Today in Campaign 2016
- Hillary Clinton returned to the presidential campaign trail today, making a confident first public appearance since pneumonia forced her to take a four-day rest. Taking to the stage to the sound of I Feel Good by James Brown, the Democratic nominee insisted she was fully recovered and filled with a new sense of urgency at a critical juncture in American politics. “Being on the trail does not encourage reflection,” she told a young crowd at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. “It’s important to sit with your thoughts every now and again and this helped me to reflect on what this campaign is all about.”
- Donald Trump told TV host Dr Oz he feels “as good today as I did at 30”, the 70-year-old Republican presidential nominee released the most detailed assessment yet of his physical condition. In a taped interview with Dr Oz, Trump admitted that at 236lb he is overweight, but said he had bolstered his physical condition by giving speeches on the campaign trail. “It’s a lot of work,” he said. “You know, when I’m speaking in front of 15, 20,000 people and I’m up there using a lot of motion, I guess in its own way it’s a pretty healthy act. “A lot of times these rooms are really hot, like saunas, and I guess that’s a form of exercise.”
- Trump attempted to combat widespread criticism of his sketchy economic policies by setting out what he presented as a new vision for the country that he audaciously claimed would create 25m new jobs in a decade and put the American worker first.
- Addressing one of the country’s most august economic debating societies, the Economic Club of New York, the Republican presidential nominee sought to dispel the criticism that has dogged his campaign that his mathematics do not add up in balancing tax cuts and new spending. Sticking closely to a pre-prepared script – despite an initial malfunctioning of his teleprompter - he delivered a speech that was billed in advance by his senior advisers as the culmination of his thinking on how to get America back to work.
- “American cars will travel the roads,” he said, “American planes will soar the skies, American ships will patrol the seas, American steel will send new skyscrapers into the clouds, American hands will rebuild this nation, and American energy harvested from American sources will power this nation.”
Hillary Clinton was quick to cite Trump’s refusal to back away from birtherism as evidence that the Republican nominee was fanning the flames of racial division.
Addressing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute at its annual gala in Washington on Thursday evening, Clinton condemned Trump for continuing to push conspiracy theories surrounding Obama’s birthplace.
“He still wouldn’t say Hawaii. He still wouldn’t say America,” the Democratic presidential nominee said. “This man wants to be our next president? When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry?”
Clinton returned to the campaign trail earlier in the day with a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, marking her first public appearance since she made public her diagnosis with pneumonia after abruptly leaving a 9/11 memorial on Sunday in New York City.
In her remarks before the gathering of prominent Hispanic leaders, Clinton reiterated her support for comprehensive immigration reform while decrying Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants and Muslims alike.
“There’s no innuendo or dog whistles anymore,” Clinton said of the Republican nominee. “It’s all right out there in the open now.”
“We need to stop him conclusively in November in an election that sends a message that even he can hear.”
Obama spoke before the group just prior to Clinton and similarly urged the Hispanic community to stand up against Trump’s bluster.
“I know that there are a lot of folks who had this notion of what the real America looks like and somehow it only includes a few of us,” the president said. “But who’s going to decide who the real America is?”
“Folks are betting that if they can drive us far enough apart and if they can put down enough of us because of where we come from, or what we look like, or what religion we practice then that may pay off at the polls.”
“But I’m telling you that’s a bet they’re going to lose,” he added.
Did Donald Trump’s appendectomyH take place when he was 10 or 11?
Two letters from Trump's only personal physician citing two different ages for the same appendectomy. pic.twitter.com/Xrf8kbB3LK
— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) September 16, 2016
His doctor doesn’t seem sure.
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker broke his silence on Thursday over leaked documents obtained by Guardian US, which revealed his links to a complex network of conservative donors and the influence of corporate cash in the election process.
In an interview with Milwaukee’s WTMJ 620, the Republican governor described as “baseless” the legal investigation into alleged campaign finance violations that produced the 1,500 pages of documents.
“It’s what we often see in media outlets where you get bits and pieces shaped to push their agenda,” Walker said. “The bottom line is we’ve had several courts in this state that have shut this down, this baseless investigation down, because it clearly didn’t show that what was done that was not lawful there.”
