Planned Donald Trump speech to pivot from Hillary Clinton to terror, immigration following Orlando attack
Following the nation’s most deadly mass shooting that left 50 dead at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Donald Trump said Sunday he will change the subject of a planned Monday speech to address “this terrorist attack, immigration, and national security.” Trump had originally planned to use the speech to present a litany of attacks against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. According to senior Trump campaign staff, the presumptive GOP nominee was going to serve up a “charge sheet” against Clinton, including broadside attacks on her infamous private email server, her handling of the Benghazi consulate attack, and allegations for the former Secretary of State tried to silence women who may have been involved with her husband, former President Bill Clinton. While Republican consultants and party leaders have advised Trump to avoid the more personally tinged attacks, most of which date back decades, events have forced Trump to abandon the speech altogether. Trump said in a statement Sunday he will instead continue a favored line of argument: the need to “get tough” on what he called radical Islamic terrorism and stem the tide of immigration from Muslim-majority countries. Earlier in the day Trump said he “appreciated the congratulations” from supporters who said he was right to make Islamic terrorism a central focus of his campaign, and claimed credit for predicting more attacks would afflict the nation. “What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough,” Trump tweeted on Sunday. In the statement, Trump fixated on the attacker’s Muslim and Middle Eastern origins, rather than his anti-gay views or his use of a legally purchased AR-15 assault rifle in the deadly dance club siege. “The terrorist, Omar Mir Saddique Mateen, is the son of an immigrant from Afghanistan who openly published his support for the Afghanistani Taliban and even tried to run for President of Afghanistan,” said Trump. “According to Pew, 99 percent of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law.” Trump brandished those facts as evidence in favor of his notorious plan to ban Muslims from immigrating to the United States. “We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States,” said Trump. “Hillary Clinton wants to dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East, bringing in many hundreds of thousands during a first term – and we will have no way to screen them, pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalizing. “If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen — and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can’t afford to be politically correct anymore,” Trump continued. Trump made no specific reference to the apparent anti-LGBT motivation behind the shooter’s attack. Trump will give his revamped remarks on Monday at New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm’s College in Manchester, NH.
On MTP, Jeb Bush says Marco Rubio has “given up” on his day job
Although he’s been hammered by the punditry class for getting schooled by Marco Rubio for daring to bring up his poor voting record in the U.S. Senate at last week’s GOP presidential debate, Jeb Bush said today that he has no regrets about doing so. “I got to be governor of a state and accomplish big things,” Bush told Meet The Press’s (MTP) Chuck Todd in an interview taped on Saturday in Miami and aired on Sunday morning. “And in this era of gridlock, it’s really hard to break through, and I think he’s given up. And I think that’s the wrong thing to do. This is about public service, about solving problems. If you look at the three people on the stage from the United States Senate, all three of them have a combined two bills that became law that they’ve sponsored. If you look at Hillary Clinton, in ten years, three bills she sponsored that became law. This is the gridlock that I’m running to try to break up. I can change the culture in Washington.” Bush insisted that he hadn’t seen the 112-page memo from his presidential campaign detailing why Rubio is a “risky bet” for the Republican Party before it leaked. “I didn’t see it,” he said. “Well, I read about it when it was leaked for sure. I didn’t know about the PowerPoint.” Bush told Todd that while he knows he needs to get better at debates after being considered to done poorly at last Wednesday night’s affair in Boulder, he hasn’t watched a tape of it, and doesn’t intend to. Bush answered a question by CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla about whether there should be an investigation of daily fantasy sports products DraftKings and FanDuel, but Chris Christie seemed to be impugning both men afterwards in expressing revulsion at such a question asked at a debate. Bush seemed to concede that he should have answered it differently. “My focus in the debate, I will change the whole conversation,” he told Todd. “So if someone asks me about Fantasy Football next time, which was kind of bizarre if you think about it, I’ll talk about the people I’ve met that are really worried that they have declining income.” Bush will appear in Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville on Monday. He said that his speech in Tampa will be about how Republicans need to be hopeful and optimistic and have an aspirational message, which doesn’t seem like something he hasn’t been saying on the stump for sometime. Bush said he maintain a belief he’s had for decades – that there should be no litmus tests for Supreme Court Justice appointees, which is usually said in reference to the abortion issue. Interestingly, he said he’s having an internal debate about his feelings on the death penalty. “I’m conflicted,” he confessed to Todd.”I am. It was the law of the land when I was governor, and I faithfully dealt with it. To be honest with you, it is not a deterrent anymore because it’s seldom used. It clogs up the courts, it costs a ton of money. And– CHUCK TODD: Are you one of those that look at the fiscal part of it and say, “You know what? Maybe it makes more fiscal sense to not do it”? JEB BUSH: Here’s the one thing, and it’s hard for me, as a human being, to sign the death warrant, to be honest with you. I’m informed by my faith in many things, and this is one of them. So I have to admit that I’m conflicted about this. But here’s the deal, when you meet people, this happens in rare cases where the death penalty’s given out and you meet family members that have lost a loved one and it’s still in their heart. It’s etched in their soul. And this is the way that they get closure, I get more comfortable with it, to be honest with you. But we should reform it. If it’s to be used as a deterrent, it has to be reformed. It can’t take 25 years. That does no one any good. Neither the victims nor the state is solving this problem with that kind of tangled judicial process. CHUCK TODD: So you’re still in favor of it, but? JEB BUSH: Yeah, but I’m just saying, look, this is life, Chuck. It’s not all either/or. Sometimes you can see both sides. And I believe life is truly a gift from God, and innocent life particularly should be protected at all cost, for sure. But people that commit these crimes, there should be– justice can’t be denied. And it shouldn’t be delayed. And maybe there’s a better way to do this where victims feel as though they’re being served, because that should be front and center, the first obligation of the state.
