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Hillary Clinton Returns To The Campaign Trail After Illness

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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gives a thumbs up Thursday in White Plains, New York while traveling to Greensboro, North Carolina.

Andrew Harnik / AP

Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail Thursday after taking time off to recover from pneumonia.

The Democratic presidential nominee began her return Thursday with a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she criticized Republican rival Donald Trump and used her illness to illustrate the need for better healthcare in the US.

"As you may know, I recently had a cough that turned out to be pneumonia," Clinton said at the opening of her speech. "I tried to power through it, but even I had to admit that even a few days of rest would do me good."

Clinton's health made headlines over the weekend after she was captured on video struggling to walk at a 9/11 memorial. She later announced that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia days earlier.

During her speech Thursday, Clinton said she spent her time off talking to friends and thinking. That led her to the conclusion that "people like me, we're lucky."

"When I'm under the weather I can afford to take a few days off," Clinton said. "Millions of Americans can't. They either go to work sick or they lose a paycheck."

She added that many Americans still don't have insurance, or do have coverage but can't afford to use it.

Clinton also used the speech as an opportunity to criticize Trump.

"I'll never be the showman my opponent is, and that's okay with me," she said. The comment was a reference to Trump's appearance Thursday on The Dr. Oz Show.

Later Thursday, Clinton held a news conference where she addressed tightening polls between her and Trump. "Those are the kinds of presidential elections we have in America," she said.

"I'm going to keep doing everything I can to deliver my message about what's at stake in this election," she added.

LINK: Hillary Clinton Diagnosed With Pneumonia Days Before Struggling To Walk At 9/11 Memorial



Ivanka Trump Responds After Cutting Off Interview With "Cosmopolitan"

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After ending an interview about her father’s maternity leave policy, Ivanka Trump said the magazine should focus on advocating change.

Ivanka Trump responded to Cosmopolitan Thursday after cutting off an interview with the magazine following a series of hard-hitting questions on her father's maternity leave plan.

Ivanka Trump responded to Cosmopolitan Thursday after cutting off an interview with the magazine following a series of hard-hitting questions on her father's maternity leave plan.

Donald Trump has credited his oldest daughter with advocating for maternity leave, and in recent days she has joined him on the campaign trail. Under the Trump plan, parents would be able to deduct childcare expenses from their income taxes.

The plan would also provide six weeks of paid leave to new mothers, which Trump has said would be "completely self-financing" through recapturing fraud in the unemployment insurance system.

Evan Vucci / AP

"So I think that you have a lot of negativity in these questions, and I think my father has put forth a very comprehensive and really revolutionary plan to deal with a lot of issues," Ivanka told Cosmo. "So I don't know how useful it is to spend too much time with you on this if you're going to make a comment like that."

"So I think that you have a lot of negativity in these questions, and I think my father has put forth a very comprehensive and really revolutionary plan to deal with a lot of issues," Ivanka told Cosmo. "So I don't know how useful it is to spend too much time with you on this if you're going to make a comment like that."

After answering another question, Trump said she had to end the conversation.

"I'm going to jump off, I have to run. I apologize," she said.

Cosmopolitan published a transcript of the interview and also called on its readers to register to vote.

Evan Vucci / AP


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Alabama Sets Execution Dates For Two Inmates For Later This Year

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The Alabama Supreme Court on Wednesday set execution dates for two death row inmates to be carried out this year, AL.com reported. This is the seventh execution date set for Thomas Arthur, convicted in the 1982 contract killing of a man. He is now set to be executed on Nov. 3. The court also scheduled Dec. 8 for the execution of Ronald Bert Smith Jr., who was convicted in the 1994 murder of a convenience store clerk during a robbery.

Alabama has carried out one execution this year in January, its first since 2013. Until Wednesday, Texas was the only state with inmates scheduled to die for the remainder of 2016. This year has seen fewer executions as active death penalty states like Alabama grapple with obstacles relating to litigation over the death penalty and a scarcity of lethal injection drugs.

In July, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange asked the Supreme Court to set an "expedited execution date" for Arthur after a district judge denied his appeal challenging the state's lethal injection protocol and lifting a stay of execution, AL.com reported. Strange wrote that Arthur had "managed to evade justice" six times after his previous executions were stayed.

