” involved in the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia who will push his populist agenda.
“We have great people on the rules committee, and one of the issues that we’re going to push for on the rules committee is to end closed primaries!” Sanders says. “It is also a fight to end the absurd situation where superdelegates can overrule the rule of the people!”
“We might as well transform the entire Democratic party!”
Bernie Sanders tells the audience that supporters on limited incomes who raised money for his campaign were in it to win it.
“Because we love you!” a voice shouts from the crowd.
“Nonono - not about me!” Sanders responds, as the audience laughs and applauds. “It has to be about us!”
Updated
“You know what? You can beat the establishment,” Bernie Sanders says, in reference to his primary campaign. “We won! In New York state, we had to take on the entire Democratic establishment.”
“I have no doubt that a strong, well-organized grassroots movement can take on the establishment and can defeat the establishment, and that is precisely what we have got to do and what the political revolution is about.”
For those unfamiliar with Sanders’s stump speech, much of what follows largely reiterates aspects of the same speech he has been giving for more than a year.
“In this campaign, in every single state, we won, often by big numbers, the votes of young people!” Sanders says. “What it means is that our vision, a vision of economic, social, racial, environmental justice is the vision of the people who will create the future of America!”
“In this campaign, hundreds of thousands of volunteers made 75 million telephone calls,” Sanders says. “And we are just getting started!”
“Real change is not easy and real change never takes place from the top on down - always from the bottom on up,” Bernie Sanders says, echoing a line frequently used in his stump speeches. “And that is what our political revolution is all about.”
Sanders reveals that his new schedule of upcoming events - unusual for a candidate who has functionally lost the nomination but has not yet conceded - will be held in support of downballot candidates seeking to enter politics.
In Syracuse tomorrow evening, Sanders says, “we’ll be campaigning for a guy who is running for the United States Congress - I am gonna do everything I can do make sure that he wins. We are gonna go back to California and campaign for a woman running for the state senate in California and make sure that she wins!”
“We’re gonna go all over this country, because that is what this political revolution is all about!” Sanders says. “It’s not about me - it’s about people at the grassroots level. It’s about people running for school boards, for mayor, for the state legislature!”
What our campaign has been about and is about is saying - sorry! we’re thinking big, we want real change!
The audience leaps to its feet, chanting “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!”
Bernie Sanders reminds the audience that other social movements, like those for civil rights and women’s suffrage, lasted for decades before eventually succeeding. Remind yourselves, Sanders tells the crowd, to the “people who were killed, people who were beaten, people who were jailed standing up for dignity and human rights.”
“Think about the gay movement! Think about Stonewall!” Sanders says. “Think about the revolutionary changes that have taken place because the gay community and their straight allies said that people should have, must have, he right to be with who they love, regardless of gender!”
“I want you al to remember - now I was there, I’m a little bit older than many of you,” Sanders jokes, bringing laughs from the youthful crowd, “but people stood up proudly and with dignity and they continued the fight for gay rights.”
Thirty-one years ago, Sanders signed a proclamation as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, declaring June 22 “Gay Pride Day.”
Thirty-one years ago, @BernieSanders proclaimed "Gay Pride Day" in Burlington. pic.twitter.com/6WzHRicuDr
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) June 22, 2016
Speaking to the crowd of 1,500 supporters at the Town Hall theater in Midtown Manhattan, Bernie Sanders promises that although his path to the Democratic presidential nomination remains uncertain, his “political revolution” will continue.
“The main point that I’m gonna make tonight,” Sanders says, “is this political rev is not about Bernie Sanders, it’s not about Nina Turner - it’s about you and millions of other people.”
In the political revolution inspired by his candidacy, Sanders says, “you are the revolutionaries! And what this campaign has shown, not just in winning 13 million votes, not just taking on the establishment all over this county, what is has shown is that millions of people are prepared to stand up, fight back and create the nation that we know we can become.”
The audience explodes into applause.
“All of you know, who have studied history, that election days come and go but what is much more important is that political and social revolutions continue.”
Bernie Sanders speaks in New York City
Bernie Sanders surrogate Nina Turner continues, telling the crowd that because of Sanders’ “political revolution,” American politics “will never ever, ever ever, ever ever be the same!”
“We need more doers of the deeds!” Turner shouts, as the audience leaps to its feet to welcome Sanders to the stage.
First at bat at the Bernie Sanders speech: Nina Turner, former Ohio state senator, who has been an aggressive supporter of Sanders.
“Senator Sanders started a spark - can I get an amen? And whatever sleeping giants there were, we are all awake!”
“Amen!” the audience shouts back.
“It is our responsibility to continue this movement beyond this election cycle,” Turner says. “His run was not about him, but it was about us.”