Known as the “John Doe investigation”, several Wisconsin prosecutors launched a probe into what they suspected were criminal campaign finance violations by the campaign committee of Walker, a former Republican presidential candidate who dropped out early in the primary race. The prosecutors claimed Walker’s committee operated a coordinated network that involved outside lobby groups, thereby allowing unlimited amounts of corporate money to funnel into a third-party group closely aligned with his campaign. In July 2015, the Wisconsinsupreme court halted the investigation.
In saying prosecutors misunderstood campaign finance law to pick on people and groups “wholly innocent of any wrongdoing”, the state’s high court took the extraordinary step to order all documents produced as part of the investigation to be destroyed and later held under seal – however at least one set survived that was leaked to Guardian US.
Walker told the radio station that unspecified people related to the investigation who “lose in the court of law, repeatedly” now “want to play this out in the court of public opinion – and do so with only bits and pieces, without the full story”.
“The bottom line is that people, not only at the supreme court level, but even initially at the circuit court level, where a distinguished reserve judge – who, as far as we can tell, has no aligned political allegiance with anyone – initially shut this down,” Walker said. “And that assertion’s been held many times over.”
Donald Trump declined to allow the traveling press time to cover his event in New Hampshire tonight, documented by campaign reporters:
MISSING PRESS UPDATE - 3 min after we arrive the rally ends to the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." So true.
— Scott Detrow (@scottdetrow) September 16, 2016
Donald Trump refuses to say that President Barack Obama was born in the US
In an interview with the Washington Post, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump defiantly declared that he will not publicly reveal whether he still believes that President Barack Obama was born outside of the United States.
“I’ll answer that question at the right time,” Trump said. “I just don’t want to answer it yet.”
Trump, asked about his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, declaring that it was a settled issue that Obama was born a US citizen, Trump said: “It’s okay. She’s allowed to speak what she thinks. I want to focus on jobs. I want to focus on other things.”
“I don’t talk about it anymore,” Trump said. “The reason I don’t is because then everyone is going to be talking about it as opposed to jobs, the military, the vets, security.”
Hillary Clinton returned to the presidential campaign trail this afternoon, making a confident first public appearance since pneumonia forced her to take a four-day rest.
Taking to the stage to the sound of I Feel Good by James Brown, the Democratic nominee insisted she was fully recovered and filled with a new sense of urgency at a critical juncture in American politics
“Being on the trail does not encourage reflection,” she told a young crowd at the University of North Carolina. “It’s important to sit with your thoughts every now and again and this helped me to reflect on what this campaign is all about.”
Speaking calmly, without the cough that has interrupted recent appearances, the former secretary of state appeared rested. As she climbed the steps to the podium, she gripped a guard rail carefully.
“For millions of moms and dads, if they get sick there is no backup, they are on their own,” she said, turning her experience into a renewed call for better provision of healthcare and family leave. “That’s the story for too many people in America.”
Earlier Donald Trump, who has pulled level in some recent opinion polls, made his most explicit reference yet to his opponent’s health, releasing medical recordsthat boasted of his ability to “endure – uninterrupted – the rigors of a punishing and unprecedented presidential campaign”.
The physical examination also revealed the 70-year-old Republican to be overweight, at 236lbs, but he claimed he had bolstered his physical condition by giving speeches on the campaign trail.
Mark Fields, the CEO of Ford Motor Company and latest target of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s ire, has responded to Trump’s allegations that the company will “fire all of its employees in the United States” as it moved small-car production to Mexico, calling Trump’s comments “unfortunate” and inaccurate.
“It’s really unfortunate when politics get in the way of the facts and the facts are Ford’s investment in the US and commitment to American jobs has never been strong,” Fields told CNN’s Poppy Harlow this afternoon.
“We have created more than 28,000 jobs in the US in the last five years; we’ve invested more than $12b,” Fields continued. “We produce more vehicles in the US than any other automaker by far, and we employ more hourly workers here in our plants, more than any automaker by far. So we are very committed here and those are the facts.”
