Today in Campaign 2016
- The US Census bureau has just released a report on Income and Poverty in the United States in 2015. Among the findings is this good news: real median household income rose 5.2% in 2015. That’s the fastest growth on record.
- With pressure growing on Donald Trump to back up his claims of having given millions to charity – “tens of millions,” his running mate says – in the face of a juggernaut Washington Post investigation that has exposed one after another of those claims as likely lies, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway accused the press of “badgering.” “In other words, I don’t see it as journalism. I see it as badgering. In other words, we’ve had this conversation so many different times on so many different networks...” The “conversation” has amounted to Trump surrogates or the candidate himself asserting that he has given to charity and then refusing to reply to reporting indicating that he has not.
- Trump unveiled his plans for government tax subsidies for childcare on Tuesday alongside his daughter Ivanka. Trump’s plan would allow childcare expenses to be tax-deductible for all individuals making under $250,000, up to the average cost of childcare in that person’s state, as well as expanding rebates for those who do not pay income taxes, through the earned income tax credit. His campaign declined to explain how this would be paid for, saying only that it would be part of a comprehensive tax reform and economic plan which would be revenue neutral.
- The Democratic National Committee has released a statement in response to the latest release of documents obtained via a hack of its databases, drawing a connection between the likely perpetrators of the cyberattack and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. “The DNC is the victim of a crime - an illegal cyberattack by Russian state-sponsored agents who seek to harm the Democratic party and progressive groups in an effort to influence the presidential election,” said interim party chair Donna Brazile in a statement released this evening.
- Former secretary of defense and retired four-star general Colin Powell referred to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as a “national disgrace” and an “international pariah” in emails to a former aide, according to Buzzfeed News. Powell, who served under three Republican presidents but endorsed President Barack Obama twice, called the birther movement that Trump fomented “racist” in an email to Emily Miller, a journalist who once served as Powell’s deputy press secretary during his tenure in the second Bush administration.
David Duke, for one, is happy to be a part of the #BasketOfDeplorables.
I hope our people have realized #TrumpWasRight, there's still time to get on the #TrumpTrain! #BasketOfDeplorables pic.twitter.com/NQDYjsGDPY
— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) September 14, 2016
Mike Pence in 1997: Working mothers 'stunt emotional growth' of children
Indiana governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence first came on the national political scene by signing a so-called “religious freedom” law that critics said allowed discrimination against LGBT Hoosiers, but a recently unearthed letter from 1997 shows that Pence has been a combatant in the culture wars for decades.
In a letter published in the Indianapolis Star in the late nineties, Pence argued that “day-care kids get the short end of the emotional stick,” leading to “stunted emotional growth” for the children of working mothers.
“For years, we have gotten the message from the mouthpieces of the popular culture that you can have it all, career, kids and a two-car garage. The numbers in this federally funded study argue that the converse is true,” Pence wrote. “Sure, you can have it all, but your day-care kids get the short end of the emotional stick.”
Donald Trump echoed similar concerns about working mothers in the nineties. In a 1994 interview about his divorce from wife Ivanna Trump, Trump said that “putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing.”
“If you’re in business for yourself, I really think it’s a bad idea. I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with Ivana,” Trump continued.
Hillary Clinton has responded to Donald Trump’s (inaccurate) accusation that she doesn’t have a child care policy:
It’s literally right here: https://t.co/jxNWmHVuES https://t.co/1qlok816tO
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 14, 2016
New York attorney general opens inquiry into Trump Foundation
New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has opened an inquiry into the conduct of the Donald J Trump Foundation, the personal charity of the Republican presidential nominee, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to the Guardian.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Schneiderman said Tuesday that he had been “looking into the Trump Foundation to make sure it’s complying with the laws governing charities in New York”.
The source said that Schneiderman “opened an inquiry on the Trump Foundation based on troubling transactions that have recently come to light.”
Schneiderman said “my interest in this issue really is in my capacity as regulator of nonprofits in New York state, and we have been concerned that the Trump Foundation may have engaged in some impropriety from that point of view.”
“We’ve had correspondence with them. I didn’t make a big deal out of it or hold a press conference.”
The comments come a week after the IRS fined the Trump Foundation $2,500 for making an illegal campaign contribution to Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, a longtime Trump supporter who decided not to investigate Trump University.
Jason Miller, the communications adviser for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, has released a statement about the reported inquiry into the Donald J. Trump Foundation by the New York attorney general:
Attorney General Eric Sneiderman is a partisan hack who has turned a blind eye to the Clinton Foundation for years and has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. This is nothing more than another left-wing hit job designed to distract from Crooked Hillary Clinton’s disastrous week.
Donald Trump, outlining his child care policy, tells an audience in Aston, Pennsylvania, that his plan would free Americans from “the baskets” that politicians put them in - an oblique reference to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment last Friday.
“I think you know what I’m talking about. While my opponent slanders you as deplorable and irredeemable, I call you hard-working American patriots,” Trump continues. “It’s time to end the rule of special interests and begin the rule of the American people - that’s what it’s all about.”
“It’s time to stop fighting about the smallest words,” Trump says. “It’s time to start believing in America again. Together, I promise you, together, we will make our country strong again. We will make our country prosperous again. We will make our country great again - greater than ever before.”
And with that, he’s out - a mere 20 minutes after he began his speech.
