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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Nicky Woolf, Tom McCarthy and Scott Bixby

Trump wins Washington primary as protests erupt by Albuquerque rally – as it happened

Anti-Trump protests turn violent in New Mexico

Here's where things stand at the end of an eventful night

  • Donald Trump won the Republican primary in Washington, with over 77 percent of the vote, bringing him closer to the magic 1,237 delegates required to secure the nomination
  • Earlier in the day Trump was endorsed by former presidential candidate Rick Santorum
  • But his victory was marred by violence and chaos in Albuquerque, as protests against Trump’s immigration policies turned violent, with bottles thrown at police, fires lit, and the glass door to the convention center where Trump was speaking smashed.
  • Police on horseback, riot units, and reportedly pepper spray were all deployed to disperse protestors as the situation devolved into something approaching a riot
  • Police massed on the streets to disperse stragglers - described by Albuquerque police as those wanting to “cause trouble” - block by block outside the convention center and in the surrounding streets, as protestors in cars spun their tyres as a form of noise- and smoke-creating protest
  • “At least one” arrest was made from the protest, police told the Guardian
  • Pepper spray was seen to be deployed several times against protestors, though only one arrest was reportedly made - and that from inside the Trump rally itself
  • Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary in Washington, though - unlike the Republican primary - the victory carries no delegates because the state party held caucuses in March.
  • It bears noting, however, that Clinton won more votes in Tuesday’s meaningless primary than the entirety of votes cast in the March caucuses for all Democratic candidates combined
Washington results

Updated

Trump tweets about his event, without mentioning the protests:

Albuquerque police just confirmed to the Guardian that “at least one” arrest has been made during tonight’s protest, on top of the arrest made inside the Trump event

Despite the violence we’ve seen on the streets of Albuquerque, only one arrest has reportedly been made so far tonight - and that was from inside the rally itself.

This picture from earlier shows riot police responding to the protests:

Riot police respond to anti-Trump protests
Riot police respond to anti-Trump protests Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP

The streets of Albuquerque are filling with smoke right now from several different sources. Partly, protestors are smoking their tyres:

...and partly, police are deploying smoke grenades as well as pepper spray:

A front-row view from NBC’s Frank Thorp of police pepper-spraying protestors:

Pepper spray is being deployed against protestors now, CNN’s Dan Scavino reports, along with live footage of a woman who took a spray directly to the face who is being treated with milk to the eyes. Dozens of protestors are still on the streets.

At the same time, Trump’s social media director has tweeted about the protestors, calling them “thugs”:

A big part of this protest so far - which has several times prevented CNN reporters from successfully connecting to outside broadcasts because of the noise it makes - has been cars spinning their wheels on the streets of Albuquerque:

Protestors are being removed “slowly, block by block”, according to CNN’s Jim Acosta, though there are still dozens - down from hundreds - on the streets currently, including trucks, which are spinning their tyres to create smoke and noise.

Police on horseback are slowly moving people out of the area.

Albuquerque police, on their Twitter feed, are now implying that those remaining protesters are there “to cause trouble & be destructive.”

Some more pictures from tonight’s events in Albuquerque:

Albuquerque police, on their Twitter feed, have denied deploying tear gas. However this photo appears to show them deploying pepper spray against protesters:

Riot police appear to pepper spray anti-Trump protesters outside the Albuquerque Convention Center
Riot police appear to pepper spray anti-Trump protesters outside the Albuquerque Convention Center Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, the near-riots have simmered down to an uneasy calm.

Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, the near-riots have simmered down to an uneasy calm.

Hillary Clinton’s victory in tonight’s Washington primary is interesting, because while due to a bizarre quirk of the state party it is entirely meaningless, she is currently winning by considerably more votes than the entire turnout of the March Washington caucuses - which Bernie Sanders won, netting himself 74 delegates.

The protests are focussing on Trump’s stance on Latinos:

Protests are still on going in Albuquerque, according to reports on the ground, where there are still a large number of protesters outside the convention center where Donald Trump spoke earlier.

But things do appear to be calming down from the violence we saw earlier.

Hillary Clinton wins the Washington state primary

...though this doesn’t in fact matter in the slightest, as the Washington Democratic delegate allocation was decided in March in the state’s caucuses.

Also on the ballot in Washington state are John Kasich and Ted Cruz, both of whom dropped out of the primary race after the state ballots had already been printed. As of 8:20pm PST, with 69 percent of precincts reporting, both of the former candidates had won roughly ten percent of the vote each.

Ben Carson, who dropped out some while ago, was also on the ballot in Washington, reportedly because his campaign failed to file the requisite paperwork with the state party informing them that he had dropped out. He is currently winning just under 4 percent of the vote.