Donald Trump leads Jeb Bush 24% -13% in new CNN national poll
A CNN/ORC national poll released Tuesday morning shows that even after his uneven performance at the first GOP debate and subsequent controversy with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, Donald Trump remains the dominant candidate in the Republican presidential race, getting 24 percent of the vote. Jeb Bush is second with 13 percent. Retired pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson is third with 9 percent. Marco Rubio and Scott Walker are next at 8 percent. Rand Paul is at 6 percent. Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and John Kasich are at 5 percent, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is in tenth place with 4 percent. Bush has seen his favorability ratings drop since Trump’s entry into the race. He held the top spot in the field in most CNN/ORC polls between last fall and Trump’s entry into the race in June. Overall, 56 percent hold an unfavorable view of the former Florida Governor, and 42 percent of Republican voters have a negative impression. That’s an increase in negative views among all adults (up from 43 percent since July) and among Republican voters (up from 34 percent unfavorable). As has been the case with Trump in most polls since he surged to the lead in every poll taken over the past month, there are still downsides for the New York City businessman/celebrity. A majority of Republicans – 58 percent – say the party would have a better chance to win in 2016 with any candidate other than the former Celebrity Apprentice star being the nominee – and that’s the case with 72 percent of those who currently aren’t supporting Trump. However the pollsters say that Trump is impressing on a variety of other questions asked in the survey. The poll shows that 45 percent say that they trust Trump more than any other Republican candidate on the economy — up 25 points since June, 44 percent say they trust Trump over the others on illegal immigration — up 30 points since June — and 32 percent trust him most to handle ISIS, no other candidate comes close on any of these issues. On the economy and illegal immigration, Trump is far and away the top choice even among those Republicans who support someone else for the nomination (33% who say they will most likely vote for someone else say Trump is their most trusted on the economy, 29% say so on illegal immigration). Trump is also most trusted on social issues, 19% say he’s their top choice to handle that. Bush follows at 15%. The CNN/ORC Poll was conducted by telephone Aug. 13-16 among a random national sample of 1,001 adults. The sample included 466 registered voters who are Republicans or independents who lean toward the Republican Party. For results among those Republican voters, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. For results among the full sample, it is 3 points.
In Nevada, Jeb Bush says key to winning is to campaign with joy
A day after sharply criticizing Hillary Rodham Clinton while outlining his strategy to fight the Islamic State, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said Wednesday the key to winning the 2016 election is “campaigning with your arms wide open” and “joy in your heart.” During a meet-and-greet in Reno, the former Florida governor told about 200 people to resist getting behind those candidates who appeal to voters’ anger and fear about the future. “I know how to win. You win campaigning with your arms wide open. You win with joy in your heart. You don’t win appealing to people’s basic fears and angst. You win by giving them a sense that their future can be brighter,” he said. Bush said campaigning positively is a better approach. “You win respecting everybody. Even if they don’t agree with you, you respect them and you try to persuade them that our ideals, our philosophy, our ideology is the winning one for the majority of Americans,” Bush said. Bush’s campaign swing through Nevada came the day after he hammered Clinton and President Barack Obama during a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, arguing the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011 under their watch allowed Islamic State militants to take hold in the Middle East. In that speech, he questioned the idea that America and its allies are safer today than when Obama, with Clinton as his secretary of state, took office in 2009. But Bush told reporters after his Reno event there’s a difference between his criticism of Clinton’s policies and his rejection of campaigning by appealing to anger. “They are not personal attacks, for starters. They are based on flawed policy,” Bush said. “I’m not attacking her. I’m just pointing out that the foreign policy that they have implemented was one that created a more dangerous world. … I think it’s fair to be critical of a foreign policy that has pulled us back where we are no longer reliable allies.” Bush said that his rival for the Republican nomination, billionaire businessman Donald Trump, has “clearly tapped into a sentiment in our party of anger and angst about the future.” But while he said he understands why people are angry, he said it was wrong to appeal directly to those emotions. “We ought to appeal to their belief that if we fix things applying conservative principals in the right way, that their anger will subside because we’ll actually be able to work together,” Bush said. “My message is one that hope’s on the way, not that how bad things are.” At Bush’s North Las Vegas appearance Wednesday night, the last question asked for his solutions to racial injustices as they relate to fatal police shootings of black men, police training and prison populations. “Look, we have serious problems,” he said. “There is racism in America. No one should deny that, although there’s been significant progress.” Bush said he would encourage local leaders to be more engaged to prevent “despair and isolation” in communities and that education is key. “A child that is educated, that believes that their chances of going to college and living a life of purpose and meaning, is important,” he said. Bush left the town hall as some in the crowd of about 150 people chanted “black lives matter.” Several of those chanting also wore pink shirts that read “I stand with Planned Parenthood.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Debate stage drama: GOP awaits top 10 announcement