"For thirty-three years, since his February 1983 conviction of the capital murder of Troy Wicker, Arthur has engaged in nearly constant litigation in every state and federal court available to him, and he has thoroughly exhausted his appeals at every level," the request to the Alabama Supreme Court stated. "Six times, this Court has set Arthur's execution date; six times, he has managed to evade justice. The State requests that this Court issue an expedited seventh execution date so that the State may carry out the sentence that Arthur has so unjustly avoided for so many years."

If executed, Arthur will be the second person to be killed using Alabama's new lethal injection cocktail, a three-drug combination involving midazolam — a controversial sedative at the center of several botched executions in 2014. Arthur and other death row inmates have challenged the protocol, but the US Supreme Court last year upheld the use of midazolam in a case out of Oklahoma, which uses the same drug combination as Alabama.

Arthur was convicted in the 1982 murder of Tory Wicker after Wicker's wife claimed she paid Arthur to kill her husband. At the time, Arthur was at a work release program serving a life sentence for the 1977 murder of his sister-in-law. Arthur had a total of three trials in the Wicker case — his convictions were overthrown twice, but upheld after the third trial. He has maintained his innocence in Wicker's murder.

Smith Jr. was convicted in the 1994 murder of Casey Wilson, a convenience store clerk, during a robbery. The jury had recommended a life sentence without parole for Smith, but a judge overrode the decision and imposed the death penalty as is allowed under the state's death sentencing law.

That law is similar to the one in Florida that was struck down by the US Supreme Court this year due to the significant role it gives to judges in the sentencing process. In the Florida case decision, the Supreme Court held, at the least, that a 2002 decision of the court ordering that juries must determine any fact that can lead to a defendant being eligible for the death penalty, applies to Florida's law.

The Supreme Court has since ordered the Alabama state courts to reexamine several cases brought by death row inmates there who say Alabama's system is similarly unconstitutional. Those appeals, however, come out of convictions that were reached in state courts after the 2002 Supreme Court decision — which the Supreme Court has previously ruled is not retroactive to earlier sentences.

Thomas Arthur

Alabama Dept. of Corrections

BuzzFeed News legal editor Chris Geidner contributed to this report.

Hillary Clinton Won't Say When She Disclosed Pneumonia To Running Mate

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Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Hillary Clinton declined to answer repeated questions Thursday at a campaign stop here in North Carolina about when her vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine knew about her pneumonia diagnosis.

Instead, the candidate told reporters that a number of senior aides were informed of the illness at the time of the diagnosis on Friday. Only two days later, when a widely watched video showed Clinton struggling to walk as she left New York's 9/11 memorial ceremony, did she reveal her pneumonia to a wider audience.

"My senior staff knew, and information was provided to a number of people," Clinton said, skirting the question about when Kaine specifically was informed.

"Look, this was an ailment that many people just power through — and that's what I thought I would do as well. I didn't want to stop. I didn't want to quit campaigning. I certainly didn't want to miss the 9/11 memorial," she said. "As a senator at that time, I consider it a sacred moment, and I was determined to get there. It didn't work out."

Clinton returned to the trail on Thursday after taking three days off to rest.

At a 10-minute press conference here in one of the campaign's most crucial battleground states, the former secretary faced questions about her reflex toward privacy — and why, often, only a select few are let into her tight inner-circle.

On Sunday, after Clinton made a sudden departure from the 9/11 memorial service, press staffers went silent for 90 minutes, unable to provide basic information to reporters about what had happened to the candidate.

In a 20-minute speech in the gymnasium of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro — her first event since stepping off the trail on Sunday — Clinton admitted that she has put up a number of defenses over a long career.

"When it comes to public service I'm better at the service part than the public part," she said, delivering the second of four "Stronger Together" speeches — part of a series billed as a more personal and aspirational glimpse at Clinton's message.

Afterward, reporters questioned whether Clinton had, as one put it, given voters a look at those defenses in the way that her campaign handled Sunday's events.

"My campaign has said that they could have been faster and I agree with that," Clinton said, limiting her reply to only what her staff could have done better.

"I certainly expect them to be as focused and quick as possible, but I have to say, from my perspective, I thought I was going to be fine, and I thought that there wasn't really any reason to make a big fuss about it," Clinton said. "So I should have taken time off earlier. I didn't. Now I have. And I'm back on the campaign trail."

