Today in Campaign 2016
As Donald Trump attempted some damage control after losing the Wisconsin primary by 13 points and Bernie Sanders raised the stakes in an increasingly bitter Democratic primary by calling opponent Hillary Clinton not “qualified” to be president, the state of the race showed that inter-party rancor has infected both the Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls.
Here’s a quick wrap-up of the must-know news from the campaign trail today:
- Hillary Clinton appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and said that Bernie Sanders’ recent interview with the Daily News editorial board “raised a lot of really serious questions” about his preparedness for the Oval Office. “The core of his campaign has been break up the banks and it didn’t seem, in reading his answers, that he understood exactly how that would work... That means you can’t really help people if you don’t know how to do what you are campaigning and saying you want to do.”
- “Secretary Clinton appears to be getting a little bit nervous,” Sanders said in response during a rally in Philadelphia. “She has been saying lately that she thinks that I am ‘not qualified’ to be president. Well, let me, let me just say in response to secretary Clinton: I don’t believe that she is qualified.”
- Ted Cruz did a meet-and-greet in the Bronx today - and perhaps unsurprisingly, the man who once vocally criticized “New York values” was not getting a particularly warm welcome. Activist and musician Rebel Diaz quizzed Cruz on camera about why he was campaigning in the Bronx - where 34% of the population is foreign-born - if he was so anti-immigration.
"Ted Cruz has no business being in the Bronx," protester says pic.twitter.com/j5TpnJfK7T
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) April 6, 2016
- Hillary Clinton pledged to go after the super-rich who store their millions in off-shore tax havens if elected president. Responding to the revelations contained in the Panama Papers, Clinton called for those who broke the law to be prosecuted and touted policies she has outlined to tackle tax avoidance. “Some of this behavior is clearly against the law and anyone who violates the law anywhere should be held accountable,” she said in Philadelphia. “But it is also scandalous how much is actually legal.”
- During a campaign rally in Bethpage, New York, Donald Trump joined the dogpile of New Yorkers still angry over Ted Cruz’s dismissal of “New York values” during a prior Republican debate, citing the September 11 terror attacks as proof of true New York values. “The worst attack in the history of the United States - the bravery that we showed was incredible, we all lived through it, we all know people who’ve died, and I’ve got this guy over here, talking about New York values with scorn on his face!” Trump said. “I think you can forget about him.”
That’s it for tonight - we’ll be back tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that with more up-to-the-minute news coverage from the 2016 presidential campaign.
Bernie Sanders: Hillary Clinton is "not qualified" to be president
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders upped the ante in an increasingly aggressive Democratic primary campaign during a rally in Philadelphia, saying that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton is not “qualified” to be president.
“Secretary Clinton appears to be getting a little bit nervous,” he said. “She has been saying lately that she thinks that I am ‘not qualified’ to be president. Well, let me, let me just say in response to secretary Clinton: I don’t believe that she is qualified.”
“If she is, through her super-PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds,” he continued, “I don’t think that you are qualified if you get $15m from Wall Street through your super-PAC.”
Sanders was apparently referencing remarks Clinton made on Morning Joe this morning, in which she said that his inability to tell the New York Daily News how he planned to break up big banks raised “a lot of questions.” Clinton, when pressed, refused to say that Sanders was unqualified, only telling anchor Joe Scarborough that she would “leave it to voters to decide who of us can do the job that the country needs.”
“Paul Ryan,” “Mitch McConnell,” “John Boehner,” “Lindsey Graham” and other members of the Republican party make the case for supporting the establishment.
After an enthusiastic reception on Long Island, Donald Trump has returned to his home state for a two-week tour in the hopes of reigniting momentum for his presidential bid.
Step one: Announcing a leadership team to make up for serious cracks in his campaign’s organizational structure. Trump’s campaign has announced a team of upstate and downstate political organizers that, in their words, represent “the most powerful presidential campaign organization in the state.”
“New York is my home and I am so proud to have been able to assemble such an incredible team,” Trump said in a statement. “I have watched and known these people for so many years. They love New York and our country.”
Among the team members: Congressman Chris Collins, an honorary co-chair of the campaign, a position he shared with Carl Paladino, the 2010 Republican candidate for governor and, like Trump, a successful real-estate developer.
