Donald Trump “loaned $1.8 million to his presidential campaign in the second quarter and raised another $100,000, fulfilling a promise he made in his campaign launch speech to self-finance his campaign,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
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Bush Campaign Signals New Playbook
Reuters: “The financial report for Bush’s 2016 campaign committee shows a streamlined operation that has so far spent little compared with candidates of the past during similar periods.”
“Campaign finance experts say Bush’s lean campaign committee, in which he spent dramatically less than traditional campaigns during comparable periods for staff, infrastructure and other necessities, is just the latest sign of how much he will need to rely on his Right to Rise Super PAC to fund many of the workaday tasks aimed at getting him elected.”
Trump Has Tapped Into Deep Voter Anger
Keith Koffler writes that “despite what you’ve read in the media, even some outposts of the conservative media, these Trump acolytes in general are not racist against Latinos and they have not been seized by madness.”
“They are, however, angry. Very angry. And many are agonizingly fearful about the future of the nation. They believe that vast changes to the country are being wrought in ways that are undemocratic, dishonest and perhaps even illegal. Trump, who seems perpetually angry, is an expression of the angst of conservatives who believe the United States has gotten so deep into a mess that a little extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. What they adore about Trump is that he is a pugilist who has emerged at a time when someone needs to start throwing punches.”
LePage Apologizes to Son of Man He Wanted to Shoot
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) “has issued a handwritten apology to the son of a Bangor Daily News cartoonist who LePage quipped he would like to shoot,” the Bangor Daily News reports.
Trump Now Claims He’s Worth $10 Billion
Donald Trump issued a statement saying that “his net worth was now in excess of $10 billion, more than the $8.7 billion he said he was worth when he announced his presidential candidacy a month ago,” the New York Times reports.
“The statement noted that Mr. Trump had filed his financial disclosure report with the Federal Election Commission, a requirement of presidential candidates… In filing his financial disclosure, Mr. Trump apparently followed through on a pledge that he made on June 16 when he announced his campaign, saying he would be making the submission without requesting extensions.”
CNBC quotes from Trump’s press release: “This report was not designed for a man of Mr. Trump’s massive wealth. For instance, they have boxes once a certain number is reached that simply state $50 million or more. Many of these boxes have been checked. As an example, if a building owned by Mr. Trump is worth $1.5 billion, the box checked is ‘$50,000,000 or more.”
Gingrich Still Owes $4.6 Million
Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign still owes $4.6 million, according to the latest FEC filing.
Why Are Republicans Scared of Donald Trump?
Paul Waldman: “It’s been said before that Democrats hate their base while Republicans fear their base, and the second part seems to be more true now than ever. The Tea Party experience of the last six years, which helped them win off-year elections and also produced rebellions against incumbent Republicans, has left them living in abject terror of their own voters.”
“While I haven’t yet seen any detailed analysis of who’s supporting Trump, it’s probably safe to assume that the typical Trump supporter is a tea partier — not just extremely conservative, but extremely angry as well, not to mention contemptuous of elected Republicans who are too timid to really tell it like it is… It’s somewhat ironic that the response of Republican politicians to these voters’ disgust with timidity is to be inordinately timid about offending them.”
“It’s possible that also has something to do with why the race has been so generally well-mannered. The candidates aren’t just worried about offending Trump’s supporters, they’re worried about offending anybody on their side of the aisle. Far be it from me to demand that the race get more negative, but by now you’d think there would be barbs flying back and forth in all directions.”
Quote of the Day
“This agreement condemns the next generation to cleaning up a nuclear war in the Persian Gulf… This is the greatest appeasement since Chamberlain gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler.”
— Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), quoted by BuzzFeed, on the nuclear deal reached with Iran.
Court Annuls Alan Grayson’s Marriage
A judge has granted Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) the annulment that he sought to his marriage, the Miami Herald reports.
“The messy separation from his wife, Lolita Grayson, had been headline fodder in the weeks leading up to Grayson’s U.S. Senate campaign launch last week. And we’ve likely not seen the end of it: There’s plenty of campaign ads to come.”
Bonus Trump Quote of the Day
“I’m a businessman. I contribute to everybody. When I needed Hillary, she was there. If I say ‘go to my wedding,’ they go to my wedding.”
— Donald Trump, in a Fox News interview, on whether his past contributions to Hillary Clinton suggest he’s a Democratic plant.
Have Republicans Stopped Falling in Line?
Nate Silver recalls a famous Bill Clinton quote: “You know the difference in Democrats and Republicans? In every presidential election, Democrats want to fall in love. Republicans just fall in line.”
“But this year, the historical trend has reversed itself. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is the only candidate with any endorsements from current governors or U.S. senators and representatives. And she has a boatload of them: 88 representatives, 27 senators and two governors have endorsed Clinton, giving her 243 endorsement points, the highest figure ever at this stage of the race for a Democrat.”