Still unanswered after Thursday's press conference was whether Kaine, Clinton's running mate of about two months, was let in on the diagnosis. Earlier this week, the Virginia senator declined to answer four questions on the same subject, telling reporters he did not want to discuss his private conversations with Clinton.

On Thursday, Clinton described her relationship with Kaine as a close one.

"I communicated with Tim. I talked to him again last night. He has been a great partner, and he's going to be a great vice president," she said, declining as her vice presidential nominee did days earlier to go into any "personal conversations."

"We communicated," she said. "We communicated."

LINK: Pneumonia Episode Highlights The Protective “Cocoon” Around Clinton

Trump Believes President Obama Was Born In The US, Campaign Says

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Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Donald Trump's campaign said late Thursday the Republican presidential nominee believes President Obama was born in the United States, after he earlier refused to answer the question in a Washington Post interview.

The candidate has for years repeatedly implied or added fuel to discredited conspiracy theories that Obama wasn't actually born in Hawaii, and he refused to directly answer whether he believes the president was born in the US in an interview published Thursday.

“I’ll answer that question at the right time. I just don’t want to answer it yet,” Trump told the paper.

Hours later, in an apparent effort at damage control, Trump senior communications adviser Jason Miller released a statement saying, "Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States."

Hillary Clinton's campaign first raised this issue to smear then-candidate Barack Obama in her very nasty failed 2008 campaign for President. This type of vicious and conniving behavior is straight from the Clinton Playbook. As usual, however, Hillary Clinton was too weak to get an answer. Even the MSNBC show Morning Joe admits that it was Clinton's henchmen who first raised this issue, not Donald J. Trump.

In 2011, Mr. Trump was finally able to bring this ugly incident to its conclusion by successfully compelling President Obama to release his birth certificate. Mr. Trump did a great service to the President and the country by bringing closure to the issue that Hillary Clinton and her team first raised. Inarguably, Donald J. Trump is a closer. Having successfully obtained President Obama's birth certificate when others could not, Mr. Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States.

Mr. Trump is now totally focused on bringing jobs back to America, defeating radical Islamic terrorism, taking care of our veterans, introducing school choice opportunities and rebuilding and making our inner cities safe again.

Last week his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, told CNN that Trump “believes President Obama was born here,” following similar comments made by New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

When asked about Conway's comments, Trump said: “It’s OK. She’s allowed to speak what she thinks. I want to focus on jobs, I want to focus on other things.”

But pressed on the issue, Trump told the Post: “I don’t talk about it anymore. The reason I don’t is because then everyone is going to be talking about it as opposed to jobs, the military, the vets, security."

Obama released his Hawaii birth certificate in 2011, but Trump has never renounced his birther position.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton immediately seized on Trump's comments doubting Obama's birthplace Thursday night, telling the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Dinner: "And he still wouldn't say Hawaii. He still wouldn't say America... When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry? Now he's tried to reset himself and his campaign many times. This is the best he can do. This is who he is."

She later tweeted about the comments, saying, "President Obama’s successor cannot and will not be the man who led the racist birther movement. Period."

On Wednesday, Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence said in an interview that Trump no longer questions Obama’s citizenship.

“Those are issues of the past,” Pence said. “Donald Trump and I both accept that the president was born in the United States of America."

Despite the campaign statement Thursday, Trump himself has not said Obama was born in the US.

"Trump needs to say it himself. On camera," Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted.


LINK: Trump Questioned Obama Birth Certificate In 2014, Despite Campaign Statement

LINK: Trump In 2011: I’ll Release My Tax Returns When Obama Releases His Birth Certificate


Clinton Turns Back The Focus To Charges Of Trump Racism In Speech To Latinos

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Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton framed the election as a high-stakes choice for Latino voters, highlighting the contributions of Hispanics in the U.S. and contrasting her vision for the community with Donald Trump's, in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute on Thursday.

Clinton argued that she would be better for the economy and embrace the country's diversity, making reference not just to Trump but also a supporter who went on MSNBC to warn of the influence of Latinos.

She criticized the "outlandish and offensive comments we have heard from my opponent and his supporters," adding "I personally think a taco truck on every corner sounds absolutely delicious."

After a week where questions about her health dominated the campaign due to a high-profile bout with pneumonia, Clinton sought to put the focus back on charges of racism that have hurt Trump with moderate and suburban white voters.

She blasted Trump for "the racist lie that launched his campaign" about rapists crossing the border from Mexico "to the racist attack on a federal judge" when Trump attacked the Mexican-American judge overseeing the case against Trump University.