Reading from remarks Sanders once made, Turner reminds the crowd that “it is not the critic who counts - not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better,” but the man in the arena, “whose face is mired by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly... because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.”
“We got our very own doer of the deeds!” Turner shouts, to rabid applause.
The audience at Bernie Sanders’ speech in Midtown Manhattan, antsy after nearly two hours in aging theater seats, is cheering for the most creative signs - or, at least, the most virulently #NeverHillary signs:
Cheers from inside Town Hall where @BernieSanders will speak when woman holds up sign that says "Never H$llary". Back side: Run Bernie Run
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) June 23, 2016
The audience then breaks out into a chant of “Brand new Congress! Brand new Congress! Brand new Congress!”
Updated
Meanwhile, in TrumpLand: In an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump declared that a frequently employed criticism of opponent Hillary Clinton - that she was “asleep” during the 2012 terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi - may not be the truth.
“It happened all during the day and was going on for a long period of time - it was going on for a long period of time and she was asleep at the wheel, whether she was sleeping or not, who knows if she was sleeping?” Trump said contentiously, when Holt pointed out that Clinton had testified before Congress that she was not asleep - and that the attack occurred during daylight hours in the US.
“Were you there? Were you there with her?” Trump retorted. “I can tell you this: Whether she was sleeping or not, and she might have been sleeping, it was a disaster. It was a horrible disaster, and it was on her watch.”
Plenty of people here still believe in a future for @BernieSanders presidential campaign pic.twitter.com/imkb6qamBz
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) June 23, 2016
Currently playing in the lead-up to Bernie Sanders’ speech in Midtown: “Disco Inferno (Burn Baby Burn)” by the Trammps.
“Bern, baby, Bern!”
Updated
Bernie Sanders is set to speak here at the Town Hall theater in Midtown Manhattan in 85 minutes - here’s a quick reminder of where the candidate stands after the conclusion of the Democratic primary contests:
Updated
The 1,500-seat Town Hall theater in Times Square is slowly filling up with the hundreds of Bernie Sanders supporters who lined up for up to two hours before the doors opened at 5:30 pm.
The crowd - in keeping with the demographics at other Sanders events - skews younger and more diverse than your typical Times Square-on-a-Thursday-afternoon scene.
Fun fact about the Town Hall theater’s progressive pedigree: Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was once forcibly removed from the stage in 1921 for speaking to a mixed-sex audience about the importance of contraception.
Texas senator and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz has endorsed his second endorsement of the campaign season, endorsing Georgia state senator Mike Crane’s campaign for Congress.
“We need conservative fighters like Mike Crane in the House of Representatives,” Cruz said in a press release. “Today, I’m proud to join thousands of Peach State conservatives in supporting Mike to represent Georgia’s Third Congressional District, and I look forward to fighting alongside him for jobs, freedom, and security for Georgians and all Americans.”
Crane, running as the “proven conservative,” is currently locked in a tight runoff with fellow Republican Drew Ferguson for the Republican nomination, after the two finished within 93 votes of each other in the March 1 primary.
Democrats pulled out radical playbook on gun control - but will it work?
When a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando the immediate aftermath was all too familiar. Lawmakers shared their “thoughts and prayers” as moments of silence were observed, but action to reform gun laws did not follow.
Democrats in Congress, however, saw a moment of reckoning and began plotting a way to stop yet another massacre fading quickly from the public consciousness. That process culminated in the historic sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives that came to a close on Thursday after nearly 26 hours.
In a chamber governed under strict rules and decorum, it was a moment that defied all precedent.
Last week, as Democrats in the Senate mounted a nearly 15-hour filibuster to force votes on universal background checks and preventing suspected terrorists from purchasing guns, their counterparts in the House decided it would soon be their turn to shake up the regular order.
They had limited tools at their disposal. Unlike in the Senate, where a single member can eat up hours of debate with a talking filibuster, the primary way for a minority in the House to demand a vote would be through a mechanism known as a discharge petition. But that would require the signatures of 218 members, a number of supporters Democrats did not have.
What they did come up with was a deadline and a slogan. Congress was set to depart for a weeklong recess on Thursday, so Democrats and a coalition of anti-gun violence groups decided upon a last-minute push, under the title “No Bill, No Break”. They would be unlikely to secure a vote, but at the very least they would draw attention to the issue as their opponents were returning to their districts to face constituents increasingly concerned about the nation’s gun laws.
.@BernieSanders is watching us cc .@scottbix pic.twitter.com/g6bIPxLXIE
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) June 23, 2016
Live from Bernie Sanders' 'Where We Go From Here' speech
Greetings from the beautiful Town Hall theater in Midtown Manhattan, where The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino and myself are reporting live from the first major speech to be given by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders since the Democratic presidential primary contests officially ended.
