Today in Campaign 2016
- Clinton campaign officials have dismissed a poll suggesting that Donald Trump may have taken the lead in the final days before Tuesday’s election, insisting they see no evidence of a negative impact from Friday’s new FBI email disclosures.
- House speaker Paul Ryan has repaid Donald Trump for months of acrimony - including a refusal to endorse Ryan - by voting for him. In a continuation of the weird Republican quirk this cycle of not naming Trump, Ryan told Fox & Friends that he had voted for “our nominee.”
- Speaking in Dade City, Florida, former beauty queen Alicia Machado introduced Hillary Clinton by describing her interactions with Trump during her reign as Miss Universe 1996. “I was only 18 years old - a little girl,” Machado said. “There was still so much I didn’t know. Trump was overwhelming. I was scared of him. He made fun of me, and I didn’t know how to respond. He told me that I looked ugly, and I was massive. He even called me names. He said to me, ‘Miss Piggy,’ ‘Miss Housekeeping,’ ‘Miss Eating Machine.’ Soon, it became a joke. Alicia Machado was the Fat Miss Universe. It was really painful for me. He was cruel.”
- With the presidential election one week away, a handful of Republicans are already vowing to oppose any nominee to the supreme court proposed by Hillary Clinton should she be elected. At least three Republican senators - Ted Cruz of Texas, Richard Burr of North Carolina and John McCain of Arizona - have voiced support for indefinitely blocking Clinton from filling the supreme court vacancy left by the late justice Antonin Scalia.
- Hundreds of the world’s most respected economists, including eight Nobel laureates, have signed and published a letter urging US voters not to support Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, calling Trump a “dangerous, destructive choice” who would doom the country to recession, or worse.
- Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, who is expected to cruise to reelection victory in next week’s election despite fellow Republican Donald Trump’s underwater polling numbers in the state, told the Beloit Daily News that Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers are impeachable offenses.
Donald Trump’s campaign responds to the endorsement of Trump by a KKK newspaper:
The Trump campaign responded with criticism of the article. Mr. Trump and the campaign denounces hate in any form. This publication is repulsive and their views do not represent the tens of millions of Americans who are uniting behind our campaign.
Cybersecurity firm fails to find links between Donald Trump and Russian bank
A US cybersecurity firm hired by a Russian bank to investigate allegations of a secret line of communication with the Trump Organization said on Tuesday there was no evidence so far of substantive contact, email or financial links.
Mandiant, which is owned by the California-based company FireEye, said it examined internet server logs presented to the bank by media organisations investigating the link.
The online magazine Slate published a story on Monday about communication between a server hosting Trump domain addresses and a server owned by the Moscow-based Alfa Bank, owned by two oligarchs, Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven. Aven worked with Vladimir Putin in city government in St Petersburg in the early 1990s.
The Slate story, quoting a range of cybersecurity experts, said the communication between the servers suggested it was human rather than robotic, and that it was intended to be secret and exclusive.
In a statement, FireEye said it had been presented with a log of the communication between the servers over a period of 90 days, listing the separate contacts.
“The information presented is inconclusive and is not evidence of substantive contact or a direct email or financial link between Alfa Bank and the Trump campaign or Organization,” the statement said. “The list presented does not contain enough information to show that there has been any actual activity opposed to simple DNS lookups, which can come from a variety of sources including anti-spam and other security software.”
The statement continued: “As part of the ongoing investigation, Alfa Bank has opened its IT systems to Mandiant, which has investigated both remotely and on the ground in Moscow. We are continuing our investigation. Nothing we have or have found alters our view as described above that there isn’t evidence of substantive contact or a direct email or financial link between Alfa Bank and the Trump campaign or Organization.”
George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner better known as the son of Jeb Bush and nephew of George W. Bush, told the Associated Press today that he’s the only member of the storied political clan to vote for Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the upcoming election:
George P. Bush tells @apwillweissert that he's the only Bush to vote the GOP ticket. Both 41 & 43 "potentially" may go for Clinton, he says
— Lisa Lerer (@llerer) November 2, 2016
(“41” and “43” refer to George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, respectively, who served as the 41st and 43rd presidents.)
Asked if either could vote for Clinton, Bush told the Associated Press: “Potentially. But hard to speculate.”
Updated
From Donald Trump’s press pool:
Donald Trump finished his speech at 6:54 CDT, pausing near the end as his audience erupted in a chant of “President Trump! President Trump!”
Pool left at 6:59 in the van, joining Mr. Trump’s motorcade for a ride to the airport and a 3-hour flight to Miami, FL.
Tonight’s speech was steady, and lacking in the off-the-cuff departures that tend to characterize his rallies. In your pooler’s humble opinion, Trump has not stayed this “on message” in any other public rally since the Republican National Convention.
Your pooler would bet an expensive lunch that he diverted very little from his prepared remarks.
Updated
US senator: Hillary Clinton could be impeached if elected
Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, who is expected to cruise to reelection victory in next week’s election despite fellow Republican Donald Trump’s underwater polling numbers in the state, told the Beloit Daily News that Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers are impeachable offenses.
