Today in Campaign 2016
Here’s a quick rundown of the biggest campaign news on this balmy summer Friday:
- Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump acknowledged for the first time that he is behind Hillary Clinton in the polls, but only because he has not yet begun to fight. “I’m four down in one poll, three and a half in another that just came out, and I haven’t started yet,” Trump told the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman. “And I have tremendous Republican support,” Trump said. “Unfortunately they never talk about that, they talk about the few rebels.”
- Some Republican delegates would very much like to nominate someone other than Trump for president, according to various reports. Here’s a new one now: “Dozens of Republican convention delegates are hatching a new plan to block Donald Trump at this summer’s party meetings,” the Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe reports:
This literally is an ‘Anybody but Trump’ movement,” said Kendal Unruh, a Republican delegate from Colorado who is leading the campaign. “Nobody has any idea who is going to step in and be the nominee, but we’re not worried about that. We’re just doing that job to make sure that he’s not the face of our party.”
- Senator Elizabeth Warren dropped in on Hillary Clinton’s staff in Brooklyn to give a pep talk to staffers, according to various media reports.
Elizabeth Warren visited Clinton's campaign HQ in Brooklyn today to give pep talk to staff. "Don't screw this up," she said, per source.
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) June 17, 2016
- Trump apparently paid no income taxes in 1991 or 1993, according to tax records obtained by Politico, due to massive losses sustained by his casino and hotel holdings in those years.“Welcome to the real estate business,” Trump told Politico through a spokesperson. The Washington Post had previously reported that the presumptive Republican presidential candidate had paid no income taxes in 1978 and 1979, and has received several tax credits from New York City reserved for those who make less than $500,000 a year. The campaign has called those credits an error on behalf of the city.
- A new Gallup poll released this afternoon shows that Republicans and Democrats in the US have vastly different views on the causes of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 49 people dead and 53 people hospitalized. According to the survey, 79% of Republicans see the shooting as an act of Islamic terrorism, while 60% of Democrats told Gallup that the shooting was an act of domestic gun violence. Overall, 48% of Americans say that the Orlando massacre was an act of terrorism, and 41% say that they believe it was gun violence.
- In the tradition of Pope Francis and Jiminy Cricket, House speaker Paul Ryan has encouraged Republicans to follow their individual consciences in supporting Donald Trump – or not. In an interview set to air Sunday, Ryan told NBC News’ Chuck Todd that “the last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that’s contrary to their conscience.”
And, because it’s Friday, here’s the single most powerful pro-Trump advertisement we’ve seen covering this campaign:
A former midlevel producer of The Apprentice has some theories about the current company Donald Trump is keeping:
There was a fat contestant who was a buffoon and a fuckup. And he would fuck up week after week, and the producers would figure that he’d screwed up so badly that Trump would have to fire him. But Trump kept deciding to fire someone else. The producers had to scramble because of course Trump can never be seen to make a bad call on the show, so we had to re-engineer the footage to make a different contestant look bad. Later, I heard a producer talk to him, and Trump said, ‘Everybody loves a fat guy. People will watch if you have a funny fat guy around. Trust me, it’s good for ratings.’ I look at Chris Christie now and I swear that’s what’s happening.
Bernie Sanders could endorse Hillary Clinton before the convention, says aide
Vermont senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could feasibly endorse presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton before the party’s national convention in Philadelphia in July, Sanders’ campaign manager told the Washington Post - but it all depends on how policy conversations between the two camps go.
“The resolution of those issues are important to determining any timetable” said Jeff Weaver, saying that the results of those conversations would help determine “how closely the campaigns work together” in defeating presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
In a livestreamed message to supporters last night, Sanders urged his supporters to look beyond the Democratic presidential nomination in a speech that stopped short of fully endorsing Clinton but made clear he was no longer actively challenging her candidacy.
“The major political task that we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly,” Sanders said. “And I personally intend to begin my role in that process in a very short period of time.”
House speaker Paul Ryan’s patience for the presumptive Republican nominee is not endless, he told the Huffington Post in a sitdown interview this week, although Donald Trump has not crossed the line yet.