The flare-up at Trump’s rally just as he wins the Washington primary may be a sign of things to come. Andrew Gumbel reported Tuesday that after Albuquerque Trump heads to the “riot-happy” city of Anaheim, California - so tonight may just be a harbinger.

Andrew reports:

Anaheim may be the home of Disneyland and a reliable source of affluent, conservative white voters in the suburban tracts an hour south of Los Angeles, but it is also bubbling over with tensions, as a restive and growing Latino minority clamors for greater political representation, a less repressive police force and a more tolerant environment for immigrants and their families.

In February, protesters furious at Trump’s hesitation to disavow the support of the white supremacist movement clashed with members of the Ku Klux Klan in an Anaheim park, resulting in three stabbings and two other vicious assaults. Two months later, on the eve of Trump’s first visit to southern California as a presidential candidate, the Anaheim city council came to blows over a proposed resolution to denounce Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants, Muslims and women.

You can read the whole piece here.

Trump projected to win Washington

Trump finishes first in the Washington primary, the Associated Press projects.

Washington GOP primary results

Track results as they are reported in the Washington Republican primary here:

Forty-four delegates are at stake – not enough to push Donald Trump over the top. He has to wait until the next Republican primary voting on 7 June.

Reporters inside the Albuquerque convention center, the Trump rally location, tweet that they are not allowed to leave:

The Associated Press reports tear gas in the air at the Trump event in Albuquerque: [update: police deny tear gas; it’s just smoke they say.]

The Albuquerque Journal hosts this video of the scene:

From the Albuquerque Journal report:

Dozens of officers in riot gear are trying to contain an increasingly angry crowd of Donald Trump protesters outside a Trump rally in Downtown Albuquerque.

A group of about 100 protesters forced their way through a police barricade and tried to storm Albuquerque’s convention center minutes after presidential hopeful Donald Trump took the stage for his rally.

Read further here.

Updated

Protesters clash with police outside Trump rally

Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Trump is hosting a rally, report that protesters outside the rally are “throwing bottles and rocks”:

Footage of the scene reveals gaslike smoke [update: police deny tear gas; it’s just smoke they say.] and general mayhem:

Updated

Corker under investigation

Tennessee senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the foreign relations committee and one of many whose names has popped up on lists of potential Trump running mates (he met with Trump in New York yesterday), is under federal investigation for “stock transactions involving one of the nation’s top developers of shopping centers and malls,” Politico reports:

[Corker] failed to report millions of dollars in assets and income on his annual financial disclosure until the Wall Street Journal revealed the discrepancy last fall. In the wake of that report, Corker was forced to revise years’ worth of disclosure reports.

Corker has denied any wrongdoing. Read further here.

Corker leaves Trump tower on Monday.
Corker leaves Trump tower on Monday. Photograph: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images

Trump is campaigning tonight in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where it seems that early talk of his possibly locating a running mate in governor Susana Martinez has foundered on the shoals of her unwillingness to endorse him, her refusal to meet him while he’s in town – and, now, an attack on his part:

Updated

Trump calls Santorum endorsement 'really nice!'

Updated

Two hours till ballot dropoff sites close in Washington state, which is holding a vote-by-mail Republican primary tonight.

In a parallel universe, one in which Trump had not prevailed in Indiana, his path to 1,237 delegates was not clear, and in which Ted Cruz and John Kasich had stayed in the race, the race tonight may have been vested with considerable suspense.

That didn’t happen.

Trump backer funding lawsuit against Gawker – report

Prominent Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and a self-reckoning libertarian, has been financing a lawsuit by former pro wrestling entertainer Hulk Hogan against the media site Gawker, Forbes reports.

The Guardian has not independently verified the report.

Gawker founder Nick Denton said earlier Tuesday that he suspected there was anonymous money behind multiple lawsuits targeting Gawker. The New York Times reported:

At first, Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media, thought it an unlikely conspiracy theory.

Now, he’s starting to believe it himself.

Forbes reports that Denton was very right. A report by Ryan Mac begins:

One of Silicon Valley’s best-known investors has been footing a former wrestler’s legal bills in lawsuits against a shared enemy.

Peter Thiel, a PayPal cofounder and one of the earliest backers of Facebook, has been secretly covering the expenses for Hulk Hogan’s lawsuits against online news organization Gawker Media. According to people familiar with the situation who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, Thiel, a cofounder and partner at Founders Fund, has played a lead role in bankrolling the cases Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Hogan, brought against New York-based Gawker. Hogan is being represented by Charles Harder, a prominent Los Angeles-based lawyer.

Read the full Forbes report here. Read more about Thiel’s support for Trump:

Updated

Santorum endorses Trump

Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator whose appeal among conservative Christians and values voters fueled his victories in 11 states in the 2012 Republican presidential nominating race, has endorsed Donald Trump for president.