They crowded the stage in New Hampshire for a debate-style faceoff. But the jam-packed Republican field will be narrowed considerably for the first formal debate of the 2016 primary season later in the week. On Tuesday, Fox News announces which 10 presidential hopefuls can participate and the exclusive club will feature notable omissions. All but three of the 17 major Republican candidates for president participated in a New Hampshire forum Monday night that was essentially a “debate lite.” Unlike Thursday’s nationally televised debate in Cleveland, the gathering didn’t have a cut-off for participation. In their upcoming Ohio meeting, only the GOP’s top 10 candidates in national polling will be allowed on stage. “We never ever envisioned we’d have 17 major candidates,” said Steve Duprey, New Hampshire’s representative to the Republican National Committee, who helped create the GOP’s 2016 debate plan. “There’s no perfect solution.” Without exception, the candidates on Monday aimed their criticism at Democrats instead of each other in a two-hour face-off where Republicans had more in common than not. Not mentioned was the one candidate making the most news headed into Thursday’s meeting: Donald Trump. The billionaire businessman who declined to participate in Monday’s gathering is poised to take center stage later in the next meeting. Trump’s place is assured, having surged into the lead in most recent polls, yet several high-profile Republicans are on the bubble. They include the party’s only female presidential candidate, Carly Fiorina, a former technology executive whose brief surge earlier in the summer has been wiped out by Trump’s rise. And with Republican primary voting set to begin in six months, those who don’t qualify for Thursday’s nationally televised debate may struggle to stand out in the extraordinarily packed GOP contest. “Thursday’s debate will be the first debate, not the last debate,” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who all but conceded he wouldn’t qualify for Thursday’s affair. “We’re getting larger and large crowds, we’re moving up in the polls,” he told reporters after the New Hampshire forum. “We’re building a movement, our strategy is working — talking directly to voters.” Jindal’s fate, like that of several Republican rivals, will rest in which polls Fox uses to determine the top 10 candidates. Several surveys have been released in recent days, with more expected Tuesday, whose margins could make a difference for candidates separated by 1 or 2 points. For example, in Monmouth University’s survey released Monday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, at 3.2 percent, was the 10th candidate, just above the cutoff. After taking the margin of error into account, Monmouth noted that Kasich’s support could be as low as 1.5 percent, while almost any of the candidates who polled lower than him could be that high or higher. Monmouth found that only five candidates — Trump, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — are definitely in the top tier of candidates, while just two — former New York Gov. George Pataki and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore — would not make it into the top 10 even when margin of error is taken into account. Meanwhile, Monday’s meeting offered a prime-time practice round for most of the would-be debaters, who addressed several contentious issues, immigration topping a list that also included abortion and climate change. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another who may not qualify for the upcoming debate, called the flow of immigrants crossing the border illegally “a serious wound.” “You want to stanch the flow,” he said as his Republican rivals watched from the front row of the crowded St. Anselm College auditorium. On those immigrants who have overstayed visas, Perry charged, “You go find ’em, you pick ’em up and you send ’em back where they’re from.” Monday’s participants included seven current or former governors, four senators, a businesswoman, a retired neurosurgeon and one former senator. While Thursday’s debate will be broadcast on Fox News, Monday’s event was aired on C-SPAN and local television stations in Iowa and South Carolina — states that, along with New Hampshire, will host the first contests in the presidential primary calendar next February. After the forum, Kasich was asked about Trump’s absence. “I never thought about him,” the Ohio governor said. “It’d have been great if he’d have been here.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Attack targets Donald Trump website, Gawker posts old cell phone number
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump‘s corporate website was the target of a cyberattack Monday, the same day a celebrity gossip website published an old mobile telephone number for the billionaire businessman. Aides to Trump said hackers were able to access non-public pages inside Trump.com, where they posted a tribute to comedian and late-night talk show host Jon Stewart. The aides described the episode as a prank and not a serious threat. They said the hackers’ temporary entry into a low-level page was not connected to any of Trump.com’s navigational components, compromised no corporate information and was fixed in less than 30 minutes. In a separate event, New York-based celebrity gossip and media news website Gawker published a mobile telephone number it said was Trump’s. “It is a very old number. This is not one he uses,” said Trump campaign spokesman Corey Lewandowski. “Mr. Trump has several numbers, so he has not experienced any issues.” Gawker said it was publishing the number because Trump disclosed Republican rival Lindsey Graham‘s cell phone number last month, when the two were at the center of a public feud over Arizona Sen. John McCain‘s military service. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