Net, Trump says, “to open up a dependent-care savings account,” similar to a health care savings account, in which pre-tax income can be saved in an account to be used for child care.
“These accounts will be available to all Americans - you won’t have to depend on your employers to have them,” Trump continues. “The money that is put into these accounts can also be spend not only on child care, but also on child-enrichment activities.”
The funds, Trump says, would not revert at the end of the year, but can roll over every year “to create substantial savings - tremendous savings, actually.”
“The funds will remain in the account until the age of 18,” at which point the remaining funds can be used to pay for higher education.
“For many families in our country, child care is now the single largest expense,” Trump continues. “My opponent has no child care plan - she never will, and if it ever evolves into a plan it will never get done anyway. All talk, no action.”
(This is not accurate - Clinton unveiled her plan in May.)
“Many Americans are just one crisis away from disaster: a sick kid, a lost job, a damaged home,” Trump says. “And this is what I’m going to be outlining tonight.”
“Families with a stay-at-home parent will be able to deduct the average cost of child care from their taxes,” Trump says of his plan. “For low-income individuals who have no net income tax liability, we will expand the EITC... in the form of a child care rebate. Working parents can get an expanded EITC benefit that equals up to half of their total payroll tax.”
“This translates to as much as an extra $1,200 in EITC benefits for working families.”
Speaking in Aston, Pennsylvania, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is outlining his newly minted child care policy, which he vows will “make a lot of people really happy”.
After being introduced by daughter Ivanka, who headlined the issue of child care reform at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Trump tells the audience that his “detailed proposals” on the issue of child care and education will make clear for American voters that his campaign “is about ideas.”
“Child care is such a big problem,” Trump says. “And we’re gonna solve that problem.”
Donald Trump campaigns in Aston, Pennsylvania
Watch it live here:
Ivanka Trump introduces Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, introduced her father at a campaign event in Aston, Pennsylvania, rolling out his child care proposals as “a woman, a mother and a woman who works.”
“My father’s policy will give paid leave to mothers whose employers are among the almost 90% of US employers that currently do not offer this benefit,” Trump said. “My father understands the needs of the modern workforce, and is offering a new and innovative solution where others have not.”
“Raising children full-time is one of the hardest jobs anyone can do, and it’s essential that our policies... honor that reality,” Trump continues. “Ensuring its enactment will be one of my top priorities when he is elected come November. This is not a woman’s issue - it’s a family issue, it’s an American issue.”
The Clinton campaign appears willing and able to engage on the “deplorable” fight - starting with this internet spot in which Republican running mate Mike Pence declines to call white nationalist and former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan “deplorable.”
Report: Colin Powell calls Donald Trump 'a national disgrace,' 'international pariah' in emails
Former secretary of defense and retired four-star general Colin Powell referred to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as a “national disgrace” and an “international pariah” in emails to a former aide, according to Buzzfeed News.
Powell, who served under three Republican presidents but endorsed President Barack Obama twice, called the birther movement that Trump fomented “racist” in an email to Emily Miller, a journalist who once served as Powell’s deputy press secretary during his tenure in the second Bush administration.
Trump, Powell said in a June 2016 email, “is in the process of destroying himself, no need for Dems to attack him. Paul Ryan is calibrating his position again.”
Powell’s slams against Trump, unheard of intra-party attacks that would be unheard of in any other campaign cycle, may not make an impact - according to Powell himself.
“To go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him,” Powell said in another email.
In comment to Buzzfeed News, Powell did not deny sending the emails.
Choice of words...
I had a blast with students and supporters in front of Iowa's Capitol on 9/11! #CancelStudentDebt #ItsInOurHands pic.twitter.com/96G3fHr95A
— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) September 13, 2016
Hillary Clinton returns to the campaign trail Thursday
The Associated Press reports:
Hillary Clinton will resume campaign travel Thursday after a bout of pneumonia.
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill says the Democratic nominee spent Tuesday reading briefing material and making calls. She also watched President Barack Obama campaigning on her behalf in Philadelphia.
She had planned to campaign Wednesday in Las Vegas. Former President Bill Clinton will headline the event in her place.
Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia Friday. But her campaign didn’t disclose the illness until Sunday, after video emerged showing her stumbling and being held up by aides after abruptly leaving a 9/11 memorial service in New York.
Updated
Libertarian presidential tickets achieves ballot access in all 50 states, District of Columbia
The presidential campaign of former New Mexico governor and Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson has announced that the ticket has achieved ballot access in all 50 states, as well as in the District of Columbia.
“With a majority of Americans wanting a choice other than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, today we now know for certain that on Election Day, every voter in America will have that alternative option,” Johnson said in a statement. “And today we also know that the only other option on every American voter’s ballot will be myself and Gov. [Bill] Weld.”
Calling the ballot-access process “a monumental task,” Johnson slightly shaded Green party candidate Jill Stein by reminding followers that the Libertarian party “will be the only ticket other than the Republicans and Democrats to do so.”
The most powerful Super Pac supporting Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency has found an unlikely ally in its latest advertising salvo against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump: the late Ronald Reagan.
