“She screams and drives me crazy.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Time, saying he “can’t listen” to Hillary Clinton’s attacks against him.
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Trump Defends Against Housing Attacks
Donald Trump responded to Hillary Clinton’s attempt to tie him to the 2008 housing crisis saying he was being a good businessman, the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “I am a businessman, and I have made a lot of money in down markets. In some cases, as much as I’ve made when markets are good. Frankly, this is the kind of thinking our country needs, understanding how to get a good result out of a very bad and sad situation. Politicians have no idea how to do this — they don’t have a clue.”
Trump Hits Martinez After Snub
Donald Trump took several jabs at New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) after she said she was “too busy” to appear with him at a rally, the Washington Examiner reports.
Said Trump: “Since 2000, the number of unemployed people in Albuquerque has doubled. Who’s fault is it? Is it your fault or is it your government’s fault? Since 2000, the number of people on food stamps in New Mexico has tripled. We have to get your governor to get going, OK? She’s got to do a better job.”
He added: “Your governor has got to do a better job. She’s not doing the job.”
RNC Official Says Trump Won’t Dictate Party Platform
A top RNC official sought to soothe business leaders worried about Donald Trump’s influence on the Republican party, saying at a private meeting that the presumptive nominee would not dictate the party’s platform, The Hill reports.
Rubio Second-Guesses Himself on Robotic Moment
“Seeking to dispel the notion that his robotic utterances in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary alone doomed the trajectory of his campaign, Marco Rubio pointed to his decision to quarrel with Chris Christie over the point of his repeated lines on the debate stage rather than let it go,” Politico reports.
Said Rubio: “I think if we had made a strategic decision in New Hampshire different from the one I made — which was not to engage with Chris Christie, but to try to just ignore it and just stay on message — that would have been a nothing.”
Ryan Ready to Endorse Trump
“House Speaker Paul Ryan has begun telling confidants that he wants to end his standoff with Donald Trump in part because he’s worried the split has sharpened divisions in the Republican Party,” Bloomberg reports.
“Ryan aides say nothing has been decided about a possible Trump endorsement. But Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, told a small group of Republican lawmakers Thursday that he expects Ryan to endorse the party’s nominee as early as this week.”
Clinton Readies for a Dog Fight
Politico: “With Republican voters beginning to fall in line behind their presumptive nominee, the election is expected to be tight and hard fought in the battleground states the same way it was four years ago when a more formulaic candidate, Mitt Romney, was the GOP nominee — with key counties won or lost based on hyper-local organizing efforts mimicking precinct fights in local races.”
“Trump’s unorthodox campaign style, marked by personal attacks and contradictory positions, has many Democratic voters believing the match-up against Clinton will be something extraordinary, the likes of which the country has never seen before. That may be true in terms of the nature of the debate, but the recent set of polls foreshadow a more ordinary election that breaks along familiar party lines just like it did between Romney and President Obama.”
Clinton’s Drop Has Magnified Trump’s Gain
Wall Street Journal: “May has been a very merry month for Donald Trump, with recent polls showing him narrowing the gap with Hillary Clinton, or in some cases overtaking her, in a general-election matchup. But while Mr. Trump has seen his support tick up recently, it’s the more dramatic slide in Mrs. Clinton’s numbers that has been a driving factor in her diminishing lead.”
“To some degree, there has been a rallying effect for Mr. Trump since he effectively wrapped up the GOP nomination… But there’s also some evidence that the extended Democratic nomination battle is weighing down Mrs. Clinton’s numbers.”
Washington Examiner: How committed are Trump’s voters?
Clinton Has a New Partner Against Trump
“Hillary Clinton has a new partner in her battle against Donald Trump: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who gave a speech Tuesday mirroring Clinton’s own talking points accusing Trump of profiting from the housing crash of 2008,” the Washington Post reports.
“Warren has stayed out of the ongoing Democratic primary race between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — she is the only Democratic woman in the Senate who has not endorsed Clinton — but she recently has become more aggressive in taking on Trump on his favorite medium, Twitter.”