Coming at you live from a McDonald’s in Bethpage, Long Island...
...where there are more people in Donald Trump-branded swag in one place than we’ve ever seen outside of an actual Trump rally.
Police reported that minor fights were breaking out as 12,000 people (the capacity of the Grumman Studio space rented by the Trump campaign) attempted to board the five courtesy shuttles meant to take people back to their vehicles. The choice between a three-mile walk and a 45-minute wait punctuated by occasional mob violence has driven us to the Golden Arches.
Donald Trump: 'We are going to win, win, win!
And with that, Donald Trump exits the stage.
“We’re going to be tough, we’re going to be vigilant, we’re not going to be politically correct all the time,” Donald Trump declared. “We’re going to bring back our country - we’re going to make our country strong again, we’re going to make our country respected again,” he continued.
“You’re going to look at this night, in two years, in four years, in twelve years, and you’re going to say, ‘this was a great evening.’ When you heard somebody finally say, ‘we’re not going to allow us to be a scapegoat anymore,’” he continued.
“I’m going to say it here and I’m going to say it now: America first!” Trump said, perhaps-accidentally-perhaps-not quoting isolationist icon Charles Lindbergh, to raucous applause.
“We’re gonna start winning again, folks!”
Donald Trump reads The Snake again...
The song, a 1968 folk classic by Al Wilson - although Trump mistakenly that it was written by “the great Al Green” - tells the story of a wicked snake that tricks a “tender-hearted woman” into saving its life, only to bite and kill her. Trump, who uses the lyrics as a metaphor for the threat posed by refugees who seek entry into the US, has taken to reading it at each of his rallies.
Here’s the full text, for your interpretation:
On her way to work one morning,
Down the path alongside the lake,
A tender-hearted woman saw a poor, half-frozen snake.
His pretty-colored skin had been all frosted with the dew.
“Oh well,” she cried, “I’ll take you in and I’ll take care of you!”
“Take me in, oh tender woman,
Take me in, for heaven’s sake,
Take me in, oh tender woman,” sighed the snake.
She wrapped him up all cozy in a curvature of silk
And then laid him by the fireside with some honey and some milk.
Now she hurried home from work that night - as soon as she arrived
She found that pretty snake she’d taking in had been revived.
“Take me in, oh tender woman,
Take me in, for heaven’s sake,
Take me in, oh tender woman,” sighed the snake.
Now she clutched him to her bosom, “You’re so beautiful!” she cried.
“But if I hadn’t brought you in by now you might have died.”
Now she stroked his pretty skin and then she kissed and held him tight
But instead of saying thanks, that snake gave her a vicious bite.
“Take me in, oh tender woman,
Take me in, for heaven’s sake,
Take me in, oh tender woman,” sighed the snake.
“I saved you!” cried that woman.
“And you’ve bit me even - why?
You know your bite is poisonous and now I’m going to die!”
“Oh shut up, silly woman,” said the reptile with a grin.
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in!
“Take me in, oh tender woman,
Take me in, for heaven’s sake,
Take me in, oh tender woman,” sighed the snake.
Donald Trump frequently criticizes members of the press for not illustrating how massive his crowds are - and they are massive. So, here you go:
“Remember the debate? When he started lecturing me on New York values, like they were no good?” Donald Trump says of opponent Ted Cruz, to an incensed crowd.
“So I looked at him, and I started talking about our incredible police, our incredible firefighters, our incredible people, our incredible construction workers,” Trump continued, to growing applause and cheers from the audience. “The worst attack in the history of the United States - the bravery that we showed was incredible, we all lived through it, we all know people who’ve died, and I’ve got this guy over here, talking about New York values with scorn on his face!”
“I think you can forget about him.”
“LYIN’ TED! LYIN’ TED! LYIN’ TED!” the audience chanted.
After warming up the crowd with compliments for his daughter, compliments for Bethpage (where he once played baseball) and promises to take care of American veterans, billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump promised that the world will “change quickly” once he is elected president.
“I love the Mexican people, I love Hispanics, I love Hispanics, they’re unbelievable people,” Trump said, to mixed boos and cheers from the audience. But “our companies are being uprooted, they’re moving to Mexico, they’re moving to other countries... and you know what? We’re gonna end the practice. We’re gonna bring those companies back, and we’re gonna bring ’em back to the United States.”
