(Reuters) - Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Fallon, John Legend and Eli Manning are among more than two dozen personalities who will offer words of wisdom via podcast to high school and college graduates sheltering at home due to the coronavirus outbreak, organizers said on Tuesday.
IHeart Media Inc said it will debut the podcast called “Commencement: Speeches for the Class of 2020” on May 15. Graduations that typically take place in May and June have been canceled as Americans stay home to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Many of the podcast speakers are people who normally would appear in person at commencement ceremonies to offer inspiration to graduates. The lineup includes entertainers Tim McGraw, Kesha and Pitbull; journalist Katie Couric; college basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski; and retired General Stanley McChrystal.
“High school and college seniors are always in need of inspiration, reassurance and life advice as they head into the next chapter of their lives, and that is especially true this year,” said Conal Byrne, President of the iHeartPodcast Network.
The commencement podcast “brings together some of the most experienced and inspiring people in the country today to celebrate the resilience, strength and accomplishments of this year’s graduates,” Byrne added.
IHeart Media also has announced a “virtual prom” on May 1 with Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM for students who will miss that annual rite of passage. It will feature celebrity appearances including DJ sets by Joe Jonas, Dillon Francis and Loud Luxury.
Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Bill Berkrot
WASHINGTON — For 3 years, Hillary Clinton has watched the Democratic Party search for a path forward in the Trump era.
She’s watched as liberals and moderates clashed on how best to fight President Donald Trump and a White House that was almost hers. She’s watched as some voters questioned the “electability” of the 6 women running for president, doubts that she once faced. She’s watched as Sen. Bernie Sanders has risen, after his withering opposition to her in the 2016 presidential primary, to become the dominant liberal force in the 2020 race.
And she’d largely refrained from weighing in — until Tuesday morning, when The Hollywood Reporter published an interview with Clinton promoting a new documentary about her that will premiere Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival. In the documentary, she rips into Sanders and declines to say if she would endorse him and campaign on his behalf if he were to win the Democratic nomination.
“Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician,” she said. “It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.” Asked by The Reporter recently if that assessment still held, she replied, “Yes, it does.”
Her remarks ricocheted across the Democratic Party on Tuesday, threatening to reopen the barely healed wounds of the 2016 primary, a race that quickly turned from a near-coronation of Clinton as the party’s first female nominee into a bitter battle that exposed a deep ideological rift among Democrats.
That split over what direction the party should take is now a major issue in the current primary, with Sanders arguing for the full-throated leftist agenda and others counseling moderation. At the same time, he is engaged in a standoff with his liberal ally in the 2020 race, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, that has divided some on the left, over her accusation that he told her in 2018 that a woman could not win the presidency.
Sanders has denied that remark. Clinton, for her part, seized on it and said it was “part of a pattern,” noting that he said in 2016 that Clinton was unqualified to be president.
Some Democrats fear that Clinton is adding fuel to the tensions within the party, whose leaders have spent years trying to overcome the lingering hostilities of the 2016 campaign, hoping to unify Democrats around the singular mission of defeating Trump.
“I just don’t think it’s appropriate for Democrats to be criticizing other Democrats, especially with personal attacks like that,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, who supported both of Clinton’s primary bids. “I understand why there can be bitterness out there. I believe we just need to leave that behind us.”
Representatives of both Sanders and Clinton moved quickly to try to quell the furor Tuesday. Fresh off recent battles with not only Warren but also former Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders’ campaign was eager to avoid another fight that would distract from his closing message less than two weeks before the Iowa presidential caucuses. Sanders apologized Monday to Biden after a Sanders campaign surrogate wrote an opinion article accusing the former vice president of having “a big corruption problem.”
Speaking to reporters Tuesday in Washington, Sanders said: “Secretary Clinton is entitled to her point of view. My job today is to focus on the impeachment trial.”
When asked for his response to Clinton’s assertion that no one liked him, he joked that “on a good day, my wife likes me, so let’s clear the air on that one.”
Clinton tried to clarify her remarks Tuesday evening. “I thought everyone wanted my authentic, unvarnished views!” she wrote on Twitter. “But to be serious, the number one priority for our country and world is retiring Trump, and, as I always have, I will do whatever I can to support our nominee.”
Those who have spoken to Clinton recently confirm that she has every intention of supporting the Democratic nominee — even if Sanders ends up winning the primary. Still, even some longtime allies were shocked that she voiced such criticisms of Sanders in an election year, so close to the start of primary voting.
They were far less surprised by the content of her remarks.
Sanders’ denial in his dispute with Warren over whether he had told her a woman could not defeat Trump infuriated Clinton, according to people close to her. Sanders’ subsequent refusal to chastise his supporters for attacking Warren and her team online only added to her concern.
“It’s not only him, it’s the culture around him. It’s his leadership team. It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online Bernie Bros,” Clinton told The Reporter. “It should be worrisome that he has permitted this culture — not only permitted, seems to really be very much supporting it.”
People close to Clinton say she has grown worried that attacks from Sanders’ campaign could hurt the future Democratic nominee in much the same way that she believes they did lasting damage to her. She worries he will not drop out of the race even if it becomes clear he cannot win the nomination, a situation that could exacerbate divisions in the party.
Clinton also does not believe Sanders could beat Trump, telling friends for months that he has never sustained harsh attacks from fellow Democrats on his record and self-described democratic socialism.