This morning, Trump told the hosts of Fox and Friends that he will implement a 35% tariff on Ford cars manufactured in Mexico if he is elected president, something that Fields dismissed.
Asked if it was true that Ford would be “firing all of its employees” in the United States, Fields was adamant that Trump was wrong.
“Absolutely not - zero,” Ford said. “What we announced is that we’ll be moving our focus out of Michigan so that we can compete more financially in that particular segment but at the same time, and that’s an agreement we have with the UAW and what we’ll be doing is we’ll be replacing those products with two very exciting new products so not one job will be lost... most of our investment is here in the US and that’s the way it’s gonna continue to be.”
Whoever wins the election, Ford concluded, “we [plan to] work for them productively.”
Speaking to reporters in Greensboro, North Carolina, in one of her first press conferences since announcing her presidential bid more than a year ago, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told reporters that although she wished her campaign staff had informed the public about her pneumonia more quickly, she did not think “it was a big deal” at the time.
Asked whether she was doing any “soul searching” as polls nationwide tighten between her and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Clinton asserted that she has know that “this was going to be a tight race - I’ve said it from the very beginning,” but that “we are in a strong position going into these last weeks.” What matters on Election Day, Clinton said, is “who registers to vote and who is motivated and mobilized to turn out to vote.”
Clinton responded to a question about whether the fact that running mate Tim kaine appeared not to know that she had fallen ill until the rest of the world knew, Clinton said that it did not preface a lack of communication in their potential relationship as president and vice president.
“My senior staff knew and information was provided to a number of people,” Clinton said. “This was an ailment that many people just power through and that’s what I thought I would do as well. I didn’t want to stop, I didn’t want to quit campaigning, I certainly didn’t want to miss the 9/11 memorial,” she continued. “It didn’t work out. So I got the antibiotics up and going, got the rest that I needed, and we’re going on from there.”
During an appearance on The Dr Oz Show, Donald Trump admitted he could lose some weight but said he felt “as good today as I did when I was 30”.
On the show, Dr Mehmet Oz concluded that Trump, who weighs 236 pounds, was a little overweight for his height. Trump’s campaign also released the results of his physical that said he had normal cholesterol and blood pressure.
The Trump campaign has responded to criticism of Donald Trump Jr.’s assertions that reporters would “be warming up the gas chamber” if his father, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, acted like rival Hillary Clinton.
“The liberal, dishonest media is so quick to attack one of the Trumps that they never let the truth get in the way of a good smear,” said communications advisor Jason Miller in a statement. “Don Jr. was clearly referring to capital punishment to make the case that the media continues to take words out of context in order to serve as the propaganda arm of the Hillary Clinton campaign - something that’s only gotten worse as Trump’s poll numbers have improved.”
Speaking in Greensboro, North Carolina, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail after a bout of pneumonia sidelined her campaign - appropriately entering and exiting the stage to the song I Feel Good, by James Brown.
Among the readings shared by Trump in his medical statement was his testosterone level of 441.6.
For a candidate who has called his opponents “low energy” or characterized them as “little”, while praising his own “stamina”, low testosterone could have been damaging. Even if it were just to his ego.
Happily, Trump’s testosterone is fine.
“A normal range is 300 - 800,” said Dr Peter Snyder, medical director of the Penn Pituitary Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He said Trump’s 441.6 level “would be considered normal for any adult male”.
Dr Abraham Morgentaler, author of the book Testosterone for Life, said “450 or so is an average testosterone level in adult men”. Morgentaler agreed that Trump’s testosterone level was within normal range.
“He doesn’t have unusually high testosterone nor does he have unusually low testosterone.”
Ivanka Trump has responded to Cosmopolitan after the magazine ran a Q&A session with the Republican presidential nominee’s daughter in which she objected to the “negativity” of questions about Donald Trump’s past statements on pregnancy in the workplace.
1/3: Politics aside, I'm working to raise awareness on issues that are of critical importance to American women and families.
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) September 15, 2016
2/3:Regardless of who you support, policies benefiting women+families are becoming topics of mainstream conversation & that's a good thing.
