Today in Campaign 2016
- Donald Trump’s campaign chair in a prominent Ohio county has claimed there was “no racism” during the 1960s and said black people who have not succeeded over the past half-century only have themselves to blame. Kathy Miller, who is white and chair of the Republican nominee’s campaign in Mahoning County, made the remarks during a taped interview with the Guardian’s Anywhere but Washington series of election videos.
- “If you’re black and you haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault. You’ve had every opportunity, it was given to you,” Miller said.
- She later resigned.
- A few days before she faces Donald Trump in the first of the presidential debates, Hillary Clinton took the hot seat on on Zach Galifianakis’s Funny or Die web series Between Two Ferns. Galifianakis, reprising his dim and politically incorrect alter ego from previous episodes, opens by asking Clinton whether she was excited to be the first “girl president”, then follows up by reminding her that “for a younger, younger generation you will also become their first white president, so that’s pretty cool, too.”
- He also described Clinton’s style as that of a “librarian from outer space.”
- Trump suggested tonight that Hillary Clinton bears responsibility for unrest that has followed police shootings of African Americans, saying she has “supported with a nod” the idea “that cops are a racist force to our society”.
- Clinton “shares directly in with the responsibility for the unrest that is afflicting our country,” Trump told a crowd of several thousand in suburban Philadelphia, while the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, braced for a third night of protests following a fatal police shooting of a black man.“Rioting in the streets is a threat to all peaceful citizens and it must be ended and it must be ended now,” Trump told to the almost entirely white crowd. The Republican nominee dismissed a brief protest against him as the result of a few “violent disrupters” and pledged: “I am with you and I will fight for you” to “law abiding African Americans”.
- A child’s letter to Barack Obama asking for a young Syrian refugee to be resettled in his home has gone viral and been praised by the US president at the United Nations. “Remember the boy who was picked up by the ambulance in Syria? Can you please go get him and bring him to my home?” the letter from six-year-old Alex of Scarsdale, New York, began. “Park in the driveway or on the street and we will be waiting for you guys with flags, flowers, and balloons.”
- The letter was referring to Omran Daqneesh, the five-year-old boy who was filmed sitting dazed, bloodied and covered in dust after being pulled from the rubble of his home in Aleppo, Syria, last month.
Also, this happened:
Trump is running for president to “show them all” after being humiliated at the WHCD in 2011, according to Omarosa. https://t.co/OiueLwoLaA
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) September 23, 2016
Donald Trump’s improbable journey from reality television fixture to Republican presidential nominee - stop and read those words aloud to yourself and you’ll see what we mean - began the night of the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, according to Frontline.
That night - President Barack Obama famously read him for filth after releasing his birth certificate, proving Trump’s longtime implication that he was not an American citizen to be a fraud - is when “Obama is starting something that I don’t know if he’ll be able to finish,” according to campaign advisor and former reality contestant Omarosa.
According to Omarosa, Trump’s campaign is a chance to “show them all” after being humiliated on the national stage.
“Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump,” Omarosa said. “It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”
Updated
The Guardian’s Joanna Walters has more on Anthony Weiner being investigated for allegedly sending sexually explicit texts to an underage girl:
Disgraced former US congressman Anthony Weiner is being investigated by the New York police department and also reportedly by the federal authorities after reports emerged that he was allegedly conducting an online sexual relationship with a 15-year-old in another state earlier this year.
Weiner, whose career previously nosedived after he was caught sending sexually explicit texts and images to women while he was still married, allegedly spent several months this year in highly explicit exchanges with the 15-year-old girl.
The former politician and failed New York mayoral candidate asked her to undress for him during a video call and engage in rape fantasies among a plethora of explicit exchanges that began in January 2016, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.
Weiner is still married to Huma Abedin, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s longtime aide and campaign vice-chairman, although the two are now separated.
A spokesman for the NYPD confirmed on Thursday afternoon that Weiner, 51, who lives in the city, was under investigation.
“We are aware of the allegations against him and we are looking into it,” the spokesman said, without releasing any further details.
The girl in question had given a lengthy interview, accompanied by her father, to the Daily Mail and provided pictures and other records of messages she says she exchanged with Weiner.