As the audience shouted “Built the wall! Build the wall!” an elderly woman was led past the press section on a gurney, an oxygen mask attached to her mouth. She appeared to have fainted.
Donald Trump takes the stage in Long Island
“Y’all ready for this?”
With NBA halftime music blasting a volume almost commensurate with the screaming of the thousands-strong crowd, billionaire Republican frontrunner took the state at a movie studio in Bethpage, New York, with a wide grin on his face.
“It’s great to be home!” Trump told the raucous crowd.
Less than two weeks after giving birth, Ivanka Trump introduced her father as “an icon” who will put America first.
“My father, as he’s done his whole life, will work tirelessly, and he’ll work tirelessly for this country,” the younger Trump said. “He’s not beholden to anyone - other than you.”
Ivanka noted that, although she has a one-week-old son at home, she felt compelled to join her father’s campaign in Bethpage.
“I can tell you, it was note easy to leave him for so much as a minute to be here,” Ivanka said, “but it was incredibly important to me that I did. Because I believe that the importance of this election, and what it means for the future of our country, is more important now than ever.”
Moments before Donald Trump was scheduled to begin speaking here at a movie studio in Bethpage, New York, the universally understood signal for a “troublemaker” - in the campaign’s parlance - was sounded.
“Trump! Trump! Trump!” a group in the center of the thousands-strong spectators, raising their hands and pointing down at a man in a blue-and-white patterned foam cowboy hat.
As the security moved toward the center of the room, the majority of the crowd created an impromptu response to the protester.
“ASS-HOLE! ASS-HOLE!” the crowd chanted, accompanied by a tomahawk-style arm chop in the direction of the protester. Boos filled the massive hangar as David Bowie filled the air.
“It’s like a bit in a David Lynch movie, where things get really violent and then soothing music comes on,” a nearby British reporter noted.
The chair of the Suffolk County Republican party, John Jay LaValle, announced at Donald Trump’s rally in Bethpage, Long Island, that the group was endorsing the billionaire frontrunner’s bid for the Republican nomination.
It makes Trump the “establishment” candidate east of the East River - and opens up the coffers of well-to-do North Shore donors in Suffolk County to Trump.
A first at a rally for Donald Trump: A Trump-branded cell phone case, carried by Sharon Genchi and her daughter-in-law-to-be Marissa MacCulloch, both Bethpage natives.
“I just love him - I think he’s gonna be the one who’s gonna make America great again,” said Genchi, who told the Guardian that she “walked miles to get here, fought through the protesters” to see Trump speak.
MacCulloch told the Guardian that her main issue was jobs. “We need jobs back.” Her future mother-in-law agreed. “I have two sons, one with a master’s degree and one with a bachelor’s degree, and they both struggle to find jobs!” Genchi said. “They’re making $15 an hour and they’re both incredibly smart - it’s just ridiculous.”
Updated
“Yeah, I’m tough. I’m tough,” onetime New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino told the antsy crowd, which erupted into a “Trump! Trump! Trump!” chant out of apparent boredom.
Paladino continued on. “We want to stop the flow of immigrants - of aliens into our country! We want jobs for Americans! We want to stop letting the Chinese take advantage of us! We have a $2.5 trillion trade deficit! Over the past five years! That’s what the light is telling us.”
“Our native son is here now,” Paladino said. “A guy born and raised in New York who doesn’t apologize to anybody, or anything.”
Updated
Just spoke to Rahul Jaggi, 17, and Justin Simon, 16, two young supporters of Donald Trump - to varying degrees - who waited more than two hours for a chance to see the candidate here at Grumman Studios in Bethpage, New York.
“I’m torn between between Trump and Bernie Sanders,” said Justin. “I want to see if he could persuade me.” How could Trump persuade him? “If he doesn’t make a total fool of himself, if he talks more politically...”
Rahul interjected. “To see if he really has a plan, to get more jobs back from other nations-”
Justin interjected back. “-and more true to his statements – if he can really build the wall, and show us that he has a plan, then yeah, he’d win my support.”
