Snapshot from the trail: Bernie Sanders in Brooklyn
Hillary Clinton sidesteps question about whether husband should apologize to protesters
Hillary Clinton brushed aside a question on Friday about whether her husband should apologize for admonishing Black Lives Matter protesters earlier in the week.
“I think what he said today, that we all need to be listening to each other, is something that I’ve been talking about on the campaign trail,” said Clinton, speaking to reporters inside a restaurant in Buffalo, N.Y., when asked if her husband should apologize.
She added: “ I think it’s important that where we have disagreements or differences, let’s begin to talk and listen.”
Earlier in the day, Bill Clinton, while campaigning on his wife’s behalf in Erie, Pa., said he “almost” wanted to offer an apology for his remarks to protesters at a rally in Philadelphia on Thursday. At the rally, Bill Clinton got into a 15-minute feisty exchange with Black Lives Matter activists in which he defended his wife’s 1996 comments about “super-predators,” which have been viewed by some as racist toward young African Americans. Hillary Clinton has expressed regret for the comment.
In Buffalo on Friday, Hillary Clinton sought to focus attention away from her husband’s spat with protesters and instead focus on her calls to reform the criminal justice system and curb mass incarceration.
“I worked on these issues when I was in the Senate. I worked to end racial profiling,” she said. “I want to really put forward as president the kinds of changes that are needed, and I’ve been talking about it for more than a year and I’m encouraged by the consensus that has developed.”
The off-the-cuff comments from the former president come as Hillary Clinton has often faced disruptions from Black Lives Matter activists on the campaign trail for her support of a 1994 crime bill that many have argued resulted in unduly long periods of incarceration for black men.
Trump, Clinton lead the pack in California, new Field Poll shows
With just two months to go before California’s June 7 presidential primary election, New York billionaire Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lead their respective party rivals in the state, according to a new Field Poll.
The survey found that Trump leads Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by 39% to 32% among likely Republican voters. Ohio Gov. John Kasich came in a distant third with 18% support.
In a January Field Poll conducted before the GOP field was winnowed to three candidates, Cruz had a slight lead over Trump in California, 25% to 23%.
Horsey: New York brings out the brawler in Bernie and Hillary
Leave it to New York City to turn a polite drawing room discussion into a street brawl. That is the sudden turn taken this week in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders as it moved into the Big Apple.
Admittedly, the Democrats still have a long way to go before they lower themselves to the juvenile taunts and attacks on manhood that the Republican candidates have engaged in for months, but Sanders and Clinton are no longer on their best behavior.
Bill Clinton’s non-apology apology in his clash with Black Lives Matter protesters
A day after he admonished protesters at a rally in Philadelphia, former President Bill Clinton backtracked some on Friday, saying he “almost” wanted to offer an apology for his remarks.
“We see all these rallies interrupted by people that are angry,” he said at a campaign event for his wife, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, in Erie, Pa. “And I confess, maybe it’s just a sign of old age, but it bothers me now when that happens. So I did something yesterday in Philadelphia I almost want to apologize for but I want to use it as an example of the danger threatening our country.”
On Thursday, Bill Clinton got into a 15-minute feisty exchange with Black Lives Matter activists in which he defended his wife’s 1996 comments about “super-predators,” which have been viewed by some as racist toward young African Americans.
Protesters shouted that “black youth are not super-predators.”
Hillary Clinton has expressed regret for the comment.
“I don’t know how you would describe the gang leaders who got 13-year-olds hopped up on crack and sent them out in the streets to murder other African American children,” Bill Clinton shouted at protesters on Thursday.
Protesters have been criticizing the Clintons for a 1994 crime bill that created tougher sentencing guidelines, which in many cases led to to long periods of incarceration for black men.
On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has said that the bill was flawed.
Bill Clinton said on Friday that the protesters were trying to draw attention to their complaints.
“I know those young people yesterday were just trying to get good television, and they did. But that doesn’t mean I was most effective in answering it,” he said.
Democrats far more positive about their candidates than Republicans, poll finds
Democrats are much more likely to have a positive impression of their presidential hopefuls than are Republicans, a new Gallup poll finds.
Both Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders get favorable ratings from about seven-in-10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the poll found. Just over half of Democratic voters have a positive image of both candidates, with about 20% liking Sanders, but not Clinton, and 10% liking Clinton, but not Sanders.
About one-in-six Democrats say they don’t know enough about Sanders to rate him. Clinton has almost universal name recognition.
On the Republican side, views are much less sunny. Both Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump get positive ratings from just over half of Republicans, with about four-in-10 rating each of them negatively.
Only a little more than a quarter of Republicans rate both of them favorably, while 11% dislike both. Almost half of Republicans say they like one, but not the other, Gallup found.
The Vatican invites Bernie Sanders to speak
Bernie Sanders is scheduled to head to the Vatican on April 15, four days before the New York primary, with an invitation to speak at a conference on social, economic and environmental issues.
The Democratic presidential candidate announced Friday that he had received an invitation from the Pontifical Academy of Social Science and plans to leave the campaign trail in New York the day after his scheduled debate with Hillary Clinton.
“I am grateful to the Vatican for inviting me to talk about an issue that is very dear to my heart, which is how we create a moral economy that works for all of the people rather than just the top 1 percent,” Sanders said in a Friday interview with MSNBC.
Sanders is a big fan of Pope Francis and often likens his own views to the pope’s.
“He has talked in an almost unprecedented way about the need to address income and wealth inequality, poverty and to combat the greed that we’re seeing all over this world. ...,” Sanders said in a statement. “For me, it is an extraordinary honor to receive this invitation.”
Sanders backs down on criticism of Clinton: ‘Of course’ she’s qualified, he says
Bernie Sanders backed away from his statement earlier this week that Hillary Clinton wasn’t qualified for the presidency, saying Friday that “of course” she is.
In a town hall interview on NBC’s “Today” show, Sanders explained that though he had questioned his Democratic rival’s qualifications earlier this week, he respects her and believes she can do the job.
“On her worst day, she will be -- she would be an infinitely better president than either of the Republican candidates,” Sanders said.
The Vermont senator’s earlier remark had generated a widespread backlash from Democratic leaders, with the White House, New York’s governor and New York City’s mayor all piling on.
Sanders tried to explain the remark by saying he had felt under attack by Clinton’s campaign surrogates after his victory this week in the Wisconsin primary.
Clinton responded to Sanders’ previous comments in an interview with “Today” host Matt Lauer. She said that though she thought her opponent’s remark about her qualifications was “silly,” she would choose him over the Republicans.
“I will take Bernie Sanders over Donald Trump or Ted Cruz anytime,” she said. “They pose real threats to our values.”
Cruz rallying supporters in California on Monday
Sen. Ted Cruz will hold two rallies in California on Monday, his first public appearances in the state since it became clear that its June 7 primary is cruciall in the Texas senator’s effort to win the GOP nomination.
Cruz has been organizing in California since last summer and was in the state last week fundraising and taping a late-night television appearance.
With Trump’s rise, big donors and companies hesitate to commit money to the GOP convention
With Donald Trump locked in a dogfight against much of the rest of the Republican Party, a lot of things are uncertain about the GOP’s convention in Cleveland in July.
Here’s a big one: Who will pay for it?
Four years ago, after Mitt Romney clinched the nomination, his fundraising team pulled in millions of dollars from GOP stalwarts to close a gap in money for the convention in Tampa, Fla. Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul, gave $5 million. Energy billionaire and activist David Koch, Los Angeles media figure Jerry Perenchio and hedge fund billionaires Robert Mercer, Paul Singer and John Paulson each donated $1 million.