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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing - September 28, 2015
From Ballotpedia
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Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential Briefing was sponsored by the Leadership Project for America. | ||||
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Monday's Leading Stories
- Donald Trump unveiled his tax policy on Monday. According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump’s platform will remove the federal income tax for individuals earning less than $25,000 and couples earning less than $50,000, reduce the highest individual income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent and cut corporate taxes to no higher than 15 percent. Trump will give a press conference on Monday morning to discuss his plan. (The Wall Street Journal, CNN)
- Eight presidential candidates are scheduled to participate in a bipartisan presidential forum in New Hampshire in October. Sponsored by No Labels, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich, Martin O’Malley, George Pataki, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Jim Webb will participate in the event addressing “dysfunctional government.” (Burlington Free Press)
- Poll: According to a national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Sunday, Ben Carson has narrowed the gap between him and Donald Trump with 20 percent to Trump’s 21 percent. Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina were tied for third with 11 percent each. (NBC News)
- Poll: Hillary Clinton retained a small lead over Bernie Sanders in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll. She registered 42 percent support to Sanders’ 35 percent. Without Joe Biden in the race, Clinton’s lead increased to 15 points from 7 points. (NBC News)
Democrats
Joe Biden
- Reuters reported on Friday that the Draft Biden super PAC was launching operations in 11 states with paid staff to prepare for the “Super Tuesday” primary in March 2016. (Reuters)
- Ed Rendell (D), the former governor of Pennsylvania, said in a radio interview on Sunday he did not believe Biden would enter the presidential race. (The Hill)
Lincoln Chafee
- At the Hampton Democrats Community Picnic over the weekend, Lincoln Chafee highlighted his experience. “I’m the only candidate out of six Democrats and 16 Republicans who has been a mayor, a governor and a U.S. senator,” said Chafee. He and Lawrence Lessig were the only Democratic presidential candidates to attend in person. (Foster's Daily Democrat)
Hillary Clinton
- In an interview on Sunday, Hillary Clinton said she was not involved in the process to determine which emails the State Department would receive. “All I can tell you is that when my attorneys conducted this exhaustive process, I didn't participate. I didn't look at them. I wanted them to be as clear as possible. They didn't need me looking over their shoulder,” Clinton said. (CNN)
- Under Clinton’s prescription drug platform, prescription drug imports from Canada would become legal. "If the medicine you need costs less in Canada, you should be able to buy it from Canada — or any other country that meets our safety standards,” she said. (Huffington Post Canada)
- Clinton tweeted on Sunday that Chinese President Xi Jinping was “shameless” for “hosting a meeting on women’s rights at the UN while persecuting feminists” in his country. (The Washington Post)
Lawrence Lessig
- Although Lawrence Lessig praised Donald Trump for highlighting the influence of money on politics, Lessig said, “Donald Trump's solution to the problem he's identified is to elect billionaires. I think we fought a revolution about that and sent the aristocrats home.” (CNN Money)
- Lessig wrote an op-ed in New York Daily News on Monday described the United States as a “vetocracy...where very small numbers in America can block almost any sensible change.” (New York Daily News)
Martin O’Malley
- Speaking at the Iowa Latino Heritage Festival on Sunday, Martin O’Malley said, “I don't believe, like Donald Trump, that the enduring symbol of our country is barbed-wire fences and chainlink fences, and internment camps. I believe the enduring symbol of our country is the Statue of Liberty, and we need to remember that and act like it." Invitations to the event were extended to all presidential candidates, but O’Malley and Bernie Sanders were the only ones to attend. (WHO-DT)
Bernie Sanders
- Bernie Sanders attended the Iowa Latino Heritage Festival on Saturday where said he wanted to “give...legal protections” to 11 million undocumented immigrants. (KCCI)
- Salon offered an analysis of Sanders’ popularity on Facebook, noting his campaign page was more popular and received more user interaction than Hillary Clinton’s. According to Salon, “By leveraging his fans’ enthusiasm and engagement, Sanders is able to circumvent one of Clinton’s biggest strengths: her advertisement budget.” (Salon)
