Clinton calls on voters to reject Trump 'bigotry'

WASHINGTON -- Democrat Hillary Clinton called on Friday for voters to reject the "bigotry" of Donald Trump's White House campaign, releasing a television ad criticizing his efforts to appeal to black voters and saying she was reaching out to people from all parties who are troubled by his candidacy.

The ad shows video of Trump's controversial pitch to black voters, in which the Republican candidate urges them to support him by asking, "What do you have to lose?" It also shows headlines about a racial discrimination lawsuit the New York real estate mogul faced in the 1970s.

Clinton's presidential campaign said the ad, released a day after she gave a speech accusing Trump of fueling America's "radical fringe," would air in the hotly contested states of Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Polls give Clinton a wide margin over Trump among Hispanic voters, but he is on a pitch to reduce her advantage by stressing he would create jobs for all.

Trump pressed on with trying to broaden his appeal to minority voters on Friday, as he met with Hispanic business leaders at his signature hotel in Las Vegas.

"We've been doing very, very well with the Latinos. We've been doing amazing, far, far greater ... than anyone understands. They want to see jobs come in, we're going to bring jobs. They want to see things happen," Trump said.

He said the country's GDP growth rate of 1.1 percent in the second quarter was not a good sign for the U.S. economy. "The country has some very, very serious problems," he said.

Clinton, meanwhile, followed up on Thursday's tough speech by saying that Trump's temperament and divisiveness made him unfit for the White House.

"I am reaching out to everyone, Republicans, Democrats, independents, everyone who is as troubled as I am by the bigotry and divisiveness of Donald Trump's campaign," she told MSNBC, adding she was asking "fair-minded Americans to repudiate this kind of divisive demagoguery" at the Nov. 8 election.

Clinton attacks came during a difficult week for her campaign, as the release of new emails from her time as secretary of state revived criticism of her decision to use a private address and server rather than a government one.

The emails also stoked scrutiny of her family's charitable foundation, including accusations that major corporate and foreign donors gave money in hopes of securing more access to then-Secretary Clinton. Her campaign says no donors received any special favors.

Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer told MSNBC Clinton was only talking about Trump and race this week to deflect attention from that controversy.

Trump countered her rhetoric on Friday by releasing a video showing Clinton in the 1990s discussing a crime bill and referring to "super-predators," or at-risk youth she said needed to be brought under control. The video also shows U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton's main opponent in the Democratic primary this year, calling that phrase a "racist term."

CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENTS

In targeting what she terms Trump's bigotry, Clinton hopes to remind voters of controversial statements he has made over the course of the campaign. Those include describing some Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists, suggesting a judge could not be fair because of his Mexican-American heritage, and proposing a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to combat terrorism.

Trump has tried to sidestep these dust-ups by saying Democrats have failed minorities with their economic policies, leaving them living in poverty and attending failing schools.

Jennifer Hochschild, a professor at Harvard University who focuses on race and immigration, said she did not think Trump could fix his relationship with black and Hispanic voters.

"General cluelessness about racial dynamics will diminish any possible black support that comes from Trump's emphasis on job creation," Hochschild said in an email. "And Clinton has a lot of deep roots among black politicians."

Trump also has been criticized for vowing to deport millions of people living in the United States illegally. In recent days, he had appeared to hold out the possibility of toning down his hardline stance, although his precise plans on immigration have been harder to pin down.

On Thursday, he denied he would loosen his proposed immigration restrictions.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Clinton says US presidential election an 'alternative reality'

LOS ANGELES - Democrat Hillary Clinton said on a late-night television show on Monday that sometimes she feels she is in an ''alternative universe'' in the U.S. presidential race against Republican Donald Trump.

"I do feel sometimes like this campaign has entered into an alternative universe," Clinton said on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live. "I have to step into the alternative reality, answer questions about am I alive, how much longer will I be alive."

Clinton was for the first time responding to allegations made by Trump and some of his backers that she is suffering health problems that could be problematic in the White House should she win the Nov. 8 election.

Both Clinton and Trump have released notes from doctors declaring them physically fit for the presidency.

Kimmel asked Clinton to open a jar of pickles as a test of her strength. She did so successfully.