In a spot released today and set to run in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the liberal Super Pac contrasts the conservative icon - using lines like “We are one nation under God, that black and white, we are one nation indivisible” - with Trump’s more aggressive statements from the campaign trail, including statements that he wished he could punch protestors in the face and announcing that he could shoot someone in the middle of New York’s Fifth Avenue
Donald Trump releases childcare plan
In anticipation of a campaign event in Pennsylvania tonight in which he will detail a new proposed childcare policy, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has emailed a fact sheet about the proposals to members of the press. The plan, Trump vows, “will allow a family to make the choice of whether a parent should work outside the home or not without bias from the tax code”.
Here are some of the salient details:
- “The Trump plan will rewrite the tax code to allow working parents to deduct from their income taxes child care expenses for up to four children and elderly dependents... Individuals earning more than $250,000 (or $500,000 if filing jointly) will not be eligible for the deduction.”
- “Create new Dependent Care Savings Accounts (DCSAs) so that families can set aside extra money to foster their children’s development and offset elder care for their parents or adult dependents.”
- “Guarantee six weeks of paid maternity leave by amending the existing unemployment insurance that companies are required to carry.”
How does he plan to pay for it?
“The child care plan itself can more than be offset by additional growth.”
Updated
Jake Tapper, on pillory against people who oppose Isis:
That has never happened. In the history of the world.
Wow, @jaketapper has absolutely had it with @KatrinaPierson pic.twitter.com/O6EpjgpqDQ
— Matt Wilstein (@TheMattWilstein) September 13, 2016
DNC chair pins latest leak on Russia acting in Donald Trump's interests
The Democratic National Committee has released a statement in response to the latest release of documents obtained via a hack of its databases, drawing a connection between the likely perpetrators of the cyberattack and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“The DNC is the victim of a crime - an illegal cyberattack by Russian state-sponsored agents who seek to harm the Democratic party and progressive groups in an effort to influence the presidential election,” said interim party chair Donna Brazile in a statement released this evening.
“There’s one person who stands to benefit from these criminal acts, and that’s Donald Trump,” Brazile continued. “Not only has Trump embraced Putin, he publicly encouraged further Russian espionage to help his campaign. Like so many of the words Trump has uttered this election season, his statements encouraging cybercrime are dangerous, divisive and unprecedented.”
Brazile said that the DNC anticipated that more documents “stolen by Russian agents” would be released, and pledged to continue beefing up the party’s cybersecurity efforts in the wake of the hacks.
“The DNC takes cybersecurity and privacy very seriously,” Brazile said. “We will continue working to strengthen the security of our information and to cooperate with law enforcement authorities so that those responsible for this crime can be held accountable.”
The Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui has more on President Barack Obama’s first solo campaign appearance:
Barack Obama marked his first solo campaign appearance this cycle by accusing Republicans of fanning the flames of “anger and hate” while dubbing Donald Trump’s entire persona as counter to the values of the nation he has led for eight years.
“What we’ve seen from the other side in this election, this isn’t Abraham Lincoln’s Republican party. This isn’t even the vision of freedom that Ronald Reagan talked about,” Obama told thousands of supporters in Philadelphia on Tuesday, adding that Trump was offering “a dark, pessimistic vision of a country where we turn against each other, we turn away from the rest of the world”.
“They’re not offering serious solutions. They’re just fanning resentment and blame and anger and hate. And that is not the America we know. That’s not the America I know.”
With Hillary Clinton sidelined this week while recovering from pneumonia, Obama reinforced many of themes the Democratic nominee has made central to her campaign. In particular, the president ridiculed Trump’s professions of admiration toward Vladimir Putin.
Recounting how Trump appeared on the Kremlin-backed television network RT “to talk down our military and to curry favor” with the Russian president, Obama added incredulously: “He loves this guy.”
“Can you imagine Ronald Reagan idolizing somebody like that? Think about the fact that that is Donald Trump’s role model.”
“I have to do business with Putin, I have to do business with Russia, that’s part of foreign policy,” he added, “but I don’t go around saying that’s my role model.”
Donald Trump will appear on Sean Hannity’s pressure-cooker for an interview tonight:
TONIGHT on #Hannity: @realDonaldTrump talks Hillary’s health, new attacks and campaign strategy. Tune in at 10p ET. pic.twitter.com/t25JVwVmXA
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 13, 2016
Donald Trump, on Ivanka Trump’s family policy:
Daddy, daddy, we have to do this.
Illinois senator and #NeverTrump Republican Mark Kirk, locked in a tight race with congresswoman Tammy Duckworth for his seat in the US Senate, has released a Spanish-language advertisement aimed at Latino voters in the hopes of further distancing himself from his party’s presidential candidate.
In the advertisement - titled Su Senador, or Your Senator - Kirk tells Spanish-speaking Illinois voters that “Yo no apoyo a Trump,” or “I do not support Trump” in English, and that he has spoken out against the candidate’s invective against a Latino federal judge: “Ni puedo appear ni apoyar Donald Trump.”
Kirk learned Spanish as a college student studying abroad in Mexico, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Donald Trump plans to pitch himself as champion for women
As Hillary Clinton’s absence from the campaign trail continues, Donald Trump is attempting to use the opportunity to recast himself as a champion for working women, the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs and Dan Roberts in Washington and Sabrina Siddiqui in Philadelphia:
But the Republican presidential candidate’s new pitch comes as Barack Obama,who is as popular as he has been since 2009, hit the campaign trail on behalf of his former secretary of state.