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) September 15, 2016
3/3:@Cosmopolitan, your readers do & should care about issues impacting women & children. Keep the focus where it belongs—advocating change.
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) September 15, 2016
In the interview, the younger Trump also laughed when pressed about why her proposal for paid parental leave for new parents didn’t apply to same-sex male couples, or fathers in general.
Hillary Clinton returns to the campaign trail with an event in Greensboro, North Carolina
Watch live now:
Updated
Paul Ryan encourages Donald Trump to release tax returns
Another day, another person requesting in vain that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump release a copy of his tax returns, as major-party candidates have done for nearly half a century.
House speaker Paul Ryan said during his weekly press briefing that Trump should release his tax returns, but would leaving the timing of such a release to the candidate himself.
“Having a business guy as President is not the worst idea in the world.”
Clinton hits Trump Jr: 'offensive references to the Holocaust are never acceptable'
The Hillary Clinton campaign has responded to Donald Trump Jr’s use of gas chamber imagery to attack Democrats (read about that here).
Clinton’s statement says, in part:
Donald Trump Jr’s recent comments invoking the use of gas chambers to make a political attack show just how insensitive, divisive, and reckless the Trump campaign is. The bottom line is this – offensive references to the Holocaust are never acceptable, especially from a presidential campaign.
And....Hillary Clinton campaign weighs in on gas chamber comments pic.twitter.com/GbeY1cCPOt
— Alana Abramson (@aabramson) September 15, 2016
Trump Jr: tax records must remain secret to preserve 'dialogue'
It emerges that Donald Trump Jr’s explanation to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that his father can’t release his tax returns “because
that would detract from [his father’s] main message” was not a slip of the tongue. It was a talking point.
In a separate interview, with Pittsburgh’s Action News 4, Trump says that the tax returns can’t be released because “we don’t need a story with everyone questioning everything.”
Trump Jr is asked why the candidate won’t release his tax returns. Here’s his reply:
We’ve been told by tax counsel. You’ve got to remember. There’s nothing there. But if there is, they’re going to try to create a story. And the media that we’ve seen has been Hillary’s number one surrogate. They’ve been attacking us. The media’s been her biggest proponent. Because they’re afraid of a Trump system that will actually shake up DC...
We don’t need a story where everyone questioning everything. Because you know what happens with that. Everyone will take a chance. ‘What about this? What about this?’ And it’s just going to change the dialogue. Our dialogue is about jobs.
The interviewer also asks how Trump will make good on his promise to bring steel manufacturing back to the region. Trump Jr gives an answer about fracking.
An aide cuts the interview off when the reporter asks about the use of Trump foundation money for the purchase of a six-foot tall portrait of Trump, a purchase uncovered by the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold.
Two Trump campaign aids (and actual last-name-bearing Trumps) have abruptly ended interviews after facing basic questions.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 15, 2016
Updated
What’s in the second half of this new Trump minority outreach video? We don’t know. We couldn’t get past a minute.
Anyone out there able to watch this for more than a minute? Post your best time in the comments! And let us know what happens.
🗣ALL ABOARD the #TrumpTrain!
— Daniel Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) September 15, 2016
DEPLORABLES ALWAYS WELCOME!https://t.co/bpMlh1wIZb
Kaine calls on Trump to release tax returns
Just one set!
People have seen almost 40 years of tax returns from Hillary. One set from Trump really isn't too much to ask. https://t.co/K3oyDiIUlq
— Senator Tim Kaine (@timkaine) September 15, 2016
Kaine hits Trump on boasts about “the vets” and taxes: “If you’ve been avoiding taxes, you’ve been stiffing the military you’re whole life."
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) September 15, 2016
Donald Trump Jr explained to a Pittsburgh paper in an interview published Wednesday that Trump won’t release his returns “because he’s got a 12,000-page tax return that would create … financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would detract from [his father’s] main message.”
Updated
Missouri senate challenger assembles rifle blindfolded in ad
In his bid to unseat incumbent Republican senator Roy Blunt, Missouri secretary of state Jason Kander, a former army captain who served in Afghanistan, has released a video ad in which he assembles a rifle blindfolded while calling for background checks “so terrorists can’t get their hands on one of these.”