Santorum with Trump at Trump’s veterans’ charity event in Des Moines, Iowa, in January.
Santorum with Trump at Trump’s veterans’ charity event in Des Moines, Iowa, in January. Photograph: Rick Wilking/Reuters

Santorum said that a list of 11 potential supreme court nominees released by Trump had settled the issue for him. Reuters reports:

Santorum, who dropped out of the presidential race in February and threw his support to Senator Marco Rubio, told Fox News: “The most important issue is preserving the Constitution of this country and a liberal Supreme Court will destroy it.”

Last Wednesday, Trump unveiled a list of 11 judges he would consider, if elected, to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

Clintons hail restoration of early voting in Ohio

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that cuts to early voting in Ohio, under a law signed by governor John Kasich, were unconstitutional and disenfranchised African Americans in particular.

In throwing out the law, the judge said it “results in less opportunity for African Americans to participate in the political process than other voters.”

ThinkProgress has this background on the Ohio law:

Since President Obama won reelection in 2012, Ohio’s Republican lawmakers and Secretary of State have voted to eliminate the days and times of early voting that were most convenient for those working full time: the weekend before election day, weekday evenings, and what’s known as “Golden Week,” the time about a month before election day when the registration period and the early voting period overlap.

Both Bill Clinton and the Hillary Clinton campaign hailed the judge’s ruling:

From Hillary Clinton’s communications team:

Updated

Clinton asks: has Trump paid any federal taxes?

Hillary Clinton today said that one reason Donald Trump may be refusing to release his tax returns is that he has not “paid ever any federal income tax.”

ABC News points out that Trump certainly did pay federal income tax – in the 1970s at least:

Washington primary to award 44 GOP delegates

Washington state Republicans will award 44 delegates tonight after tabulating the results of the state’s mail-in primary. Even if Trump wins every one of Washington’s delegates, he won’t cross the 1,237 threshold to claim a delegate majority. For that he’ll have to wait until the final Republican contests on 7 June.

delegate tracker

Clinton likes 'Lemonade'

Hillary Clinton says that she has “seen parts” of the hourlong film accompanying the latest Beyoncé album, Lemonade, which explores themes including marital infidelity and betrayal, and “I do like it”.

Beyonce Lemonade CD COVER
Beyonce Lemonade CD COVER Photograph: PR

Under questioning, Trump fulfills veterans' charity promise

Donald Trump announced a $1m gift to a veterans’ charity Monday night, following days of attempts by the Washington Post to figure out where Trump had donated a gift of that size that he announced in January.

On 29 January, a day after boycotting a presidential debate hosted by Fox News and holding a competing event billed as a veterans’ benefit, Trump announced he had personally contributed $1m out of a total of $6m raised.

“Donald Trump – another great builder in New York, now a politician... Donald Trump gave $1million,” Trump said.

Protesters outside Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC.
Protesters outside Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

But four months later, it was still unclear where Trump had sent the money – or whether he had sent the money. Last Friday, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said the money had been disbursed: “The money is fully spent,” Lewandowski said. “Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent.”

On Monday, the Post reported, Trump pledged the $1 million to the Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation.

The Post confronted Trump about the timing of his donation:

When asked if the Monday donation was in response to questions from the news media, Trump said: “You know, you’re a nasty guy. You’re really a nasty guy. I gave out millions of dollars that I had no obligation to do.”

Updated

Trump defends remarks on real estate crash

Donald Trump has responded to a Hillary Clinton attack of earlier today in which her campaign accused him of having cheered on the 2008 housing market crash.

As reported earlier in this blog, Trump, in a 2006 audio book, said he hoped to “go in and buy like crazy” so he could “make a lot of money” when the real estate and housing markets failed.

“I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy” property and “make a lot of money,” Trump said.

Trump has defended those remarks with a statement released Tuesday. “Frankly, this is the kind of thinking our country needs”, he said:

California continues to put up the noisiest resistance to the Trump campaign, reports Andrew Gumbel. By holding a rally in Anaheim, the Republican nominee is “wishing for chaos.”

People march with posters against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during an immigrant rights May Day rally in Los Angeles, California.
People march with posters against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during an immigrant rights May Day rally in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

If Donald Trump is eager to avoid the large, impassioned, noisy protests that almost derailed his last visit to California – and maybe he’s not – he has certainly picked the wrong location for his return trip on Wednesday.

Anaheim may be the home of Disneyland and a reliable source of affluent, conservative white voters in the suburban tracts an hour south of Los Angeles, but it is also bubbling over with tensions, as a restive and growing Latino minority clamors for greater political representation, a less repressive police force and a more tolerant environment for immigrants and their families.

