Abedin announced the end of her marriage after new sexually charged photos of Weiner surfaced.
- Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin splits from husband Anthony Weiner after latest sexting scandal
- Donald Trump’s latest ad borrows phrase from Democrat John Edwards
- Skeptics question Trump’s claims that he will stop “inner-city crime”
- Trump promises a “major” immigration speech, but will his policy bring any changes?
- One Texas congressional race has put Trump front and center
Trump is raising money in California
When Donald Trump comes to California these days, it’s not to rally the state’s voters. It’s to meet donors.
The Republican presidential nominee is hitting California for a two-day fundraising trip, starting Monday with a Napa County event where tickets range from $5,000 to $446,700 (a cap based on federal and state contribution limits) and a Silicon Valley event where the price of admission is $25,000, according to published reports.
On Tuesday, he is scheduled to raise money in Tulare County, with tickets running $2,700 to $25,000.
Trump’s California director did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump once vowed to make the state competitive in the general election, but has not held a public event in California since winning the state’s GOP primary in June.
Polling shows Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with double-digit leads in California. She raised $19 million in a three-day California trip last week.
The last time Californians voted to send a Republican to the White House was 1988.
Clinton on debating Trump: ‘I’m running against someone who will say or do anything’
As she prepares for the first presidential debate next month, Hillary Clinton told donors on Monday that the face-off will be a crucial moment in the fall campaign and that Donald Trump is an unpredictable adversary.
“I’m running against someone who will say or do anything. And who knows what that might be?” Clinton said. “I do not know which Donald Trump will show up. Maybe he’ll try to be presidential.... Or maybe he’ll try to come in and try to ... score some points.”
Clinton was speaking at a fundraiser in New York state, at the Hamptons home of Charles Phillips, chief executive of the software company Infor, and wife Karen.
Clinton does not allow reporters into her campaign fundraisers, unlike recent presidential nominees in both parties who let the press in for parts of the events. But reporters traveling with Clinton were able to hear her from the basement room they were stationed in for the fundraiser.
Clinton said someone had told her that 100 million people would watch the first debate Sept. 26. Of that figure, more than half will be tuning into the election for the first time, “so don’t assume they have followed everything,” Clinton said.
She asked the audience for advice on how to debate Trump.
“We have 71 days left in the campaign and I’m not taking anything or anyone any place for granted,” Clinton said. “This is the most unpredictable election season that I certainly can remember.”
U.S. reaches refugee milestone amid campaign debate
The U.S. was set Monday to welcome its 10,000th refugee from Syria, hailed by the White House as an achievement reached ahead of schedule and “without cutting any corners.”
Whether the country should have admitted even that many, or far more, remains the subject of fierce political debate.
The escalation of the Syrian civil war prompted a global refugee crisis last summer as millions fled to Europe from the Middle East and other global trouble spots. Amid pressure from the international community to ramp up the pace of refugee admissions, President Obama set the goal last fall of resettling 10,000 Syrians in the U.S. — a figure far lower than some international allies had sought but one the administration’s critics saw as tantamount to “opening the floodgates” and inviting a potential national security threat.
In marking the milestone, the White House charged that both sides had politicized the issue and that Obama’s focus throughout has simply been to do the right thing. In a statement, National Security Advisor Susan Rice thanked government agencies that played a role in the screening processes, as well as the communities that have welcomed “these new neighbors, demonstrating the values that have made our nation great.”
Although Rice said the 10,000 refugees represented a six-fold increase over the previous year’s admissions, the number was a minuscule fraction of the 20 million refugees currently fleeing war zones and other harsh conditions around the world. Activists called on the U.S. to do more, including accepting larger numbers.
“Thousands of families from Syria have found safety on our shores, and that is a wonderful thing,” Tarah Demant, senior director of the U.S. branch of Amnesty International, said in a statement. “But so many are still trapped in horrific conditions in refugee camps or war zones. The U.S. must do more to uphold its responsibility to do all it can to protect those fleeing human rights abuses.”
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that the president hopes the U.S. will “expand our ambition” to admit more refugees. Secretary of State John F. Kerry is discussing the matter with members of Congress, but Earnest conceded the increase would likely not be more than several thousand.
As of March, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had submitted more than 32,000 Syrians to the U.S. for resettlement consideration. Over the last five years, more than 378,000 Syrians have sought asylum in Germany, by comparison.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has attacked Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for proposing a more significant uptick; she called for admitting 65,000 Syrian refugees during a 2015 interview.
In a speech this month, Trump proposed modifying already-rigorous screening measures to preclude admitting “any who have hostile attitudes towards our country or its principles — or who believe that Sharia law should supplant American law.”
