“I do great with Latino voters. I employ so many Latinos. I have so many people working for me. I’m a job creator. I create jobs. I’m a master job creator. No politician knows how to create jobs. They’re all talk, they’re no action. They don’t know what they’re doing. And you know, the Latinos love Trump and I love them.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Fox News, while giving reporters a tour of his golf course.
“Somebody said to me the other day, a reporter, a very nice reporter, ‘But, Mr Trump, you’re not a nice person.’ That’s true. But actually I am. I think I am a nice person.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by the Financial Times.
“After Donald Trump’s Mexico-bashing comments this week, Mexicans are engaging in a little Trump-bashing of their own,” the AP reports.
“Call it revenge, Mexican style. Artisan Dalton Avalos Ramirez has launched a Trump pinata, featuring The Donald’s inimitable hairstyle and a big, big mouth. The papier-mache figure will come in a variety of sizes.”
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“When Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he’s running for president, the soundtrack at the Trump Tower event was Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World, which was played loudly and repeatedly. But afterward, Young said Trump had used the song without permission — and that he’s a Bernie Sanders guy, anyway,” NPR reports.
Byron York: “But perhaps it is time for a Republican candidate to fight back. There is no legal reason why Trump could not play ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ at his event yesterday, provided that Trump paid the appropriate fee for the right to use the music. And in many of the most common circumstances of life on the campaign trail, Republicans who pay those appropriate fees are as entitled as anyone else to use any artist’s music they choose.”
The Trump campaign confirmed to Fox News that they paid for the right to use the recording.
Donald Trump’s big presidential announcement “was made a little bigger with help from paid actors — at $50 a pop,” according to Hollywood Reporter.
“New York-based Extra Mile Casting sent an email last Friday to its client list of background actors, seeking extras to beef up attendance at Trump’s event… The pay was listed as $50 for fewer than three hours of work. According to the email, Extra Mile was reaching out to potential extras in partnership with Gotham Government Relations and Communications, a New York-Based political consulting group that has worked with Trump in the past.”
Donald Trump suggested that the Club For Growth is attacking him because he did not heed its recent request to donate $1 million, Bloomberg reports.
“Mr. Trump should know he’s doing something right when the malcontents go ballistic in the press!”
— Sarah Palin, on Facebook, praising Donald Trump for getting into the GOP presidential race.
Donald Trump (R) told Morning Joe that his favorite president of the last four is Bill Clinton, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “There was a little spirit. Frankly, had he not met Monica, had he not met Paula, had he not met various and sundry semi-beautiful women, he would have had a much better deal going.”
He added: “He was destroyed by that. He was really hurt very badly by it.”
Washington Post: “Donald Trump is a fact checker’s dream … and nightmare. He spouts off so many ‘facts,’ often twisted or wrong, that it takes a lot of time to hack through the weeds. So here are some of the highlights — and lowlights — of Trump’s announcement on June 16 that he will seek the Republican nomination for president.”
“As is our practice, we do not award Pinocchios when we do a roundup of facts in a major speech. But astute readers should be able to figure out the Four-Pinocchio whoppers.”
“I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me . . . on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by the Washington Post.
Rick Klein: “No, he won’t win the Republican nomination for president, and no, his rambling announcement-day speeches (Mexico? Free trade? China?) won’t help him get taken much more seriously. But there’s a slice of voters, not insignificant in the Republican primary race, who despise Washington and politicians more broadly. Every candidate likes to try to channel that, but none bring the bluster that Trump does. (Tuesday night in Des Moines, he blasted Jeb Bush as a poor dresser, and said he had better hair than Marco Rubio.) Trump is a sideshow, but one whose act will spill on to the main stage, particularly if he earns a debate invitation or three. His candidacy may be a giant joke. But don’t forget there are voters who want to laugh, and hard, at the entire political process.”
Politico: 7 reasons the GOP should fear Donald Trump
Paul Waldman: “It’s tempting to feel a little sorry for the Republican Party. Here they were, trying to have a perfectly civil and sober primary campaign to determine their candidate for the presidency, when along comes Donald Trump.”
