Today in Campaign 2016
In the classic mid-aughts high school comedy Mean Girls, Regina George exacted a terrible revenge on new-girl frenemy Cady Heron, releasing copies of the “burn book” into which she had scrawled all of her most horrible thoughts. Regina stood back as the high school collapsed into anarchy - lighting the school on fire so she could be queen of the ashes.
Donald Trump today: pic.twitter.com/OwBNWad3c4
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) August 2, 2016
So, too, is Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump standing back and watching the Republican party fall into near-chaos after he gave an interview to the Washington Post in which he said he is refusing to endorse House speaker Paul Ryan, Arizona senator John McCain or New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte - three of the most powerful and high-profile elected Republicans in the country, and three of his most frustrated supporters-slash-critics.
Less prominent members of the party are already jumping ship: Yesterday, top Jeb Bush adviser Sally Bradshaw, co-author of the 2013 Republican “autopsy” that called for increased outreach to millennials and Latinos, left the party and said she would vote for Hillary Clinton if Florida appeared close; this morning, New York congressman Richard Hanna became the first sitting Republican to endorse Clinton, and Chris Christie aide Maria Comella told CNN this afternoon that she plans to vote for Clinton because Republicans are “at a moment where silence isn’t an option.”
Trump’s refusal to endorse after a disastrous week for his campaign does, however, possess a tactical advantage: If McCain or Ryan rescind their endorsements now, for any reason, Trump will dismiss it as political vengeance, limiting the damage that would ordinarily accompany the disavowal of a presidential nominee by his party’s most respected members.
Beyond Trump’s skunk-at-the-garden-party interview, here are the other key takeaways from today:
- Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has announced that between her campaign and joint fundraising committees with the Democratic party, it raised nearly $90m in July and has more than $58m in cash on hand.
- President Barack Obama called Donald Trump “unfit” and “woefully unprepared” to be president, urging leaders of the Republican party to take the unprecedented step of denouncing their nominee.
- “Yes, I think the Republican nominee is unfit to serve as president,” Obama said during a joint press conference Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, at the White House. “I said so last week [at the Democratic national convention], and he keeps on proving it. The notion that he would attack a Gold Star family that had made such extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our country, the fact that he doesn’t appear to have basic knowledge around critical issues in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia means that he’s woefully unprepared to do this job.”
- Donald Trump, speaking in Loudon County, Virginia, on Tuesday, could not seem to decide whether he wanted a crying baby in his vicinity:
- Donald Trump told an interviewer on Monday that if his daughter Ivanka Trump were sexually harassed at work, “I would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case” – an answer that provoked anger from commentators who said that the onus of ending workplace harassment should not be on the victim. This morning, Ivanka’s younger brother Eric doubled down on his father’s remarks, telling CNBC’s John Harwood that a “strong, powerful woman” like his sister wouldn’t allow such harassment to occur in the first place.
That’s it for today - only 98 more days to go ...
Donald Trump’s official statement on Paul Ryan:
I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda. Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people. They have been treated so badly for so long that it is about time for politicians to put them first!
Trump refuses to support Paul Ryan, John McCain in Republican primaries
Donald Trump has declined to endorse either House speaker Paul Ryan or Arizona senator John McCain in their upcoming Republican primaries in a wide-ranging interview with the Washington Post. The statements indicate a potential fence-mending with the banned newspaper - and a bridge-burning with the most powerful elected Republicans in the country.
Trump told the Washington Post that he is “not quite there yet” in endorsing Ryan, an almost verbatim repetition of Ryan’s refusal to endorse Trump after he functionally clinched the Republican nomination in May. Ryan, the most senior elected Republican in the US, was not the only member of the party to fall from Trump’s grace: McCain, as well as New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte, both of whom have been vocally critical of Trump in recent months, were mentioned by the candidate as unworthy of his endorsement.
“I’ve never been there with John McCain because I’ve always felt that he should have done a much better job for the vets,” Trump said. “He has not done a good job for the vets and I’ve always felt that he should have done a much better job for the vets. So I’ve always had a difficult time with John for that reason, because our vets are not being treated properly. They’re not being treated fairly.”
In the interview, Trump praised Ryan opponent Paul Nehlen, who has run “a very good campaign.” Although Trump said that Ryan sought out his endorsement, he is merely “giving it very serious consideration.”