But she also aimed to remind voters that Trump hadn't changed, bringing up his awkward interaction with Rev. Faith Green Timmons of the Bethel United Methodist Church, when Timmons told Trump not to be political and attack Clinton from the pulpit. Trump responded by saying "something was up" with the "nervous" and "shaking" reverend.

Clinton's speech recalled Obama's 2014 CHCI address, also before a crucial election when immigration was front and center.

At the time, an embattled Obama was under siege by immigration activists angry over the delay of executive actions to shield undocumented people from deportation.

He challenged Latinos in the audience then not just to vote in November, but to also support post-election efforts to explain the importance of immigration.

This year, Clinton said she hopes to inspire a high-level of turnout from Latinos that are under 35. "We need you," she said, during a week when Democrats have fretted that young Latinos may not be excited by her candidacy.

During his speech this year a relaxed Obama made jokes, reusing his line on the trail of "Thanks Obama" because of the accomplishments during his administration. He invoked Trump without using his name, saying the country must reject the politics of "bluster" and "higher walls" and said sensible immigration changes can be made that honor that the U.S. is a country of immigrants but also of laws.

Immigrants, he said, arrive "not as criminals, not as rapists, but as families who came here for the same reasons all families came here for," in another reference to Trump.

Clinton, who was protested by activists over accepting private prison donations, while presenting an award to chef Jose Andres at CHCI in 2015, saw no such opposition this year from the supportive crowd. She reiterated her support for immigration legislation in her first 100 days if elected and said other people with sympathetic cases should be able to make their case for deferred action as well.

Beneficiaries should include those who have experienced and report extreme labor abuses, Clinton said, and stressed her plan to "end family detention, close private detention facilities, and stop the raids and round ups."

But in a nod to the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month, Clinton also mentioned Latinos that have contributed to the country to cheers — those in history books like Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and Roberto Clemente, as well as more recent notable Latinos like Soñia Sotomayor, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Laurie Hernandez.

Donald Trump Let Jimmy Fallon Mess With His Hair

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Donald Trump decided Thursday on late-night television not to split hairs over Jimmy Fallon's special request: "Can I mess up your hair?"

The Republican presidential nominee at first cringed. “I’ll be gentle,” the Tonight Show host added to reassure the hesitant Trump.

After a moment, Trump agreed. “The answer is yes," he said.

“But the people in New Hampshire where I’m going to be in about an hour from now, I hope they’re going to understand,” he added.

Fallon then reached across his desk to mess up Trump's hair. The golden hair flew back and forth and Trump's scalp below even seemed to be visible for a moment.

The Republican nominee appeared to smile during the process, but afterwards quickly tried to pat his hair back down. He also refused to let the press pool take photos of him after the taping, the Associated Press reported.

Trump's hair has been discussed at length as many people have wondered about its unique shape. He also announced last year he doesn't wear a toupee, allowing a supporter in South Carolina to touch his coif in an effort to prove his point.

youtube.com

Trump's appearance on the show provoked strong reactions on social media, with many accusing Fallon of going soft on the controversial candidate, and "normalizing" his brand of politics.

Others, however, were more sympathetic towards Fallon's performance and Trump's appearance on the show.

The late-night appearance came just hours after Trump's interview on Dr. Oz where he discussed his health, saying, "I feel as good today as I did when I was 30."

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is set to appear on the Tonight Show on Monday night.

LINK: Trump Knocks Clinton’s Stamina, Says She Couldn’t Lead Rally

LINK: Trump Refuses To Say Obama Was Born In The US


Trump Questioned Obama Birth Certificate In 2014, Despite Campaign Statement

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A Trump campaign official said on Thursday in a statement that Donald Trump now believes President Obama was born in the United States.

In the issued statement, the campaign praises Trump at length, and states that he brought the so-called birther issue to its conclusion in 2011 when Obama released his long-form birth certificate. But that's false. Trump didn't stop being a birther in 2011 — he continued stoking conspiracy theories after that.

In one 2014 exchange with Irish TV, for instance, he defended his birtherism at length.

"You questioned his citizenship during his campaign, and you said afterwards if he produced that long-form birth certificate, you'd produce your tax returns. But you didn't do it, did you?" asked Ireland TV3’s Colette Fitzpatrick in May 2014.