Trump will unveil his plans for government tax subsidies for childcare on Tuesday alongside his daughter Ivanka. Trump’s plan would allow childcare expenses to be tax-deductible for all individuals making under $250,000, up to the average cost of childcare in that person’s state, as well as expanding rebates for those who do not pay income taxes, through the earned income tax credit. His campaign declined to explain how this would be paid for, saying only that it would be part of a comprehensive tax reform and economic plan which would be revenue neutral.
The campaign also said Trump would announce a program to provide mothers with six weeks of paid maternity leave. The paid leave, which would provide these mothers unemployment insurance for six weeks as opposed to paying them their salaries, would be funded by reducing fraud in the current unemployment insurance program, the campaign said.
Trump already has promised a significant tax cut as well as major increases in defense and infrastructure spending on the campaign trail without cutting spending on entitlements such as social security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Clinton unveiled a plan for universal preschool with increased federal funding in June 2015.
In a rally in Iowa this afternoon, Trump told the crowd: “It’s almost like, I was thinking about it in the last couple of weeks in particular, they want these other countries to do so well ... because nobody can make deals that badly.”
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has issued the political communications equivalent of an eyeroll in response to reports that Ivanka Trump will join her father, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, at a campaign event in Pennsylvania this evening to detail his plans to expand paid parental leave for new mothers.
“After spending his entire career - and this entire campaign - demeaning women and dismissing the need to support working families, Donald Trump released a regressive and insufficient ‘maternity leave’ policy that is out-of-touch, half-baked and ignores the way Americans live and work today,” said policy aide Maya Harris. “The lack of seriousness of this proposal is no surprise given his history of disrespecting women in the workplace and the fact there’s no evidence he ever provided paid family leave or childcare to his own employees.”
Trump will unveil his plans for government tax subsidies for childcare on Tuesday alongside his daughter Ivanka, as he attempts to claw back a historic poll deficit among white college educated women. Although his Republican predecessor Mitt Romney won that demographic by six points in 2012, Trump now trails Clinton by a margin of 50-40 points with this group, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll.
Trump’s plan would allow childcare expenses to be tax-deductible for all individuals making under $250,000, up to the average cost of childcare in that person’s state, as well as expanding rebates for those who do not pay income taxes, through the earned income tax credit (EITC). His campaign declined to explain how this would be paid for, saying only that it would be part of a comprehensive tax reform and economic plan which would be revenue neutral.
The campaign also said Trump would announce a program to provide mothers with six weeks of paid maternity leave. The paid leave, which would provide these mothers unemployment insurance for six weeks as opposed to paying them their salaries, would be funded by reducing fraud in the current unemployment insurance program, the campaign said.
This digital billboard, to be displayed in New York City’s Times Square - not exactly a swing district - depicts Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as a trademark-skirting superhero known as “Super Trump.”
The advertisement, paid for by informal advisor and Guardian reader Roger Stone, will be played on a 55-foot billboard in Times Square.
Donald Trump has finished speaking outside Des Moines. He told people to vote – but did not remind them how:
Trump ends w message to vote Nov 8; Obama ended w message to register to vote by Oct. 11 (Penn) and gave website to do so
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) September 13, 2016
Subtle but this is a very tangible difference between a real campaign and Trump's. https://t.co/7g5w8QAIfW
— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) September 13, 2016
“I need you,” Obama says. “Let’s get busy, let’s get to work.”
He taps the mic. And there is a lot of applause.
Obama: 'Hillary Clinton is steady. And she is true'
We always like the new shiny thing. I benefitted from that when I was a candidate. We take for granted what is steady and what is true. And Hillary Clinton is steady. And she is true.
Obama addresses young people: “You may not remember ... all the good that has come from her efforts …but you need to remember ... if you’re serious about our democracy, you’ve got to be with her. She’s in the arena, and you can’t leave her in there by herself. You’ve got to get in there.
“This is not reality TV. Democracy is not a spectator sport. You don’t tweet in your vote. America is not about maybe he will, it’s about yes we can.
“The time has come for me to pass the baton on, but I know that Hillary’s going to take it ... and she’s going to win that race...
“I need you to work as hard for Hillary as you did for me.”
Updated
Obama slams press for 'frivolous' coverage
We cannot take this election for granted. We’ve got to fight for this thing.
Then he says a lot in the campaign coverage is frivolous:
I sure do get frustrated with the way this campaign is covered. I’m just telling the truth. .. Do you mind if I just vent for a second?
You don’t grade the presidency on a curve. This is serious business. And when we see folks talking about transparency ... you’ve got one candidate in this race who’s released decades worth of her tax returns. The other candidate is the first in decades who refuses to release any at all.
You want to debate foundations?
Obama says Trump’s foundation “took money other people gave to charity and then bought a six-foot-tall painting of himself. He had the taste not to go for the 10-foot version, but...”
That gets laughs.
He says Trump is not qualified in any way. He “says stuff every day that used to be considered disqualifying ... and yet because he says it over and over and over again, the press just gives up,” Obama says.
Obama says that on Trump’s claims to have opposed the Iraq invasion, despite the fact that he favored the invasion at first, the media lets it go – “they just accept it.”
Matt Lauer. But not many others.
Updated
Obama urges the audience to vote.
“We can fix our broken immigration system. But we can’t keep sending Republicans to Congress who stand in the way.”
