Today in Campaign 2016
- Donald Trump attempted to finally resolve an issue that is thought to have caused him significant damage with minority voters by admitting that Barack Obama was born in the US after years of promoting false claims that the US president was born in Kenya. But the Republican presidential candidate continued to falsely claim that his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was behind the conspiracy theory.
- Clinton spoke only a few blocks away at the Black Women’s Agenda symposium, held at a downtown hotel. Clinton said that “there is no erasing” Trump’s role in spreading the “birther” gospel. “For five years he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president,” she said. “His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. “He is feeding into the worst impulses, the bigotry and bias, that lurks in our country. Barack Obama was born in America, plain and simple, and Donald Trump owes him and the American people an apology.”
- Speaking in Virginia, first lady Michelle Obama told an audience of college students that criticism of her husband’s birthplace have been a constant companion since 2008, without mentioning Trump’s name. “There were those who questioned and continued to question for the past eight years and to this day whether my husband was even born in this country,” she said, alluding to the Republican nominee without mentioning him by name.
- Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green party will not be allowed to take part in the first televised debate of the race for the White House,the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced today. Johnson, once a Republican governor of New Mexico, has pinned his hopes on taking part in the debates. He and Stein, however, fell well short of the 15% national polling average required to participate.
- Donald Trump today named one of the nation’s top anti-abortion activists to his campaign coalition, in the clearest signal yet that the presidential candidate has fully embraced Republicans’ typically harsh stance against abortion. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B Anthony List, a group that works to elect Republican, anti-abortion women, will chair the loose coalition of conservative, anti-abortion rights leaders who are working to elect the Republican nominee. Trump’s campaign also announced that he would commit to a law banning public funding of abortion.
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Donald Trump: Hillary Clinton's secret service detail should disarm, 'Let's see what happens to her'
Mere hours after he appeared to put one of the oldest criticisms of his presidential campaign to rest with the acknowledgment that President Barack Obama was born in the United States, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told supporters that his opponent’s Secret Service detail should disarm itself due to what he characterized as her opposition to the Second Amendment.
“Take their guns away,” Trump said of Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent. “Let’s see what happens to her.”
Speaking at a campaign rally in Miami, Florida, Trump criticized Clinton’s stance on gun-control issues, characterizing her stance as wanting to “abolish” the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. (This claim has been debunked.)
If Clinton were truly as anti-gun as she claims to be, Trump told the audience, her Secret Service detail should disarm itself.
“I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons - they should disarm. I think they should disarm immediately, what do you think?” Trump asked the raucous crowd.
“Let’s see what happens to her.”
Trump was deeply criticized in August after suggesting at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, that gunowners could take the Second Amendment into their own hands if Clinton were elected and began nominating Supreme Court justices.
“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment,” Trump said at the time.
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the second amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”
The remarks were seen by many - including the Democratic nominee herself - as hinting at calling for Clinton’s assassination, or that of her judicial nominees.
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Standard fare as Republican speakers warm up the crowd ahead of Donald Trump’s scheduled 6pm appearance. “It’s a honor to be with so many deplorables,” says Blaise Ingoglio, chair of Florida’s RNC. Inevitable chants of USA! USA! follow.
He returns to address the crowd in Spanish, and the audience is notably quieter. Even a mention of Marco Rubio, the Florida senator and former Trump opponent in the primary race who is hugely popular around these parts, raised barely a ripple.
But other speakers, conservative commentator AJ Delgado, a senior Trump campaign adviser born to Cuban-immigrant parents, and Carlos Curbelo, a Republican congressman from South Miami who has until now been lukewarm on his support for Trump, got the crowd fired up again, with the now-familiar “Hillary lied” narrative.
Cue shouts of “lock her up, lock her up!”Trump is in the house and on stage imminently, and the auditorium is now full.
Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Miami, Florida
Few of the Trump supporters The Guardian spoke to on their way in to tonight’s rally in downtown Miami had much time for today’s developments in the “birther” controversy.
“It’s a distraction to what we should be talking about,” said Michael Rodriguez, 34, a Cuban-American restaurant worker who lives in Little Havana. “This election is about jobs, the economy, immigration and America being strong again.”
Janusz Biskupek, 50, of Boca Raton, cut a striking figure in a pristine white suit emblazoned with pro-Trump slogans. “Trump is a smart guy. I want my president to be respected,” he said. “Obama? He went to Cuba and nobody waited on him. We need a stronger president. We need Donald Trump.”