“I approved this message because I’d like to see senator Blunt do this,” Kander says:
Clinton returns to trail
She’s back. Clinton boards a plane for her rally in Greensboro, NC:
Updated
Trump proposes to pay for his tax plan by cutting discretionary spending every year. While he builds a border wall with Mexico. And raises a force to deport millions of Americans. And undertakes a massive upgrade and expansion of the military. And rebuilds the national infrastructure. And ..
To partially pay for his tax cuts, Trump proposes cutting domestic discretionary spending by 1% every year. Not counting inflation.
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) September 15, 2016
Reminder: Trump's 1st tax proposal would have created $10-12 trillion deficits
— Nick Riccardi (@NickRiccardi) September 15, 2016
Updated
Trump, 70, feels half his age, he says
On the day that Donald Trump told TV show host Dr Oz he feels “as good today as I did at 30”, the 70-year-old Republican presidential nominee released the most detailed assessment yet of his physical condition.
The Trump campaign used the positive results to take a swipe at Hillary Clinton, lauding the billionaire’s ability to “endure – uninterrupted – the rigors of a punishing and unprecedented presidential campaign”.
Clinton temporarily withdrew from the campaign trail after stumbling as she left a September 11 memorial service in New York City on Sunday. Her campaign subsequently admitted she had been given a diagnosis of pneumonia.
In a taped interview with Dr Oz which was scheduled to be aired later on Thursday, Trump admitted that at 236lbs he is overweight, but said he had bolstered his physical condition by giving speeches on the campaign trail.
“It’s a lot of work,” he said. “You know, when I’m speaking in front of 15, 20,000 people and I’m up there using a lot of motion, I guess in its own way it’s a pretty healthy act.
“A lot of times these rooms are really hot, like saunas and I guess that’s a form of exercise.”
The 70-year-old also plays golf.
Ahead of Trump’s Oz interview, his campaign released a statement from Dr Harold Bornstein, the same physician who in December said in a shorter note he could “state unequivocally, [Trump] will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”. Bornstein later admitted that the note had been “rushed”, while a limo from the campaign waited outside his office.
On Thursday, the Guardian reported that according to court papers, in April 2002 Bornstein agreed to pay $86,250 to the family of a patient, Janet Levin, who died allegedly after falling when she took “unhealthy amounts” of prescription drugs Bornstein had given her unnecessarily
Thursday’s report, based on an examination conducted on Friday 9 September, was less hyperbolic but still glowing.
“Mr Trump is in excellent physical health,” Bornstein wrote, adding that Trump’s liver and thyroid function were within the normal range and a cardiac evaluation was normal. The Republican presidential candidate does take medication to lower cholesterol.
Trump’s most recent colonoscopy was conducted on 10 July 2013, Bornstein said. It revealed no polyps.
On the Dr Oz Show, Trump said that when he looks in the mirror he does not see a 70-year-old man.
“I would say I see a person that’s 35 years old,” Trump said.
The campaign did not release any ophthalmic results.
Trump told Oz he sometimes plays golf with 39-year-old New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. “I feel I’m the same age as him. It’s crazy,” Trump said.
Clips released in advance of the show’s broadcast saw Oz noting that Trump would be the oldest person ever to be elected president. Trump said that 70 was not that much older than a previous Republican commander-in-chief.
“Just about the same age as Ronald Reagan,” he said. “And Hillary’s a year behind me. I actually feel as good today as I did at 30.”
Ronald Reagan was 69 when he was elected president, in 1979. Hillary Clinton will turn 69 on 26 October.
Trump’s physical states he is is 6ft 3in and 236lbs, giving him a body mass of 29.5, which is overweight. The businessman, who is known for eating McDonalds, KFC and on at least one occasion a taco bowl, told Oz he would like to lose 15lbs.
Updated
Trump's latest tax plan
We’re digging into the details of the tax plan Trump just laid out. It’s at least the second such plan he has rolled out. Here’s a link to the latest plan.
The plan has three income brackets, with tax rates of 12%, 25% and 33%. Business Insider’s Josh Barro points out that Trump’s 33% bracket kicks in for single filers at $112,500 – well below the current $190,000.