The title of this evening’s address: “Where We Go From Here.”
Although Sanders’ campaign has told the press that tonight’s speech will not be a concession - something the candidate has not yet done - his elegiac conversation with C-SPAN yesterday seemed to confirm that Sanders is realistic about his chances of winning the Democratic nomination.
Prediction: Sanders, who has scheduled additional events in New York state tomorrow, will emphasize the changes to the Democratic party platform and nomination process that he has previously said he hopes to see ahead of the party’s convention in Philadelphia next month.
Updated
Submitted without comment:
In which Trump is asked in deposition about his boast to @KatyTurNBC that he has the "world's greatest memory" pic.twitter.com/t5UWs5Ooxg
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) June 23, 2016
NBC’s Lester Holt pressed Donald Trump on his unverified claims that likely general election opponent Hillary Clinton is being blackmailed by foreign governments who accessed her private email server.
TONIGHT: @LesterHoltNBC presses Trump on evidence for Clinton server hack claim: "I will report back to you."https://t.co/eAHkzFPEra
— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) June 23, 2016
“I think I read that and I heard it and somebody that also gave me that information,” Trump said. “I will report back to you.”
Sentences we thought we’d never type: Author Brad Thor, who writes a bestselling series of Clancy-esque shoot-’em-up action thrillers, has announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States on Glenn Beck’s radio program today.
If it takes formally declaring my candidacy to get on stage to shred Trump, consider this my declaration. #Thor2016
— Brad Thor (@BradThor) August 28, 2015
Donald Trump appears to be displeased with the news that former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has joined CNN as a political commentator:
CNN, which is totally biased in favor of Clinton, should apologize. They knew they were wrong. https://t.co/KR7OnS8h6s
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2016
Here is another CNN lie. The Clinton News Network is losing all credibility. I’m not watching it much anymore. https://t.co/pNSgSjD5gW
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2016
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has declared that he wishes that he didn’t have to reimburse his own companies for event space, aircraft and accommodations - but that the law is the law.
“By law, I have to reimburse the aircraft and the plane and all the stuff, okay?” Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt today. “So if I use my plane for, you know, for campaigning, or if we have a fundraiser or something at one of my clubs or whatever, I have to, by law, reimburse the club, right?”
Trump continued that he’d “love to not” reimburse his companies with campaign dollars, but that the idea of holding campaign events at non-Trump-owned space would be “stupid.”
“Why should I give it to the club down the street?” Trump asked rhetorically. “Or why should I give it to a hotel that’s not a Trump hotel? There’s no reason for that.”
The most recent Federal Election Commission filings from the Trump campaign show that the candidate has spent $6 million in campaign funds on Trump-owned goods, services and accommodations over the course of the campaign, including more than $423,000 to rent out Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private Palm Beach club-slash-mansion, in the month of May.
Trump admitted that “it sounds bad when you see that kind of a headline, but nobody says in there by law you have to do it. And I think it would be stupid to use somebody else’s, somebody else’s club or somebody else’s plane. You know, it doesn’t make sense.”
Presumptive general election opponent Hillary Clinton has mocked Trump’s expenditures after his dismal FEC filings became public:
What is Trump spending his meager campaign resources on? Why, himself, of course. https://t.co/6LsNwf4gTL
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 21, 2016
Trump’s presidential campaign announced this morning that he had “fully extinguished” his personal loans to his presidential campaign.
Updated
Barack Obama: supreme court ruling ‘heartbreaking for immigrants’ – video
Memories of newly minted CNN commentator Corey Lewandowski, and his relationship with the media:
New paid CNN commentator Corey Lewandowski once threatened to blacklist CNN reporter: https://t.co/VY8KqvqW6j pic.twitter.com/k7Ls3PF9qq
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) June 23, 2016
Despite false reports to the contrary, I am not writing a book. I am under a strict confidentiality agreement with Mr. Trump.
— Corey Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) May 16, 2016
Updated
The Donald Trump campaign is out with a fuller statement (longer than Trump’s tweet) about the Supreme court non-decision, which the statement refers to as a “ruling”. The statement incorrectly says that the executive actions granted “entitlement benefits to people illegally in the country”. The program allowed some undocumented migrants to apply for deferred action on deportation and allowed some to apply for work permits.
Here’s Trump’s statement:
Today’s 4-4 Supreme Court ruling has blocked one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a President. The executive amnesty from President Obama wiped away the immigration rules written by Congress, giving work permits and entitlement benefits to people illegally in the country. This split decision also makes clear what is at stake in November. The election, and the Supreme Court appointments that come with it will decide whether or not we have a border and, hence, a country. Clinton has pledged to expand Obama’s executive amnesty, hurting poor African-American and Hispanic workers by giving away their jobs and federal resources to illegal immigrant labor – while making us all less safe. It is time to protect our country and Make America Safe Again and Great Again for everyone.
