Donald Trump campaigns in Ohio. Hillary Clinton is still recovering from pneumonia, but her campaign — including Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton — continues to pack in events.
- Clinton’s doctor releases a statement outlining, among other things, the candidate’s recovery from pneumonia
- Trump‘s televised consult with Dr. Oz is another odd turn. His campaign says he won’t get into the weeds, but Dr. Oz complicates matters by announcing that Trump shared exam results
- Trump is interrupted by a pastor in Flint, Mich., who tells him not to “give a political speech”
- Bill and Chelsea Clinton plan to step down from a board at the family’s foundation if Hillary Clinton is elected president
In Ohio, Trump tees off on Ford’s move to Mexico, says he’d tax it for making cars outside U.S.
For Donald Trump, the timing could hardly have been better for Ford’s announcement Wednesday that it was moving all of its small-car production to Mexico: He was on a campaign swing through Rust Belt towns ravaged by manufacturing’s decline.
After a quick visit to Flint, Mich., a former General Motors town renowned for its urban decay and toxic drinking water, Trump arrived in northern Ohio with an I-told-you-so take on trade and immigration.
“It used to be cars were made in Flint, and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico,” Trump told several thousand cheering supporters in this heavy-manufacturing town south of Cleveland. “Now, the cars are made in Mexico, and you can’t drink the water in Flint.”
With Hillary Clinton still recovering from pneumonia, Trump offered new variations on his long-standing charge that his Democratic opponent lacks the strength and stamina to lead the nation.
After bragging about defeating 16 career politicians in the GOP primaries, Trump said: “Now we have one left. And in all fairness, she’s lying in bed, getting better, and we want her better, we want her back on the trail, right?”
“Lock her up!” was one of the many hostile catcalls that ensued.
After telling the crowd how hard he works and basking in cheers of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” he told the rowdy audience: “I don’t know, folks. You think Hillary would be able to stand up here for an hour?”
Trump also questioned President Obama’s work habits and suggested he was misusing taxpayer money by campaigning for Clinton in Philadelphia on Tuesday. “Why isn’t he working instead of campaigning for crooked Hillary? Who’s paying for that big plane that comes in?”
Trump went on to blame Democrats for poverty, joblessness and failing schools in the inner cities, then vowed to wall off Mexico to “stop those drugs from pouring in.”
“And who is going to pay for the wall?” Trump asked. “Mexico!” the overwhelmingly white crowd shouted back.
Trump accused Clinton of secretly supporting the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that she backed as secretary of State but now opposes.
“These deals we make, folks, it’s almost like we want to take it away from our country and let other countries make fortunes,” he said. “And you know what? All they do is laugh at us, disrespect us.”
Turning to tensions between the U.S. and Iran in the Persian Gulf, Trump suggested American servicemen were itching to turn their weapons on Iranian counterparts who circle
Navy ships “in their little boats.”
“Our great men are sitting there watching and saying, ‘Boy, would I like to give it to them,’” he said.
As for Ford, Trump imagined what it would be like, after an announcement like today’s, to call the company’s chief executive from the White House.
“If you think you’re going to make cars and you’re … going to sell them through our border like we’re stupid people – not going to happen that way,” he said.
After a loud interruption of applause, he concluded, “We’re going to charge you a 35% tax on every car that’s made outside the United States.”
In a rare move, the New Hampshire Union Leader spurns a Republican (Donald Trump) with its endorsement
When it comes to endorsements, the New Hampshire Union Leader is usually a sure thing for Republican presidential hopefuls.
Then there’s Donald Trump.
As Trump arrives in New Hampshire on Thursday, he’ll find a front-page editorial in the state’s most influential newspaper denouncing his candidacy and showcasing its support of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. It’s the first time in more than 100 years the paper will not endorse a Republican for president.
“The man is a liar, a bully, a buffoon. He denigrates any individual or group that displeases him,” writes Joseph McQuaid, the newspaper’s publisher. “He has dishonored military veterans and their families, made fun of the physically frail, and changed political views almost as often as he has changed wives.”
McQuaid and Trump battled during the Republican primary, with Trump labeling the paper a failure for its coverage of his campaign and declining to attend a forum it hosted for the candidates. The paper eventually endorsed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Still, Trump went on to win the New Hampshire primary.
While the editorial focused mainly on Trump, McQuaid hardly spared Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, calling her “a selfish, self-centered, sanctimonious prig.”
Johnson and his running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, are not the “lesser of two” evils, he wrote.