In February, protesters furious at Trump’s hesitation to disavow the support of the white supremacist movement clashed with members of the Ku Klux Klan in an Anaheim park, resulting in three stabbings and two other vicious assaults. Two months later, on the eve of Trump’s first visit to southern California as a presidential candidate, the Anaheim city council came to blows over a proposed resolution to denounce Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants, Muslims and women.

Relations between the Latino community and the police, which will be spearheading security at the Trump rally, have been punctuated in recent years by high-profile officer shootings, riots, and one court filing accusing the police department of behaving “like a death squad” in targeting suspected gang members.

Gustavo Arellano, the editor of the alternative Orange County Weekly and a well-known activist for Latino immigrant rights, described Anaheim as a “riot-happy city” and added: “With this move, we now know that Trump is actively wishing for chaos to happen.”

Campaign manager: Trump 'proud' to pay 'lowest tax rate possible'

Corey Lewandowski, campaign manager for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, told CBS News today that the real estate tycoon pays “the lowest possible” amount in federal income taxes, saying that it highlights his business acumen.

“Mr. Trump is proud to pay a lower tax rate, the lowest tax rate possible,” Lewandowski said. “He is going to pay the smallest amount of taxes possible, which I think the American people also understand. Every deduction possible. He fights for every single dollar.”

“That’s the mindset you want to bring to the government.”

Trump has so far refused to fulfill a promise he made at the beginning of the presidential campaign to release his tax returns, citing an IRS audit of his taxes. Opponents, including likely general election opponent Hillary Clinton, have challenged this, citing the fact that even Richard Nixon, himself under audit, released his own tax returns in 1973, at the height of the Watergate scandal.

Lewandowski said that Trump will release that information once the “routine audit” is done.

“Let the IRS finish their work,” he Lewandowski. “As soon as that’s done, he’s going to release those taxes.”

Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Reince Priebus and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump have announced the candidate’s “Trump Victory” leadership team, which will provide coordinated support to Trump’s campaign.
“We are proud to have put together an experienced and motivated leadership team which is going to raise the support our nominee will need to win the White House,” Priebus said in a statement. “We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us to defeat Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, and I know this team is committed to raising the additional resources that will make the difference in producing victory this November.”

“It is my great honor to help raise money for the Republican Party to ensure Hillary Clinton is defeated in November and Republican candidates maintain the majority in the House and Senate,” Trump added. “This is an impressive leadership team comprised of talented individuals working together to unite the party and win what will be the most important election of our lifetime. The money raised is an investment in the Republican Party and the future of our country, which, as President, I am going to make better and stronger than ever before.”

Trump, whose fundraising apparatus is years behind that of his likely general election opponent, will need to raise as much as $1 billion to maintain a competitive campaign against Clinton. With a finance team of some of the Republican party’s most powerful donors finally coalesced, he and Priebus hope that they can hold off Clinton’s financial juggernaut.

The biggest recruit: Woody Johnson, top fundraiser for former nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain, owner of the New York Jets and heir to the Johnson & Johnson consumer products empire. Also making the list are several high-profile Republican donors, including Wisconsin roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks, former Chris Christie finance chief Ray Washburne and former ambassador Ron Weiser.

Tomorrow, the committee will host its first fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of investor Thomas Barrack.

One of the US’s largest unions has voted to use political pressure to fight climate change, citing events such as Hurricane Sandy, the California drought and the water situation in Flint, Michigan, as examples of how the phenomenon disproportionately affects its members, report the Guardian’s Jana Kasperkevic and Oliver Milman.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton addresses Service Employees Union members at the union’s 2016 International Convention in Detroit, Michigan.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton addresses Service Employees Union members at the union’s 2016 International Convention in Detroit, Michigan. Photograph: Rebecca Cook/Reuters

Members of the two-million-strong Service Employees International Union (SEIU) voted to add environmental justice to the list of the union’s priorities and to use its powerful voice at the state and federal level to put climate change on the political agenda in 2016.

The SEIU previously succeeded in making the fight for $15 minimum wage a national issue and was able to get it on the legislative agenda in a handful of US states and cities. Its campaign led to major victories for the minimum wage movement in states including California and New York.

The union now hopes to do the same for climate change – a subject that has been largely absent so far from the 2016 presidential campaign. The proposal could prove controversial with some in the labor movement considering that more than100,000 energy-related jobs have been lost in the last year and a half.

According to the SEIU, climate change disproportionately affects low-income and minority communities, where many of its members live. As such, the union is committing its resources to “broadening environmental justice”.