Trump: supreme court 'kept us safe'
Trump finally comments on the Supreme Court deadlock that preserved a block on one of president Obama’s major executive actions on immigration.
He says the non-decision “kept us safe” and then seems to make a play for the sympathies of “Hispanic & African-American workers”.
SC has kept us safe from exec amnesty--for now. But Hillary has pledged to expand it, taking jobs from Hispanic & African-American workers.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2016
CNN to Lewandowski: you're hired
CNN is going to pay Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager fired by Donald Trump, a salary to talk about politics on television, Politico reports.
Lewandowski has said he has a non-disclosure agreement with Trump. The AP has seen a copy of a Trump non-disclosure agreement and reported that it is strict. Trump told the Washington Post that the agreement is “so airtight” that “I’ve never had a problem”.
So Lewandowski may mainly be contributing his greater knowledge and insight on politics, as opposed to his specific Trump-world knowledge.
Trump says he will not pay himself back for $50m campaign loan
Donald Trump has released a statement asserting that $50m he loaned his campaign is now officially a gift.
Trump has been courting donors, some of whom may have balked at the prospect of giving money to the campaign only to reimburse the candidate. “Give to me so I can pay myself back” is not an enticing sales pitch.
Trump says in the statement: “I have absolutely no intention of paying myself back for the nearly $50 million dollars I have loaned to the campaign. This money is a contribution made in order to ‘Make America Great Again.”
The statement continues:
Mr. Trump has fully extinguished (terminated) this loan per his commitment. Therefore, he has personally invested in excess of $50 million dollars in the future of our country.
Some campaign money is likely to continue to go to Trump companies, in any case. The Trump campaign spent upwards of 20% of its May budget of almost $7m on Trump companies and family interests, according to FEC filings.
The Donald Trump campaign has launched a new web site, LyingCrookedHillary.com:
Hillary Lies to Benghazi Families#CrookedHillary https://t.co/YWd5lk5skG
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2016
The site features is going to feature “10 legendary lies” Clinton has told, it claims.
For now the site features only the first of what are billed as 10 eventual legendary lies. The first lie is “Benghazi” – Clinton said the attack was over an Internet video but it was not.
Democrats end sit-in
The Democrats have vacated the House floor and are now heading outside of the Capitol to greet demonstrators who rallied in support through the night:
John Lewis closing out Dem sit-in on guns: "Never ever get lost in a sea of despair ... We are going to win this struggle."
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) June 23, 2016
The Donald Trump campaign has not replied to a request for comment about today’s Supreme Court deadlock over executive actions on immigration taken by the president.
The Trump campaign has, however, released a statement just then attacking Hillary Clinton on immigration. The statement reads:
Wall Street-owned Hillary Clinton’s radical immigration plans go even further than President Obama on open borders. At a time of record immigration, she wants to leave Americans vulnerable to Sanctuary Cities, while bringing in millions of new low-wage workers to compete against working Americans, including millions of Hispanics and African Americans, for jobs.
The statement then excerpts 16 news articles describing Clinton’s immigration policy.
Sanders: we 'want real change'
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Bernie Sanders describes what his supporters want:
As we head toward the Democratic National Convention, I often hear the question, “What does Bernie want?” Wrong question. The right question is what the 12 million Americans who voted for a political revolution want.
And the answer is: They want real change in this country, they want it now and they are prepared to take on the political cowardice and powerful special interests which have prevented that change from happening.
Most election polls these days are asking Americans whether they plan to vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, writes Guardian US data editor Mona Chalabi:
But the generic congressional ballot question is slightly different - it asks respondents whether they plan to vote for a Democratic or a Republican candidate in their Congressional district. That question could be a useful measure of partisanship, and the latest numbers suggest that Republicans are doing pretty badly.
According to Talking Points Memo (TPM), two separate polls have found that Republicans get just 33% of support when respondents were asked the generic congressional ballot question. The polls, both conducted by Ipsos this month, suggest that Democrat support is much stronger - in one survey 47% of respondents said they were voting Democrat, in another 44% said so.
We’re still trying to check the numbers directly with Ipsos (we called them earlier today and they’re looking into it) but if TPM is right, this represents a historic low in Republican support. According to TPM’s polling averages, Republicans are now at 32.9% in generic congressional ballots – that’s 10 percentage points lower than a month ago and the lowest that TPM has ever since the site started collecting these averages back in 2008.