"Well, I don't know — did he do it?" Trump said. "If I decide to run for office I’ll produce my tax returns. Absolutely. I would love to do that. I did produce a financial statement even though I wasn't even running. I did produce a financial statement and it was shocking to some because it was so much higher than people thought possible."

Fitzpatrick was referencing when Trump said in 2011 that he would release his tax returns if Obama released his birth certificate. (Trump has not released his tax returns.)

"The president should come clean," Trump added about Obama in the 2014 interview. "He should have come clean over the years. If you remember the very famous story where I offered him $5 million if he showed some basic records and he never took me up on it. And that would be for charity. So charities would have benefited and it would have been a great thing."

"But he is a citizen and he produced that long form birth certificate," host Fitzpatrick said.

"Well, a lot of people don't agree with you and a lot of people feel it wasn't a proper certificate," Trump said.


Trump Said In 2015 And 2016 He Didn't Know If Obama Birth Certificate Was Real

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On Thursday, Donald Trump's presidential campaign issued a statement saying the Republican nominee now believes Obama was born in the United States.

Trump plans to address the issue on Friday himself, but the statement from Thursday evening claims Trump brought the so-called birther issue to its conclusion in 2011 when Obama released his long-form birth certificate. But that was false: Trump kept stoking Obama birther conspiracy theories after that – including in one 2014 interview on Irish TV.

In another interview found by BuzzFeed News from March of 2015 on Fox News, Trump said he didn't know if President Obama's birth certificate was real. In another interview on CNN in January of 2016, Trump also said he didn't know if Obama was a citizen.

"I don't raise it," Trump said to Megyn Kelly, "people ask me, they always ask me. Hillary was the original, she was questioning Obama, then John McCain questioned, but they never got anything. When I questioned he gave whatever it was he gave. I'm not exactly sure what he gave but he gave something called a birth certificate. I don't know if it was or not."

There is no evidence that Clinton or McCain ever questioned Obama's citizenship.

Trump made the brief comments in an exchange discussing how Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother. Trump questioned if Cruz would be eligible to run for president. Cruz had just announced his run.

Even in January of 2016, Trump was still saying he didn't know if Obama was a citizen.

"Who knows," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer when asked if Obama was a citizen. "Who knows? Who cares right now? We're talking about something else, OK. I mean, I have my own theory on Obama. Someday I'll write a book. I'll do another book, and it will do very successfully."

Donald Trump Executes Very Trumpy Media Stunt

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Mark Wilson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump appeared to use the media to get free airtime for his hotel under the guise of making an announcement about his position on President Obama’s birth, an announcement he made only at the very end of the event and which was prefaced by his lying about Hillary Clinton having personally started birtherism.

The event combined many of the themes of Trump’s bid: a willingness to mix business and politics, a disrespectful attitude toward the media, and a reluctance to apologize or own up to false statements.

Trump had enticed dozens of members of the national media to his new hotel in downtown DC by promising a “major statement” after the issue of his birtherism flared up again this week. For nearly an hour after the event was supposed to start, nothing happened in the ballroom — which didn’t prevent the three main cable news networks from hyping the event during this period. And they stuck with Trump’s event when it began with no major statement at all, but instead a series of veteran surrogates led by Lt. Gen Mike Flynn as a tie-in to POW/MIA Recognition Day.

Trump led off by saying, “Nice hotel. Under budget and ahead of schedule,” and devoted more time to promoting his hotel than the purported theme of the event.

When Trump did turn to the topic at hand, he was uncharacteristically brief.

“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy,” Trump said at the end of his short speech. “I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean. President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period.”

Trump then walked off the stage as reporters, who had been confined to the back of the room so that supporters and other guests could sit up front, stood on chairs and shouted questions to him. Trump did not respond.

Trump then embarked on a tour of his new hotel from which most of the designated press pool was restricted. ABC News reporter Candace Smith tweeted that she had been “physically restrained” from accompanying the camera that was allowed to join Trump on the tour, despite the fact that she was the designated pool producer, a role that would involve her following the candidate into smaller spaces where full press cannot go. A source told BuzzFeed News that the television pool voted to pull the camera from Trump’s tour in protest and not air any of the footage. Print pooler Lesley Clark of McClatchy reported that the wire and print pools were “not invited nor notified” that the tour was happening.