“Republicans, however, haven’t fallen in line behind anyone. Jeb Bush is the nominal endorsement front-runner, but his 18 endorsement points are the lowest total for any leader at this point in the campaign since Tsongas in 1992. Only two Republican governors and three Republican senators have endorsed any candidate at all. Endorsements also came slowly in the 2012 Republican nomination contest. As of June 17, 2011 — 200 days before the Iowa caucuses — Mitt Romney was the leader, but with only 19 endorsement points.”
Getting to Know Hillary Again
Mark Leibovich: “Hillary Clinton is private and guarded by nature, and three decades of being inspected like an exotic species has made her even more so. But right now, in the early days of what will be a 19-month campaign for the White House, she is trying to share and expound on her experiences, to project some greater measure of herself, big and small. Moose tales aside, this does not come easily. She has resided at the center of so many scandals, psychodramas and culture wars that it’s hard to even keep track of them all, let alone know what the person within that bubble of attention is actually like.”
“Clinton’s friends, all the thousands of them, have been saying for years that they wished people could see the Hillary They Knew, the person few get to see behind her public casing: the great boss, the chatty girlfriend, always the first to call when a parent dies or a baby is born. She possesses, they swear, that most cherished cachet among politicians — the sense of normalcy that David Foster Wallace famously described, quoting a fellow reporter in his 2000 profile of John McCain in Rolling Stone, as acting ‘somewhat in the ballpark of the way a real human being would act.’ Clinton imagines herself to be very much of this ballpark, if maybe confined to a private box and heavily guarded”
Maryland Lawmaker Charged with Indecent Exposure
Maryland state Del. Ariana Kelly (D) “was arrested in late June and charged with indecent exposure and trespassing after a dispute at the home of her ex-husband,” the Washington Post reports.
Kelly’s ex-husband “told police that Kelly started ringing the doorbell and banging on the door and that he asked her to leave. According to the charging document, Sanford played a cellphone video for police that showed Kelly ringing the doorbell ‘numerous times,’ exposing her breasts in the direction of Sanford’s cellphone camera and then ‘with one breast in each hand [shaking] them up and down.'”
GOP Lawmaker Suggests Trump May Be Democratic Plant
Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), “whose district saw two phony candidates run in a pair of elections before he took office, has taken to Spanish-language media to suggest that Donald Trump’s campaign could be a Democratic scheme to hurt the Republican Party,” the Miami Herald reports.
Said Curbelo: “I think there’s a small possibility that this gentleman is a phantom candidate. Mr. Trump has a close friendship with Bill and Hillary Clinton. They were at his last wedding. He has contributed to the Clintons’ foundation. He has contributed to Mrs. Clinton’s Senate campaigns. All of this is very suspicious.”
Trump Quote of the Day
“Well, they didn’t read The Art of the Deal. Most people did; they didn’t.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Politico, when asked for his views on the Obama administration’s “ridiculous” Iran nuclear agreement.
Trump’s Popularity Surges Among Republicans
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds Donald Trump’s popularity has surged among Republicans after dominating several news cycles with his anti-illegal immigration rhetoric.
“Nearly six in 10 — 57% — Republicans now have a favorable view of Trump, compared to 40% who have an unfavorable one. That marks a complete reversal from a late-May Post-ABC poll, in which 65% of Republicans saw Trump unfavorably.”
However, among Latino voters Trump’s unfavorability has risen to 81% from 60%.
Cheney Says Iran Deal Will Lead to Nuclear Weapons Use
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said that not since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly 70 years ago has the world been closer to the use of nuclear weapons, Politico reports.
Said Cheney: “What Obama has done, has in effect sanctioned, the acquisition by Iran of nuclear capability. And it can be a few years down the road. It doesn’t make any difference. It’s a matter of months until we’re going to see a situation where other people feel they have to defend themselves by acquiring their own capability. And that will, in fact, I think put us to closer to use — actual use of nuclear weapons than we’ve been at any time since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.”
What to Look for in Today’s Campaign Filings
Wall Street Journal: “On Wednesday, the public will get its first look at the donors bankrolling 2016 candidates’ campaigns and how the campaigns are spending that money, as of the end of the second quarter. Campaigns are required to file disclosures with the Federal Election Commission providing details of their quarterly fundraising, many of them for the first time. The only candidate who launched his campaign early enough to file a first-quarter report was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who at the time was eight days into his campaign.”
“Many candidates have already released their fundraising totals and other selected figures, which starts to form a picture of who’s leading the race for each party’s nomination — in terms of money, Hillary Clinton leads Democrats, and Jeb Bush leads Republicans. But many other details haven’t been disclosed.”