Nigel Farage calls Hillary Clinton 'a truly awful candidate'
Former Ukip chief Nigel Farage, who has swapped a career engineering the United Kingdom’s exit from politico-economic unions to supporting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, told Lou Dobbs tonight that he thinks Hillary Clinton is the worst candidate he’s ever seen.
“I was always told that it was a very good thing in life to be judged by your enemies, and if Mrs. Clinton is now my avowed, sworn enemy, I must be getting something right,” Farage told the Fox Business anchor, launching into a critique of “political elites” that has made him a favorite of Trump’s.
Clinton “represents a kind of politics,” Farage said, “that pretends at election time that it represents ordinary folk and their aspirations, but actually is about self. So I think that Hillary Clinton is a truly awful candidate - frankly, I think, the worst I have ever seen in the States. And if she were to win this presidency, all the same bad old things would just continue.”
The anti-EU British politician and former Ukip leader has not officially endorsed Trump formally, but a recent appearance at a Trump rally in Jackson, Mississippi, left little doubt about the anti-establishment Farage’s stance on the American presidential election.
“We reached those people who have never voted in their lives but believed by going out and voting for Brexit they could take back control of their country, take back control of their borders and get back their pride and self-respect,” Farage said at the time of the successful campaign to separate the UK from the European Union, calling Trump, like Brexit, “for the little people, for the real people.”
Two-term North Carolina congressman Robert Pittenger has apologized for telling the BBC today that civil unrest in Charlotte, North Carolina, after the shooting of 43-year-old Keith Scott is due to jealousy.
“They hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not,” Pittenger said at the time.
“What is taking place in my hometown right now breaks my heart,” Pittenger said in a statement after his comments were condemned by both Republicans and Democrats. “My anguish led me to respond to a reporter’s question in a way that I regret. The answer doesn’t reflect who I am. I was quoting statements made by angry protesters last night on national TV. My intent was to discuss the lack of economic mobility for African americans because of failed policies. I apologize to those I offended and hope that we can bring peace and calm to Charlotte.”
Donald Trump's private airline pockets $1.6m from Secret Service
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has benefitted from campaign expenditures at his hotels, clubs and other corporations to the tune of $8m over the course of his presidential campaign, but a new analysis of campaign finance information from Politico shows that his business empire is now making money off of more than his donors - they’re profiting from American taxpayers, as well.
FEC filings show that the Secret Service, tasked with protecting Trump and his family since November of last year, has paid $1.6m to Trump’s private airline to compensate for the cost of flying its agents on his plane since his protection began. The agency typically makes such reimbursements to campaigns, but those expenses are traditionally paid to third-party airlines and aviation providers, not to the candidate’s company itself.
The Secret Service has reimbursed Hillary Clinton’s campaign to the tune of $2.6m, for example - but Clinton’s planes are chartered from a third-party company that Clinton has no financial stake in, unlike Trump’s TAG Air, Inc., which is owned by the candidate.
Donald Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Chester, Pennsylvania, tells the audience that he is the only candidate who will be able to steer the American economy.
“If Hillary Clinton gets in, here’s your chances of recovery: zero, zero zero,” Trump said. “Jobs are going to come flowing back to America. It used to be that cars were made in Flint, and you couldn’t drink the water. Cars were made in Flint and you couldn’t make the water where? Mexico!”
“And now, it’s very sad. Today the cars are made in Mexico, and you can’t drink the water in Flint! How bad! How bad is it, though? How sad!”
Donald Trump, on African American voters:
Clinton doesn’t want to hear their voices, she doesn’t want to hear their voices, so I will be their voice - I will be the voice for all forgotten Americans in this country. I will be your voice.
Speaking to supporters at a rally in Chester, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump emphasized “safety” as a key part of his plan to “make America great again.”
“People are starting to get nervous, folks!” Trump said. “We’re going to win the White House - we’re going to take it back!”
“We’re going to make America safe again,” Trump told the cheering crowd. “The rioting in our streets is a threat to all peaceful citizens, and it must be ended, and ended now.”
“The main victims of these violent demonstrations are law-abiding African Americans who live in these communities and only want to raise their children in safety and peace and with a good education,” Trump said, of civil unrest in Charlotte, North Carolina, after the fatal shooting by police of an African American man. “And we’re gonna give that to them!”
“I am with you, and I will fight for you - I promise!”