Trump’s event came after he gave an interview to the Washington Post earlier this week in which he refused to say whether he now believes Obama was born in the United States. On Thursday night, Trump spokesman Jason Miller put out a statement saying that Trump believes Obama was born in this country, though it was still not Trump himself saying the words.

Trump’s rise in Republican politics was in part due to his fanning the flames of the birther issue and questioning, which endeared him to some conservative audiences. Even after Obama released his birth certificate, Trump questioned the document’s authenticity. And he raised questions about the birth certificate as recently as this year.

Trump is now claiming that it was Clinton who started the birther movement. While it’s true that top Clinton adviser Mark Penn encouraged Clinton in 2008 to go after Obama’s “lack of American roots,” the Clinton campaign did not claim that Obama had not been born in the United States, and Hillary Clinton has never personally questioned the president’s citizenship.

LINK: Donald Trump Finally Admitted Obama Was Born In The US — And Lied Twice While Doing So

LINK: Trump Said In 2015 And 2016 He Didn't Know If Obama Birth Certificate Was Real

Democratic Senator Blasts Clinton Over "Basket Of Deplorables" Remark

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Gabriella Demczuk / Getty Images

Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota criticized Hillary Clinton for saying that half of Donald Trump’s supporters could be put into a “basket of deplorables.”

Clinton in recent weeks has argued there are two camps of Trump supporters — the "deplorables," which include racists and xenophobes, and those who feel the government has let them down and are deserving of empathy. At a New York fundraiser, Clinton said “half” of Trump’s supporters fit into the first camp, and subsequently released a statement saying she was wrong to say “half,” but stood by criticism of Trump’s “prejudice and paranoia.”

Heitkamp was asked on WZFG AM 1100 if she renounced the comments.

"Yes, I do,” said the Democratic senator on Thursday. “I think it was a wrong thing to say. I think that it ignores the very true concerns that we have about needing change in this country. I think that it was ill-advised.

"I think [Secretary Clinton] said it was ill-advised," he continued. "I think she walked it back, and I think that it was unfortunate that she said it. I'm glad that she’s denounced that statement, and I do not agree with her."

Black Lawmakers Say Trump's Birther Issue Fueled His Candidacy

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Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Members of the Congressional Black Caucus delivered a blistering critique of Donald Trump Friday, calling his candidacy for president a byproduct of his declaration that President Obama was not a citizen of the United States.

The Congressional Black Caucus political action committee hastily gathered the press outside of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center after Trump's admission that Obama was born in the United States, after years repeatedly questioning the president's citizenship.

On Friday, Trump said, "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. And now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again."

G.K. Butterfield, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus gave a blistering attack, saying, "This is a disgusting day. By any definition Donald Trump is a disgusting fraud."

"Donald Trump's presidential campaign has been based on the birther movement which he founded, make no mistake," Rep. Barbara Lee of California said. "He founded and that catapulted into his campaign for the presidency."

The birther movement preceded Trump's raising it, but for years he popularized the issue, questioning the validity of Obama's birth certificate as late as the past year.

Ahead of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation holding its annual policy agenda conference, the gathered officials echoed a popular sentiment that Hillary Clinton should have not have walked back her comments that half of Donald Trump's supporters fit into "a basket of deplorables."

Congressional Black Caucus PAC Chairman Rep. Gregory Meeks, referenced the issue while talking about Trump's conduct. "That's what is was — deplorable."

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries called Trump a "two-bit racial arsonist who for decades has done nothing but fan the flames of bigotry and hatred" and said that his "leadership" in the birther movement was "nothing more than a fraud designed to appeal to "the racists, bigots and xenophobes who wanted to delegitimize the first black president of the United States of America."

The black lawmakers demanded an apology from Trump, called for him to drop out of the race, and used the opportunity to encourage Americans to get out the vote. But they stressed that birtherism was not just about Barack Obama's citizenship, but a dog whistle questioning the legitimacy and dignity of black Americans and people of color.

Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson said that Trump had used to the issue to was going to continue to fuel his candidacy. Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York said the issue was a calculated strategy, saying it sent "a signal out that he's not a citizen to remind Americans to know that his father and his ancestors were from Africa — reminding them that in their minds you have to be a European American in order to become president."

"No one can challenge that when Donald Trump put out the word that he has reason to believe that this black president was not a citizen, that he [didn't] know at the time that he was."