“We can keep making progress against climate change ... this is not some liberal plot, it’s a problem. But we’ve got to vote for people who understand that it’s real.”
Obama says Clinton has “real plans.”
“Just remember that for months now, the Republicans in the senate have refused to do their job and fill the vacant seat on the supreme court.. they want to see Donald Trump fill it, with someone who sees the world as he does. Imagine that. Who would that person be.”
The court makes decisions “from a woman’s right to choose to your right to vote,” he says.
Updated
Obama: Clinton 'knows that love trumps hate'
Clinton “knows that love trumps hate,” Obama says.
“These days our politics doesn’t always lend itself to our ideals,” Obama says.
“But I promise you, when we stay at it, progress does happen. And if you don’t believe it, ask the 20 million who have healthcare.
We’ve got somebody who fainted. This is what happens. They’ll be OK. Just give them a little room. Everybody bend their knees one time ... Drink some water. I love you too but bend your knees.
Anybody have a fainting joke?
Updated
Obama says Putin is Trump's 'role model'
Obama hits Trump for his Putin love:
Then you’ve got the Donald, who just last week went on Russian state television to talk down our military and to curry favor with Vladimir Putin.
He loves this guy.. think of what’s happened to the Republican party. They used to be opposed to Russia ... and now their nominee is out there praising a guy, saying he’s a strong leader because he invades smaller countries ... and drives his economy into depression..
Think about this.
‘He’s a strong guy. Look he’s got an 82% poll rating.’ Look, Saddam Hussein had a 90% poll rating. ... When you jail dissidents, that’s what happens. ..
Think about the fact that that is Donald Trump’s role model. I have to do business with Putin.. but I don’t go around saying that’s my role model. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan praising somebody like that? He saw America as a shining city on a hill. Donald Trump calls it a divided crime scene.
Updated
Obama says Trump is fake working class hero
She doesn’t quit. That’s the Hillary I know. That’s why I want her elected.
I believe there’s never been a man or woman more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as our president.
Obama says Clinton has specific plans to address Americans’ concerns. “And I know that these days in campaigns the plans sometimes get ignored ... and then there’s the other guy. Donald Trump.”
Boos.
“Don’t boo. Vote. Don’t boo. Vote. Booing is easy. I need you to vote.
“He’s not really a plans guy, a fact guy. He calls himself a business guy. But America’s got a lot of businessmen and women who succeeded without hiding their tax returns or leaving a trail of lawsuits...
Then Obama nails Trump for faux working-class solidarity:
I keep reading, well Trump’s got support from working folks. Really? This is the guy you want representing working people?
He spent most of his life trying to stay as far away from worknig people as he could...
He wasn’t going to let you on his golf course. He wasn’t going to let you buy in his condo. And this guy’s going to be your champion?
Updated
Obama: 'closest you can come' to presidency is 'where Hillary's been'
Obama says he fought hard against Clinton. “I was going up the Rocky steps. And I turned around, and she was right there. She’s tough.”
He talks about working with Clinton for four years, effusively praising her hard work, “tirelessly flying around the world again and again, I don’t know how many times she lapped the world.”
“If there’s one thing I can tell you Philadelphia, nobody fully understand the demands of my job ... before you can sit behind that desk.”
He’s interrupted by chant of Thank you! Thank you!
“I’m not finished yet,” he says. “I got a few more months.” He’s applauded.
What you come to realize when you’re in this job is, anybody can pop off, anybody can fire off a tweet ... but you don’t know what it’s like to manage a global crisis ... but the closest you can come to understanding what it’s like is to be where Hillary’s been.
Updated
Obama:
Can I just say, I am really into electing Hillary Clinton. This is not just me going through the motions here. I really, really, really want to elect HIllary Clinton.
“There is just one candidate in this race who has devoted her life to building that America ... a leader who’s got real plans to break down barriers and through glass ceilings ... the next president of the United State of America, Hillary Clinton.”
Obama spurs a “Hillary! Hillary!” chant.
Updated
Obama says he’s traveled a lot and there are many things across the land that are good and right.
“Most of all, I see this younger generation that is so full of energy and ideas,” he says.
A very sunny address from the president.
Obama: 'This isn’t Abraham Lincoln’s Republican party'
Obama:
What we’ve seen from the other side in this election, this isn’t Abraham Lincoln’s Republican party. This isn’t even Ronald Reagan’s vision ... this is a dark, pessimistic vision, of a country where we turn against each other, we turn away from the rest of the world..
They’re just fanning resentment, and blame, and anger, and hate.
Updated
Obama: 'Thanks Obama'
Someone in the crowd interrupts Obama’s list of good stuff to yell out that gas is only $2 a gallon.
Obama:
And gas is $2 a gallon! Thank you for reminding me. Thanks Obama!
Obama touts the Census bureau report showing record rising incomes in 2015:
There was a new report out just today showing that last year across every age, every race in America, incomes rose and the poverty rate fell.
Meanwhile Rudy Giuliani has just taken the stage at the Trump event. Scroll back for that live stream if you’d like to switch.
Obama:
“In election season, you will often hear crazy stuff. I’ve got to say, in this election, you’ve been hearing a little more crazy than usual.”
But he remains optimistic about America’s prospects, he says.
Updated
The crowd is screaming “we love you.” He says “I love you too.” He used to say “I love you back.” Flip-flop.