Donald Trump campaigns in Chester, Pennsylvania
Watch it live here:
Donald Trump’s eldest son has reiterated the content of a tweet from earlier this week in which he declared that Muslim refugees rape European children on a daily basis.
The (false) claims were made in a Facebook Live interview with a Salt Lake City CBS affiliate, in which Donald Trump Jr. was asked to defend his father’s proposed ban on refugees from Syria and other Muslim countries.
“I think its an important thing, but I think we also have to be able to vet people who are coming in to our country,” Trump Jr. said, in response to concerns about his father’s proposal.
“If you look at what’s happened in Europe as it relates to the migrant flows, you know, and you’re hearing about young children being raped daily, and you’re looking at countries that were very good and peaceful countries, the statistics are going through the roof in terms of those kind of attacks - we just have to be intelligent with what we’re doing,” Trump Jr. continued.
Trump Jr. had tweeted a Breitbart News article from earlier in the week making similar claims of a “rape epidemic” following the admission of refugees from the Syrian civil war:
Europe’s Rape Epidemic: Western Women Will Be Sacrificed At The Altar Of Mass Migration https://t.co/BkguApQqvQ via @BreitbartNews
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 20, 2016
Donald Trump’s campaign has issued a statement attacking disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner for giving $550 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign:
The announcement by the FBI and New York Police Department that they are investigating close Clinton ally Anthony Weiner’s inappropriate relationship with an under-aged female is extremely disturbing. The Clinton campaign should immediately return all campaign contributions from Weiner. America has had enough of the sleaze that is Clinton, Inc.
Trump himself has donated a cumulative $4,750 to Weiner’s campaigns.
North Carolina congressman says Charlotte protestors 'hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not'
Two-term North Carolina congressman Robert Pittenger told the BBC today that civil unrest in Charlotte, North Carolina, after the shooting of 43-year-old Keith Scott is due to jealousy.
“They hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not,” Pittenger said.
Protesters in #Charlotte "hate white people" - North Carolina Congressman Pittenger tells #newsnight https://t.co/q6ELYD01QV
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) September 22, 2016
“The grievance in their minds – the animus, the anger – they hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not,” were the congressman’s exact words, blaming the so-called hatred, in part, on welfare.
“It is a welfare state. We have spent trillions of dollars on welfare, and we’ve put people in bondage, so they can’t be all they’re capable of being.”
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has announced the creation of a Catholic advisory council, geared at focusing on issues and policies important to Catholic voters.
“On the issues and policies of greatest concern to Catholics, Donald Trump will fight for Catholics whereas Hillary Clinton is openly hostile to those issue of greatest concern to Catholics and will attack the core teachings of the Catholic Church, and has worked against them as First Lady, as US Senator and as Secretary of State, and would continue to do so if she is elected President,” said congressman Sean Duffy.
Trump, who once engaged in a prolonged feud with Pope Francis, is currently supported by a mere 32% of American Catholics.
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs, documented the sartorial choices of Donald Trump’s most ardent fans in Chester, Pennsylvania:
Deplorable Lives Matter pic.twitter.com/NtvtGCdybm
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) September 22, 2016
Trump standing on a tank pic.twitter.com/I847n5i5ei
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) September 22, 2016
Make Spiders Radioactive Again pic.twitter.com/SORAdHV1p7
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) September 22, 2016
Anthony Weiner's cellular records subpoenaed by US attorney
Disgraced former congressman and onetime New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner’s cell phone records have been subpoenaed by US Attorney Preet Bharara’s office this afternoon, the Guardian has confirmed.
Weiner, the husband of longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, is the subject of preliminary investigations by the FBI and the New York Police Department after the Daily Mail reported that he had exchanged sexually explicit messages with an underage girl via various social media platforms.
Weiner was once seen as a rising star in the Democratic party, but his political future imploded after he was caught sending sexually explicit texts and images to young women while he was still married in multiple scandals that spanned years. The most recent chapter of the behavior led to Abedin announcing in August that she was separating from her husband after Weiner was revealed in another report to have sent another woman a provocative picture of himself in his underwear, with his young son next to him.
Weiner asked the underage girl to undress for him and engage in rape fantasies in a series of messages that began in January 2016, the Daily Mail reported.