“I like Paul, but these are horrible times for our country,” Trump said. “We need very strong leadership. We need very, very strong leadership. And I’m just not quite there yet. I’m not quite there yet.”
The unprecedented move by Trump comes less than two weeks after Ryan gaveled in the Republican National Convention amid serious heat from members of his own party.
“[Ryan’s] opponent is a big fan of what I’m saying - big fan,” Trump said. “His opponent, who’s running a very good campaign, obviously, I’ve heard - his opponent sent me a very scholarly and well thought out letter yesterday and all I did was say thank you very much for your very nice letter. You saw my statement.”
Longtime Chris Christie aide backs Hillary Clinton
The woman often cited as a driving force behind the rise to national prominence of New jersey governor Chris Christie has declared that she plans to vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November general election, breaking with her longtime boss who has endorsed Donald Trump.
Longtime aide Maria Comella told CNN that she plans to vote for Clinton because Republicans are “at a moment where silence isn’t an option.”
“Donald Trump has been a demagogue this whole time, preying on people’s anxieties with loose information and salacious rhetoric, drumming up fear and hatred of the other,” Comella said. “Instead of trying anything remotely like unifying the country, we have a nominee who would rather pick fights because he views it as positive news coverage.”
“It may make him media savvy, but it doesn’t make him qualified or ready to be president.”
This morning, New York congressman Richard Hanna declared that he planned to vote for Clinton, making him the first sitting Republican to break with the party’s nominee for his opponent.
Donald Trump’s feud with the family of an Army captain who was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star has gone international, with French president Francois Hollande telling French journalists that he was disgusted by the “excesses” of the Republican presidential nominee.
“His excesses make you want to retch, even in the United States, especially when - as was Donald Trump’s case - he speaks ill of a soldier, of the memory of a soldier,” Hollande said, according to Yahoo News.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
President Obama will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the United States!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2016
Ivanka Trump described being sexually harassed on her father's construction sites as a teen
Ivanka Trump has not yet spoken about her father’s and brother’s comments regarding workplace sexual harassment, but she has discussed the issue before in her book, The Trump Card. In the autobiography/business guide, Ivanka described having a “recurring nightmare” about the possibility of sexual harassment on the job, which she said she’d experienced “many times” on her father’s construction sites over the course of her childhood.
“But in those cases,” Ivanka wrote, “the workers never realized I was the boss’s daughter when they started hooting and hollering, and it didn’t much matter how I responded.” Once the workers were inevitably informed and apologized, Ivanka wrote, “I’d laugh it off and act as it it were no big deal.”
But as an adult, Ivanka described the “no-win situation” of being sexually harassed in front of her boss. “If I ignored the inappropriate remarks, I might come across as weak. If I responded too harshly, I’d be a tightly wound witch.”
Despite her breezy reaction to construction-site jeering as a teenager, Ivanka wrote in The Trump Card that “sexual harassment is never acceptable, and we must stand against it.”
“At the same time,” however, “we must recognize that our coworkers come in all shapes, stripes, and sizes. What might be offensive to one person might appear harmless to another.” Ivanka urged readers to “learn to figure out when a hoot or a holler is indeed a form of harassment and when it’s merely a good-natured tease that you can give back in kind.”
To ward off remarks, Ivanka, a former fashion model, “concealed my femininity” by wearing her hair in a bun and dressing in plain black pantsuits, which would imply that Eric Trump’s suggestion that a “strong, powerful woman” like his sister wouldn’t allow harassment to occur in the first place might not have been accurate in practice.
Donald Trump: 'I was fortunate really to not have to go to Vietnam'
In an interview with Gray TV’s Kellie Meyer, Donald Trump responded to questions about his remarks at a campaign event in Ashburn, Virginia, today in which he said that he’s “always wanted” a Purple Heart after a replica medal was given to him by a veteran. The Purple Heart is awarded to service members who are killed or injured in the line of duty.
“I was fortunate really to not have to go to Vietnam - we were in a highly contested and unpopular war,” Trump said. “Yeah, I was lucky in two ways, but I was also, it is something I always missed. I mean, I built helped build the Vietnam memorial in downtown Manhattan. To me that was a very important thing to do but I’ve regretted not serving in many ways. So many of the greatest people I know have served, and you saw that today where the gentleman got up and gave me his Purple Heart which is right here. We’ve had such a tremendous relationship with the vets.”