Obama: I could not be prouder of the leader that we have nominated to take my place... I am going to work as hard as I can this fall to elect Hillary Clinton as the next president.
Updated
Obama lists every elected official in Pennsylvania. All the Democrats anyhow.
He singles out senate candidate Katie McGinty:
“This is a special woman, she’s going to do a great job.”
Obama: It is good to be back on the campaign trail.
Cheers.
I know I’m not the first person from the White House to come to Philly this week. Some of you may have seen Joe Biden at the Eagles game.
But Obama is a Bears fan.
Updated
Obama: Hello Philly!
Great line. Wild applause and they start chanting his name. Is this guy good or what.
Here’s Obama:
Donald Trump is running behind schedule for his appearance outside Des Moines, Iowa. And we’re waiting for Barack Obama to appear onstage in Philadelphia. He’s being introduced now.
Will we have to listen to them simultaneously? Here’s the Trump video stream:
US senate candidate Katie McGinty, who has improved on the stump since we saw her at the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia, is warming up the crowd for Barack Obama in Philadelphia.
Obama’s scheduled to speak in a half hour. Here’s a live video stream:
Today, while HRC is down: POTUS in PA; Bill Clinton in CA; Kaine in MI; Chelsea in NC; Anne Holton in Fl.
— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) September 13, 2016
"The Trump-Toomey ticket's been dragging us down, not lifting us up," Katie McGinty says at Obama's HRC rally in Philadelphia. #pasen
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) September 13, 2016
Updated
The wife of Republican US Representative Charles Boustany is defending him against prostitution allegations raised in a new book, describing “false attacks” that she says are aimed at disrupting his bid for a US Senate seat in Louisiana, the AP reports.
Meanwhile, one of Boustany’s Republican rivals in the race, state treasurer John Kennedy, wants everyone to know that his campaign “played absolutely no role in creating this story alleging Congressman Boustany’s sexual relationships with prostitutes that were later murdered”:
Now this is a tour-de-force denial, from the John Kennedy for Senate campaign in Louisiana > pic.twitter.com/NUuDgQTxcC
— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) September 13, 2016
Conway on Trump's 'audit': 'are you calling him a liar?'
Donald Trump has said he cannot release his tax returns because he is under audit. His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was asked on CNN whether Trump would provide a letter from the IRS proving he is under audit.
“Are you calling him a liar?” Conway responds.
Yes? As in, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes? We have a weekly series devoted to Trump’s lies.
Would Trump release a letter from the IRS, proving that was so?
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) September 13, 2016
"Are you calling him a liar?" Conway asked.
Um....https://t.co/rfWmvk1OXa
Republicans rally 'round Trump
Sensing a shift in momentum, senior Republicans are now rallying around Donald Trump, despite lingering accusations of racism that once embarrassed many, writes Guardian Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts:
After meeting party leaders in Washington, vice presidential candidate Mike Pence sought to put past splits behind them and insisted there was “consistency between Donald Trump’s vision... and the agenda of House Republicans”.
“You are going to have, in a majority party, occasional differences of opinion, but our goals are the same,” he told reporters in the lobby of the Republican National Committee headquarters.
“We feel the wind at our backs,” added House speaker Paul Ryan. “We are offering an agenda to show how we can get this country back on top”
Standing beneath a portrait of Abraham Lincoln and campaign memorabilia dating back to Eisenhower, Pence was nonetheless challenged to explain why he had refused to join Democrats in calling former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke “deplorable”.
“I am not in the name calling business... I am not going to validate the language that Hillary Clinton used,” said Pence. “Hillary Clinton was not talking about that bad man; she was talking about people all across this country who are coming out in record numbers to stand with Donald Trump.”
“I would draw no more conclusion from that man’s expressions of support than I would the fact that the father of a terrorist who killed 49 Americans was seen at a Hillary Clinton rally cheering her on,” added the Indiana governor.
Updated
Obama to speak at afternoon Clinton rally
Barack Obama plans to speak on behalf of Hillary Clinton at a rally in Philadelphia to begin around 2pm. The Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui is there:
Spotted at President Obama's first solo rally for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia: pic.twitter.com/RjGFFK2rtG
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) September 13, 2016
Surpreme court refuses request to restore week of early voting in Ohio
The supreme court on Tuesday refused a request to restore a week of early voting in swing-state Ohio, the AP reports:
The state’s Democratic Party had asked the high court to suspend a ruling that allowed for the cut while Democrats and other plaintiffs appealed the issue.
A lower court decision from last month upheld a law eliminating days in which people could register and vote at the same time, a period known as golden week.
Democrats had claimed the reduction, along with other voting changes, disproportionately burdened black voters and those who lean Democratic.
Early voting by mail has already begun in North Carolina:
.@ElectProject just dropped my voted NC ballot off at @WakeElections counter pic.twitter.com/Guk6Iu1Sbz
— Gerry Cohen (@gercohen) September 13, 2016
This is the most reliable way to cast a mail ballot: give it to election officials so they can check it is valid https://t.co/N5U0ENpjrz
— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) September 13, 2016
Here’s some background on early voting via Bloomberg:
Thirty-seven states have laws allowing people to cast absentee ballots without an excuse, or in person, before Election Day on Nov. 8. North Carolina is the first state to start voting when it began mailing out absentee ballots on Friday and—voters there can also vote in person starting Oct. 20—Alabama does so later this week. Minnesota will kick off early in-person voting Sept. 23. [...]
