Corey Lewandowski on Trump VP selection: A ‘very, very short’ list
Donald Trump is working from a short list of possible running mates, former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said Thursday.
“The list when I left was very, very short,” said Lewandowski, who appeared on CNN in his new role as a contributor for the network after being fired Monday from the campaign. “It’s no more than four individuals. ... They’re household names.”
Until his firing, Lewandowski oversaw the vetting and selection process of a vice presidential pick for the presumptive Republican nominee. Trump has said he will choose a running mate with political experience and will announce his selection at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next month.
Lewandowski, who signed an agreement that bars him from speaking out against Trump or any of his businesses, said that in his new role on CNN he will “tell it like it is” and call “balls and strikes.”
But when asked to name some of those Trump is considering as a No. 2, he demurred. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are openly auditioning for the job, while several GOP politicians have expressed no interest.
In the days since his dismissal, Lewandowski has professed his continued loyalty to Trump. He still plans to attend the GOP convention as leader of New Hampshire’s delegation.
As campaign manager, Lewandowski helped navigate Trump’s primary win over 16 challengers.
But his tenure was not without controversy. In March, he was accused of manhandling a female reporter at a Florida campaign event. Prosecutors decided not to pursue charges.
Corey Lewandowski, former Trump campaign manager, joins CNN
Trump cheers, Clinton laments Supreme Court’s immigration decision
Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s reactions to Thursday’s Supreme Court decision blocking immigration reform provided a look at how they each might wield presidential power to push their policies.
The justices’ 4-4 split left in place the ruling of a lower court, which blocked President Obama’s sweeping executive actions providing temporary deportation relief for millions living in the U.S. illegally.
Trump called Obama’s plan “one of the most unconstitutional actions ever undertaken by a president.” while insisting the Supreme Court vacancy will directly affect the country’s border security.
Clinton, too, discussed the ramifications of the court’s vacancy, criticizing Senate Republicans for refusing to conduct hearings to vet Obama’s nominee to the court, Merrick Garland.
Clinton also defended the president, saying he acted “well within his constitutional and legal authority” in acting on immigration.
Obama said that immigration reform will be left to voters to decide in November, and he tried to minimize the scope of the court’s ruling.
“The Supreme Court wasn’t definitive one way or the other on this,” Obama said. “The problem is, they don’t have a ninth justice.”
Donald Trump will not use donations to pay off $50-million loan to his campaign
Donald Trump has forgiven nearly $50 million in loans he’s used to help bankroll his presidential campaign, signaling to prospective donors that their contributions will not be used simply to repay him.
Campaign finance rules allow a candidate who lends money to his campaign, and does not make the contribution outright, to reimburse himself. But Trump’s announcement Thursday makes it clear to supporters that their donations will go toward fighting Hillary Clinton in the general election.
Trump’s campaign ended May with $1.2 million in cash on hand, compared with Clinton’s $42 million, according to Federal Election Commission reports released this week, prompting hand-wringing among some Republicans about whether Trump will effectively compete in the general election.
Trump has also boasted that he could easily self-fund his campaign.
“If need be, there could be unlimited ‘cash on hand’ as I would put up my own money,” he said in a statement this week.
“A nominee is expected to raise money; that type of talk does not help,” said Stuart Stevens, a senior advisor to Mitt Romney in 2012, who, combined with the Republican National Committee, raised nearly $1 billion in that election. “He has to convince donors he’s serious, but he hasn’t done that.”
After the May financial reports came out Monday, Trump has scrambled to show he can make up for the lag in fundraising. His campaign boasted that it has raised $11 million in a joint effort with the Republican National Committee, a claim that cannot be independently verified until FEC reports are released.
Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s national finance chairman, emphasized in an interview on CNBC on Thursday that the campaign is making an effort to raise cash from supporters.
“We’ve really ramped up the effort this month,” Mnuchin said.
Cleveland’s attempt to restrict protests outside Republican convention is unconstitutional, court rules
Restrictions on speeches and parades outside next month’s Republican National Convention were struck down by a federal judge Thursday as unconstitutional.
At a Thursday morning hearing, U.S. District Judge James S. Gwin said he would issue a preliminary injunction forcing the city of Cleveland to rewrite its restrictions for a potentially contentious convention expected to draw up to 100,000 politicians, delegates, supporters, protesters and media.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio had sued the city of Cleveland in a lawsuit that also included a liberal group, Organize Ohio, and a conservative group, Citizens for Trump, that had hoped to hold parades near the convention events in the heart of the city.
The city’s regulations restricted parades to 18 separate 50-minute time slots on a single route near the convention. The city had also banned all sound amplifiers larger than bullhorns and all speaking platforms within a security zone that stretches more than three square miles within the city.
Bernie Sanders lists convention demands, notably leaving out some big items
Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose aides have been negotiating with Hillary Clinton’s over the Democratic platform, published a list of demands Thursday that was notable for its omissions.
“What do we want?” Sanders asked in an opinion column published in the Washington Post. He went on to list roughly a dozen specifics — nearly all of which Clinton already has endorsed.
The list could indicate that the private talks between the two campaigns have made progress toward an agreement. Sanders is scheduled to give a speech later Thursday in New York in which campaign aides indicate that he will say more about the platform.