Updated
Senate Democrats today called on Donald Trump to release his tax returns, saying the Republican nominee’s refusal to do so constituted evidence he was “ethically compromised” and perhaps unfit to serve as president.
Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader who in 2012 famously accused Mitt Romney of not having paid taxes for 10 years, said Trump was “misleading the American people” by bucking decades of tradition regarding the release of tax returns by presidential candidates.
“And that is a gross understatement,” Reid told reporters at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “The American people deserve and respect that any leader of the free world be transparent … but Trump doesn’t do it, because he doesn’t respect the office he is seeking or the American people.”
Trump has declined to release his tax returns, citing an audit by the Internal Revenue Service which in fact does not legally mean returns cannot be released.
Last week, his son Donald Trump Jr made a different excuse, saying releasing the documents would “distract” from the candidate’s message.
Senate Democrats are seeking to force Trump’s hand by pushing legislation that would require presidential nominees to release their tax returns.
Donald Trump blames Charlotte unrest on 'drugs'
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pointed to drugs as possible explanations for civil unrest in Charlotte, North Carolina, after police shot and killed 43-year-old Keith Scott, who was mistaken for a wanted man.
“If you’re not aware, drugs are a very, very big factor in what you’re watching on television,” Trump said in remarks to the Shale Insight Convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The remarks were ad-libbed during a longer section of Trump’s address in which he declared that his presidential administration would have “no compassion” for “lawless conduct.”
“Crime and violence is an attack on the poor, and will never be accepted in a Trump Administration,” Trump continued. “Our job is not to make life more comfortable for the violent disrupter, but to make life more comfortable for the African American parent trying to raise their kids in peace, to walk their children to school and to get their children a great education.”
When asked earlier this week how he would prevent violence in African American communities, Trump called for the national introduction of “stop and frisk,” a controversial police tactic ruled unconstitutional.
“I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to,” Trump said at a church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, on Wednesday. “We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically, you understand, you have to have, in my opinion, I see what’s going on here, I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk.”
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs is on the scene in Chester, Pennsylvania, ahead of Donald Trump’s upcoming rally:
This is not official campaign merchandise pic.twitter.com/ldjHZMtWRX
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) September 22, 2016
Mel Brooks, the veteran comedian and film director, received an honour from Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday and declined to comment on Donald Trump.
“I’m apolitical except for Obama,” Brooks, 90, whose films include Blazing Saddles and The Producers, told reporters after the ceremony. “I love him. Look at what he’s done since 2008 when we were literally floundering and bankrupt: he put America on its feet again. That’s his legacy. He got us up and running again as a country, even with the most incredibly hostile Congress that any president ever faced. He still did his job.”
Brooks, born when Calvin Coolidge was president, looked rueful at the prospect of Obama’s departure. “The only problem with losing him is that we don’t have him as president. Now, whoever we get I hope will take a leaf out of his book.”
Asked how he felt about a marine band at the White House playing “Springtime for Hitler” from The Producers, Brooks smiled: “That was pretty good.”
Springtime for Trump? “That’s your joke, not mine. I’m apolitical.”
Brooks was among winners of the 2015 national medals of the arts and humanities. At an unusually boisterous reception in the east room, Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, “believe that the arts and the humanities are, in many ways, reflective of our national soul”.
Then he continued: “As Mel Brooks once said to his writers on Blazing Saddles, which is a great film: ‘Write anything you want, because we’ll never be heard from again. We will all be arrested for this movie.’
“Now, to be fair, Mel also said, a little more eloquently, that, ‘Every human being has hundreds of separate people living inside his skin. And the talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living within him.’”
Other medal recipients included poet Louise Glück, composer Philip Glass and historian Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns, and celebrity chef José Andrés, who pulled out of Trump’s new Washington hotel over his anti-immigrant comments.
Obama added: “We also honour Wynton Marsalis, who unfortunately could not make it here today, and Morgan Freeman, who undoubtedly is off playing a black president again. He never lets me have my moment.”
Kansas congressman Tim Huelskamp is very upset with President Barack Obama for cracking a joke about Morgan Freeman playing an African American president the morning after civil unrest in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Obama jokes about race after two consecutive nights of hoodlums rioting in #Charlotte. Outrageous. https://t.co/QJgRyUP384
— Cong. Tim Huelskamp (@CongHuelskamp) September 22, 2016
The lame-duck Republican - he lost his primary last month - is referring to a joke the president made this morning about actor Freeman, “who undoubtedly is off playing a black president again. He never lets me have my moment.”