“She purposefully circumvented [the law], this was willful concealment and destruction,” Johnson said. “I’m not a lawyer, but this is clearly written. I would say yes, high crime or misdemeanor, I believe she is in violation of both laws.”
Johnson referred to two laws regarding the willful destruction or removal from proper custody of information relating to the national defense, the punishment for which includes fines and the forfeiture of holding elected office.
Johnson dismissed the conclusion by the FBI that Clinton did not break the law.
“That was a corrupt conclusion,” Johnson said.
“Every election is a binary choice, but she has disqualified herself,” Johnson said of Clinton. “I would love to be voting for Ronald Reagan, and I’m sure the Democrats would rather be voting for Harry Truman, but the reality is that is not our choice.”
370 prominent economists: Don't vote for Donald Trump
Hundreds of the world’s most respected economists, including eight Nobel laureates, have signed and published a letter urging US voters not to support Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, calling Trump a “dangerous, destructive choice” who would doom the country to recession, or worse.
“Donald Trump is a dangerous, destructive choice for the country,” the letter asserts, after listing off more than a dozen reasons for voters to support a different candidate. “He misinforms the electorate, degrades trust in public institutions with conspiracy theories, and promotes willful delusion over engagement with reality. If elected, he poses a unique danger to the functioning of democratic and economic institutions, and to the prosperity of the country. For these reasons, we strongly recommend that you do not vote for Donald Trump.”
The letter’s 370 signatories, which include Oliver Hart of Harvard University, one of the two Nobel winners in economics this year, and Paul Romer, the chief economist at the World Bank, accuse Trump of, in order:
- Degrading trust in “vital public institutions that collect and disseminate information about the economy,” including the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Misleading voters “by asserting that the renegotiation of Nafta or the imposition of tariffs on China would substantially increase employment in manufacturing.”
- Trump “has diverted the policy discussion to options that ignore both the reality of technological progress and the benefits of international trade.”
- He “has misled the public by asserting that US manufacturing has declined.”
- Falsely suggesting that “the ‘toughness’ of negotiators primarily drives trade deficits.”
- Misleading American voters with “false statements about trade agreements eroding national income and wealth.”
- “Lowering the seriousness” of public discussions of the national debt and deficits by suggesting that eliminating “the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Education would significantly reduce the fiscal deficit.”
- “He claims he will eliminate the fiscal deficit, but has proposed a plan that would decrease tax revenue by $2.6 to $5.9 trillion over the next decade according to the non-partisan Tax Foundation.”
- Proposing “a reduction in public saving that is likely to increase” the US trade deficit.
- Using immigration as “a red herring to mislead voters about issues of economic importance.”
- Misleading the electorate by declaring that “the US is one of the most heavily taxed countries.”
“His statements reveal a deep ignorance of economics and an inability to listen to credible experts,” the letter’s signatories conclude. “He repeats fake and misleading economic statistics, and pushes fallacies about the VAT and trade competitiveness. He promotes magical thinking and conspiracy theories over sober assessments of feasible economic policy options.”
Election polls tighten – but turnout is the real key to Clinton v Trump
Polls are often conducted over multiple days, so we’re only just starting to measure the effect of the FBI’s decision to release new details of its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server to lawmakers on Friday. According to the ABC/Washington Post tracking poll published on Tuesday (conducted October 27-30), the Democratic candidate has now slipped behind Donald Trump, on 45% to her Republican opponent’s 46%. The polling average calculated by RealClearPolitics, a much better indication of national sentiment, shows Clinton is now leading by just 2 percentage points, down from 5 percentage points a week ago.
Those numbers are interesting but not necessarily indicative – polling won’t neatly translate to votes. Far more important will be the turnout - especially since the two leading presidential candidates are so close in terms of unpopularity. And the candidates know it. A senior adviser to Donald Trump reportedly revealed last week that “we have three major voter suppression operations under way” intended to reduce votes for Clinton among African Americans, white liberals and young women.
Even though election day is still a week away, we already have some clues about whether turnout is lower among those groups – because more than 25m ballots have already been cast under the US early voting system. Approximately 125 million to 145 million Americans are predicted to vote in the 2016 election, so those early votes represent a significant share of the expected total.
Higher turnout than at this time in 2012
Of the 15 states that provide detailed information about those ballots, North Carolina, California and nine other states report more early voters than at the same point in the 2012 election. Ohio, Nevada, Colorado and Iowa showed a decline in early voting, and those declines were small.
Early signs of declining turnout from black voters and young voters
The early results offer mixed news for Clinton. Early votes suggest that young voters – who are much more likely than older voters to lean Democratic – might be staying at home. In 12 states, fewer Americans aged 18 to 29 have cast a ballot so far in this election compared with this point in 2012. This could be especially problematic for Clinton if this group is indicative of a broader “Bernie or bust” sentiment in which supporters of the former Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders choose to stay at home rather than voting for Clinton.
Young voters aren’t the only demographic group that appears put off. Early votes suggest that black turnout has fallen in eight states – especially in North Carolina, a state that yields 15 of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the election and where polling suggests Clinton is in a close contest. If Trump’s strategy is indeed to suppress the black vote, that makes a lot of sense – those voters could be crucial for Clinton to secure the White House.
