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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - June 1, 2016
From Ballotpedia
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Wednesday's Leading Stories
- On Tuesday, a state-run news outlet in North Korea praised Donald Trump, calling him a "wise politician" and a “far-sighted presidential candidate.” Chinese North Korean scholar Han Yong-mook wrote, “There are many positive aspects to Trump’s ‘inflammatory policies.’ Trump said he will not get involved in the war between the South and the North, isn’t this fortunate from North Korea’s perspective?” The editorial praised Trump’s willingness to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his threat to remove U.S. forces from South Korea unless they pay the United States more for their protection. The author also discussed a potential Hillary Clinton presidency. He wrote, “The president that U.S. citizens must vote for is not that dull Hillary [Clinton] ... but Trump, who spoke of holding direct conversations with North Korea.” If Clinton is elected, he hopes she uses the "Iranian model to resolve nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula." (The Washington Post, Huffington Post)
- California Governor Jerry Brown endorsed Clinton on Tuesday. In a post on his website, he wrote, “On Tuesday, June 7, I have decided to cast my vote for Hillary Clinton because I believe this is the only path forward to win the presidency and stop the dangerous candidacy of Donald Trump.” He explained that although he is “deeply impressed with how well Bernie Sanders has done,” Clinton “knows how to get things done.” He called for party unity, writing, “This is no time for Democrats to keep fighting each other. The general election has already begun. Hillary Clinton, with her long experience, especially as Secretary of State, has a firm grasp of the issues and will be prepared to lead our country on day one. Next January, I want to be sure that it is Hillary Clinton who takes the oath of office, not Donald Trump.” (JerryBrown.org)
- On Tuesday, Clinton released her 23-point “Military Families Agenda,” which includes: a proposal to allow service members “to more easily switch between active-duty, National Guard and reserve service;” greater flexibility in duty assignments for married members of the military; making permanent the Career Intermission Program; improving education for military children; and increasing access to childcare. Her agenda states, “It is little wonder that service members’ concern for their family’s well-being is a top consideration in whether troops stay in or leave the force.” (Military Times, The Virginian-Pilot)
Polls
- In a potential general election matchup, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump 40 percent to 38 percent. Gary Johnson comes in at 5 percent, and Jill Stein follows with 3 percent support, according to a Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday. (Quinnipiac)
- The poll also found that Clinton leads Trump 45 percent to 41 percent in a head-to-head general election matchup. Bernie Sanders also leads Trump 48 percent to 39 percent.
- In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton leads Sanders 53 percent to 39 percent.
- In Michigan, Sanders leads Trump 52 percent to 33 percent, and Clinton leads Trump 43 percent to 39, according to a Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll released on Wednesday. (Detroit News/WDIV-TV)
Democrats
Hillary Clinton
- On Thursday, Hillary Clinton will deliver a major foreign policy address that focuses on her experience, leadership, and policies as secretary of state, and she will make the case that she is better prepared to be commander-in-chief than Donald Trump. A Clinton aide said, “Clinton will rebuke the fear, bigotry and misplaced defeatism that Trump has been selling to the American people. She will make the affirmative case for the exceptional role America has played and must continue to play in order to keep our country safe and our economy growing.” Clinton is expected to attack the following foreign policy positions taken by Trump: “an apparent willingness to back out of the NATO alliance; a suggestion that the U.S. defense burden would be lightened if Japan and other nations acquired nuclear weapons; and his pledge to bar foreign Muslims from entering the United States.” (The Washington Post)
- In sworn testimony released on Tuesday, Cheryl D. Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, said that “Clinton’s advisers gave little thought to the problems her private email server might create if they were forced to turn over her communications under public records law.” Mills said, “Certainly from my standpoint, I wish that had been something we thought about.” According to The New York Times, “Ms. Mills’s comments — contrite at times, defensive at others — represented the first sworn public accounting from a member of Mrs. Clinton’s inner circle about the controversy over her exclusive use of a private email account during her State Department tenure.” (The New York Times)
Bernie Sanders
- During a campaign rally in California on Tuesday, Bernie Sanders urged his supporters to show up to vote in the primary next week and warned them about the “absurd” system the Democratic Party uses to nominate a candidate. He said, “[I]f there is a large turnout on June 7th here in California where 475 pledged delegates are at stake, we are going to win here in California. … Given the system that we have, which is an absurd system, but it is the system. I want you as the super delegates to take a hard look at which candidate and which campaign can beat Donald Trump.” Sanders also discussed “tuition free college...demilitarizing the police and how the law treats drug addiction.” Sanders said, “What we have got to do is recognize is that addition and drug abuse are not criminal issues, but health issues.” (KZAU.org)