"This has become one of their themes. Take my pulse while I'm talking to you - make sure I'm alive," Clinton said to Kimmel of the health rumors.

Clinton said that sometimes Trump's remarks about her - such as a recent charge that President Barack Obama and Clinton co-founded the Islamic State, which he later said was sarcasm - go beyond personal attacks and become harmful to U.S. national security.

"There's enough evidence now that when Trump talks the way he talks it actually helps the terrorists," Clinton said. "I think it's crazy, but I think it's also harmful."

Clinton said she had begun preparing for the three presidential debates scheduled in September and October.

"I want to take it seriously," Clinton said. "But you've got to be prepared for, like wacky stuff that comes at you and I am drawing on my experience in elementary school."

Clinton brushed off the possible release of an additional 14,900 emails that the FBI found when investigating her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

"My emails are so boring," Clinton said. "What's a few more?"

The U.S. State Department has already reviewed some 30,068 emails from her 2009-2013 tenure and released most of them, amounting to some 55,000 pages.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Disunity rules as Democratic convention gets underway

PHILADELPHIA - The Democratic convention opened to chaotic scenes Monday, as rival supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders traded boos, jeers and taunts in a very public show of party disunity.

As shock polls showed Republican Donald Trump leading the race for the White House, Democrats gathering in Philadelphia to make Clinton the first woman presidential nominee from a major party were in disarray.

Diehard supporters of Sanders booed when a pastor leading the invocation prayer mentioned Clinton's name, setting the stage for each successive mention to spark a raucous chorus of outbursts.

Twice on Monday, Sanders appealed to supporters to help build party unity, ahead of a pivotal primetime address to delegates.

"We have got to defeat Donald Trump. We have got to elect Hillary Clinton and (running mate) Tim Kaine," Sanders told a gathering of his supporters.

"Trump is a bully and a demagogue," he said. His call to support Clinton was nevertheless met with loud jeers.

He later sent a text message to supporters asking them not to protest on the floor of the convention as a "personal courtesy" to him.

But that appeared to have minimal impact.

The party is reeling from leaked Democratic National Committee emails which show nominally neutral party staff trying to undermine Sanders' insurgent campaign and questioning his Jewish faith.

WikiLeaks at the weekend released nearly 20,000 emails from between January 2015 and May 2016, gleaned by hackers who apparently raided the accounts of seven DNC leaders.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was investigating the "cyber intrusion," which the Clinton campaign blamed on Russian hackers bent on helping Trump.

Sanders, a leftist who promised a "political revolution," lost to Clinton in the primary handily.

But the scandal has angered his already embittered supporters, who believe the deck was stacked against them.

It has led to the ouster of party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and an apology from party leaders.

"We want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email," the Democratic National Committee said in a statement.

TRUMP VS A HAM SANDWICH

As the boos and chants of "Bernie! Bernie!" continued inside the convention hall throughout the evening, Sanders protesters outside tried to breach security barriers, leading to a handful of people being detained.

"Clinton can't beat Trump. Period," said Michigan delegate Melissa Arab, a Sanders supporter.

"A ham sandwich could beat Trump and she's not going to beat him. If she's nominated, people are going to end up with somebody bad for president."

This was meant to be a celebration for Clinton, who was the primary runner-up in 2008 to Barack Obama.

Later this week, she will make history when she formally accepts the Democratic presidential nomination -- the first woman to lead a major party's White House ticket.

But disunity overshadowed the convention's anti-Trump message and its courting of Latino voters.

Clinton's running mate Kaine, a senator from Virginia, said in an interview broadcast Monday that their administration would press for immigration reform in their first 100 days in office.

PRIME TIME

Clinton will hope that two other prime-time addresses can help foster unity later Monday -- from firebrand Senator Elizabeth Warren and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Warren was to tell the convention that Trump wants an "America of fear and hate," according to prepared remarks.

"When we turn on each other, we can't unite to fight back against a rigged system," she was to say.

Some Democratic delegates agreed it was time to come together.

New polls showed Trump surging since his confirmation last week as the Republican presidential nominee, with a CNN poll putting him three percentage points ahead of Clinton -- a six-point post-convention bump.