FLOTUS returning to Southern California
Trump has called Anthony Weiner a ‘sleazeball and pervert.’ Turns out he’s also given to his campaigns.
Donald Trump, who used Huma Abedin’s separation from husband Anthony Weiner as a prompt to question Hillary Clinton’s judgment, donated to the disgraced former congressman multiple times.
Trump gave a total of $4,300 in 2007 and 2010 to Weiner’s congressional runs, and $150 to a city council race in 1997. The donations were first reported Monday by NBC News.
Abedin, a top aide to Clinton, announced Monday that she was separating from Weiner after he was once again caught sending sexually explicit pictures to women.
Trump, who is twice divorced and has a history of adultery, praised Abedin’s decision but argued that Clinton had shown bad judgment by allowing Weiner in her orbit.
“Huma is making a very wise decision. I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be far better off without him,” Trump said in a statement. “I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information. Who knows what he learned and who he told? It’s just another example of Hillary Clinton’s bad judgment. It is possible that our country and its security have been greatly compromised by this.”
Last month, Trump referred to Weiner to argue that Clinton is a security risk, labeling Weiner “a sleazeball and pervert.”
Trump has a history of donating to politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Clinton. When his GOP primary rivals castigated his donations to Democrats, Trump responded that he made the contributions because he was a businessman.
About that black voter outreach...
Burns is a leading Trump surrogate in the African American community and no stranger to controversy. Last month, the South Carolina pastor delivered a harsh and unusually partisan benediction at the Republican National Convention, referring to Democrats as “the enemy” and calling on God to defeat Clinton.
No, Ice Cube does not back Donald Trump
Seems there may have been some confusion after rapper Ice Cube shared his thoughts on the presidential race.
The West Coast star offered insight on Donald Trump’s popular appeal before also quickly dismissing the GOP nominee as out of touch with struggling Americans, during an interview months ago with Bloomberg,
“Rich, powerful, do what you want to do, say what you want to say, be how you want to be. That’s kind of been like the American Dream,” the rapper said.
“Do I think he’s going to do anything to help poor people or people that’s struggling? No,” the rapper went on. “He’s a rich white guy. How does he — how can he relate?”
On Saturday, some pro-Trump Twitter accounts tweeted parts of the interview to imply the rapper was endorsing Trump.
It is unclear if the accounts are associated with the Trump campaign.
Ice Cube, though, did not take it lightly.
He issued a scathing rebuttal — one unprintable in a family paper, and another that included an apparently doctored photo that appeared on one Twitter account of him wearing a Trump shirt alongside his out-of-context quote.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond for comment.
Donald Trump’s new ad echoes John Edwards’ campaigns
Borrowing a phrase made popular by Democrat John Edwards, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump released a new television ad on Monday called “Two Americas: Economy.”
The 30-second spot, set to air in nine key states, paints a dire picture of what would happen to the economy if Hillary Clinton was elected president.
“In Hillary Clinton’s America, the middle class gets crushed. Spending goes up. Taxes go up. Hundreds of thousands of jobs disappear. It’s more of the same — but worse,” the voiceover in the ad says over images of a dour-looking Clinton, sad-eyed families and a shuttered business.
The music then turns upbeat and the images sunny, and the voiceover continues, “In Donald Trump’s America, working families get tax relief. Millions of new jobs created. Wages go up. Small businesses thrive. The American dream achievable. Change that makes America great again.”
The “two Americas” theme was made famous during Edwards’ speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention when he accepted the nomination as John F. Kerry’s running mate. Edwards, then a North Carolina senator, used the phrase to describe how the haves and the have-nots have different access to healthcare, education and economic stability.
“We shouldn’t have two different economies in America: one for people who are set for life, they know their kids and their grandkids are going to be just fine; and then one for most Americans, people who live paycheck to paycheck,” said Edwards, who also frequently used the phrase during his 2008 presidential campaign.
Since then, the phrase has been used in different ways to describe the nation’s divisions, such as the liberal coasts vs. the conservative heartland, or the public vs. the private sector. Trump used the phrase in an immigration ad he released earlier this month.
Trump trolls Clinton over Huma Abedin-Anthony Weiner split
Donald Trump is claiming that Huma Abedin’s separation from her husband, Anthony Weiner, underscores Hillary Clinton’s bad judgment.
“Huma is making a very wise decision. I know Anthony Weiner well, and she will be far better off without him,” Trump said in a statement, barely an hour after news broke of the split.
“I only worry for the country in that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information. Who knows what he learned and who he told?”
Abedin is Clinton’s longtime close aide and had stood by Weiner, the former congressman who resigned in 2011 after his sexual tweeting to other women became public.
She was with Clinton at the State Department, and questioned during the email server investigation, and is now with Clinton on the campaign trail.