Separately, a new survey finds Hillary Clinton polling ahead of Donald Trump in Arizona, which has voted Republican in presidential elections going back to Truman (the exception: Bill Clinton in 1996). The Phoenix Business Journal reports:
Clinton gets 46.5 percent versus 42.2 percent for Trump in 1,060-voter poll conducted by Phoenix-based OH Predictive Insights.
Continue to think Trump's Mormon problem will ultimately have biggest impact in AZ & NV, where reliable GOP voting bloc may just not show up
— McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) June 23, 2016
Updated
Republican senator attacks Trump in campaign ad
Mark Kirk, the Republican senator making a long-shot bid for reelection in blue Illinois in a presidential election year, has released a video ad boasting of his opposition to Donald Trump:
Sanders: we cannot leave immigrants to 'bigoted hands' of Trump
Bernie Sanders has issued a statement on the deadlocked Supreme Court ruling that preserved a block on president Obama’s executive action to defer deportations for parents of children with legal status.
“Senate Republicans must stop playing politics and confirm a ninth justice to the Supreme Court,” Sanders says in the statement:
Today’s deadlocked immigration ruling means that more than 4 million aspiring Americans in the United States will be left waiting for much-needed answers to our broken immigration system. We cannot let their future, and the future of so many more vulnerable people, fall into the bigoted hands of Donald Trump.
Clinton unveils business world endorsements
Here’s a pretty long list of business executives endorsing Hillary Clinton. Just released by the Clinton camp:
Hillary Clinton just unveils a bunch of endorsements from business people. pic.twitter.com/Nx2EMpdJDN
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) June 23, 2016
The House sit-in appears to be winding down:
Democrats have sent out a floor update encouraging members to be on the floor at 12:30 for "a final show of support."
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 23, 2016
So this is ending.
Plan now is Dems go to floor, John Lewis makes closing statements, Dems go out to East Side of Capitol to greet supporters
— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) June 23, 2016
The president has finished. Coming up this afternoon is House minority leader Nancy Pelosi.
Bernie Sanders’ New York event, “Where We Go From Here”, is scheduled to begin at 7pm.
“I don’t anticipate that there are additional executive actions that we can take,” on immigration, Obama says. “We can implement what we’ve already put in place that is not affected by this decision.”
He returns to his criticism of Republicans for not holding hearings on his supreme court nominee and not confirming other judicial appointees:
If you keep on blocking judges from getting on the bench, then courts can’t issue decisions. And what it means is you’re going to have the status quo frozen.. it’s not a sustainable strategy.
Obama: 'I have pushed to the limits of my executive authority'
Obama says that while the supreme court deadlock “does not substantially change what has been the status quo,” congressional action on immigration is now the only way forward:
I have pushed to the limits of my executive authority. We now have to have congress act.
“Now we’ve got a choice about who we’ll be as a country,” Obama says, wading into talk of the election:
“We’re going to have to make a decision where we’re a people who tolerate the hypocrisy of the system.. we’re going to have to decide whether we’re a people who accept the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms, or whether we value family.”
That’s a stark characterization of the choice facing voters in November.
These are all the questions that voters now are going to have to ask themselves... the issues that will be debated... by congressional candidates as well as presidential candidates.
I promise you this though: sooner or later, immigration reform will get done.
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Obama: Trump immigration policy is 'fantasy'
Obama does not mention Trump by name, but he criticizes Trump’s main immigration proposals:
Pretending we can deport 11m people, or that we can build a wall without spending tens of billions of taxpayers money... is a fantasy that does nothing to help the middle class...
Obama says the “fantasy” is a disservice to the country’s legacy of immigration and assimilation.
Obama: immigration result 'heartbreaking' for families
Obama clarifies that the court deadlock does not affect so-called Dreamers but those who have been in the United States for more than five years with children who have legal status and no criminal record.
“The supreme court was unable to reach a decision. This was part of a consequence of the Republican party failure to give a fair hearing so far” to Merrick Garland, his court nominee.
“The deferred action policy” affecting Dreamers is not changed by the court deadlock, Obama says. And enforcement priorities are not affected. He says that the estimated 4m family members of young immigrants he had sought to protect with the action blocked today “will remain low priorities for enforcement.”
But “today’s decision is frustrating to those who seek to grow our economy and to bring a rationality to our immigration system”.
“I think it is heartbreaking for the thousands of families” affected, he says.
Keep in mind that millions of us, myself included, go back generations in this country... and we don’t like the notion that anyone will get a free pass to American citizenship... [but] leaving the broken system the way it is, that’s” the real amnesty.
Obama: court deadlock 'takes us further from the country we aspire to be'
Obama says he was “pleased” by the Supreme Court decision upholding an affirmative action program at the University of Texas.
Obama says the country is diverse because it’s a nation of immigrants.