Early voters will make up more than half of the electorate in the crucial states of North Carolina, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, according to projections from the Associated Press. In 2012, 35 percent of voters did so through either absentee ballots or by casting in person votes prior to the general election, the organization reported.
Updated
Clinton to return to trail Friday - report
After four days’ down time, Hillary Clinton is scheduled to return to the campaign trail on Friday, MSNBC reported.
That would make for 10 days’ campaigning for Clinton before the first presidential debate on 26 September.
Clinton is scheduled to appear at a “Black Women’s Agenda” event in Washington Friday.
Campaign accuses media of 'badgering' on Trump charity claims
With pressure growing on Donald Trump to back up his claims of having given millions to charity – “tens of millions,” his running mate says – in the face of a juggernaut Washington Post investigation that has exposed one after another of those claims as likely lies, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday accused the press of “badgering.”
“This is like badgering,” Conway said on CNN. “In other words, I don’t see it as journalism. I see it as badgering. In other words, we’ve had this conversation so many different times on so many different networks...”
The “conversation” has amounted to Trump surrogates or the candidate himself asserting that he has given to charity and then refusing to reply to reporting indicating that he has not.
Here’s the latest Washington Post report on hundreds of charity organizations Trump claims to have given to denying that he had personally donated. And here is an explosive report on how Trump uses his foundation to give away other people’s money – without apparently giving away any of his own.
Conway denied that account in her CNN interview, asserting counterfactually that the foundation’s money “is his money.”
David Fahrenthold, the driving force behind the charity scam story, asks for more information about that:
This is good news. @KellyannePolls, can you tell us more abt when @realDonaldTrump gave his own $, and to whom? https://t.co/fn6VzXokaU
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) September 13, 2016
Since '06, @realdonaldtrump has provided just 0.7% of the $ coming into Trump Fdn, tax records show. Since '08, 0%. https://t.co/aQ252gTljM
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) September 13, 2016
Later in the same interview, Conway asserted that Trump is generous for having “employed tens of thousands of people from many different countries.”
The Clinton campaign features Fahrenthold’s reporting in a section of its web site devoted to questions about the Trump foundation:
7 questions we have about the Trump Foundation (and how Donald used it to stop investigations into his fraud): https://t.co/3YdytDZDek
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 13, 2016
After @Fahrenthold's reports, Trump should not be allowed to get away with continued stonewalling on his supposed charitable contributions.
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) September 12, 2016
(transcript h/t: @sopandeb)
At least after the election we can go back to being one country
HuffPost on one side, Drudge on the other pic.twitter.com/lsizjNOOLX
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 13, 2016
Household incomes notch fastest growth on record – Census bureau
The US Census bureau has just released a report on Income and Poverty in the United States in 2015.
Among the findings is this good news: real median household income rose 5.2% in 2015. That’s the fastest growth on record.
Real median household income rose $2800 in 2015 to $56,500, a robust rise of 5.2%. Middle class incomes are growing! pic.twitter.com/9piFRLF5GR
— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) September 13, 2016
Maybe that’s why Barack Obama’s latest approval rating is 58%. The economic fundamentals continue to be rosy for Hillary Clinton.
Updated
Pence is asked about his unwillingness to call KKK leader David Duke “deplorable.” He confirms he is unwilling to say that. “I don’t know why this man’s name keeps coming up,” he says.
It’s because Duke is an outspoken supporter of Trump who Trump has pretended not to have heard of and was slow to disavow, as if Trump does not mind the support of like-minded voters.
“The simple fact is that I’m not in the name-calling business,” Pence says. “.. I believe that civility is essential in a vibrant democracy.. but I’m also not going to validate the language that Hillary Clinton used to describe the American people.
“Hillary Clinton wasn’t talking about that bad man. She was talking about people all across this country who are coming out in record numbers....
“I would draw no more conclusions from that man’s expression of support” than the father of the Orlando nightclub shooter cheering Clinton, Pence says.
“I would submit to you this is all a distraction. Forget it. I understand why Hillary Clinton and her campaign want to change the subject after that speech Friday night.”
He calls Clinton’s words “a catastrophic insult” to the American people.
Pence refuses to call David Duke deplorable standing in front of the House Republican leadership. What do they think about David Duke?
Pence is now hitting on “basket of deplorables” and “irredeemable.”
“Frankly, I’ve ever heard a major party candidate in the United States speak about the American people with such contempt.”
“The people who are supporting this campaign are hard-working Americans... They’re people that work with their hands. They’re veterans...
“For Hillary CLinton to express such disdain for millions of Americans is one more reason that disqualifies her.. anyone who has that low opinion of Americans does not deserve to be president...
“[Trump’s] ambition is to be president for all the United States of America.” Including Judge Gonzalo Curiel? Ghazala Khan?
House speaker Paul Ryan is holding a news conference with Trump running mate Mike Pence, following a meeting of House Republicans. Ryan says Pence is fighting to get the country back on track.
Now Pence speaks. He says it’s a great privilege to be back on Capitol Hill (he was a congressman for 12 years). He says he and Donald are grateful for all the support from Capitol Hill. He thanks Ryan in particular. “His better way so aligns with Donald Trump’s vision to make America great again,” Pence says.