The SEIU international president, Mary Kay Henry, said: “SEIU members live and work in some of the most polluted zip codes in America and are part of communities that are most impacted by climate change. We know first hand that our fights for economic, racial and immigrant justice are inextricably linked to the fight for environmental justice.

The Republican Jewish Coalition has, somewhat belatedly, issued a statement regarding what it called the “troubling increase of anti-Semitic invective” aimed toward Jewish journalists covering the presidential campaign, after weeks of antisemitic, vitriolic and threatening messages sent to reporter Julia Ioffe from supporters of Donald Trump.

“We abhor any abuse of journalists, commentators and writers whether it be from Sanders, Clinton or Trump supporters,” the statement reads. “There is no room for any of this in any campaign. Journalists, regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity should be free to do their jobs without suffering abuses, anti-Semitic or otherwise.”

“At the RJC, we will be making the case that Jewish values are American values and American values are the Republican values of free markets, peace through strength and unwavering support of Israel. Now more than ever our political process should be geared toward a civil discourse focused on solving our most vexing and intractable problems as a country.”

Bernie Sanders calls for recanvass in Kentucky primary

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has requested a recanvass in Kentucky, following a razor-thin margin in the state’s presidential primary that has given former secretary of state Hillary Clinton a lead of less than one-half of one percent.

Bernie Sanders campaign rally in Santa Monica.
Bernie Sanders campaign rally in Santa Monica. Photograph: ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Sanders’ campaign has asked the Kentucky secretary of state to review electronic voting machines and absentee ballots. Clinton currently leads over Sanders by a record 1,924 votes, out of 454,573 votes cast. The race has still not yet been called by the Associated Press, although the Clinton campaign declared victory on the evening of the election.

Under Kentucky state law, a recanvass is essentially a retabulation of votes without reexamining the ballots. Each county board of elections reviews votes, depending on the original method used by voters, meaning that if an electronic voting system was used, all votes would be retabulated. If Sanders were to gain votes during the recanvass, he could ask for a full recount, which would include reexamining ballots for possible tabulation issues.

Both Clinton and Sanders received 27 delegates in the primary, although one delegate remains to be allocated.

Kentucky and Oregon results
Democratic delegate tracker

Updated

Clinton accuser to Sean Hannity: 'Rape is the perfect terminology for what happened'

Three women who have previously accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct gave a joint interview with conservative pundit Sean Hannity on his radio show on Monday, reiterating their past accusations against the former president and declaring likely Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton complicit in covering up the alleged misconduct.

In 1999, former nursing home administrator Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Bill Clinton raped her in 1978 when she was looking to volunteer on his campaign for governor of Arkansas. Clinton’s attorney denied the allegations on his behalf at the time, and Broaddrick herself had testified in a deposition that Clinton did not make unwelcome sexual advances.

In 1994, former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones sued Clinton for sexual harassment over an alleged 1991 incident in which she said he exposed himself to her. Jones’ lawsuit was thrown out, but during the appeals process, Clinton settled out of court for $850,000 and no admission of misconduct. Jones was characterized as having “won” her lawsuit by Hannity in the interview’s preamble.

In 1998, former White House volunteer aide Kathleen Willey claimed that the president sexually assaulted her in the Oval Office during his first term in the White House in 1993. Clinton denied Willey’s accusations.

In their first joint interview, pegged to Hannity’s interview with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in which the candidate resurrected those same allegations,

“It’s hard for me to say the word ‘rape.’ I always usually say sexual assault,” said Broaddrick. “But rape is the perfect terminology for what happened.”

“Hillary Clinton once said that women who make allegations should be believed and trusted,” Hannity said later in the interview. “I guess, except in the case of anybody who makes an accusation against her husband.”

“I think it’s just disgusting what she’s saying, and what she’s doing, and I’m so appreciative to Donald Trump for bringing it ... I couldn’t, it’s very difficult to bring it forward.”

After a few minutes of flirty banter, during which Jones assured Hannity that he gets “checked out” all the time (“You’re just not noticing!”), Jones hung up the phone after reporting that there was a sheriff’s officer at her door, and Hannity moved on to speak with Willey.

“When he assaulted Juanita, he was the attorney general,” Hannity said. “When he did this with Paula, he’s the governor. Now he’s the president of the United States. He knew you, correct?”

“On top of that we have consensual incidences,” Hannity said. “The affair with Gennifer Flowers and other women, and then the whole Monica Lewinsky thing comes up! So you’re talking about a serial predator. That’s what the three of you are describing, not somebody that’s changed over time.”

The Clinton campaign has stated that Trump is running a “campaign from the gutter,” but has otherwise not elaborated on the comments by Broaddrick, Jones or Willey.