“The fact that the supreme court wasn’t able to issue a decision today... takes us further from the country we aspire to be”.
He points out that illegal border crossings are at their lower levels since the 1970s. And that the Senate passed an immigration reform bill. “Unfortunately, Republicans in the House refused to allow a simply yes-or-no vote.”
Obama says that as a result he was “forced to take steps within his authority” to address the issue.
Obama address Supreme Court deadlock
Here’s a live feed of the Brady briefing room where the president will address the Supreme Court deadlock that on immigration:
Ryan:
I don’t think this should be a very proud moment for democracy, or the people who stage these stunts.
Speaker Ryan to @LukeRussert on Dems taking over the House floor to try to force vote: "Yea, I think it sets a very dangerous precedent."
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) June 23, 2016
More on the Supreme Court decision from Clinton:
Today's heartbreaking #SCOTUS immigration ruling could tear apart 5 million families facing deportation. We must do better. -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 23, 2016
Ryan again calls the sit-in “a publicity stunt, a fundraising stunt”.
What our members ask for is an open process but a functioning process... Democrats are trying to stop Congress from doing anything.
Ryan:
I’m really not sure what their plan or end game is here, but the bottom line is that despite these distractions, we did our job.”
Ryan turns to the Supreme Court deadlock:
This is a win for the constitution, it’s a win for congress, and it’s a win in our fight to restore the separation of powers. The president doesn’t write our laws. Congress writes our laws.
I bet @SpeakerRyan is thankful that he'll be getting Qs about something other than Trump, tbh https://t.co/CwBz7kuMsw
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) June 23, 2016
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Ryan: we won't allow 'stunts' to derail process
Here’s Paul Ryan. “Couple more of you today,” he remarks to the press.
Ryan is not backing off from his attack on the Democratic sit-in.
“One of the things that makes our country strong is our institutions...we have a basic structure that ensures a functioning democracy... I’m not going to dwell” on the sit-in, he begins. But:
We are not going to allow stunts like this to stop us from carrying out the people’s business. Why do I call this a stunt? Well, because it is one.”
Ryan says the Democrats could have moved a bill to a vote using normal procedures and that the legislation they “claim to want” already was defeated in committee.
“They’re trying to get on TV. They are sending out fundraising solicitations”
Ryan holds up a fundraising email sent by Democrats.
“If this is not a political stunt then why are they trying to raise money off of this? Off of a tragedy. What they are calling for failed in a committee in the house... This bill couldn’t even get 50 votes in the US senate, let alone 60.”
Obama to speak on immigration non-decision
The president will hold a news conference shortly on the Supreme Court deadlock over his executive actions on immigration, the White House has announced.
Ryan to address media
As the Democratic sit-in on the House floor continues, speaker Paul Ryan is preparing to address the media. Here’s a live video stream:
Clinton: court deadlock a 'reminder of harm Trump would do'
Here’s Hillary Clinton’s statement on the court’s non-decision that blocks the president’s executive actions to defer deportations for up to 4m parents and family members of young immigrants.
Clinton says that the decision is “unacceptable” and a “stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families”:
Today’s deadlocked decision from the Supreme Court is unacceptable, and show [sic] us all just how high the stakes are in this election. … in addition to throwing millions of families across our country into a state of uncertainty, this decision reminds us how much damage Senate Republicans are doing by refusing to consider President Obama’s nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court…
This decision is also a stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families, our communities, and our country. Trump has pledged to repeal President Obama’s executive actions on his first day in office. He has called Mexican immigrants ‘rapists’ and ‘murderers’. He has called for creating a deportation force to tear 11 million people from their families and their homes.
Hillary Clinton statement Texas v. United States, which was also delivered in Spanish. pic.twitter.com/GT22oNuZP7
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) June 23, 2016
No statement yet from Trump.
Updated
Video: Democrats use Periscope to broadcast sit-in after cameras turned off
Supreme Court deadlock preserves block on Obama immigration program
Barack Obama’s immigration program to protect some families from deportation relief remains blocked by a court order, after the supreme court deadlocked in a 4-4 tie, Guardian Washington correspondent David Smith reports:
The opinion represents a significant blow to Obama during his final months in office. It will allow Republicans to claim victory in their argument that he overreached presidential powers and failed to protect America’s borders.
It comes in an election year in which immigration has proven a bitterly divisive issue in the battle to succeed him.
The court had heard arguments in April over whether to revive Obama’s plan to spare roughly 4 million undocumented immigrants – those who have lived illegally in the US at least since 2010, have no criminal record and have children who are US citizens or lawful permanent residents – from mass deportations that would rip many families apart.
Entire immigration policy remains in in limbo. 11m undocumented, one candidate wants to deport all, one let them stay, Congress gridlocked.