More Provocateur Than Politician
New York Times: “With Mr. Trump as the Republican standard-bearer, the line separating the conservative mischief makers and the party’s more buttoned-up cadre of elected officials and aides has been obliterated. Fusing what had been two separate but symbiotic forces, Mr. Trump has begun a real-life political science experiment: What happens when a major party’s nominee is more provocateur than politician?”
“That the Republican Party has embraced someone willing to traffic in the most inflammatory of accusations comes as wish fulfillment for an element of the right that is convinced that the party lost the past two elections because its candidates were unwilling to attack President Obama forcefully enough.”
Clinton and Trump Win In Washington
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton “rolled to wins in Washington’s relatively low-stakes presidential primary Tuesday night,” the Seattle Times reports.
“In the Republican race, Trump was dominant, taking more than three-quarters of the vote and continuing his now-unobstructed march to the GOP nomination.”
“On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. She had nearly 54 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s returns in a major reversal — though purely symbolic — from March caucuses, in which Sanders dominated.”
Democrats Mull Dropping Wasserman Schultz
“Democrats on Capitol Hill are discussing whether Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz should step down as Democratic National Committee chairwoman before the party’s national convention in July,” The Hill reports.
“Democrats backing likely presidential nominee Hillary Clinton worry Wasserman Schultz has become too divisive a figure to unify the party in 2016… Wasserman Schultz has had an increasingly acrimonious relationship with the party’s other presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, and his supporters, who argue she has tilted the scales in Clinton’s favor.”
Time to Pay Attention to Gary Johnson
FiveThirtyEight: “Gary Johnson might be on the verge of becoming a household name. At the moment, he’s probably most often confused with that plumber who fixed your running toilet last month or your spouse’s weird friend from work who keeps calling the landline, but he’s neither — he’s the former governor of New Mexico, likely Libertarian candidate for president, and he’s polling at 10 percent in two recently released national polls against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.”
“Given that Trump and Clinton are sporting historically high negative ratings, Johnson’s polling makes a fair bit of sense; Gary Johnson is neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton. He might not win a state, but he could make some noise.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I think we should just kind of lay off Bernie Sanders a little bit.”
— Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), quoted by The Hill, after being asked whether he was concerned about Sanders’s “tenuous loyalty” to the Democratic Party.
Sanders Wants Votes Reviewed In Kentucky
Wall Street Journal: “Would it change anything if Bernie Sanders actually narrowly won Kentucky’s presidential primary instead of narrowly losing it to Hillary Clinton?”
“Hoping to find out, the Sanders campaign is requesting a recanvass from the state, where he trails Mrs. Clinton by less than half a percentage point. The recanvass involves asking elections officials to review electronic voting machines and absentee ballots in the state’s 120 counties. State law allows him to request this at state expense. Unlike a recount, which he’d have to pay for, individual ballots will not be examined.”
GOP Mulls Complete Overhaul of Primary Process
“Leaders of the Republican Party have begun internal deliberations over what would be fundamental changes to the way its presidential nominees are chosen, a recognition that the chaotic process that played out this year is seriously flawed and helped exacerbate tensions within the party,” the New York Times reports.
“In a significant shift, Republican officials said it now seemed unlikely that the four states to vote first would all retain their cherished place on the electoral calendar, with Nevada as the most probable casualty. Party leaders are even going so far as to consider diluting the traditional status of Iowa and New Hampshire as gatekeepers to the presidency, by pairing them in one proposal with other states holding nominating contests on the same day as a way to give more voters a meaningful role much sooner.”
Kasich Instructs Delegates to Remain Bound
“Gov. John Kasich, who suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination earlier this month, is instructing the 161 delegates he won to remain bound to him through the party’s June nomination convention,” the Washington Post reports.
“Kasich sent personal letters Monday to Republican officials in the 16 states and the District of Columbia where he won delegates, requesting that they stay bound to him in accordance with party rules. Kasich has not thrown his support to Donald Trump, who became the presumptive nominee in early May after he and Sen. Ted Cruz left the race.”
Ohio Judge Says GOP Lawmakers Violated Voting Rights
A Republican judge ruled that the GOP-dominated Ohio legislature unconstitutionally violated citizen voting rights by eliminating ‘Golden Week’ and other actions that cut access to the ballot, the Columbus Dispatch reports.
Rick Hasen has more on the decision.