Since Sanders endorsed Clinton in July 2016, the acrimony between the two camps has lingered. Clinton and her former aides maintain that his endorsement came too late and was too lukewarm to truly unify the party. Some supporters of Sanders still argue that the Democratic National Committee “rigged” the rules to help her secure the nomination.
Unlike nearly all of the other two dozen Democratic candidates this primary cycle, Sanders did not call Clinton before he entered the race.
Jane Kleeb, the Nebraska Democratic Party chairwoman, said that she understood Clinton’s concerns but that voicing frustrations was unproductive for the party.
“She has obviously a very different vantage than any of us ever will. She worked her entire career and she was taken down by forces out of her control,” said Kleeb, who backed Sanders in the 2016 primary but recalled crying as she listened to Clinton’s audiobook about her campaign. “I understand why she’s frustrated with Senator Sanders but I also think this is time to go after Trump.”
Though Clinton’s presidential defeat still weighs heavily on her, friends say she is busy with a variety of other projects, traveling to accept awards and honorary degrees. An avid theatergoer, she attends Broadway shows and has been spotted at several concerts, including Fleetwood Mac, Earth Wind and Fire, and Billy Joel. She spends a lot of time with her three grandchildren and, this fall, released a book profiling “gutsy women” with her daughter, Chelsea.
Still, at times, Clinton’s pique about 2016 has come out.
In December, she participated in a 2 1/2-hour interview with radio host Howard Stern, during which she argued that Sanders “hurt” her during the 2016 campaign.
Among some in Sanders’ campaign, there was hope that Clinton’s remarks would lead to a similar bump in fundraising.
On Twitter, the hashtag #ILikeBernie became a top trending topic. Many supporters pounced on Clinton’s remarks, arguing that she remained out of touch with the working-class Americans who back Sanders.
“No apologies, no backing down, the scorn and hatred that all of official Washington DC and the Democratic Party has for him and his supporters is his closing case,” Will Menaker, a host of the progressive podcast Chapo Trap House, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “They are corrupt and evil, they hate him and they hate you because you are not.”
Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of the progressive group Justice Democrats, called Clinton’s statement “unacceptable, out of touch and dangerous.”
Though some of his supporters and staff members have been itching for confrontation, Sanders has rejected recent traps to get him to relitigate 2016. Last week, after Trump tried to goad Sanders by saying the Democratic Party was rigging the 2020 election against him again, he refused to bite and instead issued a statement attacking Trump.
Yet the furor over Clinton’s remarks is unlikely to die down anytime soon, as she continues promoting the new documentary, “Hillary,” which is set to be released on Hulu a few days after Super Tuesday.
“She obviously has deeply held feelings about what happened in 2016 and is hellbent on stopping Sanders now,” said David Axelrod, who served as a top strategist on Barack Obama’s primary bid against Clinton in 2008. “If the goal of Democrats is to win, I’m not sure that interventions like this are likely to help unify and mobilize all elements of the party in the fall. She, of all people, should know that.”
2020 The New York Times Company
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LONDON - Female politicians are facing a backlash over women's rights which has been fueled by social media that rewards abusive posts and conspiracy theories, former U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Sunday.
Women in the public eye still face scrutiny over their looks and pressure to behave politely and meekly in a way that men do not, said Clinton as she discussed a book co-authored with her daughter Chelsea Clinton about inspirational women leaders.
Her comments came after a number of female members of parliament in Britain announced they would not stand for re-election at a Dec. 12 general election, citing abuse on social media including rape and death threats.
"I do think there is a reaction to a lot of the success of women and the roles of women right now," Clinton told an audience at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall in central London.
"And I think social media has lit that up, in a very destructive and toxic way. People may have thought a lot of things in the past but now it is amplified and it is viral."
Clinton, who lost out on her bid to become the first female president of the United States at the 2016 election, has said misogyny "certainly" played a role in her defeat to Republican rival Donald Trump.
An international study last year by Atalanta, a social enterprise dedicated to advancing women's leadership, found female lawmakers were three times more likely than men to receive sexist comments than their male colleagues.
Clinton said the scepticism towards Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg from some critics revealed how much gendered norms still prevailed in many areas of public life.
"She is a young women, so the idea that she is standing up and speaking out as effectively as she has just rattles all of the paradigms that people still live with," she said.
"There's almost an ancient DNA imprinting about 'This is what women are supposed to do and this is what they are supposed to look like' and you are not supposed to be so pushy and aggressive ... it is maddening how much that still operates."
The Clintons said they hoped their "The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience" would inspire women to stand up for their beliefs - and help men and boys find female heroes.
It comes amid a growing debate over remaining glass ceilings for women, with U.S.-based Women's March demanding rights, while the #MeToo movement on social media against sexual abuse has sparked wider debates on pay, representation and sexism.
Clinton said she was optimistic for future political candidates and others reaching into male-dominated spheres, but change was needed to ensure they had an equal chance of success.
"It is the structures of power that should change. Why are they so set on making it so difficult for not only women but people of colour and others to get into the room?" she said.
"We are really aware of that. I lived that."
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WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton on Sunday posted a joke letter on Twitter supposedly sent by John F. Kennedy during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, written in the excitable style of US President Donald Trump's recent letter to Turkey.
The parody letter, originally from ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" TV show, is written on mocked-up White House letterhead and addressed to Russia's then leader Nikita Khrushchev.
"Don't be a d***, ok? Get your missiles out of Cuba," starts the letter pretending to be from president Kennedy.
"Everybody will say 'Yay! Khrushchev! You're the best!' But if you don't everybody will be like 'what an a******' and call your garbage country 'The Soviet Bunion.'"