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) June 23, 2016
House speaker Paul Ryan proclaims vindication for the legislature over the power of the executive:
BREAKING: President Obama's use of executive action to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants is now null and void: pic.twitter.com/hsDrVSS93a
— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) June 23, 2016
Separately, the Supreme Court upheld an affirmative action program at the University of Texas:
The winner of the presidential race is likely to have the opportunity to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by Antonin Scalia and to make additional appointments, shaping the court and the direction of national policy for a generation.
Updated
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi’s planned news conference has been bumped to this afternoon, around 2pm ET, provisionally. Speaker Paul Ryan is still on for around 11.30am.
Huffington Post reporter Matt Fuller is at the scene:
Steve Israel announces floor plans. Sounds like Dems are going to squeeze in as many people as possible until 12:30, then maybe end sit-in.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 23, 2016
Trump to visit Scotland to re-open golf course
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is scheduled to appear Friday morning at Trump Turnberry, a golf club in southwestern Scotland he bought two years ago, to officially mark its reopening after an extensive renovation.
“I paid all cash. I then spent a tremendous amount of money on renovating the hotel and the golf courses,” Trump told Reuters in a telephone interview. “It’s incredible.”
It’s unclear how Trump may don the hat of statesman during his business trip. The results of the Brexit vote are expected to be announced – barring recounts in what appears to be a very tight fight – around the time that Trump pops up at Turnberry.
On Saturday, Trump is scheduled to visit a golf investment outside Aberdeen, in the northeast, where some locals have prepared a special welcome:
Trump appears to be under some pressure with his golf investments (he owns twelve courses). A Reuters examination of them “shows that Trump has likely lost millions of dollars on his golf projects”:
The analysis shows high costs and modest current valuations. Using conservative estimates of the amount Trump has spent, he may be breaking even or making modest gains; on higher estimates – based on what Trump has said he is spending – he’s losing money.
Trump disputes the analysis. He said Reuters’ calculations overestimated what he had spent and underestimated the value of his investments. He declined to provide figures for his expenditure on courses or their current or future market values.
Updated
What could actually work to fix gun violence?
We’ve just published Part 4 of Lois Beckett’s investigation into gun control in the United States – where it went wrong and how to fix it. The latest installment of the series focuses on what policies might work to address gun violence and which might not.
“Many of most promising strategies are not the ones you’re most likely to hear about on the news – or the ones your member of Congress may be talking about right now,” Lois writes:
The first step is to move beyond some of the immediate, outraged proposals brought forward after each high-profile shooting. A ban on military-style assault weapons might save a small number of lives, but is unlikely to make a larger difference. America’s gun violence problem is so much bigger than mass shootings, whose victims represent only a tiny percentage of the overall toll of gun murders each year.
What can be done to address this much larger toll of gun violence, which leaves nearly 100,000 Americans killed or wounded each year?
The problem here, for the most part, isn’t faulty guns or insufficient training. It’s dangerous people using guns effectively. The best approach to violence prevention is to zero in on that small number of high-risk people who are using guns to harm themselves or other people, and look at what might be done to prevent them.
Many of most promising strategies are not the ones you’re most likely to hear about on the news – or the ones your member of Congress may be talking about right now.
Read the full piece here:
How’s your electoral map shaping up? Larry Sabato over at the University of Virginia Center for Politics has Ohio for Clinton... and Florida... and Virginia, and North Carolina and Colorado and Nevada and New Mexico and Iowa and New Hampshire too:
New ratings from @kkondik and @LarrySabato project Dem electoral college wipeout of 347-191: https://t.co/HTPx1XeooP
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) June 23, 2016
Now take that list of states and give them all to Trump, with the exception of Florida. Clinton still wins, if she can hold on to the 18 states that have gone Democratic since 1992 plus Washington, DC (which awards three electoral votes):
It’s of interest that Sabato’s most recent map bears certain changes from his last version. Pennsylvania has actually crept toward the Republicans with Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee, based on the state’s preponderance of white, blue-collar voters and general drift rightward in recent election cycles.
On the other hand three states – Arizona, Georgia and Utah – move toward the Democrats in Sabato’s latest analysis of the current election. Read all about it here.
GOP, 2015: “We have a great opportunity next year. We need to expand the party.”
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) June 23, 2016
GOP, 2016: “Gee, I hope we can be competitive in Utah.”
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Pelosi and Ryan to hold news conferences
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is scheduled to hold a news conference in about an hour (update: that’s been bounced to this afternoon). Speaker Paul Ryan has a regular weekly news conference scheduled afterwards.
Hello again.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 23, 2016
The sit-in continues. The chamber is cold. Sheila Jackson Lee is wrapped in a white blanket. Trump slouches toward Washington.