On Monday, Abedin apparently had enough when Weiner’s latest sexting scandal — with a Trump supporter — became an unwanted headline for the Clinton campaign. She announced she was separating from him.
“It’s just another example of Hillary Clinton’s bad judgment,” Trump went on. “It is possible that our country and its security have been greatly compromised by this.”
Top Clinton aide Huma Abedin to separate from husband Anthony Weiner after latest sexting scandal
It appears it was one sexting episode too many for a marriage, and possibly, the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Top Clinton aide Huma Abedin announced Monday she was separating from her husband, Anthony Weiner, hours after the former congressman became headline fodder in another scandal involving sexually-explicit tweets with another woman.
Abedin issued this statement, according to NBC News:
“After long and painful consideration and work on my marriage, I have made the decision to separate from my husband. Anthony and I remain devoted to doing what is best for our son, who is the light of our life. During this difficult time, I ask for respect for our privacy.”
Weiner, who resigned his congressional seat in 2011 after his previous sexually explicit tweets went public, apologized at the time for what he called a “regrettable thing.”
The couple later that year welcomed their first child, a son.
Abedin is a constant presence on Clinton’s team, and remains her long-time top aide.
But Weiner was apparently texting again in 2015, according to a report Monday in the New York Daily News, this time to a Donald Trump supporter. The report said one of the exchanges included a photo of himself in underwear with his son laying next to him.
Twitter is skeptical of Donald Trump’s claims he will stop crime
Another round of tweets by Donald Trump aimed at appealing to African American and Latino voters elicited more questions than support for him Monday.
Trump pledged to stop “inner-city crime,” but he was quickly denounced by many for exaggerating crime problems and for conflating those who live in dangerous neighborhoods with black Americans as a whole.
Violent crime rates in the U.S. have decreased over the last 20 years, according to FBI data.
#AmnestyDon takes off online as anti-Trump term
Donald Trump’s recent wavering on his immigration plan came under attack Monday on Twitter with a fresh topic: #amnestyDon.
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough labeled the Republican nominee “Amnesty Don,” and the term took off.
Amnesty is a generally accepted term for allowing those in the U.S. illegally to stay without consequences, whether it be deportation, fines or imprisonment. But it has become a politically charged term, sometimes used by people as an attack on anyone who has a differing view on immigration.
Anthony Weiner is back -- sexting with a Trump supporter
The Twitter account of Anthony Weiner, husband of a top Hillary Clinton aide, is no more after a report Monday of a new sexting encounter with a woman.
The New York Post reported that Weiner, the former congressman who resigned in 2011 after disclosure of his sexually-charged private tweets -- was at it again in 2015 after the birth of his son.
Weiner is the husband of Huma Abedin, who has been Clinton’s longtime top aide and is crisscrossing the country with the campaign.
The woman who engaged with Weiner on Twitter is a supporter of Donald Trump, the report said.
Trump promises ‘major’ immigration speech after flip-flop -- but will his plan really be a new approach?
Remember Donald Trump’s call for a “softer” approach on immigration?
It appears to be already hardening. The trial balloon Trump floated to allow some immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally to remain appears to be in question.
But also apparently gone is his once promised “deportation force” to oust the estimated 11 million immigrants illegally in this country.
Trump’s advisors -- even as they insist there has been no significant change -- say even they are not certain exactly how the new policy will take shape.
Trump is expected to unveil his immigration plan Wednesday in Phoenix.
Trump has said he would start by deporting immigrants with criminal records, but it remains unclear whether he would move to deport others.
“That’s the part of it he’ll have to define and decide,” said Rudolph Giluliani, the former New York mayor, on “Fox and Friends” on Monday. “That’s the debate.”
“No amnesty,” “no legalization,” campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Sunday.
The upshot? Trump appears to be offering nothing new for the nation’s troubled immigration system beyond enforcing existing laws.
But that didn’t stop Twitter from giving Trump a new nickname on Monday, with “AmnestyDon” trending.
Obama’s former campaign strategist calls Donald Trump a ‘psychopath’
In one Texas congressional race, there’s a third candidate — and his name is Trump
A decade ago, a Democrat defeated the Republican incumbent in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District.
Four years later, Republicans took the district back. Then it flipped to the Democrats again. And then back to the Republicans.
This fall, Democrats are trying to reclaim one of the few competitive congressional seats in the nation — and they’re hoping the specter of Donald Trump will help them do it.
Not that Pete Gallego, a lawyer and former congressman, isn’t willing to discuss other issues. The Democrat says that when he campaigns before women’s groups, Latinos and veterans, he tries to address such things as preserving Big Bend National Park, bolstering education and improving veterans’ benefits.