“I don’t know what that line is,” Ryan said, “but right now, I want to make sure that we win the White House.”
Trump does not, Ryan said, have “a blank check” to say whatever he wants, but unity within the Republican party is still first in the speaker’s mind. “It’s something that has to be worked at,” Ryan said, “and we still got work to do.”
After weeks of declining to endorse Trump, Ryan finally offered his formal support for the presumptive Republican nominee earlier this month. Since then, Ryan, the highest-ranking Republican in the nation, has been forced to defend or demure on Trump’s divisive rhetoric and policy unorthodoxy.
“It’s no secret that he and I have our differences. I won’t pretend otherwise. And when I feel the need to, I’ll continue to speak my mind,” Ryan wrote in his endorsement. “But the reality is, on the issues that make up our agenda, we have more common ground than disagreement.”
Barry Goldwater’s widow, on Donald Trump:
Ugh or yuck is my response. I think Barry would be appalled that his home was being used for that purpose. Barry would be appalled by Mr. Trump’s behavior - the unintelligent and unfiltered and crude communications style. And he’s shallow - so, so shallow.
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign says that nearly 6,700 people have signed up for more information about running for office at the state or local level, less than 24 hours after the senator told his supporters to run for office in a livestreamed address that reached more than 200,000 people.
“I have no doubt that with the energy and enthusiasm our campaign has shown that we can win significant numbers of local and state elections if people are prepared to become involved,” Sanders said, in a release. “This will be part of transforming our country from the bottom up.”
Last night, Sanders called upon his supporters to help be the change they wished to see in American government by running for office themselves.
“The Democratic Party needs a 50-state strategy,” Sanders urged at the time. “We may not win in every state tomorrow, but we will never win unless we recruit good candidates.”
“We must provide resources to those states which have so long been ignored. Most importantly, we need leadership that is prepared to open its doors... to young people,” Sanders said. “Here is a cold hard fact that must be addressed: Since 2009, some 900 legislative seats have been lost to Republicans in state after state in this country. That is unacceptable.”
“We need to start engaging at the local and state level in an unprecedented way,” Sanders continued. “We can win significant number of local and state elections if people are prepared to become involved. I also hope that people will give serious thought to running for statewide offices and also in Congress.”
The Hillary Clinton campaign has published a long missive on the mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub that killed 49 people on Sunday, calling the shooting “the deadliest anti-LGBT attack in US history,” and declaring that in a cultural atmosphere of homophobia, it “wasn’t an isolated incident.”
“The 49 people killed in Orlando on Sunday were victims of terror, but they were also victims of deep-seated hate,” wrote Kat Kane, a senior writer and creative strategist for Hillary for America. “Their lives were taken in the middle of Pride Month in what should have been a safe space for people to openly express themselves and celebrate who they are. And it didn’t happen in a vacuum.”
Orlando’s first openly gay elected official would likely agree. “People want to talk about jihadists and Muslim extremists, but they don’t see that we have Christian religious political extremists right here among us,” Patty Shaheen, an Orlando commissioner, told the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington. “They won’t condemn this activity, and that’s so hypocritical.”
California representative Duncan Hunter is one of Donald Trump’s most high-profile supporters in Congress - he co-chairs Trump’s House Leadership Committee and is one of his earliest endorsers in the legislative body.
But even he is growing weary of trying to defend the presumptive nominee, if an interaction with a Washington Post reporter on Capitol Hill is any indication.
“What I’m done with is trying to articulate or explain or answer for what Donald Trump says,” Hunter said, in response to another reporter’s question about the candidate. “I think he’ll be a great president. I think he’ll make good decisions on the economy, on the border, on national security, but it doesn’t mean we endorse what he says. I think what he says and what he’ll do are two different things.”
“So what should we believe when he says something?” the Washington Post reporter asked. “What should we believe when it comes out of his mouth?”
“What he said,” Hunter responded.
“But you just said you don’t necessarily believe what he says is what he’s going to do,” the reporter retorted.