Six-term congressman and Donald Trump supporter Steve King called the Congressional Black Caucus the “self-segregating caucus” in a radio interview today,
The Iowa Republican criticized the caucus, an organization meant to represent African American members of Congress, for members who have labeled Trump a racist.
“And now we’ve got the Congressional Black Caucus here in Washington, DC, today will be leading a protest and they have declared Donald Trump to be a racist,” King told KVFD AM1400 radio in Iowa, first reported by Buzzfeed News. “Now, why are they the authority on that? I call them the self-segregating caucus, and so, they long ago moved away from the integration that we really need in this country.”
King, who serves on the House agriculture and judiciary committees, has been criticized for prior statements and actions relating to race. He has supported racial profiling for police, invoked President Barack Obama’s middle name – Hussein – as evidence that Islamic extremists would celebrate his election as president, and implied that fellow congressmen would not speak out against sharia law because of their Islamic faith.
King also displays a Confederate battle flag in his office, despite Iowa’s status as a Union state.
Most recently, King declared that white people have contributed more to the advancement of human civilization than any other “sub-group of people,” an incident he referred to separately in the interview.
“I think of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, when we had a story where I defended western civilization and a lady who was on the panel, I think her last name is Flynn, I think it’s April Flynn and she’s African-American,” King said.
“She approached me at the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame a day or two later, with her tape recorder — it was one of those things you call a media ambush — and so, she began to call me a racist,” King continued. “And I said, ‘use that word again, again, again, say it a million times. You’re devaluating the effect of it. You’ve got no basis of it because you’ve got more melanin in your skin does that give you the right to call me a racist?’”
Updated
It appears that the replacement campaign chair for Donald Trump in Mahoning County, Ohio (read about her predecessor) is getting down to some tweet-scrubbing for the occasion.
It’s hard to understand what’s going on with Tracey Winbush’s Twitter feed. Her last visible tweet, now, is from October 2015.
UPDATE: Whoops, about 600 tweets just disappeared. Her last visible tweet is from a half hour ago. Here it is:
Hello Twitter! #myfirstTweet
— Tracey Winbush (@traceywinbush) September 22, 2016
And yet her landing page says she has tweeted 12.5k times. But if she had tweeted thousands of times, why would she write Hello Twitter! #myfirstTweet. Strange.
.@traceywinbush, new @realDonaldTrump chairwoman in Mahoning County, dumping some tweets. pic.twitter.com/MtLxHDNQZS
— Jessie Balmert (@jbalmert) September 22, 2016
(A tip of the hat to @batterdippin)
Trump Jr: 'I'm not comparing someone to candy'
Donald Trump Jr takes a question about his tweet of earlier this week comparing Syrian refugees to Skittles. “I’m not comparing someone to candy,” he say. “It’s a statistical thing.” Then he mentions rape:
Trump Jr. "I'm not comparing someone to candy. It's a statistical thing." pic.twitter.com/n9AdzcXuHV
— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) September 22, 2016
More Trump Jr. on Skittles tweet: "I guess I'm a straight forward guy. I don't deal in micro aggression." pic.twitter.com/pwDozL975s
— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) September 22, 2016
Trump Jr. was in Boise for a fundraiser/to thank supporters. Joked to reporters that it was "nice to be in a state where we're up by 50."
— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) September 22, 2016
Updated
Trump Jr: releasing taxes would muddle message
Donald Trump Jr has once again admitted that his father is withholding his tax returns – in violation of precedent and the basic transparency Americans expect of candidates for the top job in government – out of political convenience.
The Trump campaign used to say Trump couldn’t release the returns because Trump is under audit.
BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski flags an interview with Trump Jr on the Doug Wright Show on KSL News Radio on Wednesday. Trump Jr does say that “we’ve been under audit for five years” before going into a discussion of the campaign’s message:
Who knows if that’s politically motivated or not, but our tax counsel, going through a 12,000-page tax return, has said they wouldn’t advise us to [release the returns]. It could create all sorts of other problems. I’m going to listen to them on that...