The letter echoes the bizarre tone of Trump's October 9 letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which he warned that he would wreck Turkey's economy if its invasion of Syria went too far.
"You don't want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don't want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy -- and I will," Trump wrote in a letter many people thought was fake until it was verified by the White House.
"Don't be a tough guy. Don't be a fool," Trump finished, adding: "I will call you later."
The joke letter from Kennedy to Khrushchev ends: "You're really busting my nuts here. Give you a jingle later," before signing off "Hugs, John Fitzgerald Kennedy."
Clinton joked that the letter had been "found in the archives."
UNIQUE COMMUNICATION STYLE
Democrat Clinton, who was defeated by Republican Trump in the 2016 US election, has backed efforts to impeach him over his dealings with Ukraine and is still regularly targeted by the president during his speeches.
In the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy and Khrushchev faced off in a moment of high diplomatic tension that threatened to tip the world into nuclear war.
The United States had detected Soviet missile installations in Cuba, just off the Florida coast, and Kennedy imposed a blockade of the island.
Soviet ships laden with nuclear missiles heading for Cuba turned back at the last minute after a secret agreement with Washington.
Trump has defended his diplomacy in the Middle East and his military pullout from northern Syria, which cleared the way for Turkey's cross-border attack against Kurdish forces.
Trump's idiosyncratic communication style was also on display on Twitter Sunday when he misspelled the name of his Defense Secretary Mark Esper as "Esperanto" -- the little-used universal language invented in 1887.
He corrected his error some hours later.
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NEW YORK — Hours after Robert Mueller, the special counsel, broke his silence and said that Russia had sought to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Clinton said that the “systemic efforts to interfere” in the 2016 election “deserves the attention of every American.”
Clinton made the remarks as part of a commencement address Wednesday afternoon to more than 2,400 Hunter College students inside New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Amid a sea of purple caps and gowns, she also leveled fresh criticism at the Trump administration for what she said was its “complete refusal to condemn a foreign power who attacked our democracy” and its failure to protect the country’s voting systems against future attacks.
“It seems absolutely clear that we’ve got to deal with what has been investigated and reported,” she said.
Earlier in the day, Mueller held a 10-minute news conference — his first public characterization of the investigation since it began more than two years ago — in which he discussed central elements of his report, including the decision to not explicitly clear President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice.
He reiterated allegations previously laid out in an indictment that Russian intelligence officers had “used sophisticated cybertechniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign,” and that their release of that information was “designed and timed to interfere with our election” and to “damage” Clinton.
Clinton also used part of her 30-minute commencement speech to criticize what she called “the big social media platforms,” which she said “know their systems are being manipulated by foreign and domestic actors to sow division, promote extremism and spread misinformation.”
“But they won’t get serious about cleaning up their platforms unless consumers demand it,” she told the graduates.
She specifically rebuked Facebook for its refusal to remove altered videos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which first appeared online last week and spread widely. In one of the edited videos, Pelosi’s speech was slowed down and slurred, making her appear drunk.
Pelosi herself sharply criticized Facebook earlier Wednesday, telling a public radio station in Northern California that the company’s refusal to take down altered videos of her demonstrated how the social network contributed to misinformation.
“It wasn’t even a close call,” Clinton said of Facebook’s decision not to remove the content. “The video is sexist trash.”
Clinton’s comments come four weeks after she sharply criticized Attorney General William Barr, Trump, members of the Republican Party and some findings of the Mueller report in a wide-ranging interview on “The Rachel Maddow Show.” She has also recently appeared in a comedy sketch in which she performed a dramatic reading of the Mueller report, and has spoken out on Twitter about the recent state abortion bans.
On Wednesday, she continued to obliquely attack the Trump administration, saying, “We are witnessing an assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our democracy,” and that democracy “feels far from secure.”
But she sought to keep the mood mostly uplifting and occasionally light.
Clinton opened her remarks by thanking the Hunter College president, Jennifer J. Raab. “Madame president — that has a nice ring to it,” she said, to laughs and cheers.
Then she mentioned that last year’s commencement speaker was actor Vin Diesel.
“We’re going to star in a movie together,” she said. “It’s called ‘The Fast and the Still Really Furious.’”
2019 New York Times News Service
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WASHINGTON—Special Counsel Robert Mueller's long-awaited report on Russia's role in the 2016 U.S. election will be released on Thursday, providing the first public look at the findings of an inquiry that has cast a shadow over Donald Trump's presidency.
Attorney General William Barr plans to release the nearly 400-page report detailing Mueller's 22-month investigation into the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia and questions about obstruction of justice by the president.
Its disclosure, with portions expected to be blacked out by Barr to protect some sensitive information, is certain to launch a new political fight in Congress and on the 2020 presidential campaign trail, as Trump seeks re-election in a deeply divided country.
The release marks a watershed moment in Trump's presidency, promising new details about some of the biggest questions in the probe, including the extent and nature of his campaign's contacts with Russia and actions Trump may have taken to hinder the inquiry including his 2017 firing of FBI Director James Comey.
Mueller submitted the report to Barr on March 22. Two days later, Barr sent lawmakers a four-page letter saying the inquiry did not establish that Trump's 2016 campaign team engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia and that Mueller had not exonerated Trump of committing the crime of obstruction of justice. Barr subsequently concluded that Trump had not committed obstruction of justice.
A source familiar with the matter said the version of the report to be released on Thursday was "lightly redacted."