- On Sunday, Sanders said he admired resigning House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for his “tenacity.” Sanders said, “Well, John has had an impossibly difficult job trying to reconcile the conservative wing of his caucus with the extreme, extreme right wing of his caucus that really will not do anything and pass any legislation that Barack Obama will sign.” (Talking Points Memo)
Republicans
- Some senior campaign staffers are concerned the Republican National Committee is delaying announcing the criteria for the third Republican presidential debate in late October to find ways “to winnow the field of candidates.” One campaign adviser said, “Insiders in Washington want to limit the debates because they want their two favorites, Bush and Rubio, to take on Donald Trump. They’re whispering in [RNC Chairman] Reince Priebus’s ear that, ‘The stage is too big, make it smaller.’” (Politico)
- According to a Utah Policy/KSL survey of political insiders, Jim Gilmore, George Pataki and Rick Santorum are the Republican candidates most likely to leave the presidential race next. (Utah Policy)
Jeb Bush
- Jeb Bush dismissed his middling performance in recent polls on Sunday, saying, “They don't filter out the people that aren't going to vote. It's just…an obsession, because it kind of frames the debate for people for that week.” (Politico)
- Bush said he opposed forcing a government shutdown in an attempt to defund Planned Parenthood. “That’s not how democracy works,” he said. (The New York Times)
Ben Carson
- Ben Carson’s fundraising haul for the summer quarter is expected to be near $20 million. (WHO-DT)
- On Friday, Carson said he never claimed it was illegal for a Muslim to be president. “Not advocating they run for president in no way precludes them from running. … Anybody from any faith, from any belief system, who comes to America, becomes an American citizen, embraces our American values and principles and is willing to subjugate their beliefs for our Constitution is somebody I have no problem with,” Carson said. He added that he hoped the media would “mature[].” (CNN)
Chris Christie
- In response to House Speaker Boehner's resignation, Chris Christie said of Congress, “[L]et’s let them get to work, enough of the internal games, you know, the Game of Thrones kind of stuff is getting a little old for everybody. Let's do your job." (NJ.com)
- Christie received endorsements from several prominent Iowa businessmen over the weekend, including the CEO of Summit Group, Bruce Rastetter, and Gary Kirke, a real estate developer. (The Des Moines Register)
Ted Cruz
- Ted Cruz won the presidential straw poll at the Values Voter Summit for a third year in a row with 35 percent support. (Slate)
- Speaking at the Values Voter Summit on Friday, Cruz implied the United States should kill the ayatollah of Iran if he tried to acquire nuclear weapons. (CNN)
Carly Fiorina
- Following comments Carly Fiorina made at the second Republican presidential debate regarding an unknown video she claimed showed a fetus being kept alive to harvest its brain, Planned Parenthood renewed its protests against Fiorina. At a campaign event in Iowa, demonstrators threw condoms at Fiorina and chanted, “Women are watching and we vote.” (ABC News)
- Fiorina said of House Speaker Boehner's resignation, "I think every leader has a season. And I think John Boehner's season was coming to an end, and he understood that. And I hope now that we will move on and have leadership in both the House and the Senate that will produce results." (Talking Points Memo)
- Fiorina expressed support for waterboarding in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, saying it helped “keep our nation safe.” She added, “I believe that all of the evidence is very clear — that waterboarding was used in a very small handful of cases [and] was supervised by medical personnel in every one of those cases. And I also believe that waterboarding was used when there was no other way to get information that was necessary.” (Yahoo)
Lindsey Graham
- Lindsey Graham called President Obama’s decision to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week “a mistake.” Graham said, “I think this is a mistake and I think he is walking all over Obama in the Ukraine. I think this intrusion into the Ukraine on behalf of Assad is a nightmare for our national security interests. I think in the eyes of Putin, Obama is weak.” (The Blaze)
- On Saturday, Graham said he hoped House Speaker Boehner's resignation would not cause a “meltdown” in 2016. “I hope we can have a relationship with the new Speaker that will allow us not to shut down the government, keep the conservative agenda alive, and focus on winning in 2016,” said Graham. (The Hill)
Mike Huckabee