“Right,” Hunter said. “True. But him talking about things and saying things about things is different than him saying what he’s going to do. I think he’ll do what he says he’s going to do. I’m not trying to parse words; I think he’ll do what he says he’s going to do. But he says things about things that I don’t endorse, and I’m not going to try to articulate for him.”
If anyone can untangle that response, let us know in the comments.
Updated
Poll: Republicans blame Orlando mass shooting on terrorism, Democrats on gun violence
A new Gallup poll released this afternoon shows that Republicans and Democrats in the US have vastly different views on the causes of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 49 people dead and 53 people hospitalized.
According to the survey, 79% of Republicans see the shooting as an act of Islamic terrorism, while 60% of Democrats told Gallup that the shooting was an act of domestic gun violence. Overall, 48% of Americans say that the Orlando massacre was an act of terrorism, and 41% say that they believe it was gun violence.
House speaker Paul Ryan has told his fellow Republicans to follow their consciouses when it comes to supporting presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, but the Republican National Committee’s rules chair has gone a step further: telling delegates at the party’s convention that they can unbind themselves from a candidate.
“Existing nomination rules - including those that bind delegates to vote on the first ballot according to the results of their state primaries and caucuses... can all be changed,” Salt Lake City’s Deseret News quotes RNC rules chair Enid Mickelsen as suggesting.
“There are a lot of ifs,” Mickelsen said. “If you don’t get a majority, you have to allow delegate flexibility.”
The death of a UK member of parliament sent a shock through Washington as the European Union referendum vote could impact foreign policy and international relations, report the Guardian’s Dan Roberts and Ben Jacobs:
The shock felt in Washington at what Hillary Clinton called the “assassination” of British MP Jo Cox has coincided with a belated American realisation of just how febrile UK politics has become ahead of next Thursday’s vote on leaving theEuropean Union.
While the US has been mourning victims of the Orlando shooting and digesting new extremes of anti-immigrant rhetoric from Donald Trump in response, the extent to which the European migration debate has driven the UK to brink of “Brexit” had gone less noticed.
“The recent [pro-Brexit] opinion polling is only just beginning to sink in here,” says one senior European diplomat trying, behind the scenes, to reassure Washington’s increasingly nervous foreign policy community about the future of the Atlantic alliance.
Previous White House intervention was focused on spelling out the cost of leaving the EU to British voters. Barack Obama hoped his trip to London last month – in which he described how the UK would be “at the back of the queue” for trade negotiations if it left – would help the prime minister, David Cameron, scare voters into staying put.
But despite similar dire warnings again this Friday from the International Monetary Fund head, Christine Lagarde, the steady swing of British opinion polling in favour of Brexit is raising concerns that it is not just the UK that stands to lose, but US foreign policy would also suffer greatly from a subsequently weakened Europe.
“Among the foreign policy elites there’s a consensus that the special relationship with Britain would become less special from the United States’ perspective if Britain isn’t influencing Europe,” says Fred Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council, a prominent Washington thinktank. “No doubt there is still going to be a great military relationship and trade etc, but in terms of solving global problems together it’s far better [for the US] to have Britain in.”
Report: Donald Trump paid no income taxes for at least two years in the 1990s
Putative billionaire Donald Trump apparently paid no income taxes in 1991 or 1993, according to tax records obtained by Politico, due to massive losses sustained by his casino and hotel holdings in those years.
“Welcome to the real estate business,” Trump told Politico through a spokesperson.
The Washington Post had previously reported that the presumptive Republican presidential candidate had paid no income taxes in 1978 and 1979, and has received several tax credits from New York City reserved for those who make less than $500,000 a year. The campaign has called those credits an error on behalf of the city.
It’s not illegal to use losses to lessen one’s tax burden - in fact, Trump has bragged in the past that “I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible.”
Trump has so far refused to release his tax returns voluntarily, citing a government audit of his most recent returns as the reason. “When the audit ends, I’m going to present them,” Trump told CNN in May. “That should be before the election. I hope it’s before the election.”