Notably missing from Sanders’ published list: any mention of his plan for universal healthcare, a $15 minimum wage or a change in U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians, each of which has loomed as potential stumbling blocks in achieving unity between the rival Democratic camps.
Clinton has said that she wants improvements in the healthcare reform law passed under President Obama but would oppose a move to “start over” with a single-payer system similar to what Sanders campaigned for. She also has said she would support states that adopt a $15 minimum wage but thinks the federal government should increase its minimum to $12.
Sanders’ list does include some points of disagreement with Clinton. He called for a ban on fracking, the process that enhances oil and natural gas production by injecting fluids into wells. Clinton, like the Obama administration, supports limits on fracking but has stopped short of calling for a total ban. Sanders’ list also includes a tax on carbon; Clinton has resisted most calls for new taxes.
Also on the list: overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allowed corporate contributions to campaigns; universal voter registration; aggressive efforts to boost renewable energy use; an end to privately owned prisons; and a reduction of mandatory minimum sentences — all items on which the two camps basically agree.
Donald Rumsfeld: I ‘clearly’ will vote for Trump
Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday that he “clearly” plans to vote for Donald Trump in November.
“I just can’t imagine not,” Rumsfeld, George W. Bush’s secretary of Defense, told Fox News’ “On the Record.”
Rumsfeld accused Hillary Clinton of damaging U.S. security by using private email to conduct government business while she was secretary of State. He said he’s spoken with representatives of foreign governments who expressed fear about sharing classified information with the U.S. because of Clinton’s actions.
“I really believe that if she were a yeoman in the Navy or a sergeant in the Army or the Marine Corps or the Air Force that she’d be prosecuted,” he said.
Trump campaign claims $11 million raised since Tuesday
Donald Trump claims to have racked up a quick $11 million since Tuesday, based on statements by his son and a top Republican official.
The joint fundraising committee that Trump shares with the Republican Party raised about $5 million, Republican National Committee chief strategist Sean Spicer tweeted on Wednesday. That would add to roughly $6 million raised at a New York fundraising event — according Trump’s son in an interview with CNN.
“We’re going to raise a lot of money,” Eric Trump, the GOP candidate’s son, told CNN’s “OutFront.” “We don’t need the kind of money that Hillary [Clinton] needs,” he added.
The fundraising claims can’t be independently verified until next month, when the June financial disclosure reports to the Federal Election Commission become public. In the past, the Trump campaign has made misleading forecasts of its fundraising.
But after a dismally poor financial report of fundraising for May, the latest statements indicate a revived effort to quell concern in the GOP over Trump’s ability to handle a general election battle. The May report showed Hillary Clinton’s campaign having $42 million in cash on hand and Trump at $1.2 million.
Trump University seized upon foreclosure crisis
As millions of people were losing their homes in the depth of the recession, instructors at Trump University were urging students to seek out anxious or desperate sellers to reap a financial windfall, according to recently released documents in the federal class-action lawsuit against presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The now-defunct for-profit real-estate school, founded by Trump and two associates in 2004, offered workshops on how to take advantage of the foreclosure crisis in some of the hardest hit states, including California.
In a 2008 slide aimed at persuading potential students to sign up for a three-day, $1,495 workshop, Trump is pictured alongside a quote: “I’ve always made a FORTUNE in FORECLOSURES, and YOU WILL TOO. The timing will never be better than NOW! My recommendation is that you attend our retreat. ENROLL TODAY!”
Immoral, lazy, closed-minded: How Democrats and Republicans feel about each other
Nearly half of Republicans regard Democrats as more “immoral,” “lazy” and “dishonest” than other Americans; seven in 10 Democrats view Republicans as “more closed-minded.”
And altogether, about half of respondents in a new poll said the other side makes them “angry” or “afraid.”
While Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton suffer from unfavorable images that are worse – in Trump’s case, much worse – than previous presidential hopefuls, it’s not simply because of their own words and deeds. Their unpopularity exists in a political environment increasingly defined by voters’ negative views of the other side.
The extent of the negativity is central to a detailed survey of the electorate from the Pew Research Center, which found that anger and fear of the opposing political party increasingly drive how American voters think about politics.
How Donald Trump’s speech attacking Hillary Clinton compares with the facts
Donald Trump’s allegations against Hillary Clinton in an address Wednesday included assertions about her personally, her family foundation and the administration she served in. Some of his claims, like the millions of dollars the Clinton Foundation accepted from authoritarian foreign governments, were accurate. Other points, such as the decline of manufacturing jobs since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, revealed only a small part of a larger story. Still others, including Trump’s assertion that the U.S. has the world’s highest taxes, were outright false.
Here are some of his remarks and how they stack up compared with the facts.
Donald Trump crafts a potent message, but proves a weak messenger
Donald Trump on Wednesday, for the first time, assembled a somewhat coherent message detailing Hillary Clinton’s vulnerabilities.
He also demonstrated that he is a supremely flawed messenger.
For almost every criticism Trump leveled at Clinton, a corresponding criticism could be made of Trump:
He targeted her support for regime change in Libya and the Iraq war, both moves that he supported.
He criticized her for failing to release emails and speeches to Wall Street, even as he refuses to release his tax returns.
He accused her of treasonous acts to sell out America for personal profit, even as he faces a federal trial over allegations he defrauded paying customers at Trump University.
He assaulted her as a “world-class liar,” even as he made statements that have repeatedly been shown to be untrue.