Updated
Rumsfeld endorses Trump: 'not a close call'
Unapologetic Iraq war architect Donald Rumsfeld has endorsed his namesake presidential candidate, saying it was “not a close call”.
“I’m a Republican, and there’s not any doubt in my mind how I’ll vote,” Rumsfeld told the Daily Mail. “I don’t believe Hillary Clinton is qualified to be President of the United States.”
Rumsfeld was secretary of defense under president Ford and president George W Bush, who has said he will sit out the presidential race this year, although he has gotten involved in down-ballot races, campaigning on behalf of senator John McCain.
Thank you to Donald Rumsfeld for the endorsement. Very much appreciated. Clinton's conduct has been "disqualifying."
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2016
Didn't you give a speech yesterday on how the Iraq War was the biggest disaster ever? https://t.co/cupNu8a4Ba
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) June 23, 2016
Ryan calls sit-in 'a publicity stunt'
House speaker Paul Ryan late Wednesday called the Democratic sit-in a “publicity stunt”.
“This is nothing more than a publicity stunt,” Ryan told CNN (click through for video), observing that parallel legislation had already been defeated in the senate.
“We are not going to take a citizen’s constitutional rights without due process, that was already defeated in the senate, and this is not the way to try to bring up legislation.
“This isn’t trying to come up with a solution to a problem. This is about trying to get attention.”
“Attorneys for people caught on the US’s sprawling terrorism watchlists are expressing concern that the latest tactic by gun control advocates is blessing the legitimacy of a process they say threatens civil rights,” writes Guardian US national security editor Spencer Ackerman:
As Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor on Wednesday demanding a vote to prevent people placed on FBI watchlists from purchasing firearms, lawyers and American Muslim rights groups feared the effort tacitly endorsed a system that they have for years argued lacks transparency and basic due process and disproportionately affects US Muslims.
They fear that civil rights concerns over watchlisting are becoming a casualty of political expediency by gun control advocates in a debate supercharged by the massacre of 49 people at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando on 12 June.
“It’s ridiculous, the notion that somehow the watchlists are a reliable measuring stick for who should be deprived of an ability to purchase weapons,” said Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York and director of its Clear clinic, some of whose clients were wrongly watchlisted.
“The discussion on gun control vastly overstates the reliability of the watchlists. They lack transparency and any available process to get off the lists if people believe they’ve been wrongly listed,” Kassem said.
Read the full piece here:
Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. We are taking an immediate detour from the campaign trail this Thursday morning to check in on an extraordinary and ongoing protest on Capitol Hill on behalf of gun control.
Democrats in the House of Representatives, joined periodically by sympathetic Senate colleagues, have staged an overnight sit-in in the House chamber, occupying it continuously now for about 20 hours. Minority leader Nancy Pelosi returned to the floor at about 7am this morning to declare that the Democrats would keep up the effort until the House speaker, Paul Ryan, agreed to schedule a vote on legislation that would make people on no-fly and terror watch lists ineligible to buy guns, and other gun control legislation.
The Republicans have indicated no intention of holding such a vote, accusing the Democrats of mounting a PR stunt.
The lawmakers inside the chamber were supported by protesters outside the chamber overnight:
1:58 am | Protestors are still going strong. pic.twitter.com/2IQJ1Hx4ts
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 23, 2016
Late last night, as Ryan attempted to restore “order” to the chamber, Democrats drowned him out with chants, sang the civil rights anthem We Shall Overcome and held up pictures of gun violence victims. Read our latest news story here:
The House is officially adjourned, as of 3.14am ET, until 5 July. The Democrats have a meeting planned for 10am. Other developments overnight included:
- There have been chaotic and at times physical scenes inside the chamber as Democrats held placards and chanted “No bill, no break” and heard from victims of gun violence, including the recent Orlando shooting.
- The cameras and microphones in the chamber are off. Protesting Democrats have taken to live-streaming their message via the Periscope app and Facebook on their mobile phones. TV networks such as C-Span have been broadcasting events using these social media channels.
- Ryan was earlier shouted down as he tried to call for decorum.
Pelosi says Democrats "will not stop" until the "no fly, no buy" legislation is passed.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 23, 2016
"We're not taking a break from this effort."
Well.
For more detail about what happened overnight, read our continuous live coverage here:
Sanders to speak on future of campaign
In politics today, Bernie Sanders has a speech planned in New York City to address the future of his campaign, and Donald Trump departs later today for a two-day trip to Scotland. He arrives as the Brexit vote is completed and counted. He favors Brexit but has also advised, “I don’t think anybody should listen to me.”
Our live-blog coverage of the Brexit vote is here:
Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
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