- Mike Huckabee called on Frito-Lay to stop production of its Doritos Rainbows, a limited edition release designed to raise money for the LGBT support group, It Gets Better. Huckabee wrote to the company about the founder of It Gets Better, Dan Savage, stating, "Please tell me that you will publicly disassociate yourself with his hate-filled rhetoric, bigotry toward people of faith, and the violent threats he has issued. … I am stunned that a corporation with a long history of making snack food would partner with someone whose vile, vulgar violent and anti-Christian bigotry is well documented.” (Christian Post)
- At the Values Voter Summit on Friday, Huckabee reiterated his position that constitutional protections should be invoked to defend fetuses. “Since it is a human being, we already have the constitutional protection. It’s called the Fifth Amendment, that says that there will be due process before you deprive a person of life and liberty. As president, we will invoke the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment. We will protect human life,” said Huckabee. (Independent Journal Review)
John Kasich
- John Kasich criticized resigning House Speaker Boehner's detractors on Sunday. “A lot of the people who are doing the complaining and saying, why isn't anything getting done – maybe they ought to look in the mirror,” said Kasich. (CNN)
- Kasich said he had no intention to leave the race as he was “making really good progress and connecting” with voters so far. He also noted a president must have “issues,” vision and likability to succeed. (Talking Points Memo)
Bobby Jindal
- Shannon Dirmann, a spokeswoman for Bobby Jindal, said the Politico Caucus survey finding that Jindal was the most likely to leave the presidential race next was wrong. "These 'insiders' are made up of other campaign staff who want to attack Gov. Jindal," said Dirmann. In contrast, FiveThirtyEight called Jindal a “sleeper pick” to win the 2016 Iowa caucus. (NOLA.com, FiveThirtyEight)
- Jindal suggested on Friday that Scott Walker’s exit speech had been written by the Republican National Committee. “I know they'd love to clear the field to make it Jeb Bush versus Donald Trump. But that's not going to happen and it's not going to work,” Jindal said. (Washington Examiner)
Marco Rubio
- In an interview with NPR airing in full on Monday, Marco Rubio discussed the landscape of Syrian and Russian geopolitics. He argued that there will always be a power vacuum for terrorist groups while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in power, and that President Obama had “strengthened Putin’s hand” by giving him a path to broker stronger alliances in the Middle East than the U.S. has. (NPR)
- U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) and Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives Greg Hughes (R) have endorsed Rubio. (The Salt Lake Tribune)
Rick Santorum
- Discussing Republican leadership in Congress and the effort to defund Planned Parenthood on Friday, Rick Santorum said it was “hard to organize a battle plan when your generals are saying no to battle.” He added, “I’m disappointed. In fact, sort of ticked off that we’re not even going to have a fight on this issue that is sitting there for us to have. These Planned Parenthood videos are an opportunity to open up the world’s attention to the horror of abortion. And for me—if you elect me president, let me assure you, we will defund Planned Parenthood, and we will take this issue to the American public.” (Breitbart)
- Santorum criticized Ted Cruz’s plan to increase legal immigration by offering more H1B visas to skilled workers. He said, “I mean, this is a program that right now is under scandal because we are bringing people in who are supposedly high-skilled workers—computer programmers—and they’re displacing American workers.” (Breitbart)
Donald Trump
- Donald Trump advocated for fair trade and called NAFTA “a disaster” on Sunday. “We will either renegotiate it or we will break it because you know every agreement has an end,” said Trump. (The Hill, Breitbart)
- In the same interview, Trump suggested the U.S. should let Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime or Russia fight in Syria. “Why aren't we letting ISIS go and fight Assad and then we pick up the remnants?" Trump asked. (CNN)
- Trump said he supported universal healthcare on Sunday. “I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now,” he said after describing rising premiums under Obamacare as “a disaster.” (Forbes)
- Trump said on Saturday it was “a good thing” that House Speaker Boehner was resigning. He added, "I don't think he's a conservative." (Examiner.com)
- On Friday, former President Bill Clinton said he believed Trump could win the Republican nomination. “He’s a master brander. And when you’ve got a lot of people running, and people are trying, you’ve got to make distinctions. Being able to put a personal stamp on it so people identify who you are certainly counts for something, at least in the beginning,” Clinton said. (Yahoo)
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