Updated
Representative Duncan Hunter, a co-chair of Donald Trump’s House leadership committee and noted vaper, goes a few rounds with the English language, in an effort to describe the relationship between what Trump says and what he means, and where he, Hunter, fits in all this. The Washington Post reports:
>@Rep_Hunter, co-chair of @realDonaldTrump House cmte, conducts grad-level semantics seminarhttps://t.co/KC6bmx61HC pic.twitter.com/JAvVnpPOJi
— Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) June 17, 2016
Video: how Bernie Sanders changed America
The Hillary Clinton camp is going after Donald Trump on his own turf: social media. Twitter, specifically, although we’re confident those videos are available on many lovely platforms.
Donald Trump said Belgium was a "beautiful city."
— The Briefing (@TheBriefing2016) June 17, 2016
Belgium. City. https://t.co/hFjahipSwX
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 17, 2016
Hard to believe it's only been a year since Trump announced his candidacy for president. https://t.co/fYf3Kep3Qe
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 17, 2016
Trump: 'I haven’t started yet'
Donald Trump acknowledged on Thursday for the first time that he was behind Hillary Clinton in the polls, but that was because he has not yet begun to fight, he said in an interview with the New York Times:
“I’m four down in one poll, three and a half in another that just came out, and I haven’t started yet,” Trump told the Times’ Maggie Haberman.
“And I have tremendous Republican support,” Mr. Trump said. “Unfortunately they never talk about that, they talk about the few rebels.”
Warren drops by Clinton HQ
Senator Elizabeth Warren dropped in on Hillary Clinton’s staff in Brooklyn to give a pep talk to staffers, according to various media reports.
Elizabeth Warren visited Clinton's campaign HQ in Brooklyn today to give pep talk to staff. "Don't screw this up," she said, per source.
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) June 17, 2016
Donald Trump has tweeted a poll – which does not appear to be otherwise available online, as yet – showing him losing to Hillary Clinton. But only by two points.
Gravis is a B-minus pollster that leans Republican, according to FiveThirtyEight’s pollster ratings.
In addition to celebrating his losing to Clinton, Trump’s tweet celebrates his clinching the Republican presidential nomination, which happened last month.
THANK YOU! #AmericaFirst pic.twitter.com/qp07UfnnjM
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2016
Bahahahahhahahahahha https://t.co/GF3l2iV84u
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) June 17, 2016
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Donald Trump says China over and over:
*Via HuffPost Entertainment* (h/t @scottbix)
Updated
Senate race shakeup may herald return of Rubio
Republican Representative Tom Jolly, who was running for the US senate seat from Florida that Marco Rubio said he was vacating, has decided instead to run for reelection to his House seat. He’ll face Charlie Crist, the former governor (and former Republican).
Why the change of heart? Jolly told CNN on Friday that “Marco is saying he is getting in” the senate race after all. But then Jolly’s statement said Jolly did not know what he was talking about. Polls show Rubio may be the Republicans’ best hope of retaining the seat. He would likely face either Representative Patrick Murphy or Representative Alan Grayson.
NRCC in interesting spot w David Jolly running for reelect. Jolly has infuriated his colleagues. See Walden here: https://t.co/uwT3Q3C6qW
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 17, 2016
The Hillary Clinton campaign rebuts Donald Trump’s claim of being the preferred candidate among “the gays” (and you can ask them):
Donald Trump says he's "the real friend" of the LGBT community.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 17, 2016
Yeah, no.https://t.co/TWwZKC5ARS
Republicans still exploring Plan B
Some Republican delegates would very much like to nominate someone other than Donald Trump for president, according to various reports. Here’s a new one now: “dozens of Republican convention delegates are hatching a new plan to block Donald Trump at this summer’s party meetings,” the Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe reports:
This literally is an ‘Anybody but Trump’ movement,” said Kendal Unruh, a Republican delegate from Colorado who is leading the campaign. “Nobody has any idea who is going to step in and be the nominee, but we’re not worried about that. We’re just doing that job to make sure that he’s not the face of our party.”
“There is a group of people -- including Eric O’Keefe, a former top fundraiser for Cruz -- that recently formed a group they’re calling ‘Delegates Unbound’,” reports CNN in its version of the story:
They are working on a robust effort to convince delegates that they have the authority and the ability to vote for whomever they want. A source working with the group told CNN that they are going to try to not only directly communicate with the delegates but also try to raise money to buy TV ads.