- During a campaign speech in Monterey, California, on Tuesday, Sanders discussed his efforts to run an anti-establishment campaign. He said, “I want to open up doors of the Democratic Party so everyone feels open coming in. … The establishment has betrayed the American people, and now is the time for real change. Our job is to create an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent, an economy that works for the middle class, the children, the elderly and for the poor. That is our economy. … [W]e need a political party and movement of millions of working people and young people who are actively involved. We should not be taking money from Wall Street we should be taking Wall Street on.” (The Californian)
Republicans
Donald Trump
- A federal judge released documents from the case against Trump University on Tuesday. Documents include depositions from Trump executives and documents related to Trump University programs. The documents reveal the aggressive strategies Trump University employees used to persuade prospective students to purchase instructional programs and the strategies that they used to deal with members of the media. In his order, Judge Gonzalo Curiel noted that the documents were unsealed in part because Trump has “placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue.” The order came after Trump criticized Curiel, calling him “hater.” (The Wall Street Journal, NPR)
- On Tuesday, Trump announced that he gave $5.6 million to veterans groups, making good on a pledge he made in January. The announcement came after The Washington Post pressed Trump to reveal who received the money he raised during a campaign event, along with his personal donation of $1 million. Trump criticized the media for the inquiry, saying, "I have never received such bad publicity for doing such a good job.” (The Hill)
- During a press conference announcing the donation, CNN anchor Jim Acosta said to Trump, “It seems to me you’re resistant to the kind of scrutiny that you get with running for president of the United States?” Trump responded: “I like scrutiny, but you know what, when I raise money — excuse me, excuse me, I’ve watched you on television and you’re a real beauty — when I raise money for the veterans, and it’s a massive amount of money — find out how much Hillary Clinton has given to the veterans, it’s nothing. I don’t want the credit for it, but I don’t want to be lambasted.” Trump also called an ABC reporter a “sleaze.” Trump said, “What I don’t want is when I raise millions of dollars, and this sleazy guy over here — look, he’s a sleaze in my book. You’re a sleaze because you know the facts and you know the facts well.” (The Hill)
- On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called for Trump to release his tax returns. McConnell said, "For the last 30 or 40 years, every candidate for president has released their tax returns, and I think Donald Trump should as well." (Business Insider)
- On Tuesday, Trump called Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson a “fringe candidate.” Trump said, “I look at him and I watch him and I watch his motions and I watch what he says. I think that he is a fringe candidate.” (The Washington Times)
- Joe Hunter, Johnson’s communications director, said, “I suppose it is a fringe ticket, if a combined 14 years of successful governing in two of the nation’s bluest states, cutting taxes, balancing budgets and reducing the size of government constitute a fringe.”
Third Party Candidates
- Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, is reportedly recruiting David French to run an independent bid to challenge Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. According to Bloomberg, “French is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to the website of National Review, where French is a staff writer, he is a constitutional lawyer, a recipient of the Bronze Star, and an author of several books who lives in Columbia, Tenn., with his wife Nancy and three children.” In a recent issue of the Weekly Standard, Kristol wrote, “To say that he [French] would be a better and a more responsible president than Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is to state a truth that would become self-evident as more Americans got to know him.” (Bloomberg)
Jill Stein (Green Party)
- On Tuesday, during an interview with Rolling Stone, Jill Stein discussed her plans to eliminate student debt and pay reparations for slavery. (Rolling Stone)
- On student debt: “We are the only campaign that will cancel student debt and bail out [those with student loans] like Obama did for Wall Street. Isn't it about time we bailed out the young people? Therein is how we move forward, because that's 43 million people who don't need to be persuaded, they just need to learn that they have an option to come out and cancel their debt by voting Green. That could actually take over the election: 43 million is a winning plurality in the presidential race. This is mainly to say that the potential for our campaign can be a real positive force. Potentially even a dominating force if the generation in debt gets on to this.”