Updated

On a conference call, Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio and Mayor Bob Buckhorn of Tampa, Florida, joined forces with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in the hopes of raising attention to recent revelations that, prior to the 2008 financial crisis, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had publicly rooted for the collapse of the US housing market.

Donald Trump talks to supporters at a campaign rally in an airplane hanger in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Donald Trump talks to supporters at a campaign rally in an airplane hanger in Bentonville, Arkansas. Photograph: Benjamin Krain/Getty Images

In 2006, Trump said he hoped to “go in and buy like crazy” so he could “make a lot of money” when the real estate and housing markets failed.

“If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know you can make a lot of money,” Trump said in the 2006 audio book, How to Build a Fortune. “If you’re in a good cash position - which I’m in a good cash position today - then people like me would go in and buy like crazy.”

On the call, Ryan and Buckhorn discussed how Trump’s “cheerleading” of the economic crisis “disqualified” him from serving as president.

“Trump said he was excited about the housing market collapse in 2007,” Ryan said. “We don’t know if Trump ever made money... because he refuses to release his tax returns, something all major candidates have done for decades.”

“These are real human beings in real communities that are just trying to get ahead, and they need a president who will root for them, not against them,” he concluded.

“This crisis was disastrous for middle-classers and the working class,” Buckhorn said, highlighting the impact of the sub-prime mortgage crisis on his Florida constituents. “We were ground-zero for this mortgage meltdown... housing prices wiped out 51%.”

“In the middle of this calamity, Trump aimed to do what Trump does best - he put himself above all,” Buckhorn continued. “The last time information about his tax returns went public, we found that he paid zero federal income taxes - let me say that again, zero - for multiple years.”

“Donald Trump is only out for himself at the expense of working families,” Buckhorn said, and that a proper steward of the American economy doesn’t “root for it to fail so that you can make a quick buck.”

The call is part of a series of activities in more than half a dozen battleground states, including Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada, as well as a new Hillary for America web video, highlighting Trump’s history with sub-prime mortgage loans.

Illinois congresswoman and US senate candidate Tammy Duckworth has called out secretary of veteran’s affairs Bob McDonald for what she called his “unbelievably tone-deaf” remarks comparing wait times for appointments at VA hospitals to lines at Disneyland.

Tammy Duckworth greets supporters at a restaurant in Springfield, Illinois.
Tammy Duckworth greets supporters at a restaurant in Springfield, Illinois. Photograph: Seth Perlman/AP

“Comparing abhorrent wait times to a trip to Disneyland is unbelievably tone-deaf and hurtful to American heroes desperately in need of care,” said Duckworth, a combat veteran of the Iraq War and former assistant secretary of veteran’s affairs. “Our troops didn’t make us wait before putting their lives at risk to keep us safe, and it is simply not acceptable for the VA to make them wait for the care they have earned.”

“As I urged when I sat down with him last week, the Secretary needs to comprehensively address the VA’s systemic problems - and that means reducing wait times, improving care and increasing patient satisfaction,” she said in her statement.

During a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington yesterday, McDonald compared the time it takes for veterans to receive medical treatment to the “experience” of Disneyland guests waiting for a ride.

“When you go to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what’s important?” McDonald said. “What’s important is, what’s your satisfaction with the experience?”

Barack Obama has urged Vietnam to abandon authoritarianism, saying basic human rights would not jeopardise its stability, after Hanoi barred several dissidents from meeting the US leader.

In a sweeping speech, which harked back to the bloody war that defined both nations but also looked to the future, Obama insisted that “upholding rights is not a threat to stability”.

Barack Obama and Vietnamese president Tran Dai Quang walk to a meeting after shaking hands at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Barack Obama and Vietnamese president Tran Dai Quang walk to a meeting after shaking hands at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Vietnam. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

Vietnam ruthlessly cracks down on protests, jails dissidents, bans trade unions and controls local media.

But the US leader, speaking to a packed auditorium including Communist party officials, said bolstering rights “actually reinforces stability and is the foundation of progress”.

The visit is Obama’s first to the country and the third by a sitting US president since the end of the Vietnam war in 1975. Direct US involvement in the conflict ended in 1973.

Tim Kaine mum on potential vice presidential nod

Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator tipped as a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton, has said it is “of existential importance” that she wins the presidential election.

Tim Kaine.
Tim Kaine. Photograph: Lisa Billings/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Democrat gave a speech about cybersecurity this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Afterwards he was asked about a possible run for the vice-presidency under Clinton.

“It’s just speculation,” he told the Guardian. “The only role I’m playing for the campaign is just to get out on the trail and help her win, especially in Virginia because if she wins Virginia, she’s going to be president.”

“I think she will win Virginia. I like what I do, I’m not looking for another post, but her winning is of existential importance to me and to the nation right now.”