When asked why he avoided going to Vietnam, Trump cited college deferments.
“It was a very long time ago, and I was in school, I had college deferments, like the VP of the United States, and like many other people,” Trump said. “We have deferments for education so by the time we got out it was, I guess, for the most part I wouldn’t have had to go, but I got college deferments, I had one medical deferments for feet. But it all worked out.”
Eric Trump has clarified his statement earlier today that “strong, powerful” women don’t allow sexual harassment to occur:
I said sexual harassment is a "no go" and should be addressed by Human Resources. It's totally unacceptable behavior https://t.co/nttmptuc4M
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) August 2, 2016
Video: Donald Trump ejected a mother and her crying baby from one of his rallies in Ashburn, Virginia, after the baby’s crying distracted him during his speech.
Trump first told the mother not to worry about the noise as he “loves babies,” before changing his mind minutes later and telling the audience “I think she really believed me that I like having a baby crying while I’m speaking.”
DNC CEO resigns amid hacking scandal
The CEO of the Democratic National Committee has resigned in the wake of an email hacking scandal that already topped the party’s chair on the first day of the Democratic National Convention last week.
According to the Associated Press, Amy Dacey will be leaving the party after a cache of more than 19,000 emails was leaked on the eve of the Democratic convention, revealing backbiting and anti-Bernie Sanders sentiment within the party’s leadership that cast a shadow over the nomination of Hillary Clinton’s as the first female presidential nominee from a major party.
Last week, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz also resigned from her position after being booed at a pre-convention event by supporters of Sanders.
Donald Trump has responded to President Barack Obama’s comments at a press briefing this morning in which he called Trump “unfit to serve as president,” lashing out at the president’s foreign policy legacy and accusing him of putting the nation at risk by appointing Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state.
“Obama-Clinton have single-handedly destabilized the Middle East, handed Iraq, Libya and Syria to Isis, and allowed our personnel to be slaughtered at Benghazi,” Trump wrote, in a single-paragraph release sent to reporters by his campaign. “Then they put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons. Then they allowed dozens of veterans to die waiting for medical care that never came. Hillary Clinton put the whole country at risk with her illegal email server, deleted evidence of her crime, and lied repeatedly about her conduct with endangered us all. They released criminal aliens into our country who killed one innocent American after another... and have repeatedly admitted migrants later implicated in terrorism.”
“They have produced the worst recovery since the Great Depression,” Trump continued. “They have shipped millions of our best jobs overseas to appease their global special interests. They have betrayed our security and our workers, and Hillary Clinton has proven herself unfit to serve in any government office.”
“She is reckless with her emails, reckless with regime change, and reckless with American lives,” Trump concluded. “Our nation has been humiliated abroad and compromised by radical Islam brought onto our shores. We need change now.”
Donald Trump lambasted the “dishonest press” in a speech in Loudon County, Virginia, today, pointing to the case of Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, an information management officer with the United States Foreign Service who was killed during the 11 September attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.
“I mean, when they don’t... take Patti Smith,” Trump said. “When they don’t take Pat, and - who’s an unbelievable woman and they give her virtually no air time and they give other people unbelievable amounts of air - it’s just so unfair. So unfair. We’re running against a rigged press. We’re running against dishonest people, okay? Really dishonest people.”
Smith spoke at the Republican National Convention two weeks ago at what can be described as “Benghazi Night,” an evening where the majority of the speakers were focused around the attack on the American consulate that killed four people, including the ambassador. Smith gave a tearful speech in which she declared that she personally blamed Clinton for the death of her son and accused the former secretary of state of lying.
Trump’s timeline isn’t exactly accurate - Smith’s speech ran live on CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN and Univision. The only cable network not to carry it live was Fox News, which was on commercial break during the beginning of Smith’s speech and then went to a telephone interview of Trump himself.
One hell of an endorsement:
In the same interview on Fox Business this morning in which Donald Trump proposed doubling the amount of money his opponent has suggested be spent on infrastructure and paying for it with a nebulously defined sovereign wealth fund, Trump suggested today that Americans should avoid placing their retirement funds in the stock market because of “some very scary scenarios.”