“They would be worth considering under many circumstances,” the editorial said. “In today’s dark times, they are a bright light of hope and reason.”
Doctor’s orders for Tim Kaine -- more vitamin D
Tim Kaine received a clean bill of health as the Hillary Clinton campaign on Wednesday released new medical records on her and her running mate.
The health of each candidate has come under increasing scrutiny after Clinton fell ill and left early during a Sept. 11 memorial event Sunday.
A letter from Kaine’s doctor said the Virginia senator doesn’t take any medications and has generally healthy cholesterol and blood pressure levels.
“You are in overall excellent health and active in your professional work, and physical fitness endeavors without limitation,” wrote the doctor, Brian Monahan, the attending physician for Congress.
He recommend that Kaine start taking a daily vitamin D supplement.
Bill and Chelsea Clinton will step down from foundation’s flagship health project if Hillary Clinton is elected
If Hillary Clinton is elected president, her husband and daughter will step down from the organization responsible for some of their family foundation’s most prominent work, including lowering the costs of HIV medications in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Clinton Health Access Initiative, an arm of the Clinton Foundation, would become an independent entity if Clinton wins the presidential election, and Bill and Chelsea Clinton would resign from its five-member board, the initiative said Wednesday in a statement.
The entire board would be replaced with “independent” board members, the statement said.
The future of the Clinton Foundation, which was founded in 1997 and has raised billions of dollars for humanitarian work around the world, has undergone intense scrutiny as Hillary Clinton seeks the White House.
Bill Clinton has said that if his wife is elected he will step down from the foundation’s main board of directors and stop raising money for it. Hillary Clinton resigned from the board last year when she embarked on her White House run.
Several changes in how the foundation raises money would also be implemented, including accepting donations only from U.S. citizens. Foreign governments and corporations, which have helped bankroll the foundation in the past, would no longer be able to donate. The health initiative accounts for a sizable chunk of the foundation’s annual expenses.
Chelsea Clinton has vowed to remain a part of the Clinton Foundation and would remain on its board of directors even if her mother becomes president. Foundation President Donna Shalala defended Chelsea Clinton’s decision, which critics view as a conflict of interest.
“It’s Chelsea’s decision. First of all, Chelsea is an extraordinarily important leader on the board,” Shalala said Wednesday on MSNBC. “There’s no question about it.”
Donald Trump interrupted by pastor in Flint, Mich., who tells him not to ‘give a political speech’
Donald Trump was invited to talk Wednesday about the water crisis in Flint, Mich., but that was soon tossed aside.
In remarks at an African American church in the predominantly black city, Trump, assailing Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on the economy and foreign policy, was interrupted.
“Mr. Trump, I invited you here to thank us for what we’ve done in Flint, not give a political speech,” said Pastor Faith Green Timmons as she approached the Republican presidential nominee at the podium.
“OK, that’s good,” Trump nodded. “Then I’m going to go back onto Flint.”
As Trump continued with his prepared remarks, an attendee shouted a question to Trump, who appeared surprised. Green Timmons then asked the person to not interrupt, at which point Trump thanked the pastor.
Trump’s brief remarks centered on him criticizing local elected officials, saying they had “no clue” how to handle the water crisis that sickened thousands in the city whose water was contaminated by lead. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, has acknowledged that state regulators share blame for the water crisis.
In recent weeks Trump has made overt pitches to black voters — a move, say some political analysts, to help him improve his poll numbers with moderate white voters who view some of his past rhetoric as racist.
National, as well as swing state polls, have shown Clinton overwhelmingly outpacing Trump among black voters.
Hillary Clinton’s doctor releases note, disclosing some additional medical information
A note from Hillary Clinton’s doctor, Lisa Bardack, discloses some additional information about the presidential candidate’s health.
Hillary Clinton is releasing an updated doctor’s note Wednesday afternoon as her campaign tries to get past the political problems caused by keeping her recent pneumonia diagnosis secret.
The release came amid calls for both Clinton and Donald Trump, two of the oldest presidential nominees in history, to reveal more about their personal health.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump shared some new medical information during a taping of the “The Dr. Oz Show,” which will be broadcast Thursday. Though it is unclear how much Trump shared, it appears neither candidate has released detailed medical records.
The letter from Clinton’s doctor, Lisa Bardack, explains the pneumonia diagnosis and otherwise mostly offers the same information about Clinton’s health Bardack already had shared with the news media more than year ago.