What we want to do is keep the message on point... We’ve seen how viral that craziness goes. We want to keep on point.
Trump Jr: “A Lot In A 12,000-Page Tax Return That Wouldn’t Make Sense To Open Up” https://t.co/yC0gqwHqFs
— andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) September 22, 2016
Candidates prepare for debate
Each presidential debate is different, and every candidate prepares differently. Former Obama staffer David Plouffe this morning tweeted a picture of the president yukking it up with staff before the third debate in 2012:
Always better to enter a Presidential debate loose and confident. This is before #3, not the case before #1. #TBT pic.twitter.com/X3HNHCI2jH
— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) September 22, 2016
If all goes well, the focus stays on the candidates. Past debate moderators who shared their experiences with the Guardian agreed that if the focus is on the third chair, something has gone wrong:
“Sitting in the chair of the moderator is the loneliest place in America,” writes Ann Compton, who co-moderated two presidential debates:
You have no one to back you up. You have no one to fact-check for you. You have no one prompting you to move ahead. And that’s why the moderator has to be so well prepared. Because all you can rely on is what you walk on to that stage with.
Read the full piece:
Clinton’s campaign said on Tuesday that she is not practicing every day for the debate but that she’s reading up on a daily basis. The Clinton campaign speculated that Trump may have more difficulty in a one-on-one setting than he had in the Republican primary cattle calls.
Trump has, characteristically, taken an unusual approach to debate preparation, sending around an email today that polls his supporters about what he should say and do onstage. It’s the kind of your-opinion-matters-to-me survey that may be more intended to engage and fire up supporters than to gather actual advice – but who knows. The questions in Trump’s survey include whether he should refer to his opponent as “Crooked Hillary” onstage – and here are a couple more:
Updated
Clinton camp: Trump's Russian holdings represent conflict of interest
Following a bombshell ABC News report on Donald Trump’s business dealings in Russia and former Soviet states, which you can watch below, the Hillary Clinton campaign has released a statement saying that Trump’s “alarming financial ties present a possible motive for his otherwise puzzling pro-Putin policies.”
Here’s the Clinton camp statement:
Despite his effort to hide his business dealings, we now know that Donald Trump has profited from hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian interests. These alarming financial ties present a possible motive for his otherwise puzzling pro-Putin policies such as his openness to lifting sanctions against Russia that currently inhibit money making opportunities for corporations like the Trump Organization. This is precisely what more than fifty national security experts warned against when they called on Trump to disclose and divest his conflict-laden foreign assets that could endanger America’s national security. Unless Donald Trump immediately details all his business connections with Russia and every other foreign nation, we will never know what is driving his decision making: the interests of the American people or his own bottom line.
Here’s the ABC News report:
Trump county chairwoman apologizes, resigns
The chair of the Donald Trump campaign in Mahoning County, Ohio, who said in a filmed interview with the Guardian that Barack Obama started racism and went on about African Americans and “generations still having unwed babies” and “when do they take responsibility” – she has resigned.
The Trump campaign has released a statement calling the comments “inappropriate.”
The chairwoman, Kathy Miller, released a statement:
My personal comments were inappropriate, and I apologize. I am not a spokesperson for the campaign and was not speaking on its behalf. I have resigned as the volunteer campaign chair in Mahoning County and as an elector to the Electoral College to avoid any unnecessary distractions.”
That @realDonaldTrump Mahoning County, OH Volunteer Chair has resigned. "My personal comments were inappropriate, and I apologize." pic.twitter.com/T4xX8Bd3IW
— Candace Smith (@CandaceSmith_) September 22, 2016
Chelsea Clinton to campaign in Michigan
After not much presidential campaign activity in the Great Lakes state, Chelsea Clinton has scheduled four events in Michigan in the next two days. The events, according to the Detroit Free Press:
Thursday
4:15 p.m.: Women for Hillary event at the Richard App Gallery, 910 Cherry St. SE, Grand Rapids. Doors open 3:30 p.m.
6:30 p.m.: Students for Hillary event at Student Union, Michigan State University, 49 Abbott Road, East Lansing.
Friday
12:05 p.m.: Chelsea Clinton will get a briefing with Flint and federal officials on the ongoing water crisis in the city, followed by a media availability with Flint Mayor Karen Weaver.