“Here’s the problem, though: Donald Trump is the essence of contemporary Republicanism. It’s a distilled essence, boiled down to a viscous and sour consistency. But if you want to know what Republicans believe and who they are, you don’t need to look much further. He’s a walking caricature, but it’s a caricature created from everything Republicans believe.”
“I’m really rich…that’s the kind of thinking you need for this country. It sounds crass, it’s not crass… We have the opposite thinking. We have losers. We have people that don’t have it. We have people that are morally corrupt.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Politico.
First Read: “We’ve had our doubts that Trump would ever get to this point, simply due to the requirement for actual presidential candidates to release their financial information. But the Washington Post reports that Trump will release a two-page summary showing assets of about $9 billion. Yet a little caveat here: This two-page summary will not be the actual financial-disclosure report that candidates are supposed to file to the Federal Election Commission within 30 days of becoming a candidate. (Trump could theoretically delay releasing this information for 120 days from today — by getting two 45-day extensions. And the penalty for submitting false information here is a no more than a year in jail or a $50,000 fine.) But you can’t take Trump’s candidacy seriously until he fills out the government financial-disclosure form.”
“Remember, we found out about Hillary’s paid speeches and Rubio’s liquidated IRA from their financial disclosures. They didn’t submit a one- or two-page summary. So if Trump is only submitting this summary, it actually is proof he isn’t that serious about this — it’s about trying to get into the debates but keeping up appearances in time for him to start a new season of The Apprentice in January. That said, he is one helluva promoter and he will get plenty of folks to bite as we will see over the next 48 hours.”
“I will be the greatest jobs president God ever created.”
Donald Trump “launched his presidential campaign Tuesday, ending more than two decades of persistent flirtation with the idea of running for the Oval Office,” CNN reports.
“Just over four years after he came closer than ever to launching a campaign before bowing out, Trump made his announcement at the lavish Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York… The 68-story tower venue Trump used Tuesday is more than just the backdrop to Trump’s presidential announcement, instead becoming a physical embodiment of what Trump is bringing to the table and the challenges he’ll face as he formally enters politics.”
Wall Street Journal: “After publicly toying with a presidential bid five times since 1988, Mr. Trump formally declared his candidacy for the first time at a skyscraper named for himself. Mr. Trump has built a larger-than-life profile as a reality-television personality and real-estate developer. Now he hopes to parlay his fame into a spot on the Republican presidential stage.”
Donald Trump “is expected to launch his presidential campaign Tuesday, ending more than two decades of persistent flirtation with the idea of running in the Oval Office,” CNN reports.
Bloomberg: “As with all things Trump, this will be a ridiculous, absurdist exercise in media manipulation that will, as always, work magnificently. Reporters will snort and snicker, but they will trudge over to the press conference anyway; Trump will say something outlandish and unreasonable; reporters will gleefully blast out every word of it (‘Trump Says Obama Is Cheering For ISIS!’); we will shake our heads, that crazy Trump, and then we will all talk about Trump for a few more news cycles, whether he runs for president or not. Donald Trump often appears to be living in a loopy, cartoon world of his own imagining. He is also the foremost expert in how to drive the public conversation in America today, the pioneer of human being as #brand. We’ve spent years mocking Trump. (The late Phil Hartman lampooned him on Saturday Night Live 25 years ago). But he’s still here.”
“Trump’s signature achievement is to make certain, no matter what, that we are constantly talking about Donald Trump.”
Donald Trump “will release a summary of assets that total about $9 billion as part of his likely entry into the race for the Republican presidential nomination,” the Washington Post reports.
“The two-page document — which will be published after he holds a political rally at Trump Tower in New York — will provide a valuation of his hotels and other properties. It will also show hundreds of millions in cash on hand and an outline of his debt… The details he will reveal Tuesday will provide one of the first looks at the worth of the real estate and television empire that the colorful impresario has amassed — one whose value has been avidly debated.”
McClatchy: “He’s flirted with running before, but this time he appears to be taking the steps needed to formally enter the Republican race.”
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.