Read the letter from Hillary Clinton’s doctor >>
The letter says that Clinton has been evaluated by Bardack several times since she nearly collapsed after becoming overheated, dehydrated and dizzy during a 9/11 memorial event at ground zero on Sunday.
Before the incident, a noncontrast chest CT scan revealed that Clinton had a small right middle-lobe pneumonia, according to Bardack. It is a mild, noncontagious form of the bacterial infection, the doctor wrote.
Clinton was prescribed the medication Levaquin, which she will be taking for 10 days, according to Bardack, who wrote that Clinton “continues to improve.”
The doctor also reported that Clinton continues to take medication for an underactive thyroid, as well as the blood-thinning medication Coumadin. She also takes allergy medication and vitamin B12. The doctor shared various results from Clinton’s physical exam suggesting she is otherwise in good health.
“[T]he remainder of her complete physical exam was normal and she is in excellent mental condition,” the doctor wrote. “She is recovering well with antibiotics and rest. She continues to remain healthy and fit to serve as President of the United States.”
Some minority voters in Las Vegas area see Donald Trump’s rhetoric as a threat
Colleen Downey doesn’t think things are all that great right now, working paycheck to paycheck as a school bus driver.
But Republican nominee Donald Trump’s call to “make America great again” repels her.
“I don’t know when his time was considered great,” she said. “I’m a woman and I’m black. I have more opportunities now.”
Downey, 35, is a student at the community college here where Bill Clinton spoke on Wednesday, and although she didn’t attend the speech, she’s planning to vote for Hillary Clinton.
So is Crisol Esparza, 20, another student, who said her family emigrated legally from Mexico. Even though Trump said his border control policies are focused on immigrants in the U.S. illegally, that “doesn’t make it any better.”
“I pay attention to his words,” she said. “We don’t feel welcome.”
Rosemary Hall, an African American administrative assistant who attended Clinton’s speech, described Trump’s slogan as “make America hate again.”
She’s been disturbed by Trump’s rhetoric about Mexicans and Muslims, who he’s suggested should be barred from entering the country.
“It’s them today,” Hall said. “It’s us tomorrow.”
Bill Clinton beats back controversies as he tackles political ‘road rage’
With Hillary Clinton still recuperating from pneumonia, it fell to her husband to rally voters at a community college here Wednesday in the battleground state of Nevada.
“She did it for me a long time,” former President Bill Clinton told the crowd. “It’s about time I showed up and did it for her.”
Clearly chafing at the controversies that have dogged his wife’s campaign, Clinton threw barbs at critics of how Hillary’s illness was handled.
“It’s a crazy time we live in, you know, when people think there’s something unusual” about getting sick, he said.
Clinton said the furor over Hillary’s private email server has been blown out of proportion as “the biggest problem since World War II,” and he accused Republican nominee Donald Trump of choosing to use his charitable foundation for political purposes “and then attack my foundation, which saves millions of lives.”
At one point, Clinton urged voters to look past the election-year quarrels.
“Are you going to be a pawn in a game played by people who are just looking for tomorrow’s story?” he said.
The controversies “save people the trouble of thinking,” he said, and he blamed Trump for appealing to a sense of “road rage” in the electorate. The message, Clinton said, was, “ ‘Please don’t think. Choose anger, not answers. Choose resentment, not responsibility and empowerment. Choose walls and not bridges.’
“We don’t need to feed the road rage,” he said. “We need to slow the car down.”
Donald Trump gives Dr. Oz results from a physical, but what do they say?
Donald Trump added new mystery to the question of how healthy he is, recording an episode of “The Dr. Oz Show” on Wednesday with what the show said were results from a recent physical.
The show will not air until Thursday, so it is unclear how much detail, if any, the Republican nominee went into with the controversial television doctor.
Trump, a 70-year-old with a penchant for eating fast food, has tried to highlight what he and his personal doctor have said is ideal health as the Republican nominee questions the strength and stamina of Hillary Clinton, who abruptly left an event Sunday with what her campaign later described as pneumonia.
But neither candidate has released detailed medical records, a traditional step for presidential candidates. And a letter from Trump’s physician wrote on his behalf in December was dashed off in the course of five minutes.
Like many aspects of the Trump campaign, the release of his health records has been steeped in a bit of drama, misdirection and reality television glamor.
Following the Trump campaign’s suggestions that he would use the show to discuss his health, Dr. Mehmet Oz said earlier in the week that he would review Trump’s health on the air, asking pointed yet friendly questions. But the Trump campaign tried to manage expectations earlier Wednesday, saying the two would not share a thorough review.
Reporters were not allowed into the taping.