Speaking in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Donald Trump predicted “an unprecedented constitutional crisis” if Hillary Clinton were to be elected president.
“The work of government would come to an unbelievably unglorious halt,” Trump said, and “she is likely to be investigated for years, likely to be concluded with a very large-scale criminal trial.”
The audience chanted “Lock her up!” in response.
“This is a message for any Democratic voter who have already cast their ballot for Hillary Clinton and have a severe case of buyer’s remorse,” Trump said, referring to a few states - Wisconsin included - where early ballots can be reversed before election day. “A lot of stuff has come out since you’ve voted.”
“You can change your vote to Donald Trump - we’ll make America great again, okay? She will never make America great.”
Speaking in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump greeted the audience by declaring that “in one week, we are going to win the great state of Wisconsin.”
Lauding the state’s governor, Scott Walker, as “one tough cookie,” Trump moved swiftly past local flavor for a casual listing of polls (valid or otherwise) that show him surging in battleground states.
“We’re on the cusp of something incredible. Historic change that transfers power from a failed political establishment,” Trump said.
Donald Trump campaigns in Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Watch it live here:
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has released a new television ad, titled Choice, which “outlines the clear choice voters have on Election Day between Hillary Clinton’s future of stagnation, and Donald Trump’s vision for a better, stronger, and more prosperous America,” according to a campaign release.
“On November 8th we will see the American electorate choose Mr. Trump’s platform of unifying common sense reforms over the careless, disqualifying, corrupt behavior of Hillary Clinton,” said Jason Miller, the campaign’s communications advisor.
Clinton to campaign in Detroit: On Friday, November 4, Hillary Clinton will campaign at a public “Get Out the Vote” rally in Detroit, where the former secretary of state “will lay out her plans to create an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, and her vision for an America that is stronger together,” according to a campaign release.
President Obama delivers remarks at a Clinton-Kaine "Get Out The Early Vote" event
Watch it live here:
Donald Trump’s claim during the presidential debates that Hillary Clinton failed as a senator to close tax loopholes he exploited has been proved at least partially false.
The New York Times reported on Monday that the Republican candidate had avoided paying potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes through a “sleight of hand” that worried even his own lawyers.
Trump in effect traded debt relief for virtually worthless “partnership equity” to swerve past any tax liability in the early 90s, according to documents obtained by the paper.
The manoeuvre came under the scrutiny of Congress in 2004 – and Clinton, then a New York senator, was among those who successfully voted to outlaw it.
Yet in the second presidential debate on 9 October, Trump claimed that the Democratic nominee had missed her chance to close loopholes that he had merely used as anyone else would.
“She complains that Donald Trump took advantage of the tax code,” he said. “Well, why didn’t she change it? Why didn’t you change it when you were a senator? The reason you didn’t is that all your friends take the same advantage that I do. And I do.
“You have provisions in the tax code that, frankly, we could change. But you wouldn’t change it, because all of these people gave you the money so you can take negative ads on Donald Trump.”
It is a theme that the brash billionaire has also been hammering at rallies on the campaign trail. Trump has refused to release his tax returns, breaking a tradition followed by every Republican and Democratic presidential candidate for more than 40 years.
Sid Miller, the Texas Agriculture Commissioner, released new polling data from Pennsylvania showing Hillary Clinton behind Donald Trump - although he declined to use her name:
Apparently @MillerForTexas deleted his tweet using the c-word. No worries, we have screenshots/receipts. pic.twitter.com/IbVntgI7uY
— Marissa Evans (@marissaaevans) November 1, 2016
On the heels of news that multiple Republican senators are floating the possibility of refusing to confirm any supreme court nominee Hillary Clinton puts forward if she is elected president, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson’s campaign has released a list of potential justices that he would appoint if he became president. (Hold your laughter.)
“I have made clear that I believe the supreme court should be guided by a loyalty to the original and fundamental principles of limited government and liberty embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,” Johnson said in a statement accompanying the list’s release. “As president, when the opportunity arises, I will nominate justices who have proven records of demonstrating that loyalty to the Constitution.”
The list, attached here, is a wish-list of originalist conservatives, public intellectuals and jurists who have advocated for an amendment allowing states to nullify federal laws:
- Alex Kozinski, Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
- Randy Barnett, Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution.
- Janice Rogers Brown, D.C. Circuit Court Judge and former California Supreme Court Justice.
- Tom Campbell, Former Member of Congress and Dean of the Chapman University School of Law.
- Miguel Estrada, Partner at the Washington, D.C., law office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, where he is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group.
- Jonathan Turley, Professor, George Washington University Law School
Republican senators vow to oppose any Clinton supreme court nominee
With the presidential election one week away, a handful of Republicans are already vowing to oppose any nominee to the supreme court proposed by Hillary Clinton should she be elected.
At least three Republican senators have voiced support for indefinitely blocking Clinton from filling the supreme court vacancy left by the late justice Antonin Scalia, thus breaking with a 150-year precedent for having nine justices serving on the nation’s highest bench.