"The stakes are too high. In the end it's going to be either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump and it's not even a close call," said Paul Czisny, a 57-year-old delegate from Wisconsin who had supported Sanders.

The party is seeking to project a more unified message than the Republicans did at their convention last week in Cleveland, where fissures over Trump's candidacy were laid bare.

"The Democrats are in a total meltdown," Trump taunted on Twitter. "E-mails say the rigged system is alive & well!"

He later told supporters Clinton "worked very, very hard to rig the system. Little did she know that China, Russia, one of our many, many friends came in and hacked the hell out of us."

Trump has long sought to scoop up disaffected voters who feel Sanders -- a self-described democratic socialist -- was denied a fair shot at the nomination.

Former president Bill Clinton is the star speaker at the convention Tuesday, while President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden take the stage Wednesday.

Clinton got a modest boost Monday when former vice president Al Gore offered his endorsement.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Trump tweet attacking Clinton employs image of Jewish star

NEW YORK - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday tweeted an image of rival Hillary Clinton alongside hundred-dollar bills and a Jewish star bearing the words "most corrupt candidate ever!", prompting outrage and bafflement on social media.

Two hours after his initial tweet, Trump tweeted a similar image in which the six-pointed Star of David - which appears on Israel's flag and which Jews were forced to wear on their clothing by the Nazis during the Holocaust - was replaced by a circle. The original tweet was deleted.

Critics said the image featuring the star harkened back to centuries-old anti-Semitic stereotypes, such as the belief that Jews are greedy.

"Just saw #DonaldTrump's Star of David tweet. I'm impressed by his ability to find a way to insult literally every kind of human being," screenwriter Cole Haddon wrote on Twitter.

"A Star of David, a pile of cash, and suggestions of corruption. Donald Trump again plays to the white supremacists," wrote Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host who has been critical of Trump.

The tweets originated from Trump's account, @realDonaldTrump, and no other users were mentioned in them. It was not clear whether someone inside Trump's campaign made the image or whether he found it somewhere else. Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Trump, did not respond to a request for comment.

The presumptive Republican nominee has been trying to assuage fears within his own party that he is alienating potential voters with offensive statements about Muslims, Latinos and women. Last month, Trump fired his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and began delivering speeches using a teleprompter, an abrupt change in style that was seen as an attempt to appear more presidential ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Saturday's tweet was a reminder of the unrestrained side of Trump. The candidate has mocked a disabled newspaper reporter, referred to undocumented immigrants from Mexico as "rapists" and recently pointed to a black man in the crowd at one of his rallies and called him "my African-American."

(Reporting by Emily Flitter; Editing by Mary Milliken and James Dalgleish)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Trump rolls unrivaled, Sanders takes West Virginia

WASHINGTON - Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump cruised to victory in two more states Tuesday, while Bernie Sanders beat rival Democrat Hillary Clinton in West Virginia to bolster his argument for remaining in the race.

The substantial wins in West Virginia and Nebraska according to early results put Trump ever closer to clinching the 1,237 delegates he needs to be declared the party's nominee at its convention in July.

"Thank you West Virginia!" and "Thank you Nebraska!" Trump said in a pair of tweets.

Now the sole Republican candidate in the contest after his remaining rivals dropped out last week, Trump is transitioning from the fierce primary battles with the likes of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio to a general election showdown with Clinton, even amid deep Republican discord about the celebrity billionaire.

He has narrowed his picks for running mate, telling Fox News he is considering five vice president options.

"I think they are excellent," he added. "I'll announce whoever it will be at the convention" in Cleveland, Ohio, Trump said.

With Republican concern about their nominee sizzling, a Quinnipiac University poll out Tuesday showed Trump closing in on Clinton's lead in two major battleground states -- Florida and Pennsylvania -- and overtaking her in swing state Ohio.

No candidate has won the presidential election without taking at least two of those three states.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seized on the polls as a sign that Trump will mount a strong challenge against Clinton.

"It's a long time 'til November, but the early indications are that our nominee is likely to be very competitive," McConnell told reporters.

UNYIELDING SANDERS

Despite Clinton's overwhelming delegate lead, Sanders ensured the race would go on with his win in West Virginia, where he was ahead of Clinton by 11 percentage points with about a third of precincts reporting.