The release of the report may deepen an already bitter partisan rift between Trump's fellow Republicans, most of whom have rallied around the president, and his Democratic critics, who will have to decide how hard to go after Trump as they prepare congressional investigations of his administration.
Barr said he would hold a news conference at 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) on Thursday to discuss the report, along with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special counsel in May 2017.
Copies of the report will be delivered to Congress more than an hour later, between 11 a.m. and noon (1500-1600 GMT), a senior Justice Department official said. The delay in seeing the report sparked Democratic complaints that Barr, a Trump appointee, wanted to shape the public's views during his news conference before others had a chance to draw their own conclusions.
Top congressional Democrats called on Mueller to testify publicly in Congress about his investigation, criticizing Barr's roll-out of the report.
"We believe the only way to begin restoring public trust in the handling of the Special Counsel's investigation is for Special Counsel Mueller himself to provide public testimony in the House and Senate as soon as possible," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.
The spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment.
Mueller's investigation, which Trump has called a "witch hunt," raised questions about the legitimacy of Trump's presidency and laid bare what the special counsel and U.S. intelligence agencies have described as a Russian operation to derail Democrat Hillary Clinton's candidacy and elevate Trump, the Kremlin's preferred candidate.
'POLITICAL HOAX'
Ahead of the report's release, Trump went on Twitter to renew his attack on the inquiry, writing, "The Greatest Political Hoax of all time!" and attacking Democrats and "Dirty Cops."
Jay Sekulow, a Trump lawyer, said the president's team will respond to the document's release "initially with a statement" and will decide on whether to release a rebuttal report "based on the developments of the day." A person familiar with the matter said such a rebuttal report would be about 30 pages long."
A Justice Department spokeswoman said Barr would elaborate on Justice Department communications with the White House over the past several weeks regarding the report and whether the White House invoked a legal doctrine called executive privilege that allows the president to withhold information about internal executive branch deliberations from other branches of government.
Barr plans to address whether executive privilege was invoked by the White House in the Russia report to be released on Thursday and also elaborate on Justice Department communications with the White House over the past several weeks, a Justice Department spokeswoman said on Thursday.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that White House lawyers held talks with U.S. Justice Department officials in recent days about the conclusions in Mueller's report, aiding them in preparing for its release.
Democrats are concerned that Barr, appointed by Trump after the president fired former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, could black out material to protect the president.
Some Democrats have spoken of launching impeachment proceedings against Trump in Congress, allowed under the U.S. Constitution to remove a president from office for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," but top Democrats have been notably cautious.
Mueller charged 34 people and three Russian companies. Those who were convicted or pleaded guilty included figures close to Trump such as his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, personal lawyer Michael Cohen and national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Since Barr released the March 24 letter, Trump has claimed "complete and total exoneration," and condemned the inquiry as "an illegal takedown that failed." At a March 28 rally in Michigan, Trump said that "after three years of lies and smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead."
Justice Department regulations gave Barr broad authority to decide how much of Mueller's report to make public, but Democrats have demanded the entire report as well as the underlying investigative files. Barr is due to testify to Congress in public about the report in early May.
The Justice Department has been working for weeks to prepare the redactions, which will be color coded to reflect the reason material is omitted.
Barr said he would redact parts to protect secret grand jury information, intelligence-gathering sources and methods, material that could affect ongoing investigations and information that unduly infringes on the privacy of "peripheral third parties" who were not charged.
The release comes as both parties gear up for the November 2020 presidential election. Trump already has launched his campaign for a second four-year term, and a crowded field of Democrats has formed to seek the nomination to challenge him.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by David Morgan, Doina Chiacu, Andy Sullivan, Jan Wolfe, Nathan Layne, Karen Freifeld and Makini Brice; Writing by John Whitesides and Will Dunham, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alistair Bell)
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NEW YORK - Presidential hopefuls must walk a fine line to defeat US President Donald Trump, presenting their own views while fending off his attacks, said former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in a bitter 2016 race.
Speaking on Friday, the fourth anniversary of the day she declared her bid for president, Clinton said in a New York appearance she was "delighted" about the diverse Democratic field, with a record six women, vying to challenge Trump in the 2020 election.
Clinton, who is also a former US senator and former first lady, lost to Trump in November 2016 in a stunning upset.
The defeat of the heavily favored Clinton, a Democrat, by the Republican Trump was largely unexpected by polls and political observers.
Candidates looking to oust Trump next year face a "balancing act," she said, speaking at a "Women in the World" conference of leaders, activists, and others.
"You do have to present what you want to do - what is your vision, what is your hope for our country, how do you see the future," she said.
"At the same time, you have to be able to counter and ignore where possible, respond where necessary to the diversion and distraction that we see unfortunately working by the current incumbent in the White House," she said.
With national political sentiment deeply divided under Trump, she urged candidates to aim high and mount positive campaigns.
"Anger, resentment, prejudice are not strategies. They stop people from thinking," she said. "The job of a leader is to appeal to us to be more than we could be on our own."
She described the 2016 race against Trump as "dark" and "negative."
Looking to the 2020 election, the largest Democratic field in the modern US political era is lining up to seek the party's presidential nomination.
The hopefuls include six women as well as black, Hispanic, and openly gay candidates who would make history as the nominee.
Since losing her presidential bid, Clinton has written a memoir entitled "What Happened."
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WASHINGTON- Hillary Clinton has for the first time ruled out running for president in 2020.
"I'm not running, but I'm going to keep on working and speaking and standing up for what I believe," Clinton said Monday in an interview with News 12, a local TV channel in New York.