After a two-mile walk and a friendly encounter with a drug-sniffing dog, I’m here at Grumman Studios in Bethpage, New York, where Donald Trump is scheduled to address the thousands-strong crowd of Long Islanders in his first speech since last night’s bitter loss in the Wisconsin primary.
We’ll be liveblogging the proceedings, as well as political news from the rest of the world - stay tuned!
#Kaisch2016.
Excited to join #Kaisch4Us veterans townhall tomorrow night at VFW in Brooklyn. Get tix at https://t.co/lBa8CeP6fJ pic.twitter.com/xWCUKaJERW
— Montel Williams (@Montel_Williams) April 6, 2016
Updated
On my way to Donald Trump’s rally in Bethpage, New York - a Long Island suburb in conservative Suffolk County - and saw this fellow traveler:
On my way to the Trump rally with @Olivianuzzi who is now allowed to drive for some reason and saw this gem. pic.twitter.com/EOhF2BIWvG
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) April 6, 2016
The man charged with assault at a Trump rally has appeared in court
A man accused by law enforcement of punching a black protester at a Donald Trump rally in North Carolina has appeared in court - briefly.
John Franklin McGraw, 78, appeared in the Cumberland County courtroom to face charges of assault and disorderly conduct. The case was continued until July 13.
The presiding judge suggested to the attorneys for both McGraw and the man he allegedly assaulted that the two leave the courtroom separately to avoid the possibility of conflict.
There was supposed to be one more stop on Ted Cruz’s Bronx schedule Wednesday: Lighthouse Charter School. We don’t know why Cruz changed his schedule, but we can tell you about the school he was supposed to visit.
Lighthouse Charter is a Common Core school, a federal program that Cruz has said “We should repeal every word of”.
Generally, charter schools are seen alternatives to failing public schools. In New York City, about 95,000 children attend these schools, 59 of which are in the Bronx. That’s less than 10% of the nearly one million kids who attend New York City’s public schools. But historically, demand has been high. Long waiting lists mean that students hoping to attend charters often have to enter through a lottery.
As far as academics, Lighthouse is roughly in line with achievement in the area as a whole. Just 17% of students in kindergarten through 8th grade met state English standards last year – but that is 5% better than the district on average. In math, 25% met state standards, 11% better than the district.
But on survey questions about trust, family ties, “next level readiness”, and “rigorous instruction,” the school actually fared worse than its district counterparts.
Here’s video of protesters at the Bronx yelling at Ted Cruz as he arrives to his meet-and-greet event earlier today. One of the protesters calls Cruz a “racist”.
Clinton on Panama Papers, says lawbreakers should be prosecuted
Hillary Clinton pledged to go after the super-rich who store their millions in off-shore tax havens if elected president.
Responding to the revelations contained in the Panama Papers, Clinton called for those who broke the law to be prosecuted and touted policies she has outlined to tackle tax avoidance.
“Some of this behavior is clearly against the law and anyone who violates the law anywhere should be held accountable,” she said on Wednesday in Philadelphia. “But it is also scandalous how much is actually legal. That is why last year I proposed a plan to shut down the so-called private tax-system for the mega wealthy. We are going after all these scams and making sure everybody pays their fair share in America. I am going to hold them accountable.”
Updated
A week after getting himself in hot water with both anti-abortion and pro-choice activists for his comments that women who seek abortions “should be punished,” Donald Trump will address an anti-abortion conference today.
As Politico reports: “Trump is scheduled to speak to the 115 Forum, a conference of abortion foes in Washington that is being organized by Priests for Life, according to two sources familiar with the plans. He is expected to call in to the conference rather than appear in person.”
Perhaps that will make it easier for him to avoid the anti-abortion activists telling him how much he screwed up last week.
Protester Rebel Diaz declared, in his diatribe against Ted Cruz at a meet-and-greet for the candidate in the Bronx today, “this is the poorest Congressional district in the nation.”
For a time, he was right.
In 2010, New York’s 16th Congressional district (which the restaurant Sabrosura 2, where the Cruz meet-and-greet was held, is just outside of) was the poorest in the nation. But in 2012, legislators in New York redrew those districts, bringing far more of the wealthy Westchester suburbs into the district.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Obama walloped John McCain in this district 2008 – just 5% of the district voted for McCain. 93% went for Obama.