Senators Ted Cruz, of Texas; John McCain, of Arizona; and Richard Burr, of North Carolina have all suggested leaving Scalia’s seat open if Clinton reaches the White House. Cruz, in particular, argued there was a “long historical precedent” for having fewer than nine justices on the supreme court.
Senate Republican leaders have yet to hold a hearing or a vote on Merrick Garland, who was nominated by Barack Obama to replace Scalia in March. Republicans justified their refusal to move forward on the Garland nomination by saying the next president should fill the vacancy. But as Donald Trump’s path to the White House narrows, a potential split is emerging within the party ranks on how to proceed when Congress returns after the election for a lame duck session.
Hillary Clinton on Donald Trump allegedly walking in on changing teenagers:
We cannot hide from this. We’ve got to be willing to face it. This man wants to be president of the United States of America!
Clinton continued, taking aim at Donald Trump for what she she described as “what he has done to women and girls.”
“For my entire life, I’ve been a woman, and when I think about what we now know about Donald Trump and what he has been doing for thirty years, he has spent a great deal of time demeaning, degrading and assaulting women.”
“I would, frankly, rather be here talking about anything else,” Clinton continued, “but I can’t just talk about all the good things we wanna do, because people are making up their minds. This is a consequential choice.”
“A lot of his supporters don’t like to hear this - I don’t blame them! If I were supporting him, I wouldn’t want to hear about it either!”
“Can we just stop for a minute and focus on the absurdity of Donald Trump finding fault with Miss Universe?”
Speaking in Dade City, Florida, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was welcomed to the stage by former Miss Universe Alicia Machado to the strains of “Fight Song.”
“Alicia will be voting for the very first time in this election, and I am very grateful for her support,” Clinton said.
“One week from today, we will be choosing our next president and commander in chief,” Clinton said. “I don’t think the choice could be any clearer.”
“I am ready to serve if you give me the great honor of being your president.”
Clinton was greeted with a raucous chant of “Hillary! Hillary!”
“That stands in contrast to my opponent,” Clinton continued. “Maybe for you, if you think about all of the issues that separate Donald Trump from me, it could be his dangerous statements about nuclear weapons. When a journalist told Donald Trump that people were worried about how casually he talks about nuclear weapons, he said, ‘well, then why are we making them?’”
Former Miss Universe on Donald Trump: 'He was cruel'
Speaking in Dade City, Florida, former beauty queen Alicia Machado introduced Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by describing her interactions with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during her reign as Miss Universe 1996.
“I was only 18 years old - a little girl,” Machado said. “There was still so much I didn’t know. Trump was overwhelming. I was scared of him. He made fun of me, and I didn’t know how to respond. He told me that I looked ugly, and I was massive. He even called me names. He said to me, ‘Miss Piggy,’ ‘Miss Housekeeping,’ ‘Miss Eating Machine.’ Soon, it became a joke. Alicia Machado was the Fat Miss Universe. It was really painful for me. He was cruel.”
“For years afterwards, I was sick fighting eating disorders.”
“It’s really clear that he does not respect women,” Machado continued. “He just judges us on our looks. He thinks he can do whatever he wants and get away with it. Well, now I’m standing here on behalf of women and Latinos across the country, Americans who have been horrified with his dangerous ideas and vision of America.”
“Together, we are going to say loudly and clearly, ‘no Trump!’ He’s not getting away with it!”
Hillary Clinton campaigns in Dade City, Florida
Watch it live here:
Clinton campaign officials have dismissed a poll suggesting that Donald Trump may have taken the lead in the final days before Tuesday’s election, insisting they see no evidence of a negative impact from Friday’s new FBI email disclosures.
Speaking as Hillary Clinton flew to Florida for a whirlwind series of campaign events, a senior campaign official conceded there was a tightening in the polls but only what they had already expected would happen after the debates finished.
Asked by reporters on the campaign plane to respond specifically to a new ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll which put Trump one point ahead, the aide described it as “bad polling”.
“It’s not what we see at all,” said the official. “There seems to be something about that model that seems odd. The race has tightened the way that we thought it would tighten, but we do not see anything that would suggest [the new tracking poll] is right.”
Democrats also dispute the findings of several polls since Friday that the letter from the FBI director, James Comey, saying his staff were examining emails that may be related to the previous investigation into Clinton’s private email server has had a negative marginal affect on voter enthusiasm for the Democratic candidate.
“We do not see any evidence that the Comey story has had an impact,” said the aide. “We’ve seen anecdotal evidence about turnout and our voter registering, volunteer numbers, etc, that suggests that if anything it has encouraged our supporters.”
Updated
Donald Trump asks people to vote for Represntative Darrell Issa, the former oversight committee chairman, who finds himself in a tough reelection battle in Orange county, California – in part owing to his support for Donald Trump.
.@DarrellIssa is a very good man. Help him win his congressional seat in California.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2016
Issa has been a stalwart Trump backer, although he did release a statement criticizing the nominee after a video emerged in which Trump bragged about touching women’s genitals without consent.