New version of Trump tax plan raises marginal rates for affluent singles. https://t.co/u8g5xz6eXR
— Ramesh Ponnuru (@RameshPonnuru) September 15, 2016
Trump plan would charge single filers 33% on income above $112,500. Current law 33% bracket doesn't apply until $190k.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) September 15, 2016
What Trump is doing here is not *that* different from Jeb, other Rs: promise huge tax cuts, say the math will add up due to rapid growth.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) September 15, 2016
Also new Trump plan does tax unrealized capital gains in large estates, closing another loophole from earlier plan. pic.twitter.com/EEfwU3aTQ6
— Neil Irwin (@Neil_Irwin) September 15, 2016
Old plan had a 15 percent rate for pass throughs, but 15 percent is only mentioned as a corporate rate here: https://t.co/OodUSDCgtr
— Alan Cole (@AlanMCole) September 15, 2016
If this change is for real, Trump plan is now significantly more responsible than your usual GOP tax plan. https://t.co/C7OuUZ4S2P
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) September 15, 2016
Also, everyone who said "hiring Steve Bannon will inaugurate a new era of Trump discipline," collect your winnings.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) September 15, 2016
Updated
Trump has wrapped his speech and he’s being interviewed now by an economic adviser.
“I think many of us found your economic plan very bold and ambitious,” the conversation begins.
This speech is literally sickening economists:
...feeling very, very ill https://t.co/vm5metfH3s
— Austan Goolsbee (@Austan_Goolsbee) September 15, 2016
Trump now ties sluggish American growth to China’s joining the world trade organization. No mention of the housing debt bubble and 2008 recession. It was all China entering new trade agreements. Well that sounds simple to fix.
“Our politicians were not watching. It is no great secret that many of the special interests funding my opponent’s campaign are the ones profiting from these” trade deals, Trump says”
The verdict is in, all of the special interests... have been proven wrong over such a long period of time. Every single deal they’ve promoted... has just crashed. They’ve been so absolutely wrong. Our manufacturing base has crumbled... and households are making less today than they were in the year 2000.
That’s true, despite last year’s record growth in household income.
I like China. They’re my tenant. They buy condos all the time. They’re just fine. But you know what? They’re a currency manipulator.
Trump now promises “bold, new tax reform”:
Don’t worry, they’re going down, not up. I think you were worried they’re going up.
His latest plan – he’s switched a couple times – has three brackets: 12%, 25% and 33%. He says there will be “no income tax for low-income Americans” and his plan will “remove millions and millions of workers from the income tax rolls entirely.”
That should work nicely as long as the government does not require revenue.
Here now is Trump as class warrior:
“We have strongly capped deductions for the wealthy.. the tax relief will be concentrated on the middle class... it’s not even close...they have built our country and we will not forget.”
Reminder: Trump personally does not provide employees with family care programs he now proposes and he will not disclose tax records that could indicate whether he believes this stuff with his checkbook.
Trump:
The tax relief will be expanded by my child care proposals that I have worked on with my daughter Ivanka.
Trump predicts a windfall of trillions from taxing corporate inversions, with trillions in wealth “parked overseas”:
We’ll bring them back and it will taxed only at the rate of 10% instead of 35%... I think it’s going to be something that will be so phenomenal, far beyond what people even think.’
Trump: 'I’m not running to be the president of the world'
“Too many of our leaders have forgotten that it’s their duty to protect the jobs.. and well-being from any consideration,” Trump says.
I’m not running to be the president of the world. I’m running to be the president of the United States of America. And as your president, I will fight for every last American job and every American company.
Trump does a shtick where he knows he upset his “economists” by secretly disclosing that he personally thinks their growth targets are low: “Now they’re upset. They’ll be very upset. But I think we can do even better than that.”
That’s a move known as the Full QVC.
“Just look at the math, it works,” Trump says. “It will be deficit neutral.”