“The two functioning stop-Trump groups remain small and have no funding behind them,” reports the Wall Street Journal in its version of the story:
One is composed of a handful of Washington-based operatives, attorneys and media personalities. The other is a coalition of about 15 convention delegates from Colorado who are trying to gather support for a rule that would unbind delegates who are now mandated by various state-party rules to back Mr. Trump for the nomination. Yet time, distance and disorganization are likely to render them ineffective, as the rest of the Republican Party, some with equal trepidation about Mr. Trump, steadily move toward the nomination of the New York businessman.
Meanwhile there’s this reality:
Clinton a bit ahead of Trump in Virginia – poll
Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump 48-45 in a head-to-head matchup in the swing state of Virginia, according to a new Public Policy polling survey.
Clinton held a similar edge in a four-way race including Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, the poll found. Such a race tracked as Clinton 42, Trump 39, Johnson 6, Stein 2.
With the exception of the Goldwater election (*cough*), Virginia dependably voted Republican in presidential elections from Eisenhower on, right up until the advent of Barack Obama, who drew on strong support among African Americans and moderates to win the state twice, 51-47 in 2012 and 53-46 in 2008. Virginia awards 13 electoral votes.
Trump mistakes mechanical bull for a horse
At a rally in Dallas Thursday Donald Trump repeatedly referred to a mechanical bull as a horse. Trump “seemed a little confused by the concept” of a mechanical bull, the AP reported:
“I read about this place,” Trump told a crowd at Gilley’s Dallas South Side Ballroom. “Where’s that horse?”
Trump appeared to be referring to the venue’s mechanical bull. The original Gilley’s and its bull were featured prominently in the 1980 movie “Urban Cowboy.”
Trump predicted his ride would be a smash in the news.
“Hey, you want to hit the papers tomorrow? Let’s get that horse. I’ll ride that horse,” said Trump. “The problem is, even if I make it, they’ll say I fell off the horse and it was terrible.”
Trump was also inspired by a protester’s cowboy hat and suggested selling a “Make America Great Again” version.
Ryan says Republicans should follow their consciences on Trump
In the tradition of Pope Francis and Jiminy Cricket, House speaker Paul Ryan has encouraged Republicans to follow their individual consciences in supporting Donald Trump – or not.
In an interview set to air Sunday, here excerpted, Ryan tells NBC News’ Chuck Todd that “the last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that’s contrary to their conscience.”
“I get that this is a very strange situation,” Ryan said:
He’s a very unique nominee. But I feel as a responsibility institutionally as the Speaker of the House that I should not be leading some chasm in the middle of our party.
Here’s the “conscience” exchange:
CHUCK: Do you think it is that members in the House Republican Conference follow your conscience? If you don’t want to support him, don’t. Do it --
PAUL RYAN:
Oh, absolutely. The last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that’s contrary to their conscience. Of course I wouldn’t do that. Look, believe me, Chuck. I get that this is a very strange situation. He’s a very unique nominee. But I feel as a responsibility institutionally as the Speaker of the House that I should not be leading some chasm in the middle of our party. Because you know what I know that’ll do? That’ll definitely knock us out of the White House.
See video and more from the NBC interview here.
In April, Pope Francis instructed Catholics grappling with questions about issues such as same-sex marriage and contraception to be guided by their individual consciences.
In a separate interview with the Huffington Post Thursday, Ryan told The Huffington Post that Trump does not have “a blank check” with his endorsement. “I don’t know what that line is,” Ryan said, “but right now, I want to make sure that we win the White House.”
Updated
Trump’s actual secret service code name is Mogul.
Rumor: new Trump Secret Service code name is... Timber!!!