With Trump now spending on ads in Michigan and New Mexico, the Clinton campaign reports that it has made six-figure ad buys each in those states plus Colorado and Virginia. Team Clinton suggests they’re not playing defense in those states so much as burning the money they have to burn:
Clinton camp says it raised a "record-breaking" $11.3 million online in the last 72 hours (basically since the FBI story broke)
— Monica Alba (@albamonica) November 1, 2016
The Trump campaign says the Clinton campaign is “nervous” and playing defense:
Someone at Hillary campaign seems nervous. They pulled out of CO and VA months ago. Have never run ads in MI and NV. On defense. https://t.co/5VRWs9M1zG
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) November 1, 2016
Updated
Clinton camp claims no impact from FBI inquiry
Democrats have dismissed a poll suggesting that Donald Trump may have taken the lead in the final days before Tuesday’s election, insisting they see no evidence of a negative impact from new FBI email disclosures.
Speaking as Hillary Clinton flew to Florida for a whirlwind series of campaign events, a senior campaign official conceded there was a tightening in the polls but only what they expected after the debates finished.
Asked by reporters on the plane to respond specifically to a new ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll which put Trump one point ahead, the aide described it as “bad polling”.
“It’s not what we see at all,” said the official. “There seems to be something about that model that seems odd. The race has tightened the way that we thought it would tighten, but we do not see anything that would suggest [the new tracking poll] is right.”
Democrats also dispute the findings of several polls since Friday that the letter from FBI director James Comey has has had a negative marginal affect on voter enthusiasm for Clinton.
“We do not see any evidence that the Comey story has had an impact,” said the aide. “We’ve seen anecdotal evidence about turnout and our voter registering, volunteer numbers, etc, that suggests that if anything it has encouraged our supporters.”
Clinton is not expected to address the email question again on Tuesday during her three scheduled events in Florida, but aides defended her decision to begin her remarks twice in Ohio on Monday by raising the issue.
“Obviously it is something that has got a lot of attention in the last few days, so we did think it was important for her to address”
Instead, the focus in Florida is expected to be on reminding voters how much is at stake in next week’s election.
“There is no state that is more important and we think it is a state that she will win and Donald Trump has to win,” said the aide. “If she wins Florida, that... will put her over the top.”
Voters should also brace for a deluge of new advertising nationwide however as the Clinton campaign spends its remaining money on television commercials across the US.
“You’ll see us back on the air in a lot of states over the last week or so,” said the aide who agreed only to speak anonymously to reporters on the plane. “We’ve been able to raise a lot of money and it’s the last week to spend it. So you’ll see us spending in a lot of states where we haven’t.”
The FBI has complied with a public records request for documents pertaining to the Clinton foundation – with just a week to go till election day!
William J. Clinton Foundation: This initial release consists of material from the FBI's files related to the Will... https://t.co/Y4nz3aRSmG
— FBI Records Vault (@FBIRecordsVault) November 1, 2016
Hang on...
Fred C. Trump: Fred C. Trump (1905-1999) was a real estate developer and philanthropist. This release consists of... https://t.co/21KgtPpmzk
— FBI Records Vault (@FBIRecordsVault) October 30, 2016
Oh.
Hillary R. Clinton: Hillary Rodham Clinton served as U.S. Secretary of State from January 21, 2009 to February 1,... https://t.co/9e7TYx2GVQ
— FBI Records Vault (@FBIRecordsVault) October 30, 2016
I guess no one has been paying much attention to this official FBI account. https://t.co/E2apMIwjHY
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 1, 2016
It actually hadn't tweeted for over a year before that Fred Trump tweet. pic.twitter.com/ksXLv7yBce
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 1, 2016
At this rate, I'm just excited to see what the FBI drops the morning of the election https://t.co/QsfzbXrHPe
— Mark Berman (@markberman) November 1, 2016
We’re looking through the material. Here’s a spicy find, by BuzzFeed:
— Tom Namako (@TomNamako) November 1, 2016
Updated
Obama releases photos of private living quarters
President Barack Obama likes to say the White House is the “people’s house.” Now, the people are getting a look at the rooms where he lives, the AP reports:
Exclusive photos published Tuesday by Architectural Digest are giving the public its first glimpse of private areas on the second floor of the White House that Obama, his wife, Michelle, daughters Malia and Sasha and family dogs Bo and Sunny have called home for nearly eight years.
Los Angeles-based interior designer Michael Smith decorated the rooms, as well as the Oval Office. A mutual friend in Chicago introduced him to the Obamas after the 2008 election.
The first lady said Smith managed to reflect her family’s tastes while respecting the history of the White House.
“Above all, it has truly felt like a home for our family,” she told the magazine.
Other photos show the Yellow Oval Room; the Treaty Room, where Obama retreats late at night to read briefing material for the next day; a sitting room and a dining room. The rooms are adorned with a variety of modern and contemporary art borrowed from major art institutions, such as the National Gallery of Art and Smithsonian museums.
Architectural Digest has also published photos of the private living quarters of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Check out the Architectural Digest piece here.
Why the heck is Trump campaigning in Michigan (two events Monday) and Wisconsin (headed there now)?
FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten thinks “there’s an understanding he has to go in and win one of those [blue states], otherwise, forget it!”
Monmouth has a poll of Pennsylvania coming out tomorrow. But when will we get new Colorado or Wisconsin (or Michigan) numbers?
.@FiveThirtyEight's @ForecasterEnten on why Trump is campaigning in blue-leaning states in Michigan. https://t.co/z57hoRf0nL
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) November 1, 2016
It’s Tuesday, the day of the week America uses as election day, which, why is that? Watch our explanatory video:
If that video leaves you hungry for more information about the how and why of American elections, we’d recommend this video about the electoral college:
Why did they go to Valley Forge* for that?
*King of Prussia, technically.
Updated
Trump’s done. Will Pennsylvania voters go for his brazen new critique of Obamacare? What did you think?
Trump vows to bring mining, steel back to Pennsylvania
Trump now says he’ll renegotiate Nafta and says something about Mexico. And now “currency manipulation” and “unfair subsidy behavior.”
“We are going to bring manufacturing jobs, lots of jobs, back to Pennsylvania. We’re going to do it, and it won’t even be difficult. We’re going to open up modern mines... we’re also bringing back our steelworkers whose jobs have been stolen by the dumping of steel all over this state, and frankly all over this country, by China.”
Says the guy who builds with Chinese steel.
Trump tailors pitch on health care to Pennsylvania
Trump thanks “my incredible running mate, Governor Mike Pence.”
He says millennials will be “totally crushed” by health care costs. He says the people of Philadelphia will be among the hardest-hit. So some local politics mixed in here.
“Obamacare means higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality, yet Hillary Clinton wants to expand Obamacare... if we don’t repeal and replace Obamacare, we will destroy American health care forever. It’s one of the single most important reasons we must win on November 8th. We must win.”
The crowd is pumped and they are chanting “Trump trump trump Trump!”
OK here now is Trump. And here’s that live stream again:
Pence describes car time with Trump:
He always says the same thing to me when we’re whisking by in that motorcade. He’ll nudge me and he’ll say, Mike, this isn’t even about me... this is a movement of the American people.
Pence stretches and makes an Obamacare - Comey tie-in:
“We can’t trust Hillary Clinton with our health care any more than we can trust her with classified information.”
Pence: free-market health care 'the American way'
Pence calls for health insurance governed by the free market: “that’s the American way we can meet our health care needs.”
Isn’t the American way of meeting health care needs like, just making it impossibly expensive, time-consuming and confusing ever to seek medical treatment, so you order drugs from Canada on the Internet or take one of those busses?
Pence is running through the features of the Trump plan laid out in the previous block.
Why is Pence making this pitch and not Trump?
Pence accuses the Obama administration of a government takeover of health care.
Pence says not one single Republican in Congress voted for the health care law. He says that Republicans have been trying to replace it with “free-market solutions.”
What’s Trump’s health care plan? Visit his web site! Here’s the skeleton:
– erase state lines in health insurance market
– make premiums deductible
-health savings accounts
-price tranparency from all healthcare providers
–block-grant Medicaid to the states
– loosen monopoly of Big Pharma
The nonpartisan committee for a responsible federal budget says Trump’s plan is too sketchy to analyze fully, but the committee estimates that Trump’s plan would cost $550bn over a decade and nearly double the number of uninsured, causing almost 21 million people to lose coverage.
Pence is having fun quoting Bill Clinton calling the dynamics of the Obamacare exchanges crazy.
“We don’t want the socialized health care they have in Canada. We want American solutions,” Pence says. PS and: cheap Canadian drugs.
Updated
Pence: 'we're going to repeal and replace Obamacare'
He used a dramatic pause before delivering the line, which was applauded heartily.
Pence is going to talk about it, but for now he’s making jokes about what a drag being a member of Congress was.
Pence: 'Pennsylvania is coming together'
Mike Pence is speaking now. He says that “Pennsylvania is coming together” and “we’re going to make Donald Trump the next president.”
“The man who wrote the Art of the Deal has a deal for the American people,” Pence says.
Is he talking about Tony Schwartz?
I wrote the Art of the Deal. Donald Trump read it.
— Tony Schwartz (@tonyschwartz) September 17, 2015
Oh, Ben Carson is here in King of Prussia, adjacent to Valley Forge. He says he’s “absolutely delighted” to be in Pennsylvania. Watch Dr Carson in the live stream in the preceding block.
Here’s a live video stream of the Trump event in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, the town next to historic Valley Forge. The headliners have yet to appear.
Trump's last-minute 'expansion': artful – or desperate?
The Trump campaign is expanding its “TV footprint,” the campaign says, descrying opportunity in New Mexico, which has added a lot of Hispanic voters since it last went Republican in 2004, and Michigan, which hasn’t gone Republican since 1988 and where native son Mitt Romney, whose father was a governor, lost by 10 points just four years ago.
Just in: Donald Trump is going on television in the final week in New Mexico & Michigan. It is described as a $25 million buy for final week pic.twitter.com/UC2jCOwUqB
— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) November 1, 2016
Do those states hold out actual, sudden opportunity for the Trump campaign – or are indications there of Clinton strength – voting patterns in past elections, demographics, polling – more important?