Here’s a map of the old and new Congressional districts in New York, if you want to see more about how New York (and its representative government) has changed.
Updated
Clinton swings at Sanders after Wisconsin win
Lauren Gambino filed this missive from Philadelphia....
For months, Hillary Clinton has quietly tolerated Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign. While Sanders declared a political revolution afoot, Clinton racked up a delegate count her campaign has called “nearly insurmountable”. Math over momentum, her campaign reasoned as it turned its focus from the primary to the general.
But on Tuesday night, Sanders clinched his sixth straight win with a resounding victory in Wisconsin, and declared in a victory speech that his once long-shot candidacy now had the momentum to carry his campaign all the way to the party’s convention in July.
Hoping to put an end to the prolonged primary race for the Democratic nomination, Clinton on Wednesday trained her fire on Sanders, casting him as a starry-eyed progressive with big ideas but few specifics for achieving those ideas.
She and Sanders shared “progressive goals”, Clinton told labor leaders at Pennsylvania AFL-CIO’s convention in Philadelphia on Wednesday. But, she argued, his plans were not economically or politically feasible.
“Senator Sanders and I have some real differences about how we would go about achieving our goals as president and, like a lot of people, I am concerned that some of his ideas just won’t work because the numbers won’t add up,” Clinton said. “Others won’t even pass Congress or rely on Republican governors to suddenly have a conversion experience and [become] progressives. Well, in a number of important areas, he doesn’t have a plan at all.”
Since her campaign launched one year ago, Clinton has at times struggled to make her policy-heavy message and optimistic vision resonate with an angry electorate drawn to her opponent’s populism.
“I understand why some people are angry,” Clinton said. “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be in America. But I also know people are hungry for solutions and leadership and that is what I am offering.”
Clinton on Wednesday also stepped up her criticism of Sanders and questioned his fidelity to the Democratic party in a series of national interviews.
In recent months, Clinton had slowly turned away from the harder-than-expected primary toward what could be a rough-and-tumble general election match-up against Donald Trump. But Sanders’ win has forced her to contend with his insurgent and well-funded campaign that she has so far failed to extinguish.
Though Sanders’ victory did little to bridge the significant delegate gap with Clinton, the resounding loss in Wisconsin has put renewed pressure on Clinton to win big in New York, her adopted home state.
After New York, Pennsylvania is expected to be another major battle for the Democrats. A new Quinnipiac University poll shows Clinton leading Sanders by six points in the Keystone state among likely Democratic primary voters.
Clinton will spend the rest of Wednesday campaigning in Pennsylvania, where she is joining a round-table discussion with Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney and an organizing event at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. On Thursday, Clinton will return to New York to campaign.
Updated
Protesters storm Cruz event in the Bronx
Ted Cruz is doing a meet-and-greet in the Bronx right now, and it’s perhaps not surprising that the man who criticized “New York values” is not getting a particularly warm welcome.
Cruz arrives at "Chino-Latino" restaurant in Bronx, immediately confronted by resident (w/ a camera) who asks about "anti-immigrant" stances
— Matt Flegenheimer (@mattfleg) April 6, 2016
Activist and musician Rebel Diaz quizzed Cruz on camera about why he was campaigning in the Bronx - where 34% of the population is foreign born, according to census data - if he was so anti-immigration.
In the Bronx, Cruz challenged on immigration stance pic.twitter.com/eTk32W9BaI
— issie lapowsky (@issielapowsky) April 6, 2016
Diaz called Cruz a “right-wing bigot” and noted how issues of climate change and immigration were very important for Bronx residents.
"Ted Cruz has no business being in the Bronx," protester says pic.twitter.com/j5TpnJfK7T
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) April 6, 2016
Police then removed Diaz and other protesters.
A change of pace from campaigning in Wisconsin... Protestors being escorted out of the Cruz event in the Bronx pic.twitter.com/N2tEnUtIfw
— Sofia Gross (@sofiargross) April 6, 2016
Updated
A new poll shows Donald Trump with a significant lead in the New York Republican primary, indicating he may take “nearly all” the state’s delegates.
The Monmouth University poll finds 52% of likely New York Republican primary voters would pick Trump. John Kasich holds the second spot with 25%, and Ted Cruz got 17%.