Clinton was the frontrunner in 2016 but ended up losing to Donald Trump.
"I want to be sure that people understand I'm going to keep speaking out," Clinton said.
"I'm not going anywhere. What's at stake in our country, the kinds of things that are happening right now, are deeply troubling to me."
Clinton has held meetings with some of the Democrats who are now vying for the party nomination or considering a run. CNN has reported that they include former vice president Joe Biden, who has not yet said if he is running.
"I've told every one of them, don't take anything for granted, even though we have a long list of real problems and broken promises from this administration that need to be highlighted," Clinton said.
Asked if she would run again for some kind of public office, she seemed to avoid ruling that out.
"I don't think so, but I love living in New York and I'm so grateful that I had the chance to be a senator for eight years and to work with people across our state," said the former secretary of state and senator for New York state.
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WASHINGTON - Former First Lady Hillary Clinton's 17-year run as the woman Americans admire most is over.
Another former First Lady, Michelle Obama, has deposed Clinton as America's most admired woman, according to a Gallup poll published on Thursday.
Former president Barack Obama was named the man Americans admire most for the 11th year in a row, Gallup said.
President Donald Trump finished second in the poll for the fourth year in a row.
Gallup has conducted the annual poll every year since 1946 with the exception of 1976.
Fifteen percent of the 1,025 Americans polled said the woman they admire most is Michelle Obama, who is currently on a tour promoting her book "Becoming."
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey was second with 5 percent followed by Hillary Clinton and First Lady Melania Trump with 4 percent.
Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and a former US senator and secretary of state, has topped the list 22 times including the past 17 years in a row.
Nineteen percent of those polled said Barack Obama was the man they admired most.
Trump was second with 13 percent followed by former president George W. Bush and Pope Francis, who were tied with 2 percent.
Gallup said the survey conducted December 3-12 had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
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MUMBAI - The daughter of India's richest man got married on Wednesday in a traditional ceremony in Mumbai attended by Bollywood stars and former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The marriage brings together 2 of India's most influential families. The bride, Isha Ambani, 27, is the daughter of Mukesh Ambani, head of the vast Reliance conglomerate whose net worth Forbes put at $43 billion.
Her groom, Anand Piramal, 33, is heir to a real-estate and pharmaceutical business.
The wedding bash took place at Ambani's Mumbai residence, an extraordinary 27-storey structure known as one of the most expensive homes in the world. It was covered in red roses and decorated with lights and flowers for the occasion.
The groom and his family arrived in vintage cars as security guards onlookers and photographers from the narrow lane in south Mumbai that leads to the residence.
India's Filmfare magazine said 600 guests were expected at what media have dubbed the "the big, fat Indian wedding".
The festivities were a culmination of lavish pre-wedding celebrations in the desert city of Udaipur over the weekend, which featured a private concert by American singer Beyonce.
As well as Clinton, who according to Indian media reports has an association with the Ambanis that goes back more than 18 years, attendees included newly-weds actress Priyanka Chopra and singer Nick Jonas, former Indian finance minister P. Chidambaram, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, and Bollywood actor Aamir Khan.
Many in India, where millions of people live in dire poverty, have closely followed the wedding preparations, including the couple's engagement at a luxury hotel on Italy's Lake Como.
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WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump acknowledged Tuesday that his daughter had used a private email account for government business, but rejected parallels between Ivanka Trump and Hillary Clinton as "fake news."
The president made brutal criticism of 2016 presidential election rival Clinton a central plank of his campaign -- insisting she had broken the law with a similar private email set-up.
But Ivanka Trump's emails did not contain classified information and she did not use an extensive home server, he argued, insisting that that his daughter and senior advisor had done nothing wrong.
"Early on and for a little period of time, Ivanka did some emails. They weren't classified like Hillary Clinton. They weren't deleted like Hillary Clinton," Trump told reporters.
"She wasn't doing anything to hide her emails... They are all in presidential records... There were no servers in the basement like Hillary Clinton had. You're talking about a whole different -- all fake news."
Trump's vigorous defense of his daughter did little however to appease lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who announced plans to investigate whether she had violated federal records rules.
Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee who is likely to become chairman when his party takes control of the House in January, hinted he may revive a probe from last year into Trump administration officials' private email use.
"The White House never gave us the information we requested," Cummings, who authored an update to the Presidential and Federal Records Act signed into law in 2014, said in a statement.
"We need those documents to ensure that Ivanka Trump, (her husband) Jared Kushner and other officials are complying with federal records laws and there is a complete record of the activities of this administration."
During their bitter election battle, Donald Trump had called for Clinton to be brought up on charges over her use of a private email server while secretary of state. A favorite chant of his supporters was "Lock her up" -- one he did not silence.
Cummings insisted that "my goal is to prevent this from happening again -- not to turn this into a spectacle the way Republicans went after Hillary Clinton."
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, a Republican, said he would also examine whether the law had been broken.
"We take this very seriously," Johnson, who had his committee investigate Clinton's email use, told CNN. "Federal records is under my committee's jurisdiction, and we will dig into exactly what has happened here."
The scandal came to light when public affairs watchdog American Oversight released emails obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests that showed Trump had used her personal email account hundreds of times to communicate with federal agencies.
A spokesman for Ivanka Trump's attorney confirmed that she used a private email account before she was informed of the rules, according to the Washington Post, and said that all her government-related emails had been turned over months ago.