1 p.m.: Chelsea Clinton will stop by a phone bank at Democratic National Committee headquarters offices, 3518 Robert T. Longway Blvd, Flint.
Is the Clinton campaign worried about Michigan? The state hasn’t fallen to a Republican in a presidential election since 1988, and Barack Obama chalked up 16-point and nearly 10-point margins there in 2008 and 2012, respectively.
Translation: Clinton still worried she will lose Michigan. Cc @RepDebDingell https://t.co/oWcyNtFcNA
— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) September 22, 2016
Updated
Ivanka Trump is urging Nevada voters to vote early for her father:
SIGN UP TODAY and request your Absentee Ballot in Nevada. We need your vote! https://t.co/dk6hLng3Gi pic.twitter.com/0XyEyjZr1G
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 20, 2016
Early voting in Nevada begins on 22 October. Voters can vote at any location in their respective county where early voting is offered.
But the Trump daughter is taking fire for mispronouncing the state’s name. The first A in Nevada is pronounced like the A in “apple”. Not like the a in “Be a DAAAAAAHHLING and pass my mink.”
Ivanka mangles Nevada pronunciation https://t.co/QLWLhqGs55
— Riley Snyder (@RileySnyder) September 22, 2016
Like father, like daughter. https://t.co/aTDJfzDWu7
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) September 22, 2016
Here’s further reaction to the chairwoman of Donald Trump’s campaign in Mahoning County, Ohio, spewing pure racism:
Trump OH county chair (1/5): "I don't think there was racism until Obama. We never had problems. there was none" https://t.co/mufEzWo0rl
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) September 22, 2016
Trump OH county chair (2/5): “people w/guns, shooting up neighborhoods, not being responsible. that’s the philosophy Obama perpetuated”
Trump OH county chair (3/5): “If you’re black and haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault”
Trump OH county chair (4/5): “Where are we? why? generations still having unwed babies, kids don’t go thru HS”
Trump OH county chair (5/5): “When do they take responsibility for how they live? good trump’s pointing that out” http://bit.ly/2cYEgQ2
I thought this interview was @TheOnion but it's real https://t.co/mbKoC2GvvB
— doug buchan (@dougbuchan) September 22, 2016
So a key Trump campaign chair in Ohio is just a straight up racist. https://t.co/D6yO8pAX9Q
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) September 22, 2016
This interview with Trump's Ohio chair is quite something. A distorted understanding of history, for starters https://t.co/ILwQcnOVRb
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) September 22, 2016
"I’m very proud of it. I’m very proud of it."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 22, 2016
—Trump on being a birther, in 2011: https://t.co/ROYGpNyEsb pic.twitter.com/ohhToaSAPT
Updated
Clinton’s communications director agrees that the Between Two Ferns spot was Clinton’s “most memorable interview yet”:
Truth. https://t.co/8FyFQwLNhq
— Jennifer Palmieri (@jmpalmieri) September 22, 2016
.@HillaryClinton sits down Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis for her most memorable interview yet. pic.twitter.com/169e3KxEyE
— Funny Or Die (@funnyordie) September 22, 2016
Was there racism in the USA before Obama?
The chairwoman of the Donald Trump campaign in Ohio’s Mahoning County tells the Guardian that there was not:
I'm just seeing this: ‘I don’t think there was any racism until Obama got elected,’ says Trump rep in Ohio https://t.co/IPfBcugk7r
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) September 22, 2016
Guardian reporter as Trump’s Ohio campaign chair says there wasn't any racism before Obama https://t.co/t7Yb7EG77y pic.twitter.com/6i8XCHWeyy
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) September 22, 2016
I have never seen someone blame Obama for the existence of racism, full stop. https://t.co/dFAuCDP8B0
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) September 22, 2016
Starting to think this election may not be a referendum on Simpson-Bowleshttps://t.co/HC9geuPBcD
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) September 22, 2016
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Trump has a small mouth – Dalai Lama
Here’s somebody who doesn’t seem too wigged out about the American election:
Updated
Clinton does 'Between two ferns'
Hillary Clinton taped an appearance on Between two ferns with Zach Galifianakis when she had pneumonia – “Hillary Clinton had pneumonia,” it says onscreen – and it has gone up online today and it’s funny.
“Some of your critics have questioned your decision making lately and I think by you doing this show I hope it finally lays that to rest,” Galifianakis says.