“If this result holds in every single congressional district, Trump will walk away with nearly all of New York State’s delegates,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone and sampled 302 New York Republican voters likely to vote in the primary.
Former Mexican president Vicente Fox speaks out against Trump
The former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, writes in The Guardian today about the dangers of Donald Trump’s policies - but also about how people can unite against Trump.
Today, I want to express my strong concern about the latest proposals made by the Republican candidate Donald Trump, in his campaign for president of the United States. He has said that he will build a wall between Mexico and the United States, and now that he will force Mexico to pay for that wall by cutting off remittances. He has also said he will open a trade wall with Mexico and China; he has offended women, Muslims, Latinos and his own American people.
To a Mexican and citizen of the world, these statements are disgraceful and highly offensive. Trump has said Mexicans are the problem, calling us rapists and criminals. He thinks building the “Trump Wall” will right every wrong in the United States. Indeed, he’s built a huge mental wall around himself already, which doesn’t allow him to see the greatness of our people.
Despite that, I want to thank him for his racist and ignorant ideas. Thanks to them, Mexico is in the global spotlight; every day, more and more people inside and outside the United States are realizing the decent way Mexicans live their lives.
Read the rest of Fox’s piece here.
Updated
Donald Trump is usually kickstarting fights all over Twitter on a daily basis, but he hasn’t tweeted since the polls closed yesterday in Wisconsin and he was thoroughly beaten by Ted Cruz.
Cruz won 48% of the state, to Trump’s 35% - John Kasich only won 14% and did not earn a single state delegate - leaving Cruz with 36 delegates compared to Trump’s six.
However, 12,000 supporters are expected at today’s Bethpage rally, Trump’s first New York campaign event, say police.
Lauren Gambino is reporting from Clinton’s Philly event now, and will send through a full update soon.
She tweeted this breakdown of Clinton’s three question test to clarify if someone is qualified to be president.
HRC's 3-question presidential qualification test:
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) April 6, 2016
can you get results?
can you keep us safe?
can you bring the country together?
Commenters, what do you think? What three questions do you think a potential president must answer properly in order to prove they’re qualified?
Hillary Clinton is speaking live at the major union convention, the AFL-CIO Convention, in Philadelphia right now.
“When wages are strong wages go up, for both union and non-union families,” said Clinton.
“When unions are weak and workers lose their voice and their bargaining power, incomes stagnate, inequality grows and families suffer,” she said.
Clinton talks about New York and California rising the minimum wage to $15. “The victories are starting to roll in,” she said.
Video emerges showing Trump talk about his infant daughter's breasts
Last night The Daily Show with Trevor Noah unearthed a 1994 clip which shows GOP frontrunner and reality TV star Donald Trump talking about his infant daughter’s breasts.
The clip comes from an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, with Trump and then-wife Marla Maples talking about their one-year-old daughter Tiffany Trump.
“What does Tiffany have of yours and what does Tiffany have of Marla’s?” Trump is asked. He replies:
I think she’s got a lot of Marla, she’s a really beautiful baby. She’s got Marla’s legs. We don’t know yet if she’s got this part [*makes hand gestures indicating breasts *] but time will tell.
Updated
Hillary Clinton said she feels “sorry” for the masses of young Bernie Sanders supporters who, she says, are fed a simplistic line about her own record.
“There is a persistent, organized effort to misrepresent my record, and I don’t appreciate that, and I feel sorry for a lot of the young people who are fed this list of misrepresentations,” said Clinton in a podcast interview with Politico’s Glenn Thrush.
But David Axelrod, campaign manager for both of Obama’s presidential campaigns - and let’s remember how incredibly vicious the 2008 campaign was for both of them - called it “patronizing”.
Line @HillaryClinton should drop: "...I feel sorry for the young people who are fed this list of misrepresentations." It's patronizing.
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) April 6, 2016
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Clinton spoke about Sanders’ supporters being excited about his campaign because they are “in effect protesting”.
“Look, I think it’s exciting to be in effect protesting. I remember I did that a long time ago when I was in my 20’s, and I totally get the attraction of this,” she said.