But American Oversight called her personal email use a "blatant derogation of the law."
"It now appears that Ms Trump continued to violate the rules long after the White House claimed it had educated employees about their obligations," executive director Austin Evers wrote in a letter to lawmakers.
"Accordingly, there is reason to doubt the efficacy of the White House's efforts. Congress should investigate the steps the White House has taken to ensure employees beyond Ms Trump are following the law."
oh/ft
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WASHINGTON - The US president's daughter and senior advisor Ivanka Trump used a personal email account for government business in violation of federal records rules, The Washington Post reported Monday.
The Post, citing anonymous sources, said the discovery was made by White House officials reviewing emails in response to a public records lawsuit.
When asked about it, Trump said she was unfamiliar with details of the rules, the Post said.
A spokesman for Trump's attorney confirmed that she did use a private email account before she was informed of the rules, and said that all her government-related emails had been turned over months ago, the newspaper reported.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly pilloried Hillary Clinton, his rival in the 2016 presidential election, for her use of a private email server for government business while she was secretary of state.
Then FBI director James Comey -- fired by the president last year -- announced that the bureau would reopen an investigation into Clinton's use of the private email server just 11 days before the 2016 presidential vote, a move that some say may have helped cost her the election.
Trump supporters still chant "Lock her up!" at rallies, mimicking one of Trump's battle cries during the election campaign, indicating they believe Clinton should be jailed.
wd/dw
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Actor Robert De Niro, one of the intended targets of a bomb plot and an outspoken critic of US President Donald Trump, urged Americans on Friday to get out and vote.
"I thank God no one's been hurt, and I thank the brave and resourceful security and law enforcement people for protecting us," De Niro said in a brief statement.
"There's something more powerful than bombs, and that's your vote," the 75-year-old Hollywood star said. "People MUST vote."
The United States is to hold mid-term elections on November 6.
US law enforcement is engaged in a frantic search for the person or persons who sent explosive devices in the mail to De Niro and other people.
Since Monday, crude homemade bombs have been addressed to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, the CNN television network, liberal billionaire donor George Soros and other figures loathed by Trump's supporters.
Packages have been intercepted in New York, Maryland, Florida, Delaware and Los Angeles. So far, no one has been hurt, but the bomb spree has frayed nerves and raised tensions ahead of mid-term elections in less than two weeks.
A suspected explosive device was sent to double Oscar-winner De Niro at his Tribeca Productions company in New York.
De Niro has been a frequent critic of Trump and used an expletive to condemn the president at the televised Tony Awards last June, receiving a standing ovation.
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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK - Another suspected bomb was found in New York City on Thursday morning as a manhunt was under way for a serial bomber targeting high-profile Democrats and CNN, less than two weeks ahead of elections that could alter the U.S. political landscape.
The latest device was addressed to actor Robert De Niro, according to CNN.
None of the eight devices went off and no injuries were reported, but some top Democrats called the threats a symptom of a coarsening brand of political rhetoric promoted by President Donald Trump, who also condemned the acts.
All the targets are frequently maligned by right-wing critics, including former U.S. President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder.
Former CIA Director John Brennan, prominent Democratic Party donor George Soros and California Representative Maxine Waters, an outspoken critic of Trump, were also targets.
On Thursday morning, the New York City bomb squad removed a suspicious package addressed to De Niro and similar to the other bombs, CNN reported. After the Oscar-winning actor's expletive-laden attack on the president at the Tony Awards in June, Trump called him a "very low IQ individual."
The bomb packages were sent as the nation prepares for Nov. 6 elections that will decide whether Democrats take control of one or both houses of Congress from Republicans and deny Trump the majority his party now holds in both.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
An FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies "will continue to work to identity and arrest whosoever is responsible for sending these packages," FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
Several politicians, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, described it as an act of terrorism.
Investigators were trying to track down another suspicious parcel they believe was addressed to Obama's vice president, Joe Biden, a federal official told Reuters late on Wednesday.
The CNN bureau in New York received a package addressed to Brennan, who has appeared as an on-air CNN analyst, leading police to evacuate the Time Warner building in a busy Manhattan neighborhood near Central Park.
The package contained an envelope of white powder that experts were analyzing, Police Commissioner James O'Neill said.
Trump told a political rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday his government would conduct "an aggressive investigation."
"Any acts or threats of political violence are an attack on our democracy itself," Trump said. "We want all sides to come together in peace and harmony."
He also said the media had a responsibility "to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories."
Last week, Trump, who has joined other Republicans in accusing Democrats of encouraging "mob" tactics, heaped praise on a Montana congressman who assaulted a reporter in 2017.
At an event in Texas on Wednesday, Brennan faulted Trump for frequent inflammatory rhetoric.
MANILA ENVELOPES
The first package, which turned up on Monday, was addressed to Soros, the billionaire financier and advocate of liberal, open-border values who is a frequent target of right-wing conspiracy theories.
The parcel intended for Holder ended up rerouted to the return address printed on all the packages - the Florida office of U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who formerly chaired the Democratic National Committee, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The FBI said late on Wednesday it had confirmed that two additional packages, similar in appearance to the others, were addressed to Waters.
An FBI statement said the other packages consisted of a manila envelope with a bubble-wrap interior containing "potentially destructive devices". Each bore a computer-printed address label and six "Forever" postage stamps.
Other officials said the devices contained in the envelopes were all similar to one found in the mailbox of the Soros home and later detonated by police. At least one bomb was packed with shards of glass, one federal source said.