It’s not just TV buys. Trump was in New Mexico Sunday, he’s in Pennsylvania today and he’s in Wisconsin tonight. His kids have been crawling all over the northern Midwest. So they’re putting their candidate where their mouth is.
Feels desperate. He HAS to expand map into other blue states given inability to make PA competitve https://t.co/JYRdGwdzOQ
— Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) November 1, 2016
Lots of folks, to steal an Obamaism, have pointed out that strange, late-stage electoral-map plays are typical of campaigns that are about to lose.
Here’s some fun from Politico on 2 November, 2012 – Mitt’s Pennsylvania gamble:
Until a week ago, Pennsylvania was virtually an afterthought in the presidential race.
Now, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are making a late advertising and in-person push in the state, parachuting into the Keystone State this weekend for last-minute visits with scant days left to go in the race. It’s a move that the Romney team bills as expanding the map and a sign of strength, Democrats call an act of desperation and observers within the state say is unlikely to pay off next Tuesday.
Mitt Romney lost Pennsylvania by five points. And while we’re digging around in the archives, check this out from the Washington Post on 1 November 2012 – Presidential contest as close as can be:
The race for the White House remains steadily and extraordinarily competitive in its final days, with President Obama and Mitt Romney continuing to run neck-and-neck in the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll.
In the latest release, 49 percent of likely voters across the country back Obama, 48 percent his Republican challenger. It’s an identical 49 to 48 percent looking across eight states identified as “tossups” by The Washington Post.
There are few ways to adequately grasp the tightness of the contest.
It wasn’t close. Obama won the election by 126 electoral votes, 332-206.
F-L-O-R-I-D-A
Let’s have a glance at early voting in Florida...
We've hit peak #FloridaMan: driving home from strip club, falls out of truck, runs himself over, truck hits house. https://t.co/1GYnnz5j5Y
— Keith Gaddie (@GaddieWindage) October 29, 2016
...and particularly the African American vote there, which is the subject of some buzz this morning owing to a Politico piece by Marc Caputo, who knows what he’s talking about, diagnosing weak early turnout by black voters in the Sunshine state:
Hillary Clinton has a black voter problem in the nation’s biggest battleground state.
After the first full weekend of in-person early voting ended Sunday, African-American turnout failed to meet expectations — or historic precedent — leaving top Democrats and activists fuming or worried that Clinton’s campaign isn’t living up to the hype in Florida.
But not so fast, writes Florida politics blogger and longtime Democratic operative Steve Schale, who also knows what he’s talking about. Fewer African American voters in Florida vis-à-vis 2012 might be expected because 2012 and the re-election of Barack Obama was a record year:
The electorate continues to get more diverse. Through the Sunday vote, Hispanics are now 13.5% of the votes so far, with Black voters (African American and Caribbean) at 11. White is down to 70, and has trended down from nearly 80% when in-person early voting started. I have no doubt at this point that the electorate in 2016 will end up more diverse than 2012.
I also don’t expect the Black share of vote to match 2012. That was a historic moment. But I do expect the Black share of vote to approach its registration share (13.9%). In my models, which have her winning, I expect it to land at 13%, so anything north of this is positive.
So take your pick. We’re seeing either danger signs for Clinton in Florida among African American voters, or we are not. The candidate has three events there today – two in the I-4 corridor and one in Broward county – while Bill Clinton has three events today in the state – two in extreme south Florida and one in battleground St Petersburg on the Gulf coast.
Updated
Paul Ryan votes for Donald Trump
The top elected Republican, House speaker Paul Ryan, has repaid Donald Trump for months of acrimony including a refusal to endorse Ryan by... voting for him.
Ryan broke the news on Fox this morning. In a continuation of the weird Republican quirk this cycle of not naming Trump, as if that ameliorates the act of supporting him, Ryan said he had voted for “our nominee”:
Ryan, on "Fox and Friends," says he's already voted "for our nominee," avoids actually saying "I voted for Trump."
— Jonathan Nicholson (@JNicholsonInDC) November 1, 2016
Not every top Republican is caving, however. Ohio governor and former Republican candidate John Kasich did not vote for Trump, instead writing in John McCain, he said. Points for creativity?
In a thought-provoking piece about the long-term takeover of the Republican party by authoritarian conservatives, Jonathan Chait writes that support for Trump by Republican leaders does not only point to their fear – it also points to a lust for power:
Because Trump’s record of loyalty to the conservative cause is so haphazard, and his grasp of policy detail so scant, the small core of anti-Trump intellectuals on the right have insisted a President Trump would betray them—a charge that, having been echoed by jeering Democrats, has settled into conventional wisdom. But on the vast majority of issues, Trump has aligned himself with standard conservative dogma. The Wall Street Journal editorial page probably got it right when it reasoned that “precisely because [Trump] is such a tabula rasa, he would be more dependent than any other President on Congress.” In September, Trump appointed a former lobbyist and aide to Vice-President Dick Cheney to his transition team, which would staff his administration, and the Heritage Foundation has taken an active role in supplying ideas and candidates for his prospective administration. As Ryan gushed after Trump’s first debate, “I see emerging in front of us the potential for what a unified Republican government can get you.” The conservative movement would have full control of a party that had full control of the Legislative, Executive, and (after filling the Supreme Court vacancy Republicans left open for him) Judicial branches. Not to mention full control of half of all state governments.