Why Cruz and Sanders' victories in Wisconsin primaries matter
In theory, Wisconsin’s primaries aren’t that much of a big deal, with only 138 delegates available across both the Democratic and Republican parties.
But in practice, at this point in the election calendar, Wisconsin matters a lot. And the wins that Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders clinched on Tuesday night have helped clarify the race to the White House: Sanders isn’t the only candidate who faces an uphill climb to get his party’s nomination – things aren’t going to be easy for Donald Trump either. The New York billionaire increasingly faces the prospect of a contested convention.
The Republican race
Cruz obtained 48% of the votes in Wisconsin, 13 percentage points ahead of Trump (and 34 percentage points ahead of Kasich). Because Wisconsin is largely a winner-takes-all state for Republicans, that vote share was enough for the Texas senator to pick up 36 of the 42 delegates available here. As a result, Cruz has brought up his delegate total to 502. That’s still behind Trump’s current total of 739 delegates but it’s significant because Cruz’s win helps to hold Trump back from that golden finish line: the 1,237 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination.
Polling had predicted a much narrower win for Cruz. Averages collected by Real Clear Politics suggested that Cruz would defeat Trump by a margin of less thanfive percentage points (polls also underestimated the performance of Sanders, who beat Hillary by a margin four times bigger than predicted).
It’s likely that Cruz owes at least some of that success to Marco Rubio’s decision to drop out of the Republican race three weeks ago. A month ago, polling suggested Rubio and Trump were level pegging in Wisconsin. Nationally, it looks as though most Rubio supporters are choosing Cruz as their second choice rather than Trump – last night’s results would suggest that a similar trend happened in Wisconsin.
Read the rest of Mona’s piece - including the importance of Sanders winning Wisconsin - over here.
This morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Clinton was quizzed about whether Senator Elizabeth Warren - who has yet to endorse either Democratic candidate - would have a role in her White House.
“I am looking forward to working with her closely,” replied Clinton.
Hillary Clinton appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program today, with a very husky voice after intense days of campaigning.
She was asked about Bernie Sanders’ ability to be president, based on his recent interview with the Daily News editorial board where he was quizzed on how he would break up the banks and whether the president had that authority.
“I think the interview raised a lot of really serious questions,” said Clinton. “The core of his campaign has been break up the banks and it didn’t seem, in reading his answers, that he understood exactly how that would work... That means you can’t really help people if you don’t know how to do what you are campaigning and saying you want to do.”
She was asked Sanders should end his race since the numbers game makes it near impossible for him to win.
“I’m the last person who would tell anybody to walk away from a campaign,” said Clinton.
When asked if she considers Sanders a Democrat, she replied:
“Well I think he himself doesn’t consider himself to be a Democrat. He’s raised a lot of important issues the Democratic party believe in… that’s up to democratic voters to make that assessment.”
It’s the morning after the Wisconsin primary, where Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz both beat their respective parties’ leading candidates.
“Tonight is a turning point. It is a rallying cry. It is a call from the hard-working men and women of Wisconsin to the people of America: we have a choice. A real choice,” said Cruz after his victory. Cruz won 33 delegates last night, making a contested Republican convention even more likely.
“Momentum is starting the campaign 60-70 points behind Secretary Clinton. Momentum is that within the last couple of weeks there have been national polls which have us one point up or one point down,” declared Sanders, who picked up 45 delegates last night.
Sanders has won of the last eight contests – although he’s still way behind in the delegate count. A new web ad for Bernie – featuring Diplo’s song Revolution – launched on Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, Sanders will host a rally in Philadelphia this afternoon at 5pm. Ohio governor John Kasich will give his State of the State address at 7pm, which will focus on Ohio, but since he’s been referencing his state experience repeatedly throughout his presidential campaign, expect it to also be part of his campaigning.
In Donald Trump news, this morning a white supporter accused of punching a black protester in the face at a Trump rally will face court over charges of assault and disorderly conduct in Fayatteville, North Carolina.
Trump will hold his first New York campaign event today, a rally in Bethpage at 7pm tonight. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington will be there.
This morning Hillary Clinton is appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, a rare morning TV appearance. Then today she’s got two events in Pennsylvania, a union convention in Philadelphia that starts from 11.15am ET and then an organizing event in Pittsburgh. The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino will be at today’s Philly event.
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