When it was over, the show released a photograph of Trump and Oz going over paperwork and a headline proclaiming “Donald Trump Releases Medical Records For The First Time To Dr. Oz On The Dr. Oz Show.”
But the rest of the news release was vague, saying it was one of several topics discussed on the air, including Trump’s “recently announced child care plan and the major healthcare issues facing this country.”
Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who the campaign said helped craft the child-care plan, also appeared.
The release said Oz “took Mr. Trump through a full review of” his family medical history, nervous system, respiratory health and other systems. But it did not offer specifics on what was meant by the review or what the results were.
Hillary Clinton announces meetings with Egyptian and Ukrainian presidents next week
Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which has been touting upcoming appointments for the ailing candidate, said Wednesday that she would meet next week with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during the United Nations General Assembly.
The meetings, confirmed by an aide, offer Clinton a few political opportunities, in addition to limiting the sense that she has been hampered by her bout with pneumonia. They remind voters she is on a world stage, and they may distract some from Clinton Global Initiative meetings, which will coincide with the U.N. assembly.
The Clinton Global Initiative and the related Clinton Foundation have been the subject of widespread scrutiny and charges of conflict of interest.
Colin Powell confirms authenticity of email calling Trump a ‘disgrace,’ says hackers have ‘a lot more’
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell labeled fellow Republican Donald Trump a “national disgrace” and a cheerleader of the “racist” birther movement that questioned President Obama’s legitimacy, according to emails that appear to have been obtained by a hacker.
The emails were first reported by BuzzFeed News on Tuesday.
The website did not say how it obtained the emails, but when Powell declined to comment about their contents, he said, “I’m not denying it.”
On Wednesday, NBC reported that Powell had confirmed the authenticity of the emails and had said that “the hackers have a lot more.”
The emails were obtained by the website DCLeaks.com, which has been reported to have links to Russian intelligence, MSNBC reported.
In the emails, Powell called Trump an “international pariah” who “is in the process of destroying himself, no need for Dems to attack him,” according to the story.
He chided the media for their coverage of Trump, saying in another email, “To go on and call him an idiot just emboldens him.”
The leaked emails include jabs at Trump’s rival, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, as well. He expresses exasperation with Clinton’s handling of the controversy over the use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
In one email from last month, reported by the Intercept, Powell bristled at Clinton comparing her actions to his use of a personal e-mail account while he served in the post.
“HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me to it,” Powell wrote, adding “she keeps tripping into these ‘character’ minefields.”
In another email from last month, flagged by the Washington Post , Powell writes “Hillary has not been covering here [sic] self with glory. For good reason she comes across sleazy.”
And CBS News found a 2014 email in which Powell, though not mentioning either Clinton by name, appears to call Clinton “greedy [and] not transformational,” and makes a colorful reference to alleged affairs by Bill Clinton, attributed to the tabloid New York Post.
Powell, a retired four-star general who served in three GOP administrations, was once considered a possible presidential nominee. He raised eyebrows in Republican circles when he announced his support for then-Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign.
This post was updated at 2:41 p.m. with additional comments about Hillary Clinton from Powell’s emails.
A visit to Trump’s headquarters in Long Beach’s Cambodia Town, of all places, produces some surprises
The city is blue.
The county is blue.
The state is blue.
So I was curious.
Who and what would you find if you walked into Donald Trump’s campaign headquarters in Long Beach, a racially diverse city and longtime Democratic Party stronghold?
Campaign now says Trump’s interview with Dr. Oz will touch only briefly on nominee’s health
Donald Trump’s campaign is seeking to downplay the extent to which he will discuss his personal health in a taped interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz on Wednesday.
Campaign officials say they expect Oz will discuss broader health, family and well-being issues with Trump and only touch briefly on Trump’s personal health, without getting into the weeds of his medical history. The campaign said it will release a report on the results of Trump’s medical records separately, most likely this week.
Still, the interview remains a wild card, given Trump’s inclination to improvise and Oz’s comments this week suggesting that he would indeed be talking about Trump’s personal health.
“He was going to talk about the fact that he had a physical and what the results are or what the doctor may have told him to date,” Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News Wednesday. Oz “wasn’t present as his physical.”
Conway said they were taking audience questions. “If he is asked a question about his health or his stamina, I’m sure he’ll be happy to answer it,” she said.
Trump was set to record the interview Wednesday morning before it airs Thursday in local markets. After speaking with Oz, Trump will visit Flint, Mich., which has been dealing with a water crisis, before heading to Canton, Ohio, for an evening rally.