Trump asserts that Hillary Clinton’s detailed plan for infrastructure spending, education, job training, tuition debt relief and more would not create jobs, while his vague plan to make US infrastructure “golden” again – he just used the word “gold” to describe the bridges he would build – would pump up the economy:
Not one single idea she’s got would create... one new dollar of American wealth for our workers. The only thing she can offer is a welfare check, that’s it. Our plan will produce paychecks...
Trump: 'disgraceful' that companies can manufacture overseas
Trump says, as he has before, that as president he would stop US companies from conducting manufacturing overseas. Have the companies heard about this? Do they take it seriously?
Trump’s hook is Ford’s announcement that it was moving small car manufacturing overseas.
“To think that Ford is moving its small car division is a disgrace... it’s disgraceful that politicians are allowing them to get away with it,” Trump says.
Then there’s some snafu with his Teleprompter which he navigates and then congratulates himself for navigating:
Just look at the way I just melded into the Teleprompter. It just went off. Who else could have pulled that off? Who else?
Trump touts his experience on the ground in Flint, Michigan:
It’s a silent nation of jobless Americans, and look no further. All you have to do is look at Flint, where I spent a lot of time. The city of Flint. And what a disaster has taken place.
Updated
Donald Trump is delivering a speech on economic policy. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington is there. Here’s a live video stream:
Trump Jr uses 'gas chamber' metaphor
Trump’s elder son, who told a Pittsburgh paper that his father’s taxes are too long to release, is on something of an interview tear.
Donald Trump Jr told a Philadelphia-area talk radio station that if the Republican national party favored a candidate as the Democratic national committee was revealed to favor Clinton, “they’d be warming up the gas chamber right now”.
Trump Jr said, according to a local CBS report:
The media has been her number one surrogate in this. Without the media, this wouldn’t even be a contest, but the media has built her up. They’ve let her slide on every indiscrepancy, [sic] on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of this thing. If Republicans were doing that, they’d be warming up the gas chamber right now.
Updated
Trump attacks Flint, Michigan, pastor who reined him in
Donald Trump has called a pastor who interrupted him in a Flint, Michigan, church Wednesday “a nervous mess”, saying “she had [it] in mind” to interrupt him before she spoke.
Reverend Faith Green Timmons of Bethel United Methodist church interrupted Trump after he pivoted abruptly from a mention of “what’s happened with the water” to an attack on Clinton.
“Mr. Trump,” Timmons said, “I invited you here to thank us for what we’ve done in Flint. Not to give a political speech.”
“Oh oh oh OK,” Trump said. “OK. OK. That’s good. I’m going to go back into Flint.”
the chastened grin at the end pic.twitter.com/bUYAgIGo9W
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) September 14, 2016
On Thursday morning, Trump hit Timmons on national television.
“Something was up because I noticed she was so nervous when she introduced me,” Trump said on Fox News. “And she called NBC, ABC – When she got up to introduce me she was so nervous, she was shaking, and I said: ‘Wow, this is sort of strange.’ And then she came up. So she had that in mind, there’s no question about it.
“She was so nervous. She was like a nervous mess, and so I figured something was up.”
Timmons invited Trump to speak at the church during a visit to the city that the candidate billed as a chance to spotlight the tap water crisis. “We welcome all people,” Timmons said in a statement beforehand, but “Trump’s presence at Bethel United Methodist in no way represents an endorsement of his candidacy.”
Ryan Felton for the Guardian interviewed attendees afterward. “The estimated 50 people in the room on Wednesday didn’t appear to give Trump nearly as warm of a welcoming as he portrayed,” Ryan writes:
Few applauded during his remarks, attendees told the Guardian afterward, and it was Timmons who actually requested members in the audience to refrain from heckling the Republican nominee.
Late Wednesday, the reverend suggested there wouldn’t have been an issue had Trump refrained from delivering a political speech. “Had he stuck to what his camp claimed he came to do, we would not have had a problem,” she wrote on Facebook.
