Massacre Disrupts Scheduled Campaign Events
Washington Post: “Hillary Clinton canceled her joint appearance with President Obama that was scheduled for Wednesday in Wisconsin. Joe Biden canceled his trip to Miami for a fundraiser to help DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Donald Trump canceled a rally in Portsmouth that was scheduled for tonight. He was scheduled to give a speech questioning Clinton’s ethics, but he will now speak at 2:30 at Saint Anselm College about ‘this terrorist attack, immigration and national security,’ according to a statement from the campaign.”
How Trump’s Former Rivals Capitulated
Ryan Lizza: “Trump had put countless Republican lawmakers in excruciating political predicaments. Senator John McCain, who told me last summer that Trump had ‘fired up the crazies,’ now needs Trump’s voters to support his own reëlection in Arizona—a state that Trump won by twenty-two percentage points in the primaries—and has said that he will support him. Marco Rubio, whose last days as a Presidential candidate were spent mocking the size of Trump’s hands and the orange hue of his face, recently apologized for the personal attacks, and said that he would speak on Trump’s behalf at the Convention.”
“Governor Chris Christie, of New Jersey, another of Trump’s opponents early in the campaign, has transformed himself into a sort of manservant, who is constantly with Trump at events. (One Republican told me that a friend of his on the Trump campaign used Snapchat to send him a video of Christie fetching Trump’s McDonald’s order.)”
Flake Urges Republicans to Withhold Endorsements
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) encouraged his GOP colleagues to withhold their endorsements of Donald Trump as a means of maintaining leverage over the presumptive Republican nominee, the Huffington Post reports.
Said Flake: “It’s not a comfortable position to not support your nominee of the party. None of us want to be in this position. But there are certain things that you can’t do as a candidate. And some of the things he’s done, I think, are beyond the pale.”
The Election In a Simple Analogy
Louis C.K.: “It’s like if you were on a plane and you wanted to choose a pilot. You have one person, Hillary, who says, ‘Here’s my license. Here’s all the thousands of flights that I’ve flown. Here’s planes I’ve flown in really difficult situations. I’ve had some good flights and some bad flights, but I’ve been flying for a very long time, and I know exactly how this plane works.’”
“Then you’ve got Bernie, who says, ‘Everyone should get a ride right to their house with this plane.’ ‘Well, how are you going to do that?’ ‘I just think we should. It’s only fair that everyone gets to use the plane equally.'”
“And then Trump says, ‘I’m going to fly so well. You’re not going to believe how good I’m going to fly this plane, and by the way, Hillary never flew a plane in her life.’ ‘She did, and we have pictures.’ ‘No, she never did it.’ It’s insane.”
Quote of the Day
“We’re being led by a man who either is not tough, not smart or has something else in mind.”
— Donald Trump, in an interview on Fox News, after the Orlando massacre that killed 50 people.
Democrats Running a ‘Shock and Blah’ Campaign
Politico: “The shock comes courtesy of Donald Trump, whose rhetoric has Republicans debating whether their own nominee is racist and Democrats more confident than ever it will deliver them control of the Senate.”
“The blah comes from the Democratic candidates themselves, who are abiding by a cardinal rule of politics: When your opponent is self-destructing, get out of the way. They’re intentionally playing it safe and boring, figuring their elections will mostly be a referendum on Trump and that animosity toward the real estate magnate will put them over the top in key swing states.”
Remaining Stop Trump Groups Fail to Get Traction
Wall Street Journal: “The two functioning stop-Trump groups remain small and have no funding behind them. One is composed of a handful of Washington-based operatives, attorneys and media personalities. The other is a coalition of about 15 convention delegates from Colorado who are trying to gather support for a rule that would unbind delegates who are now mandated by various state-party rules to back Mr. Trump for the nomination.”
“Yet time, distance and disorganization are likely to render them ineffective, as the rest of the Republican Party, some with equal trepidation about Mr. Trump, steadily move toward the nomination of the New York businessman.”