Despite playing down the running-mate talk, Kaine offered a glimpse of his battle readiness for the contest with Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

“Just thinking about values like religious freedom - we have this tradition of no one is punished or preferred because of how they worship or not,” Kaine said. “Trump’s proposals would take that first amendment and subvert it.”

“Bringing torture back: That’s an existential choice that we would have to make as a country,” he continued. “Do we want to have a commander in chief who goes around saying the American military is a disaster? I don’t think our 1.6m people who serve who want a commander in chief who talks about them with disrespect. So there’s all of these issues that are stark and I know all of us up there feel that way.”

Pressed on what his response would be if Clinton called, the affable Kaine replied: “I like my job and I’m not looking for another one.”

Updated

Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat currently under federal investigation over potentially illegal campaign contributions, is attempting to distance the FBI probe from his ties to likely Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Terry McAuliffe and former president Bill Clinton.
Terry McAuliffe and former president Bill Clinton. Photograph: Rogelio V. Solis/AP

“There are no wrongdoing allegations that have been made,” McAuliffe told reporters at the State Arboretum of Virginia this morning. “If you read the story yesterday, they have some questions about a donor - my legal team fully vetted this individual, he’s been a green card holder since 2007, so we’re very confident.”

CNN reported yesterday that the FBI, as well as the Justice Department’s public integrity unit, is investigating a $120,000 campaign donations to McAuliffe’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign from Chinese businessman, as well as McAuliffe’s role on the Clinton Global Initiative.

McAuliffe, however, was quick to dismiss any connection.

“This has nothing to do with the Clinton Foundation,” McAuliffe said. “This was an allegation of a gentlemen who gave a check to my campaign. I didn’t bring the donor in, I didn’t bring him into the Clinton Foundation, I don’t even know if I’ve ever met the person.”

Updated

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump may dismiss climate change and sea-level rise as “very expensive bullshit” on Twitter, but according to Politico, the real estate tycoon is more circumspect on the issue when it comes to risk-management for one of his coastal properties.

Donald Trump drives his golf buggy during the second day of the Women’s British Open golf championship on the Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland.
Donald Trump drives his golf buggy during the second day of the Women’s British Open golf championship on the Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland. Photograph: Scott Heppell/AP

The candidate’s company has applied to construct a coastal seawall that would protect the Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland, in County Clare, from “global warming and its effects.”

Citing a major storm that hit the course days after Trump acquired it in 2014 that eroded as much as eight meters of frontage from the resort, Trump submitted a planning application in the hopes of gaining approval for construction of the two-mile wall. The application included environmental impact statement declaring that erosion along the coast will only accelerate with sea-level rise associated with melting ice caps and climate change.

The application filings run counter to opinions the candidate has had on the validity of climate-change science in the past and present:

Marco Rubio: 'It’s not that we lost, it’s that Donald Trump won'

Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who suspended his presidential campaign after losing his home state, reflects on where it went wrong, what he learned and what’s next with the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui.

Marco Rubio, flanked by his family, speaks at a primary night rally on March 15, 2016 in Miami, Florida.
Marco Rubio, flanked by his family, speaks at a primary night rally on March 15, 2016 in Miami, Florida. Photograph: Angel Valentin/Getty Images

While Donald Trump was wrapping up the Republican nomination for president at the beginning of this month, Marco Rubio was more than 6,000 miles away, touring the Middle East and far removed from the process that had engulfed the past 11 months of his political career.

The Florida senator, who suspended his presidential campaign in March after losing his home state, was no longer beholden to the grueling schedule that required him to barnstorm as many as three states in one day in the pursuit of votes. And so he made use of a weeklong recess from the US Senate to instead travel from Qatar to Iraq to Turkey, to apprise himself of the latest developments in the battle against the Islamic State and discuss the deep-rooted sectarian divisions in the region.

It was an official trip that had all the trimmings of a presidential visit, from sitdowns with local officials to a meet-and-greet with American troops. But even if Rubio will not be the next commander-in-chief, the senator seems at peace.

During a recent interview in his Senate office, Rubio reflected on where his campaign went wrong, what he learned from his recent overseas trip and why he would rather make the most of his remaining seven months in federal office than opine about the state of the 2016 race.

“A lot of times it feels almost like the guy who built this really strong building,” Rubio said of the Republican contest, “and it was in the right place, and it was the way these buildings have always been built, but he got hit by a Category 5 hurricane.

“It’s not that we lost, it’s that Donald Trump won … It was just a very unusual political year.”

Ken Starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation into then-president Bill Clinton led to the president’s impeachment, has praised Clinton’s “redemptive process” and lambasted the populism that, he said, has divided the county, according to the New York Times.