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NEW YORK/MOSINEE - US authorities pressed ahead Thursday with an all-out probe into who was behind pipe bombs sent to former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, other top Democrats, and CNN, all of them hate figures for supporters of President Donald Trump.
Trump critics accused him of encouraging violence just days before a bitterly divided America votes November 6 in midterm elections.
Trump reacted to the rapid fire spate of bomb alerts by first calling for unity, but then reverting to attacking the media and its "endless hostility."
CNN is known for its often critical coverage of the Trump administration and has constantly provoked the ire of the president, who succeeded Obama and defeated Clinton in 2016.
The spree began Monday with a device at the New York home of billionaire liberal donor George Soros. "So far the devices have been what appear to be pipe bombs," said FBI agent Bryan Paarmann.
"Whether it's one person or a network, not really sure at this point," New York police chief James O'Neill told CNN, saying he expected those responsible to be identified and arrested within the next few days.
At least seven suspicious packages were sent in New York, Washington and Florida, including to prominent African American Democrats, Obama's attorney general Eric Holder and Maxine Waters, a California lawmaker.
Late Wednesday, police in Los Angeles said another suspicious package had been found at a mail facility, also addressed to Waters. Bomb disposal experts rendered it safe, authorities said.
The packages were sent in manila envelopes with bubble wrap, marked with computer-printed address labels. Each listed Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, as the sender.
The return address included misspellings of Wasserman Schultz's last name, the Miami Herald and other news outlets reported.
A photo of the device sent to CNN showed it to be a short length of pipe wrapped in black tape, with wires sticking out of either end.
From the White House, Trump initially appealed for unity, saying "acts of political violence" have "no place in the United States."
"Those engaged in the political arena must stop treating political opponents as being morally defective," he later told a campaign rally in Wisconsin, before switching his criticism back to the media.
'FALSE ATTACKS AND STORIES'
"The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and stop the endless hostility and constant negative and often times false attacks and stories," he added. "They've got to stop."
#MAGABomber trended as users flooded Twitter with accusations that Trump had incited the attempted attacks and highlighting the toxic remarks he has leveled against the targets in the past.
Liberal and left-wing critics accuse his rhetoric-laden "Make America Great Again" presidency of emboldening right-wing extremists. He has endorsed the body-slamming of a reporter and denounces critical press.
"There is a total and complete lack of understanding at the White House about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media," said CNN president Jeff Zucker.
"Words matter. Thus far, they have shown no comprehension of that."
CNN evacuated its New York bureau after the pipe bomb was found in the mailroom together with an envelope containing white powder. A bomb squad secured the device, police said.
The packaging was addressed care of CNN to former CIA director John Brennan, who has appeared on the channel as a guest and is perhaps Trump's toughest critic from the national security community.
The Secret Service intercepted the package addressed to Clinton at the home she shares with her husband, former president Bill Clinton, north of Manhattan on Tuesday, and a second package addressed to Obama's Washington home on Wednesday.
There has been no claim of responsibility and no one was yet known to have been arrested.
Top Democrat lawmakers Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer accused Trump of condoning "physical violence and dividing Americans."
'EFFORT TO TERRORIZE'
"It's a time of deep divisions, and we have to do everything we can to bring our country together," said Clinton, who has remained an outspoken political force despite her stunning loss to Trump in 2016.
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned "an effort to terrorize," saying an "atmosphere of hatred is contributing to the choices people are making."
The Secret Service said the packages were "identified during routine mail screening procedures" and that neither Clinton or Obama were ever at risk of receiving them.
Republican lawmakers followed the White House in issuing condemnations, just over a year after a shooter angry about Trump shot four people at a congressional baseball practice near Washington.
"Violence and terror have no place in our politics or anywhere else," tweeted senior Republican lawmaker Steve Scalise, who was seriously injured at the baseball practice in June 2017.
The top Republican lawmaker, Mitch McConnell, slammed "attempted acts of domestic terrorism."
Soros, the target of the first device, has long been a hate figure for right-wing groups and lives in Bedford, New York, not far from the Clintons.
The 88-year-old is one of the world's richest men and supported Clinton in 2016. He has been accused by nationalists of sponsoring protests and seeking to push a liberal, multicultural agenda.
Trump has accused Soros of paying demonstrators opposed to Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination to the Supreme Court was almost derailed after he was accused of attempted rape as a teenager.
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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK - Police intercepted suspected explosive devices sent to former U.S. President Barack Obama, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the CNN bureau in New York that apparently targeted figures disparaged by right-wing critics two weeks before U.S. congressional elections.
With the country deeply polarized under President Donald Trump, the packages brought a new level of tension to political contests that will decide whether Democrats can challenge the majorities now held by Trump's Republicans in Congress.
The package to Clinton was found late Tuesday while the one addressed to Obama was recovered early Wednesday, both during routine off-site mail screenings, the Secret Service said. Obama and Clinton were not at risk, they said.
A bomb was delivered earlier this week to the suburban New York home of George Soros, a major Democratic Party donor.
The Time Warner Center housing a CNN newsroom in New York was evacuated "out of an abundance of caution" after a suspicious package was received in the mail room, CNN President Jeff Zucker said in a note to employees. He said CNN was checking its bureaus worldwide.
New York police issued an emergency alert urging people around the building, which is on the southern edge of Central Park, to "shelter in place." Police later said they had safely removed the suspicious device from the Time Warner Center.
CNN is a frequent target of Trump, who routinely calls the news media the "enemy of the people" and belittles critical coverage as "fake news."