Read all of Chait here.
Huma Abedin: ally turned liability?
For an individual who has been described as mysterious, secretive and opaque, the blazing spotlight under which Huma Abedin now finds herself must be a deeply uncomfortable place. For 20 years she has built a career out of being Hillary Clinton’s shadow, the trusted adviser and friend whose influence may be ubiquitous but is wielded firmly behind the scenes.
Now Abedin, 40, finds herself front and center in one of the strangest and most contentious presidential elections in US history. As FBI agents begin to pore over thousands of emails that were reportedly found on a laptop she apparently shared with her estranged husband, the sexting former congressman Anthony Weiner, her role has suddenly switched from that of Clinton’s loyal servant to number one threat to the Democratic nominee’s hopes of winning the presidency.
The explosive announcement landed at a supremely bad time for both women. For Clinton, it has shaken what looked to be a smooth final sprint to victory in next Tuesday’s presidential election; for Abedin it has put a question mark over what was widely expected to be a senior role – some have even speculated chief of staff – in a Hillary Clinton White House.
“It would be a distraction were she to be given a prominent position such as chief of staff, forcing the new administration on to the defensive,” said Ross Baker, professor of political science at Rutgers University. “It could derail any attempt to initiate many of the proposals Clinton has talked about.”
Read further:
Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Just one week to go now, as you may have noticed (and at least 25 million people have already voted, according to the Election Project).
Donald Trump and Mike Pence are in Pennsylvania today, which is either heroic or foolish, depending on whether you think it matters that Trump has led in only one single poll of the state and that was in July. The Republicans are scheduled to give a tag-team speech about Obamacare in historic Valley Forge, where the American revolutionary army spent a chilly winter in 1777-78 before emerging to victory. Trump has a later stop today in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
It is not known whether Hillary Clinton will invoke the American revolution today, but she is scheduled to make three campaign stops in Florida, where the current election is playing out. Literally everybody and their neighbor, save Michelle Obama, appears to be hitting the campaign trail for Clinton today, including:
- President Barack Obama – Columbus, Ohio
- Vice-President Joe Biden – Charlotte, NC
- Running mate Tim Kaine – Wisconsin, two stops
- Senator Bernie Sanders – New Hampshire, two stops; and Maine
- Husband Bill Clinton – Florida, three stops
- Daughter Chelsea Clinton – Aurora, Colorado
- Anne Holton (Kaine’s wife) – Iowa, three stops
- Ne-Yo – Raleigh, North Carolina
State of play
A new edition of Cook political report’s electoral college map has exactly one state moving in Trump’s direction: Iowa. Granting Clinton victory in the states leaning in her direction in the map below yields a 294-244 win for her, with Trump sweeping the purple tossups:
NEW Electoral College ratings: https://t.co/dGF09TR5lg
— CookPoliticalReport (@CookPolitical) November 1, 2016
IA | Toss Up to Lean R
AK | Solid R to Likely R
SC | Solid R to Likely R pic.twitter.com/rDjYcYKUGt
Trump denies communications with Russian bank
The Trump campaign has denied a report that a Trump Organization server was used to send or receive communications with a Russian bank.
The denial on Monday night came in response to a Slate article that said activity on the server indicated “a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump Organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank”, the largest private commercial bank in Russia.
The report is the latest allegation during this election season of questionable links between Trump and Russia. The Clinton campaign quickly pounced on the report, declaring the story proof of “the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow”.
Trump used legally dubious method to avoid paying taxes – NY Times
Donald J. Trump proudly acknowledges he did not pay a dime in federal income taxes for years on end. He insists he merely exploited tax loopholes legally available to any billionaire – loopholes he says Hillary Clinton failed to close during her years in the United States Senate. “Why didn’t she ever try to change those laws so I couldn’t use them?” Mr. Trump asked during a campaign rally last month.
But newly obtained documents show that in the early 1990s, as he scrambled to stave off financial ruin, Mr. Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income by using a tax avoidance maneuver so legally dubious his own lawyers advised him that the Internal Revenue Service would most likely declare it improper if he were audited.
Clinton camp accuses FBI of ‘blatant double standard’
The Clinton campaign blasted FBI director James Comey for “jaw-dropping” double standards on Monday after claims that he had sought to withhold evidence of Russian support for Donald Trump for fear of influencing next week’s US election.
“It is impossible to view this as anything less than a blatant double standard,” her campaign manager, Robby Mook, told reporters, claiming the decision “defied all logic”, especially as other intelligence agencies had favoured disclosure of suspected Russian involvement.
“Through these two decisions he shows he favours acting alone and without consulting … these are not the hallmarks of a responsible investigation,” added Mook.
Thank you for reading and please join us in the comments.
Updated
