| | | | Clinton returns to the campaign trail | | Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail four days after her near-fainting spell with little room for another misstep -- and addressed her health head-on in Greensboro, North Carolina. "I tried to power through it, but even I had to admit that maybe a few days of rest would do me good," Clinton said, after walking out into a school gymnasium to James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)." "I'm not great at taking it easy even under ordinary circumstances, but with just two months to go until Election Day, sitting at home was pretty much the last place I wanted to be." CNN's Dan Merica and MJ Lee were there.
Clinton said she spent the time at home reflecting, as she mused that "the campaign trail doesn't really encourage reflection. ... It turns out having a few days to myself was actually a gift."
About that pneumonia timeline ... When did she tell Tim Kaine, her VP pick, about her pneumonia diagnosis? Clinton wouldn't say.
Clinton's millennial push: Bloomberg's Sahil Kapur breaks down Clinton's effort to fix a problem area -- young voters -- by dispatching Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to Ohio this weekend and with a major speech in Philadelphia on Monday. | | Kasich to meet Obama, mount TPP push | | Ahead of an Oval Office meeting with President Barack Obama on Friday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich told CNN's Dana Bash in an exclusive interview on "Anderson Cooper 360" that he feels it's his "responsibility and duty as a leader" -- no matter the political cost -- to help shepherd the Trans-Pacific Partnership through Congress. "I welcome the fact that people will criticize me for putting my country ahead of my party," he said.
Talking Trump: Kasich said it's "very unlikely" he will vote for Donald Trump. "Too much water under the bridge," he said.
But one other thing's for sure: "I'm not voting for Hillary."
Dana's full interview will air later tonight. | | | Missouri Democratic Senate hopeful Jason Kander dropped perhaps the most memorable ad of the 2016 cycle so far today. In it, Kander assembles his AR-15 rifle while blindfolded and talks up his experience in the Army in Afghanistan. He was pushing back against GOP Sen. Roy Blunt and the National Rifle Association's criticism of his gun record. | | The Trump kids aren't alright | | Some of Donald Trump's children are showing signs of impatience and struggling to stay on message. In the past 24 hours, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have cut off interviews when pressed for answers on tough questions. Trump Jr. strayed from the campaign's talking point about the Republican nominee's tax returns -- that they'll be released once an IRS audit concludes -- when he said unveiling the documents would "detract" from his father's message.
Worst of all: During a Thursday interview with a Philadelphia radio station, Trump Jr. raised the specter of the Holocaust by saying if Republicans acted like Hillary Clinton, the media would be "warming up the gas chamber." Trump's campaign says Don Jr. was referring to capital punishment, not the Holocaust. Here's my story -- complete with a lead nodding to The Offspring.
Ivanka vs. Cosmo: More on the fight between Ivanka Trump and Cosmopolitan magazine -- whose reporter, Prachi Gupta, angered Trump's oldest daughter by pressing for details on what the child care proposal she helped craft would mean for fathers, and particularly gay couples -- and how Ivanka responded via tweetstorm, from The Hill's Harper Neidig.
Trump's unfulfilled promises: CNN's Gregory Krieg breaks down the list of pledges Trump has made, but not kept -- including releasing his tax returns, providing detailed medical records, Melania Trump holding a news conference on her immigration status, not using teleprompters, financing his campaign with his own money and paying the legal fees for a man who punched a protester. | | Trump's false attack on a Flint pastor | | It's true that when Donald Trump began attacking Hillary Clinton at an African-American church in Flint yesterday, he was interrupted by Pastor Faith Green-Timmons -- who told him to drop the political attacks.
What's false, though, is how Trump described the encounter on a friendly call-in to "Fox and Friends" this morning, where he cast the interruption as a planned attack on him. "She had that in mind," he said. "There's no question about it." Trump added: "When she got up to introduce me she was so nervous, she was shaking. I said, 'Wow, this is kind of strange.'"
But that's not how things really went down. NPR's Scott Detrow, who was in the room, lays it out from his perspective, writing that the pastor actually defended Trump. Per Detrow: "In fact, several audience members began to heckle Trump, asking pointed questions about whether he racially discriminated against black tenants as a landlord. And that's when Timmons -- who Trump said Thursday had planned to ambush him -- stepped in to defend Trump, saying the Republican nominee was 'a guest of my church, and you will respect him.' 'Thank you. Thank you, Pastor,' Trump responded."
Clinton hit Trump over his comments today, telling reporters: "That's not only insulting, that's dead wrong. ... She's a rock for her community in trying times, she deserves better than that. And Flint deserves better." | | | Republican VP nominee Mike Pence responded to Reid in an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett tonight. "I think those remarks are beneath the dignity of the United States Senate," Pence said. "Look, to be honest with you, I'm starting to get a whiff of desperation from the other side. It seems like the attacks are getting a little more intense." | | The weirdest part of Trump's Dr. Oz interview | | Forget the talk about Donald Trump's health. The weirdest part of his interview on "The Dr. Oz Show" (taped yesterday but aired today) was about Medicaid, where Trump embraced a core tenet of Obamacare -- a Medicaid expansion -- that his party has spent seven years fighting.
Here's what Trump said about providing health care for America's poor: "We have to go and help them through the Medicaid system. We have to help them publicly. We're going to have to do it. Nobody wants to see people -- and it's totally unfair -- a lot of people said, 'Oh, gee that's not the thing to say.' I said, 'Well you know what? If I can't say that, I'm not running for office.' ... We're going to take care of that through the Medicaid system. We're going to take care of those people. We have no choice. We're not going to let people die on the streets."
Trump still wants to scrap Obamacare. So what would he replace it with? "Plans you don't even know about will be devised because we're going to come up with plans -- health care plans -- that will be so good. And so much less expensive both for the country and for the people. And so much better."
What else we learned: Trump supports over-the-counter birth control and deflected a question about whether undocumented immigrants deserve care.
Up tomorrow for Trump: A visit to the Republican National Committee, where he'll thank the staff for its hard work. | | | A faulty teleprompter didn't slow Donald Trump today. ... Yet another bad sign for Ted Strickland in his bid to unseat Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman: A previously supportive labor union won't endorse. ... House Speaker Paul Ryan says Trump should release his tax returns. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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