CNN reported the package it received was addressed to former CIA director John Brennan, a periodic guest commentator on the cable network.
Brennan, who led the CIA under Obama, has been an outspoken critic of Trump, calling the president's performance during a July joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki "nothing short of treasonous."
Trump in August revoked Brennan's security clearance in retaliation for the criticism.
The White House, in a statement, condemned the attempted attacks on Obama and Clinton.
"These terrorizing acts are despicable, and anyone responsible will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. "The United States Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies are investigating and will take all appropriate actions to protect anyone threatened by these cowards."
Trump was briefed on the suspicious packages "and we're taking it very seriously," said a senior White House official.
In Florida, the building that houses the office of U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a former Democratic Party national chairwoman, was evacuated after a suspicious package arrived in the mail, WFOR-TV in Miami reported, citing Sunrise police.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers condemned the attempted attacks, saying political violence has no place in the United States, even as some Democrats said Trump's rhetoric was escalating tensions.
"Words matter. Leadership matters. This is the country @realDonaldTrump has created, and he must condemn such acts of terrorism in the strongest terms," Democratic U.S. Representative David Price tweeted.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top Republican in Congress, called the acts "reprehensible," adding, "We cannot tolerate any attempt to terrorize public figures."
The package addressed to Clinton at her home in the New York suburb of Chappaqua was an explosive device, the New York Times reported.
Former President Bill Clinton was home when the device was intercepted at a Secret Service facility not near the Clintons' home, MSNBC reported. It said Hillary Clinton was in Florida attending fundraising events.
A federal law enforcement official told Reuters that more than one of the packages appears to have the same construction or design. Another source told Reuters the FBI was still evaluating whether the suspicious packages contained dangerous or explosive materials.
The Chappaqua Patch, a local news website, citing a law enforcement official, reported the devices sent to Soros, Obama and Clinton appeared to be a pipe bomb. "Not fancy but definitely functional," the official said.
The New York Police Department's bomb squad said the package at the Time Warner Center, which also houses stores and restaurants, appeared to be an explosive device, CNN reported.
The discovery of the packages came after a small bomb was found earlier this week at the home of billionaire liberal donor Soros in the New York City suburb of Katonah, about 10 miles (16 km) from the Clintons' home.
"Nothing made it to their home," Bill Clinton's spokesman said in an email. A spokesman for Hillary Clinton referred queries to the Secret Service statement.
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Facebook Inc. has identified a coordinated political influence campaign ahead of November's U.S. congressional elections and taken down dozens of fake accounts on its site, the company said on Tuesday.
A Russian propaganda arm tried to tamper in the 2016 U.S. election by posting and buying ads on Facebook, according to the company and U.S. intelligence agencies. Moscow has denied involvement.
Facebook on Tuesday said it removed 32 pages and accounts from Facebook and Instagram, part of an effort to combat foreign meddling in U.S. elections, attempts that lawmakers have called dangerous for democracy.
"This kind of behavior is not allowed on Facebook because we don't want people or organizations creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are, or what they’re doing," the company said in a blogpost.
"We're still in the very early stages of our investigation and don't have all the facts — including who may be behind this," Facebook said.
More than 290,000 accounts followed at least one of the pages and that about $11,000 had been spent on about 150 ads, the4 company said. The pages had created about 30 events since May 2017.
Facebook told U.S. lawmakers this week that it detected the campaign as part of its investigations into election interference, according to the New York Times, which first reported Facebook taking down the accounts.
The company previously had said 126 million Americans may have seen Russian-backed political content on Facebook over a two-year period, and that 16 million may have been exposed to Russian information on Instagram.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, in a statement urged Facebook to move against foreign groups trying to sway American voters and to warn legitimate users that such activity, as seen in 2016, is recurring this year.
The congressional elections will determine whether or not the Republican Party keeps control of Congress.
"Today's announcement from Facebook demonstrates what we've long feared: that malicious foreign actors bearing the hallmarks of previously-identified Russian influence campaigns continue to abuse and weaponize social media platforms to influence the U.S. electorate," Schiff said.
Facebook disclosed in September that Russians under fake names had used the social network to try to influence U.S. voters in the months before and after the 2016 election, writing about divisive issues, setting up events and buying ads.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russian state operators ran the campaign combining fake social media posts and hacking into Democratic Party networks, eventually becoming an effort to help Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who scored a surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
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LOS ANGELES -- Three former U.S. secretaries of state - Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright - will make guest appearances in October on political television drama "Madam Secretary," broadcaster CBS said on Tuesday.
The three have already filmed their episode, which involves fictional Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord, played by Tea Leoni, turning to her more experienced peers for advice when the series returns for a fifth season on October 7.
“It was a privilege to experience their perspectives and discourse both in and behind the scenes,” Barbara Hall, creator and executive producer of "Madam Secretary," said in a statement.
"Madam Secretary" portrays McCord's efforts to balance delicate diplomatic issues as well as personal stories and her family life.
The show launched in 2014, a year after Clinton stepped down from her post at the State Department after four years. In 2015, the Democrat declared she would run for president in 2016 but was defeated by Republican Donald Trump.
Clinton has appeared briefly on entertainment shows as herself, including a cameo on comedy "Broad City" in 2016 and with "Saturday Night Live" doppelganger Kate McKinnon in 2015.
Madeleine Albright, the first female secretary of state, served under Democratic President Bill Clinton. Colin Powell, secretary of state under Republican President George W. Bush, was the first black man to hold the post.
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