“I don’t like a lot of things that I see,” Trump said of the stock market, in which he said he is not heavily invested. “I don’t like a lot of the signs that I’m seeing. You have some very scary scenarios. The only reason the stock market is where it is is because you get free money.”
Trump declared that the current bull market is the result of artificially low interest rates pegged by the Federal Reserve, stating that if rates rose to more realistic levels, the stock market would tank.
“I did invest, and I got out, and it was actually very good timing,” Trump continued. “I’ve never been a big investor in the stock market.”
Despite that concern, Trump predicted that the market will grow if he is elected.
“I think it’s going to go great,” Trump said. “I built tremendous wealth for myself. I built a tremendous company with some of the greatest assets in the world.”
Has the Washington Post blacklist been lifted? The paper’s Dana Milbank was actually allowed to attend a Donald Trump rally in Loudon County today:
Blacklisted no more? My credential for today's Trump rally. pic.twitter.com/glGvl5PILt
— Dana Milbank (@Milbank) August 2, 2016
Hillary Clinton has responded to Donald trump’s assertion that he’s “always wanted” to receive a Purple Heart, which is awarded to members of the American military who are killed or wounded in the line of duty:
This from a man who says he’s “sacrificed” for our country. https://t.co/oId7LJdrx8
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 2, 2016
Trump: 'Get the baby out of here'
Donald Trump, speaking in Loudon County, Virginia, on Tuesday could not seem to decide whether or not he wanted a crying baby in his vicinity.
“Don’t worry about that baby - I love babies,” the Republican candidate said, to the mother of a baby that had started crying during his stump speech. “I love babies. I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a baby, what a beautiful baby. Don’t worry, don’t worry. The mom’s running around, like, don’t worry about it, you know? It’s young and beautiful and healthy and that’s what we want.”
The audience laughed and clapped politely.
Later, when the baby continued crying, however, Trump was a little rougher.
“Actually, I was only kidding - you can get the baby out of here,” Trump said firmly. “That’s alright, don’t worry. I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking. That’s OK. People don’t understand. That’s OK.”
Updated
Barack Obama: Donald Trump 'unfit to serve as president'
President Barack Obama dismissed Donald Trump as “woefully unprepared” for the office of the presidency this morning, addressing reporters at the same time Trump held a campaign event in Loudon County, Virginia.
“I think the Republican nominee is unfit to serve as president,” Obama said, speaking alongside Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong. “I said so last week, and he keeps on proving it. The notion that he would attack a Gold Star family that had made such extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our country, the fact that he doesn’t appear to have basic knowledge around critical issues in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia means that he’s woefully unprepared to do this job.”
Obama continued, saying that even though he fought hard against his opponents for the White House in past elections, he never doubted that they could safely execute the duties of the office of the presidency.
“I think I was right and Mitt Romney and John McCain were wrong on certain policy issues, but I never thought that they couldn’t do the job,” Obama said. “And had they won, I would have been disappointed but I would have said to all Americans, ‘This is our president, and I know they’re going to abide by certain norms and rules and common sense - will observe basic decency, will have enough knowledge about economic policy and foreign policy and our constitutional traditions and rule of law that our government will work, and then we’ll compete four years from now to try to win an election.’ But that’s not the situation here.”
“And that’s not just my opinion - that’s the opinion of many prominent Republicans,” Obama continued. “There has to come a point at which you say: Enough. And the alternative is that the entire party, the Republican party, effectively endorses and validates the positions that are being articulated by Mr. Trump. And as I said in my speech last week, I don’t think that actually represents the views of a whole lot of Republicans out there.”
Updated
Here’s the video of Donald Trump declaring that he has “always wanted” to receive a Purple Heart:
Trump declared that the Purple Heart was authentic, but the veteran who gave it to him told NBC that it was a copy.
The man who gave Trump his purple heart told me earlier today, it was a copy of his purple heart.
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) August 2, 2016
Donald Trump, apparently steamed that Hillary Clinton’s campaign raised nearly three times what his did in the month of July, tells the crowd in Ashburn that Clinton “raised like 50 or 60 million [dollars], and 20 people gave it. I’m gonna get a list of those twenty people - I wanna find out how many I know.”
That number appears to be pulled out of the clear blue sky. According to Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, 54% of the the Democratic nominee’s donations came from new donors, with an average donation for the month of $44, compared to what Trump tells the audience was a $61 average for his own campaign’s donations in July - although he said it was $69 at an event last night.