Video shows aftermath of 69-year-old woman punched at a Trump rally
Dramatic video has emerged of people chasing down a man believed to have punched a 69-year-old woman on oxygen at a Donald Trump rally, showing the escalation of emotions from both protesters and supporters.
[WARNING: The video above contains profanity and other strong language.]
Shirley Teeter told a local ABC News affiliate that she attended the event in Asheville, N.C., to protest Trump. She recalls telling supporters outside the rally that they should start learning Russian — alluding to Trump’s admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Then, she said, a man in front of her turned around and punched her in the jaw, knocking her down onto her backpack containing her metal oxygen tank.
“He turned around and just cold-cocked me,” she said.
Police issued a warrant for the man’s arrest on charges of assault.
There’s even a partisan divide over how healthy Hillary Clinton seems to be
In more proof that everything in this election is fodder for polling, we now know quite a bit about what voters think of Hillary Clinton’s health.
A new Morning Consult survey, taken in the two days after Clinton’s abrupt departure from a Sept. 11 commemoration after she fell ill, showed the issue is getting out there bigly, with 8 in 10 voters paying at least some attention.
The pollsters also learned that this issue too is subject to sharp partisan difference: 7 in 10 Republicans said her health was below average or poor, compared with 16% of Democrats. Overall, 4 in 10 Americans hold this opinion, an increased from an August poll (yes, there was one) showing only a quarter of voters felt that way.
Views on Donald Trump’s health have not shifted much -- about a third of voters think it is above average or excellent, compared with about two in 10 voters who hold that belief about Clinton. (Americans, it seems, have great faith in the restorative powers of Kentucky Fried Chicken.)
Overall, about two-thirds of those surveyed said they wanted presidential candidates to release medical records.
It’s hard to tell if any of this will affect the election. A quarter of those surveyed said Clinton’s health would make them less likely to vote for her. But it’s also a good bet that many of those voters had already made up their minds. It may, however, reinforce some of Clinton’s trust problems. Voters are more likely (50%) to believe that Clinton has misled the public about her health than to believe Trump has (37%), according to the survey.
Donald Trump’s televised consult with Dr. Oz is another odd turn in the presidential health debate
Donald Trump has already received a fair bit of ridicule for an admittedly slapdash letter from his doctor declaring that the GOP nominee would, if elected, be the healthiest person in history to become president.
On Wednesday, Trump’s medical evaluation will take yet another strange turn when he tapes an interview with television physician Dr. Mehmet Oz. The interview, based on what Trump says is a new physical, comes amid growing questions about Hillary Clinton’s health, following her abrupt departure from a 9/11 commemoration.
“The Dr. Oz Show” plans to release excerpts of the interview Wednesday, before the syndicated program airs in full in local markets on Thursday.
During a radio interview earleir this week, Oz promised “pointed questions” for Trump, but added that he is “not going to ask him questions he doesn’t want to have answered.”
Oz is popular and influential, so much so that his frequent advice on matters of diet and health also has made him controversial.
In 2014, The Times reported on a medical study’s finding that only one-third of the claims on “The Dr. Oz Show” can be backed by medical evidence. Four in 10 are backed by no evidence at all, it said.
“Consumers should be skeptical about any recommendations provided on television medical talk shows,” the researchers concluded in the study published in BMJ. “Viewers need to realize that the recommendations may not be supported by higher evidence or presented with enough balanced information to adequately inform decision-making.”
In a letter last year, a group of prominent physicians questioned Oz’s presence on the faculty of Columbia University’s medical school, stating that he is “guilty of either outrageous conflicts of interest or flawed judgments.”
Oz responded at the time with a statement that said he brings the public “information that will help them on their path to be their best selves.”
“We provide multiple points of view, including mine, which is offered without conflict of interest. That doesn’t sit well with certain agendas which distort the facts,” he added.
Clinton has enough policy to fill a book, while Trump has said little about how he’d govern
There was little fanfare when Hillary Clinton released her mental health plan late last month.
The Democratic presidential hopeful didn’t visit a clinic. She didn’t surround herself with patients for a photo-op.
But for voters interested in how Clinton would tackle an issue that has frustrated policymakers for decades, she offered a 13-page, 27-point blueprint, with 25 footnotes.
“I don’t think that’s going to put her over the top in any state,” quipped Linda Rosenberg, president of the National Council for Behavioral Health, one of the nation’s leading proponents for mental health reform. “She could have probably just promised a White House conference.”