This amazing photo of Trump and "Little Miss Flint" has gone viral on Flint Facebook. pic.twitter.com/0exFO0MCZw
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 15, 2016
Here’s a transcript of the episode:
Trump interrupted by pastor just now for politicizing speech while talking at a Flint church: pic.twitter.com/6sDDL31u8u
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 14, 2016
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Vice sues IRS for Trump audits
This news emerged yesterday, but we’re re-featuring it because, in light of Donald Trump Jr’s admission that his father is not releasing his tax returns for political reasons, the sense that Trump’s taxes are a hellscape of grotesque revelations about how Trump has lied to the public about his finances and bilked the government he now would run is... freshly piquant.
In a post appropriately headlined “We’re suing the IRS for audits of Donald Trump’s tax returns,” Vice News has announced that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in against the IRS for the audits of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s tax returns from 2002 onward:
This week, VICE News filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in US District Court in Washington, DC against the IRS demanding that the agency turn over all audits of Trump’s tax returns from 2002 onward. In the suit, filed jointly with Ryan Shapiro, a doctoral candidate at MIT and research affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, we asked the IRS for “any and all requests by law enforcement agencies for copies of... Trump’s individual tax returns” and “any and all records mentioning or referring to requests by law enforcement agencies for copies of individual tax returns.”
Sanders and Warren to deploy in Ohio for Clinton
Sens Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will campaign separately for Clinton in Ohio Saturday, the Clinton campaign has announced. Sanders will appear in three cities and Warren will appear in two.
NBC’s Mark Murray points out that both Sanders and Warren are popular with millennial voters, a group with whom Clinton has struggled to gain traction.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are barnstorming Ohio this weekend for Clinton-Kaine. 5 events total. pic.twitter.com/KZC1F5Si1g
— Monica Alba (@albamonica) September 15, 2016
Sanders turned 75 a week ago today, and Warren is 67.
Two seniors racing across Ohio in a desperate attempt to engage millennials. Can't make this election up. https://t.co/j0BKulA4lf
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) September 15, 2016
Here’s some background on Ohio’s voting history and demographics:
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Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Hillary Clinton is to return to the campaign trail today with a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, after a three-day rest at home following her stumble last Sunday. Donald Trump will appear with running mate Mike Pence in New York City today and he has a later rally scheduled in New Hampshire.
Trump Jr says father’s tax returns too long to release
Donald Trump’s elder son has dispensed with his father’s thin fiction that Trump is not releasing his tax returns because of some sort of made-up ongoing IRS audit of eight years. Instead Trump’s not releasing his returns because they’re so huge, the son told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
Because he’s got a 12,000-page tax return that would create … financial auditors out of every person in the country asking questions that would detract from [his father’s] main message.
It’s quite an interview. Trump Jr also calls Politifact a lefty organization, says Colin Powell does not know his father, whom Powell called a “national disgrace”, and said as president his father would turn over control of the Trump Organization to his children and just let them run it without his knowing or hearing anything about it.
“My father is going to be a government official, and he’s going to separate himself” from the Trump Organization, Trump Jr. said.
The new aristocrats are in DC. They steal, lie, and take from hardworking Americans. Clinton part of the ruling class. Trump for the people
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 15, 2016
Says the third generation real estate mogul. https://t.co/eF3PJOp5XG
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 15, 2016
Ivanka Trump gets testy at questions about family leave
Cosmopolitan tried to interview Ivanka Trump about the fact that in 2004 her father called pregnancy an “inconvenience” for business. Trump expressed ignorance that her father had ever said such a thing, then attacked the interviewer for “editorializing”. Here’s part of the Q&A:
Cosmopolitan: OK, I just wanted to make sure I understood. In 2004, Donald Trump said that pregnancy is an inconvenient thing for a business. It’s surprising to see this policy from him today. Can you talk a little bit about those comments, and perhaps what has changed?
Ivanka Trump: So I think that you have a lot of negativity in these questions, and I think my father has put forth a very comprehensive and really revolutionary plan to deal with a lot of issues. So I don’t know how useful it is to spend too much time with you on this if you’re going to make a comment like that.
Read the full piece here.
Trump hits Powell
After retired four-star general and former defense secretary Colin Powell called him a “national disgrace”, Trump said he didn’t think that much of Powell either:
I was never a fan of Colin Powell after his weak understanding of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq = disaster. We can do much better!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2016
Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
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