“I know the game better than anybody, and the game is played that way. They own her.”
“We have tremendous crowds of people outside - would anybody like to give up your seat?” Donald Trump asks the crowd, which boos in the negative. “We’re gonna have to start using, I think, the basketball arenas, don’t you think?”
Trump shows off a Purple Heart, a military decoration given to those injured in combat, given to him by a veteran before the speech.
“That’s, like, big stuff - I always wanted to get the Purple Heart,” Trump says. “This was much easier.”
The New York Times published a story this morning detailing the opaque nature of Trump’s statements about his numerous draft deferments during the Vietnam war - feel free to take a look.
Updated
Donald Trump holds campaign rally in Ashburn, Virginia
Watch it live here:
On the heels of Donald Trump thanking Paul Ryan’s primary opponent for his “kind words”:
More than 12 hours later and no response from Trump campaign about whether the Republican nominee supports Paul Ryan's bid for re-election
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) August 2, 2016
Clinton campaign announces $90m in fundraising in July
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has announced that between her campaign and joint fundraising committees with the Democratic party, it raised nearly $90m in July and has more than $58m in cash on hand.
According to campaign manager Robby Mook, 54% of the Democratic nominee’s donations came from new donors, with an average donation for the month of $44. $8.7m of that haul was brought in during the 24 hours surrounding her acceptance speech last Thursday during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
“We come out of the Democratic National Convention with our party united and our supporters energized for the final 98 days of this campaign,” Mook said in a statement. “Our goal for the next 98 days is to take the remarkable outpouring of support we saw as Hillary Clinton took the stage in Philadelphia and build on our efforts to organize and mobilize millions of voters to elect progressive candidates up and down the ballot in November.”
Roughly $63m of that total was brought in by the campaign itself, with an additional $26m raised for the Democratic National Committee and state parties.
Donald Trump’s campaign has not yet released its official fundraising totals for July, but the candidate himself declared yesterday during a campaign event in Columbus, Ohio, that he had brought in $35.8m to his campaign and the Republican party.
Updated
Speaking with Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney, Donald Trump proposed spending “at least double” the $275 billion opponent Hillary Clinton has pledged to spend on American infrastructure, before suggesting that “we’ll get a fund” to pay for it.
“I would say at least double her numbers, and you’re going to really need more than that,” Trump said. “We have bridges that are falling down. I don’t know if you’ve seen the warning charts, but we have many, many bridges that are in dangers of falling, and-”
“Where does that money come from?” Varney interrupted. “If that’s the number you’re talking about, where do you get that money from?”
“We’re going to go out with a fund - we’ll get a fund,” Trump responded airily. “We’ll make a phenomenal deal with the low interest rates, and we’re going to have to rebuild our infrastructure. We have no choice.”
When twice asked who would put money into that fund, Trump suggested that “people, investors” would put money into the fund. “The citizens would put money into the fund. And we will rebuild our infrastructure with that fund and it will be a great investment and it’s going to put a lot of people to work.
Video: The mother of a US airman was booed at a campaign rally held by Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence last night when she asked about Donald Trump’s recent attacks on the Muslim American parents of a decorated soldier killed in Iraq.
Catherine Byrne asked Pence how he could tolerate Trump’s “disrespect” towards military families. Pence attempted quiet the crowd by saying: “It’s alright, that’s what freedom looks like and that’s what freedom sounds like.”
Eric Trump adds to controversy over Trump sexual harassment comments
Donald Trump told an interviewer on Monday that if daughter Ivanka Trump was sexually harassed at work, “I would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case,” an answer that provoked anger from commentators who said that the onus of ending workplace harassment should not be on the victim.
This morning, Ivanka’s younger brother Eric doubled down on his father’s remarks, telling CNBC’s John Harwood that a “strong, powerful woman” like his sister wouldn’t allow such harassment to occur in the first place.
Eric Trump on handling workplace sexual harassment: "Ivanka is a strong, powerful woman. She wouldn’t allow herself to be subjected to it"
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) August 2, 2016
The implication that victims of workplace sexual harassment are, unlike Ivanka, not strong or powerful, or somehow “allow” themselves to be subjected to such treatment, sparked a single-word response from Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.