Trump is supposed to call for six weeks paid maternity leave in his event with Ivanka Trump this evening. Can’t remember Paul Ryan calling for that.
Update: Trump will not call for full pay for six weeks during maternity leave, CNN reports, but ... unemployment benefits? We’ll get you more about that.
Important note on Trump's 6-week maternity leave plan: it's NOT full paid maternity leave. It's a safety net: 6 weeks unemployment benefits
— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) September 13, 2016
Updated
Pence 'praying' for Clinton
Donald Trump’s running mate told House Republicans this morning that he’s “praying for” Hillary Clinton’s recovery, the Associated Press reports, quoting a congressman who was there:
"We are praying for her recovery" Mike Pence told House R's this morning re Hillary - per Rep Womack
— Erica Werner (@ericawerner) September 13, 2016
Trump takes cholesterol drug, Fox says
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is scheduled to discuss his health on Thursday in a television appearance with Dr Oz, a TV doc whose peers have diagnosed in him “an egregious lack of integrity”.
Update:
Dr. Oz on his upcoming Trump interview: “I’m not going to ask him questions he doesn’t want to have answered” https://t.co/J8zV8P5173
— Zack Stanton (@zackstanton) September 13, 2016
But Fox News appears to have had an preview look of some kind at Trump’s medical status. In a conversation this morning on Fox and Friends – the show that used to include host Gretchen Carlson, whose sexual harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes sent Ailes running from Fox to the warm embrace of the Trump campaign – the hosts talked about how “on Thursday Donald Trump’s physical specimen will be revealed.”
“He does take Lipitor. We know that,” said one host. “And he has low blood pressure not high blood pressure”:
Fox hosts say Dr. Oz told them HE will see Trump's medical records before Trump & will reveal them to Trump on air: pic.twitter.com/ucBXtxe1Zv
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 13, 2016
Here’s our further coverage of what Trump has said about what he will say about his health this week. Does anyone thing he will make a substantive disclosure?
Updated
Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Ivanka Trump will join her father, Donald, this evening at a rally in a Philadelphia suburb to talk about child care costs. (For example, how expensive is it to get a babysitter on a Sunday when you are at the US Open tennis finals with David Geffen and Wendi Deng Murdoch, you hear me Philly?) Trump – Donald – has an earlier event in a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa.
Hillary Clinton, who has been diagnosed with pneumonia, will spend the day at home in Chappaqua, New York, recuperating. She won’t return to the trail until Thursday at the earliest, according to campaign sources quoted in the New York Times.
Trump rally violence
A Donald Trump rally in Asheville, North Carolina turned violent Monday night, with multiple physical confrontations between Trump supporters and security staff and non-Trump supporters. It was the first outbreak of violence at a Trump rally since the primary season, when this sort of thing was de rigueur:
VIDEO: Trump security guy Eddie Deck confronts a protestor tonight: "You're going to go, too, in 2 fucking seconds." https://t.co/iZ1Y5Z2pb6
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) September 13, 2016
Clinton responds to ‘deplorables’ ad
The Clinton campaign has produced a new ad replying to Trump’s attack over Clinton’s accusation that half his supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables,” a characterization Trump says exposed Clinton’s “low opinion” of voters.
The Clinton ad argues that it is Trump who has a low opinion of voters. It deploys his own words against him:
Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, declined to call David Duke, the KKK leader, “deplorable” on CNN last night. The Trump campaign may have branded Clinton “Crooked Hillary”, but Pence says he’s not into name-calling:
Mike Pence just refused to call David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK, "deplorable": pic.twitter.com/Trb2wIftW1
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) September 12, 2016
If you won’t say the KKK is deplorable, you have no business running the country. https://t.co/mFut8Qrz9A
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 12, 2016
Refusing to call David Duke "deplorable" because you're not into "name-calling" seems like political correctness run amok.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 12, 2016
Clinton: ‘I should have gotten some rest sooner’
Clinton told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday that she did not faint after she left a 9/11 memorial event early on Sunday, and that “I’m feeling so much better, and obviously I should have gotten some rest sooner.
“Like a lot of people I thought I could just keep going forward and power through it, and obviously that didn’t work out so well,” Clinton said. “I just didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal ... It’s really past time for him to be held to the same standards.”
Bill Clinton: wife ‘frequently’ – er, ‘rarely’ – dehydrated
But Bill Clinton told Charlie Rose that his wife had “frequently” had such episodes, before correcting himself and saying “rarely”:
Frequently ... not frequently. Rarely, but on more than one occasion over the last many many years, the same sort of thing’s happened to her, when she just got severely dehydrated. And she’s working like a demon, as you know.
Campaign insists Trump has donated to charity
Elsewhere, the Trump campaign continues to assert that the candidate has given millions to charity, despite exhaustive reporting by the Washington Post indicating he has not. Getting at the truth behind this essential bit of Trump’s personal mythology is one of many reasons the calls for him to release his tax returns have been intensifying:
This continues to be the best show on twitter >>https://t.co/0fqLwuDVZ3
— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) September 13, 2016
Odd. @realDonaldTrump Spox calls our story "not at all accurate" w/out citing anything wrong. I sent back these Q's. pic.twitter.com/DZIbRfaIaM
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) September 12, 2016
Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
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