Dead Heat In Utah
A new Salt Lake Tribune/Hinckley Institute poll in Utah finds Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump tied in the presidential race at 35% each, followed by Libertarian Gary Johnson at 13%.
Said pollster Jason Perry: “For a state where the majority of voters have supported Republican presidential candidates since 1964, the fact that Trump is in a dead heat with Hillary Clinton suggests Utah voters are still very reluctant about a Trump presidency.”
Trump Says He Was Right on Terrorism
Donald Trump “wasted little time seeking political advantage in the massacre at a Florida nightclub, taking credit for ‘being right on radical Islamic terrorism’ in the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history,” Politico reports.
Said Trump on Twitter: “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!”
ISIS Claims Responsibility for Florida Massacre
“Islamic State’s Amaq news agency said on Sunday that the Islamist militant group was responsible for the shooting that killed at least 50 people in a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida,” Reuters reports.
Said the statement: “The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando in the American state of Florida which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an Islamic State fighter.”
Quote of the Day
“This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school or a house of worship or a movie theater or a nightclub. We have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. To actively do nothing is a decision as well.”
— President Obama, quoted by the New York Times, after noting the gunman in Orlando used a handgun and assault rifle to kill 50 people at a gay night club.
Official Tweets ‘Reap What You Sow’ After Mass Shooting
Hours after approximately 50 people were killed at a Florida LGBT nightclub, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) “is receiving backlash for tweeting a verse from the Bible,” the Houston Chronicle reports.
At precisely 7 a.m. Sunday, Patrick tweeted a photo with the words of Galatians 6:7: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
Sanders Will Meet with Clinton on Tuesday
Bernie Sanders said that he plans to meet Hillary Clinton late Tuesday, The Hill reports.
Sanders said he wants to get a sense of what kind of platform Clinton will be supporting and “whether she will be vigorous in standing up for working families and the middle class, moving aggressively in climate change, healthcare for all, making public colleges and universities tuition-free.”
He added: “After we have that kind of discussion and after we can determine whether or not we are going to have a strong and progressive platform, I will be able to make other decisions.”
Clinton Launches First General Election Ad
“In her first ad of the general election, Hillary Clinton uses footage of Donald Trump mocking a reporter’s disability and inciting violence at campaign rallies to set up a contrast between the two parties’ presumptive nominees,” Politico reports.
Romney Blames Also-Rans for Letting Trump Win
“Mitt Romney laid into the large and rambunctious group of 2016 Republican candidates here on Saturday, arguing that they deserved a share of blame for the rise of Donald Trump,” Politico reports.
“By spending months attacking each other and ignoring Trump, he argued, they made a severe tactical error that allowed Trump — who Romney has criticized as a ‘con man’ and a ‘fraud’ — to escape unharmed.”
Said Romney: “Their biggest failure was attacking each other and not the frontrunne. Just politically, I thought that move was not right for them.”
Ryan Dismisses Convention Challenge to Trump
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) “is dismissing efforts to block Donald Trump from formally accepting the Republican nomination at the party’s convention next month in Cleveland, saying the presumptive nominee won fair and square,” Politico reports.
Ryan told ABC News, “Seventeen people competed, one person won and he got the delegates. The delegates ultimately decide these things, but he won fair and square.”
Does Trump Want to Lose?
Carl Cannon: “I’ve only met the man once, and if one of my friends wrote this column, I’d tease him about going all Gail Sheehy — I don’t usually cotton to journalists who psychoanalyze their subjects. But I believe that Donald Trump, the man who famously disparages ‘losers,’ knows deep down he isn’t equipped to be president.”
“Let’s call this more reflective subconscious entity ‘Don Trump.'”
“Donald Trump loves winning and hates losing, while Don Trump knows that running a smart campaign and beating Hillary Clinton means he’d inherit a job he has neither the qualifications nor the temperament to perform successfully. Don Trump wants to lose. He wants this campaign to be over so Donald Trump can go back to doing what he’s good at: promoting his personal brand and counting his money.”