.@HillaryClinton sits down Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis for her most memorable interview yet. pic.twitter.com/169e3KxEyE
— Funny Or Die (@funnyordie) September 22, 2016
Here are his questions:
- Are you excited to be the first girl president?
- As secretary, how many words per minute could you type? And how does President Obama like his coffee? Like himself? Weak?
- What happens if you become pregnant?
- Are you down with TPP?
- When you see how well it works for Donald Trump, do you ever think to yourself, ‘Oh maybe I should be more racist’?
- When he’s elected president, and Kid Rock becomes secretary of state, are you going to move to Canada? Or one of the Arctics?
- Any regrets over losing the Scott Baio vote?
- I’d love to meet the person who makes your pantsuits? Because for Halloween I want to go as a librarian from outer space.
- Have you thought about what you’re going to wear for the first debate?
- Does Ivanka ever call Chelsea to talk about boys that might have a crush on her, like her dad?
- What’s the best way to reach you, email?
“I really regret doing this,” Clinton says at one point. Joking, we think.
Updated
Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has published a report estimating the long-term budgetary impact of the two candidates’ policy plans. Donald Trump would dig a hole 25 times deeper than Hillary Clinton, the report finds.
Clinton’s plans would increase the debt by $200bn over a decade above current-law levels, the committee finds, and Trump’s plans would increase the debt by $5.3tn.
And that’s assuming the federal government continues to collect taxes, which, if everyone followed Trump’s example ... well, actually, we don’t know what Trump’s example is, despite Senate minority leader Harry Reid’s assertion yesterday that Trump is a “welfare king” “mooching off the American taxpayer”.
Trump was to attend a “shale insight conference” this morning in Pittsburgh and he has an event in Chester Township, a suburb of Philadelphia, this evening. Clinton has no public events on her Thursday schedule.
Trump: I want stop-and-frisk only in Chicago
Trump walked back a full-throated endorsement of stop-and-frisk policing that he delivered in Ohio Wednesday. Asked by a mostly white audience at a town hall moderated by superfan Sean Hannity what he would do about “black-on-black crime,” Trump said, “I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to.”
Now Trump claims he was only talking about Chicago. “I think Chicago needs stop and frisk ... good, strong law and order,” he told Fox News on Thursday morning.
Trump: ‘lack of spirit’ between races
The Fox and Friends anchors asked Trump to explain what the black community “wants” from the white community. “It just seems like there’s a lack of spirit between the white and the black,” Trump said.
Trump county campaign chair calls BLM ‘stupid waste’
Donald Trump’s campaign chair in a prominent Ohio county has claimed there was “no racism” during the 1960s and said black people who have not succeeded over the past half-century only have themselves to blame.
Kathy Miller, chair of the Republican nominee’s campaign in Mahoning County, who is white, made the remarks during a taped interview with the Guardian’s new Anywhere but Washington series of election videos.
“If you’re black and you haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault. You’ve had every opportunity, it was given to you,” she said.
Miller also called the Black Lives Matter movement “a stupid waste of time” and said lower voter turnout among African Americans could be related to “the way they’re raised”.
North Carolina, neck-and-neck – poll
New Upshot/Siena College poll: battleground state of North Carolina sharply polarized along demographic lines. https://t.co/u9mgPOYQ6H
— The Upshot (@UpshotNYT) September 22, 2016
From the report:
Well-educated white voters are rejecting Republican candidates in North Carolina, and it might just be enough to jeopardize the chances of Donald J Trump to win the presidency and his party to keep the Senate.
Hillary Clinton and Mr Trump are tied, 41 percent to 41 percent, among likely voters in a three-way race in North Carolina, according to a New York Times Upshot/Siena College poll released on Thursday. Mrs Clinton leads by two percentage points in a head-to-head contest, 45 percent to 43 percent.
Could this affect voter behavior?
It's been 57 days since Trump held a presser. Clinton has taken Qs 6 times in 2 weeks. (Trump took Qs from limited group 17 days ago.)
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) September 22, 2016
Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.
Compare the reactions of Gen. Flynn and the woman he’s sitting next to when Don King uses the n-word. pic.twitter.com/IKZ7edDU0S
— Philip Bump (@pbump) September 21, 2016
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