With eight contests remaining, "we think we have a good chance to win many of those states," Sanders told supporters Tuesday in San Francisco, according to CBS News.

"We hope we can win some of them with big majorities."

Quinnipiac's poll also found that Sanders, a democratic socialist who commands an enthusiastic following on the left, would do better against Trump than Clinton in all three states if he were the Democratic nominee.

The 74-year-old Vermont senator, who defeated Clinton in Indiana, has mounted an unyielding come-from-behind challenge that has exposed weaknesses in the former secretary of state's campaign.

Although almost certain to win the Democratic nomination -- she is only about 160 delegates short of that goal -- Clinton's ability to excite young and white working-class Democrats going into the general election has been put in doubt by Sanders's primary successes.

But she has used her campaign stops in Appalachia -- including an event in Kentucky, which holds its Democratic primary on May 17 -- as opportunities to win over blue-collar white voters.

"If I am so fortunate enough to be the nominee, I'm looking forward to debating Donald Trump come the fall," she said in Louisville.

"We can't be scapegoating and finger-pointing and blaming and demeaning and degrading and insulting our Americans."

In coal-mining West Virginia, Clinton shot herself in the foot in March by telling voters in neighboring Ohio she would slash mining jobs and put coal companies "out of business."

She later apologized and suggested her remarks were misunderstood, but in a state where livelihoods have hinged on coal for generations, many are unconvinced.

TRUMP CHALLENGES

While Clinton still has Sanders to worry about, Trump faces a rebellion within the Republican leadership over the insulting tone and shifting substance of his candidacy.

House Speaker Paul Ryan last week announced he was "not ready" to support Trump, a rare rebuke that put the power struggles within the Republican Party on very public display.

Ryan and other Republican congressional leaders were due to huddle with Trump Thursday in Washington, in highly anticipated meetings that could help gauge GOP support for the real estate tycoon.

McConnell said he expected "a cordial meeting to discuss the way forward."

It may be thorny. A defeated Cruz ruled out a third-party bid, but when pressed by reporters as he returned to the US Senate he declined to say whether he would endorse Trump.

Rubio said he would "support the Republican nominee" but would not offer an outright endorsement.

The Republican establishment is still reeling from Trump's hostile takeover of the party, aghast at positions he's taken on trade, foreign policy and taxes that fly in the face of conservative dictums.

But Trump has shown no sign of backing down, and some Republicans are looking to heal, embrace the nominee and turn to defeating Clinton in November.

"I think the party needs to come together," said Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Obama says journalists partly to blame for tone of US presidential race

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Monday laid some of the blame for the tone of the presidential campaign on political journalism that has been pinched by shrinking newsroom budgets and cheapened by a focus on retweets and likes on social media.

In a speech to a journalism awards dinner, Obama urged journalists to ask tougher questions of the candidates vying to be president. He voiced dismay over the vulgar rhetoric, violence at rallies and unrealistic campaign pledges that have continually grabbed headlines, in a thinly veiled reference to Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

"The number one question I'm getting as I travel around the world or talk to world leaders right now is, 'What is happening in America?' about our politics," Obama said, describing international alarm over whether the United States will continue to function effectively.

"It's not because around the world people have not seen crazy politics. It is that they understand America is the place where you can't afford completely crazy politics," he said.

"When our elected officials and our political campaigns become entirely untethered to reason and facts and analysis, when it doesn't matter what's true and what's not, that makes it all but impossible for us to make good decisions on behalf of future generations," Obama said.

He said the media landscape has changed since his first presidential campaign in 2008, when "there was a price if you said one thing and then did something completely different.

"The question is, in the current media environment, is that still true? Does that still hold?" he said.

He said news organizations have a responsibility to dig deeper despite the faster pace of "this smartphone age" and steep financial pressures in the news business.

Voters "would be better served if billions of dollars in free media came with serious accountability, especially when politicians issue unworkable plans or make promises they can't keep," Obama said.

The New York Times earlier this month reported that Trump has so far earned almost $1.9 billion worth of media coverage, compared with $313 million for the next closest Republican challenger, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and $746 million for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com