The arena at the James L Knight centre, however, was filling up slowly, with plenty of room still in the bleachers with Trump scheduled on stage in less than half an hour. Perhaps the rival attraction of a Friday night Kanye West concert a stone’s thrown away was more of a draw.
The choice for president is “excruciatingly clear”, First Lady Michelle Obama said during her campaign trail debut, urging the college audience to support Hillary Clinton this November.
Obama cast the election as a choice between “one of the most qualified people who has ever endeavored to become president” and someone who doesn’t “take the job seriously”. Ticking off a list of accomplishments of her husband’s administration, Obama argued that with the past eight years as a guide, Trump is neither prepared nor qualified to be president.
“A candidate is not going to suddenly change when they get into office – it’s the opposite,” Obama told the crowd of mostly students and young people at George Mason University in Virginia. “In fact, because the minute that individual takes that oath, they are under the hottest, harshest light there is.”
She referenced her moving speech at the Democratic National Convention, “when they go low, we go high,” going after the Republican nominee without mentioning his name.
“Being president isn’t anything like reality TV,” she said, drawing loud cheers and applause.
Obama recalled the 2008 campaign, reminding the audience that raising questions about a president’s experience, qualifications and judgments is all part of a very public vetting process to be president.
“And then there were those who questioned and continued to question for the past eight years and to this day whether my husband was even born in this country,” she said, alluding to the Republican nominee without mentioning him by name.
Trump helped fan the flames of birtherism, a conspiracy theory that President Obama was not born in the US but in Kenya, and used the issue to help propel his political ambitions.
Facing dismal approval ratings among minority voters, Trump admitted on Friday morning for the first time that Barack Obama was born in the US.
Obama is a powerful and popular ally for Clinton, especially among young voters. New polling shows that millennials, disappointed by their options for president have turned toward third-party candidates.
The First Lady’s appearance on a college campus in the battleground state of Virginia, the First Lady’s event is part of a broader push by the Clinton campaign to win back some of the millennial voters who have strayed in recent weeks. Next week, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the Democratic challenger whose campaign was powered by young people and students, will campaign for Clinton in the coming days.
“Elections aren’t just about who votes but who doesn’t vote,” she said, imploring the young people in the crowd to support Clinton. She encouraged them to fight the urge to want to “hide under the bed” and avoid the election altogether. She also addressed a complaint many young people who felt inspired by Sander’s underdog campaign have leveled at Clinton.
“I hear folks saying they don’t feel inspired in this election,” Obama said. “Well let me tell you, I disagree. I am inspired. Because for eight years, I’ve had the privilege to see what it takes to actually do this job, and here is what I absolutely know for sure. Listen to this: Right now we have an opportunity to elect one of the most qualified people who has ever endeavored to become president.”
Perhaps above all, the campaign event was a testament to Obama’s enduring popularity.
“It is so hard to believe that it is less than 2 months until election and that my family is almost at the end of term,” Obama said. The crowd broke into a raucous round of chanting: “Four more years” chant. “No,” Obama protested, waving her hand at the crowd as the chant continued. “No!”
“I promise you,” she said, “Barack and I will continue to work for you for the rest of our lives.”
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Rush Limbaugh: ‘Are you admitting Trump is not a conservative? Damn right I am!’
Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump to be sole candidates on debate stage
Ben Carson launches ideas forum
Ben Carson, whose campaign used money raised in the name of the lord to pay political consultants for – what? – and who believes that Putin, Khameni and Abbas used the pyramids to store guns with which Jews could have prevented the Holocaust, or something, has launched an “ideas forum”:
— Dr. Ben Carson (@RealBenCarson) September 16, 2016
I'm pleased to announce the launch of the Carson Ideas Forum. pic.twitter.com/sapKET2BK8
Something’s falling apart. Not clear what it is.
— Gabby Morrongiello (@gabriellahope_) September 16, 2016
"I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me" pic.twitter.com/A537dShcnl
The web site of the person who runs Trump’s campaign thinks it’s funny that Trump announces news conferences he doesn’t hold and seems to find Trump’s sudden reversal on the question of Barack Obama’s native birth funny, too. Harmless at least. Or funny in its harmfulness? And for some reason this Breitbart post includes a picture of Harambe the gorilla.
The person who runs this web site is currently running Donald Trump’s presidential campaign:
— Jeff B/DDHQ (@EsotericCD) September 16, 2016
uh guys that's not how this meme works pic.twitter.com/2xYgjmlMaZ
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