| | | | Melania: Trump was 'egged on' to 'boy talk' in 2005 tape | | Melania Trump says her husband was "egged on" in the 2005 tape in which he made lewd comments about his own sexually aggressive behavior toward women -- remarks she says were "boy talk." In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, she said: "I said to my husband that, you know, the language was inappropriate. It's not acceptable. And I was surprised, because that is not the man that I know."
The wife of Donald Trump added: "And as you can see from the tape, the cameras were not on -- it was only a mic. And I wonder if they even knew that the mic was on," she said, referring to Trump and NBC's "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush. She said they were engaged in "boy talk, and he was led on -- like, egged on -- from the host to say dirty and bad stuff."
When you can watch the whole interview: 8 ET tonight. | | | Across three critical battleground states, the race for president remains tight, according to new CNN/ORC polls in Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. Read the key points here from CNN's Jennifer Agiesta. | | Trump's 'voter fraud' talk rankles Republicans | | | Donald Trump greeted the political world this morning with another tweet alleging -- without evidence -- "large scale voter fraud." | | This talk is rankling Republicans everywhere. Claiming media bias is one thing -- but undermining the integrity of the process, without offering any supporting evidence, is another. Some GOP elections officials are pushing back. "I can reassure Donald Trump, I am in charge of elections in Ohio and they're not going to be rigged," Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Trump supporter, told CNN's Carol Costello today. "I'll make sure of that."
Other GOPers weighing in: "Is it legally rigged? No it's not. Whoever wins, wins," Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said on "Imus in the Morning." Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, gave Trump some cover -- but criticized him for focusing on the unsubstantiated allegations. "I think there is truth to some of the things that he lays out on this. I just don't think it's that constructive to make it the campaign issue," he told CNN's Chris Cuomo.
No one can speak for Trump -- not even Mike Pence. Check out my take on how their different approaches on the rigged system talk underscores why Pence is a member of the Republican ticket who can't speak for the Republican ticket.
Election officials scoff: The Hill's Reid Wilson writes: "Elections officials and experts say Donald Trump's claims of a 'rigged' presidential election are ludicrously off base, given the use of a decentralized system in which ballots are counted by thousands of Democratic and Republican officials across the country. That decentralized system, which is often criticized for holding voters in different states to different standards, has acted as a barrier to widespread fraud in more than two centuries of American elections."
The argument in one quote, from Wilson's story: "We are not conducting one election, or even 51 elections, but something like 14,000 elections because we have all these electoral jurisdictions," said Rick Hasen, a law professor and elections expert at the University of California, Irvine. | | | An invite to Nightcappers: Join CNN's Dana Bash and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson tomorrow evening in Las Vegas for CNN's "Politics on Tap" at Beer Park on the Las Vegas Strip. Great food, open bar -- and of course, a lively discussion about the race for the White House. | | | Not in Vegas? The interview will stream live to CNN's flagship Facebook page tomorrow starting around 9.45 p.m. ET. | | State official sought FBI declassification of Clinton email | | | From CNN's Tal Kopan: Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy personally tried to persuade FBI officials to back down on classifying the contents of an email from Hillary Clinton's private email server, notes from interviews conducted during an FBI investigation into Clinton's email practices revealed. One interviewee described feeling "pressured" by another FBI official at Kennedy's request. The FBI is denying that any "quid pro quo" was offered in the fight between the bureau and State Department over the classification level of the email, though one interview described it as such. | | Democrats eye their own Koch brothers-style machine | | | For the nitty-gritty politics geeks: CNN's Teddy Schleifer went to Milwaukee and looked at how Tom Steyer is attempting to build a Democratic version of the Koch brothers' political machine. He has great details on Steyer's For Our Future super PAC targeting Latino voters on Milwaukee's South Side and more. | | Being Muslim American in the year of Donald Trump | | This is a must-read story from CNN's MJ Lee and must-watch set of videos from Jeremy Moorhead, who interviewed more than 40 Muslim Americans.
A couple of snippets:
-- "For Haji Khan, who calls America "beautiful like the song," Trump's animosity toward this grieving father (Khizr Khan) was deeply unsettling. Trump's remarks struck Khan as counter to the values of a country that he says graciously fed and housed him when he first arrived here. 'This country was never like this,' Khan says. 'America was beautiful paradise when I came to this land... It was a welcome people. Beautiful people.'"
-- "Samaira Kouser, 31, was born in Pakistan and is a housewife and mother of three young daughters. She moved to the United States when she was 12, and says she has always found Staten Island to be a friendly community. But recently, she says, some of her neighbors have begun to complain about her children playing outside. "Somebody is in my block who don't like us," Kouser says. "This about (the fact that) we are Muslim." She says she is confident that her children can achieve anything they want in America -- one of her daughters wants to be a dentist; another a cop. 'This is my country. I live here,' Kouser says. 'I'm American. He can't kick me out.' " | | | Rep. Joe Heck, the Nevada Republican Senate candidate, said at a private fundraiser that he wants to support Donald Trump -- but can't. ... After reports he was cutting bait last week, Trump is now competing again in Virginia -- despite a poll that has him down 15 points to Hillary Clinton there. ... Arizona Sen. John McCain questioned a key part of the Republican argument for Trump, saying he's not sure Trump would appoint better Supreme Court justices than Clinton. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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