— mike murphy (@murphymike) June 17, 2016
Mike Murphy is a seasoned Republican operative and Trump detractor who most recently ran the Jeb Bush PAC Right to Rise.
so GOPers want to dump Trump, also don't think it will happen https://t.co/nrfPlkEbMa pic.twitter.com/7XbARvL79R
— andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) June 17, 2016
Also they seem to have made no progress in a week. They don't have endless time here! https://t.co/sjLdG9X9iE
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) June 17, 2016
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Unlike an increasing number of elected Republicans, Russian president Vladimir Putin is still on the Trump train, ABC News reports:
Putin reaffirmed his compliments of Trump today, saying he viewed him as a "bright" person
— Ben Gittleson (@bgittleson) June 17, 2016
Updated
Johnson off pot
Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, tells USA Today that he has not used marijuana for a whole seven weeks, ie like the start of May.
Johnson launched his presidential bid in January. But he did not announce his choice for running mate, former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, till mid-May, and he wasn’t officially nominated for president until the end of May.
Meet the presidential nominee who last used #weed seven weeks ago: Gary Johnson https://t.co/KKETklTOWc #libertarianhttps://t.co/FdLw86LhUG
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) June 16, 2016
Johnson and Weld are to appear, apparently sober, in a town hall event hosted by CNN on Wednesday.
Updated
Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Asked on Friday whether Bernie Sanders is still running for president, campaign manager Jeff Weaver said “yes he is” three times:
Is Sanders still running for President? Sanders campaign manager Weaver: Yes, he is. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. https://t.co/DuaIbIWiSF
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) June 17, 2016
But the Sanders campaign is not, Weaver said Thursday, trying to flip superdelegates, those party elites who, were they suddenly to develop a mass aversion to Hillary Clinton, could turn Sanders’ 920-delegate deficit into a net positive.
In a video address on Thursday evening, Sanders remained vague about the status of his presidential campaign. If he did not call on supporters to back Clinton, however, he did call on them to smash Donald Trump.
“We do not need a major party candidate who makes bigotry a cornerstone of his campaign,” Sanders said. “The major political task that together we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly.”
Here Dan Roberts looks back at the achievements of the Sanders campaign.
Trump woke up with a hot Twitter finger Friday, predicting more terrorism on US soil, in a tweet that also raises an alarm about trade deficits.
“More attacks will follow Orlando,” Trump wrote, ominously:
People very unhappy with Crooked Hillary and Obama on JOBS and SAFETY! Biggest trade deficit in many years! More attacks will follow Orlando
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2016
Trump has a rally in Texas scheduled for this evening.
Also in Texas, George W Bush will appear at a luncheon in Dallas on behalf of old 2000 adversary John McCain, who is striving to fend off a Tea Party challenger in his run for re-election to the Senate. The primary is in August.
Per @maggieNYT @jmartNYT Bush 43 raising $ for old rival @SenJohnMcCain Monday in Dallas https://t.co/GNa5Zig6CB pic.twitter.com/T7JUKlrCRy
— Evan Smith (@evanasmith) June 17, 2016
On the topic of the Senate and re-election, signals are proliferating that Florida senator Marco Rubio is not going back to the private sector without a fight. A Republican congressman from the state says the word on the street is that Rubio is running for re-election:
FL GOP Rep Jolly on CNN on FL Senate: "Marco is saying he in getting in"
— Deirdre Walsh (@deirdrewalshcnn) June 17, 2016
Jolly’s spokesman said his principal didn’t know what he was talking about...
David Jolly’s spox clarifies his remarks on Rubio: "Jolly has no actual knowledge of a Rubio decision."
— Tal Kopan (@TalKopan) June 17, 2016
..but the chair of the national Republican senatorial committee, whose job is to know these things, agreed with Jolly:
NRSC chairman Roger Wicker says "indications seem to be that [Rubio] is headed" toward running again https://t.co/zK59lMoYoM
— Reid Wilson (@PoliticsReid) June 17, 2016
If he did decide to run to retain his Senate seat, it would represent a change in plans for Rubio, who tweeted this a month ago:
I have only said like 10000 times I will be a private citizen in January.
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) May 17, 2016
Thank you for reading. Here is some bonus Trump commentary and analysis to start your day:
— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) June 17, 2016
STAFF: Mr. Trump it's the general election season. We need more than your tweets.
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) June 17, 2016
TRUMP: Gotcha. Let's try all caps! https://t.co/n2vhAGmYNy
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