Sigh. https://t.co/dj6rtOa8ta
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) August 2, 2016
The issue of workplace sexual harassment was raised after allegations surfaced against Kelly’s former boss, Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who has been accused of sexual harassment by more than 20 women since former anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit against him in July. One former booker for the network revealed to New York Magazine that she had been paid a $3.5 million settlement by the network to maintain silence about a decades-long cycle of sexual harassment and blackmail. Kelly has also told investigators Ailes sexually harassed her, New York magazine reported, although she has been silent on the subject in public.
Ailes has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.
Trump, a longtime friend of Ailes, defended the ousted news chief in an interview with Chuck Todd on the Meet the Press on 24 July. “All of a sudden they’re saying these horrible things about him. It’s very sad,” Trump said. “Because he’s a very good person. I’ve always found him to be just a very, very good person. And by the way, a very, very talented person. Look what he’s done. So I feel very badly.”
Donald and Eric Trump’s comments on the nature of sexual harassment in the workplace come as a poll indicates abysmal numbers for the Republican nominee with female voters: the CNN/ORC survey released Monday showed Trump trailing Clinton by a margin of 57% to 34% among women.
Updated
Good morning, and welcome to the Guardian’s campaign liveblog.
New York congressman Richard Hanna has become the first sitting Republican member of Congress to come out in support of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, writing in an op-ed published in the Syracuse Post-Standard that unlike Donald Trump, “she stands and has stood for causes bigger than herself for a lifetime”.
“While I disagree with her on many issues, I will vote for Mrs. Clinton,” Hanna wrote. “I will be hopeful and resolute in my belief that being a good American who loves his country is far more important than parties or winning and losing.”
Hanna, who refused to endorse Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee and has previously declared that he could never vote for him, wrote in the editorial that although he had long since resigned himself to seeing Trump as anathema to “kindness, honesty, dignity, compassion and respect”, his most recent feud with the parents of an army captain killed in the line of duty have crystallized the view that “it is not enough to simply denounce his comments: He is unfit to serve our party and cannot lead this country”.
“Where do we draw the line?” Hanna asked his fellow Republicans. “I thought it would have been when he alleged that U.S. Sen. John McCain was not a war hero because he was caught. Or the countless other insults he’s proudly lobbed from behind the Republican presidential podium.”
Hanna concluded by exhorting his compatriots in the Republican party to look beyond “attempts to run the table in two- and four-year cycles that produce few results”, and instead “live to win or lose another day with a real candidate”.
“Our response to the public’s anger and the need to rebuild requires complex solutions, experience, knowledge and balance,” Hanna said. “Not bumper sticker slogans that pander to our disappointment, fear and hate.”
But Trump’s five-days-and-counting feud with the Khan family may not be the political death knell that some have speculated it to be – Trump’s candidacy has, after all, survived racist comments about federal judges, personal attacks on McCain’s status as a war hero and a multi-day war of words with the pope – but barely more than a week since the Republican national convention concluded, Trump is adrift within his own party.
Having been denounced by House speaker Paul Ryan, McCain, esteemed members of the military and chided even by his running mate, Trump has refused to back down from controversial comments directed at the family of Cpt Humayun Khan. Instead, Trump appears to be attempting to divert attention from Khan’s family by labelling rival Hillary Clinton “the devil”, praising Ryan’s primary opponent and suggesting that women who are sexually harassed at work simply find new jobs.
In the meantime, there are 98 days to go until election day – the same number of millions raised by the Trump campaign up to June, including cash from Super Pacs. That’s $277m less than Hillary Clinton.
Where the candidates are today:
- Clinton, whose post-convention polling bounce has been as pronounced as Trump’s collapse, has no scheduled public events today, but running mate Tim Kaine is hosting an organizing event in Daytona Beach, Florida, at 1pm ET. We expect to hear plenty of Spanish from the famously fluent El Senador, as campaign materials released in advance described him.
- Trump will hold a rally at Briar Woods high school in Ashburn, Virginia, at 11am ET. The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui will both be in attendance.
- Indiana governor Mike Pence will be holding a town hall at Fox Tucson theater in Tucson, Arizona, at 2pm MT (4pm ET) and will later be holding a town hall at the Phoenix convention center at 7pm MT (9pm ET).
Caught up? Good – on with the show ...
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