- On “paying reparations for slavery, in the form of monetary compensation to African-Americans”: “Yes, we have taken a stand in support of reparations. They are not only just, but they are really essential, I think, for coming to terms with the ongoing legacy of the criminal institution of slavery, which lives on in all kinds of ways. There was a seamless web between slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, school segregation and housing segregation — which is on the rise again, as well as school segregation — and massive and growing economic disparities — which has certainly gotten worse since the Wall Street crash — as well as redlining, the racist War on Drugs and police violence. So, this is an ongoing crisis, and we need not only reparations — we need to restore to whole the African-American community that continues to pay an ongoing, devastating price. This is a horrific, ongoing injustice that needs to be rectified, and it should be part of a truth and reconciliation commission. This took place in Germany as part of process of reparations to the state of Israel for the Holocaust. The Holocaust of Nazi Germany is certainly no less of a historic crime than the Holocaust that went on for centuries against African-Americans. That process of reparations, and a truth and reconciliation discussion, was extremely helpful in the country of Germany, and we need to have that here.”
- During an interview with Salon on Tuesday, Stein discussed the differences between the Green Party and the Democratic Party. She said that the Democratic Party “puts profit over people, and profit over planet, and profit over peace. It will allow these big campaigns to get off the ground, but then it will basically sabotage them and absorb them back into the Democratic Party. And the party keeps moving to the right and the reform effort has to start all over again in four years.” Stein also noted the differences between the Green Party and the Democratic Party on labor issues and foreign policy. She said, “[W]hile the Democrats may say the right thing on supporting working people and our right to healthcare and so on, what they do is something entirely different. You can look at how they’ve treated labor and working people and their massive bailouts for Wall Street. For example, once the White House went Democratic nearly eight years ago, who got the bailouts? Wall Street did in a way that made George W. Bush seem like a wimp. George Bush proposed $700 billion but under Barack Obama it was many trillions. We haven’t seen the end of it. Or foreign policy. The guys running the show in the Democratic Party are basically the funders, and that’s predatory banks and fossil fuel bandits and war profiteers and the insurance companies, and that’s what we get.” (Salon)
- On Tuesday, Stein criticized Hillary Clinton’s relationship with Wall Street and her foreign policy decisions. According to .Mic, Stein “has no qualms about insisting Clinton has both taken credit for and been a ‘full partner’ in promoting her husband's ‘neoliberal’ agenda, sucking up to Wall Street and corporate interests for ‘gobs of money’ and warmongering (for starters).” Stein said, "Under Hillary Clinton, we have an air war over Syria, a bombing campaign of Iran and in Syria; with this air war, we're engaging a nuclear power... I don't think Hillary Clinton is a safe bet.” She added, "I think anyone who buys into the Hillary [pitch]... they're being victimized by the slick and glossy Democratic Party propaganda." (.Mic)
Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party)
- According to The Hill, “Chris Rufer, the founder of California tomato processing company Morning Star” is “going to give at least $1 million to an outside group supporting the Libertarian presidential ticket of Johnson, a former New Mexico governor, and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld.” Rufer’s donation would be the largest super-PAC donation in Libertarian Party history. (The Hill)
- During an interview on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" on Tuesday, Johnson said that the presidential candidate he agrees with the most is Bernie Sanders, according to an ISideWith.com quiz that helps voters figure out which candidate has views similar to their own. Johnson said, "Of course I side with myself 100 percent of the time, but interestingly, of all the presidential candidates, I next side with Bernie Sanders at 73 percent. Now, that’s the side of Bernie that has to do with pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, let’s stop with the military interventions, that there is crony capitalism, that government really isn’t fair when it comes to this level playing field, legalize marijuana. … Look, 73 percent of what Bernie says I agree with. We come to a T in the road when it comes to economics. I would really argue that if we absolutely had a fair system of economics, that free markets, that we would do a lot better than going down the path of socialism. … Libertarians agree with socialism as long as it's voluntary.” (The Hill)
See also
- Presidential election, 2016
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Important dates in the 2016 presidential race
- Polls and Straw polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