“His genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear,” Starr said at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia last week. “It is powerful, it is palpable and the folks of Arkansas really understood that about him - that he genuinely cared. The ‘I feel your pain’ is absolutely genuine.”

Describing the years-long investigation into Clinton’s professional and personal life, which eventually lead to his impeachment by the House of Representatives, as “the unpleasantness,” Starr complimented Clinton as “the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation.”

“There are certain tragic dimensions which we all lament,” Starr said of the controversies of Clinton’s administration. “That having been said, the idea of this redemptive process afterwards, we have certainly seen that powerfully ... President Carter set a very high standard, which President Clinton clearly continues to follow.”

Clinton’s tenure has been under increased scrutiny since presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted Clinton’s personal history as a way to discredit his wife, former secretary of state and likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Fiscal responsibility is a hard line to take when your ill-fated presidential campaign is still $900,000 in debt nine months after you threw in the towel.

The latest federal filings shows that Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who famously won three elections in four years in a blue state, still has nearly $900,000 in debt from his unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination. Walker, who is likely to attempt for a third term as the Badger State’s governor in 2018, planned on paying off his campaign debt by the end of this year - but if the slowdown in donations to retire that debt are any indication, he may not have such an easy time.

Walker’s presidential campaign took a mere $71,000 in April, down nearly half from the $128,000 received in March.

Donald Trump may be making an appearance in Albuquerque tonight, but the state’s high-profile Republican governor has told local news that she’s going to sit this one out.

New Mexico governor Susana Martinez, whose name has been floated as a potential vice presidential pick since before the Republican party had even settled on a nominee, told NBC affiliate KOB4 that she’s too busy to see the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

“I’m really busy and I’m the governor of New Mexico and I’m really focused on what’s going on here in New Mexico,” she said, citing employment announcements and education initiatives. “I mean, those are the things I’m concentrating on and I’m going to keep concentrating on.”

Asked if Trump’s campaign had reached out to her, Martinez responded, “No, he has not.”

Today's campaign agenda

Good morning, and welcome to the Guardian’s politics liveblog, where we’re expecting an escalation of hostilities between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the presumptive and likely nominees for the Republican and Democratic parties, after Trump doubled down on his decision to make Clinton’s marriage a target of his latest attack ad.

The advert is on Instagram, and it raises allegations of sexual harassment or assault by Bill Clinton.

In 1999, Juanita Broaddrick, one of the women whose voice was used in the Trump ad, alleged that Bill Clinton raped her in 1978 when she was looking to volunteer on his Arkansas gubernatorial campaign. Clinton’s attorney denied the allegations on his behalf. Kathleen Willey, whose voice was also used, has claimed that the president sexually assaulted her during his first term in the White House. Clinton settled out of court with Jones for $850,000, and denied Willey’s accusations.

Trump defended his use of unsubstantiated rumors and personal attacks on his likely opponent’s spouse on The O’Reilly Factor last night, telling host Bill O’Reilly that the Clintons were “dirty players” who had backed him into a corner.

“I don’t like doing that, but I have no choice,” Trump said. “When she hits me on things, I just have no choice. So you have to do it. It’s unfair. And you know they’re dirty players. they’ve been dirty players historically, and I have to fight back the way I have to fight back.”

O’Reilly didn’t ask about Trump’s decision to raise conspiracy theories that the suicide of White House counsel Vince Foster was actually murder.

Supporters of Bernie Sanders hold signs outside a rally after Sanders spoke at Santa Monica High School Football Field in Santa Monica, California.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders hold signs outside a rally after Sanders spoke at Santa Monica high school. Photograph: Ringo Chiu/AFP/Getty Images

Here’s what to expect from today:

  • Bill Clinton will campaign for his wife in Española, New Mexico, this evening. Doors open at Plaza de Española at 5.30pm local time, with the event beginning at 6.30pm. New Mexico’s Democratic primary is on 7 June.
  • Hillary Clinton will tape her appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, which airs tomorrow, and will then campaign in Riverside, California. The event begins at 5.30pm local time at the Johnson Family Practice Center on the UC-Riverside campus. California’s Democratic primary is also on 7 June.
  • Donald Trump will hold his first campaign fundraiser in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in conjunction with the Republican National Committee. The event, which requires a $10,000 donation for entry, will be hosted by funeral parlor magnate Kevin Daniels. From there, Trump will to head to Los Angeles, where Lebanese-American real estate investor Thomas Barrack Jr. will host a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser for the candidate at his home.
  • Bernie Sanders has a full plate today, hosting rallies in Anaheim, California, at 10am local time, in Riverside at 2pm, and San Bernardino at 7pm.

Stick with us for live coverage throughout the day ...

Updated

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