Meeks had the final word Friday. In recent days, he came under fire for saying on CNN that "deplorables attract deplorables" and that not all Trump's supporters are deplorable "but some are." Closing, he used the phrase again and again urging people to get out and vote for Clinton.

Latino Registration Efforts With Mexican Rock Band Maná Hit A Snag In Las Vegas

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Chris Pizzello / AP

A key Latino group won't be able to operate one of its voter registration efforts in Las Vegas — highlighting a weird intersection between pop culture, politics, and casinos.

The program works like this: As popular Mexican rock band Maná kicks off their Latino Power Tour, the group Voto Latino is meeting Hispanics in cities like Phoenix, Denver, and Miami where they are — at the arena, to register concert-goers before the show.

The initiative is one of many new efforts that Democrats and Latino advocacy groups hope, along with Donald Trump's candidacy, will fuel record Hispanic voting in November.

But a recent snag also highlights the limits and challenges of pulling off new efforts quickly during these pivotal weeks.

The issue arose because registering voters at MGM Grand, the site of Maná’s Friday Las Vegas show, would run afoul of a policy the company has against solicitations from outside groups on its properties, two sources familiar with the discussions said.

Voto Latino settled for a compromise: MGM does not control what the artists do onstage, and Maná — which has been vocal in its opposition to Donald Trump, unfurling a sign saying Latinos shouldn't vote for racists at the Latin Grammys — is free to implore its fans to go to an app or website on their phones to register if they choose to do so.

“MGM said they’re not going to impede or obstruct anything the artists wants to do, so [Maná] can say, 'Take out your cell phone and go to an app and register to vote,'” a source said.

Voto Latino declined to comment on the matter and MGM corporate communications told BuzzFeed News the attempt to register voters on its property would violate its no solicitations policy. A source said MGM was sympathetic and sought to be helpful on the issue, but did not want to open itself up to further legal issues from groups it has banned from passing out forms or soliciting on its properties in the past.

In an interview last week on registration efforts, Voto Latino's Maria Teresa Kumar said 100 to 150 people might register at each concert. "I don’t know what the results will be because it’s the first time we’re doing it," she said.

While the dispute may seem minor, it caused considerable consternation among a group of Democrats who view the largest owner of casino sites in Nevada as a strong partner. The message from those Democrats and unions was clear: Don’t piss off MGM.

“They let us do GOTV, and park buses on their property,” a source said. “We’re able to drive their employees to early vote sites, we get thousands of Latinos to vote that way.”

A source close to Maná said the band will continue to support Voto Latino and Hispanic voter registration efforts from the stage and noted that all other shows have gone off without a hitch but confirmed the policy had to be honored and worked around in Las Vegas.

Yvanna Cancela, political director for the Culinary Union in Las Vegas, which counts majority Latino membership, said MGM has always supported its efforts.

"MGM has a long history of working with our union to ensure members have access to all parts of the electoral process; from citizenship drives to early voting mobilization," she said. "This year has been no different."

Jim Murren, MGM Resorts International chairman and CEO, is a Republican who endorsed Clinton in a USA Today editorial, saying he disagreed with Trump on trade, and believed Clinton was best when it comes to embracing diversity and immigration.

While both candidates would secure the border, Murren wrote, "Clinton is the only candidate who will continue to make America a welcoming home for legal immigrants from around the world."

Still, skittish Nevada operatives really wanted MGM to know that having to work around one long-standing policy was not a problem for a company they feel has worked well with them.

“They’re the biggest owner of casino sites,” an operative said. “If we can’t drive culinary members and casino workers — if we can’t do that, we might as well pack it up.”

Why It's So Hard For Trump To Give Up His Birther Crusade

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Mike Segar / Reuters

In the five years since Donald Trump first launched his birther crusade, he has had plenty of reasons — and opportunities — to disavow the conspiracy theory and apologize for championing it. Yet, even now, 52 days from a presidential election that he could conceivably win, the Republican nominee can’t quite bring himself to fully let go.

The reason: Trump isn’t just unrepentant of his birther history — he is unabashedly proud of it.

In a long career of self-serving publicity stunts, Trump considers his notorious birther turn in 2011 to be one of his most brilliant and bankable — a masterstroke of media manipulation that catapulted him into political stardom, marshaled a movement of new right-wing super-fans, and even forced a response from the commander-in-chief.

On Friday, even when he admitted that President Obama was born in United States, he claimed victory — and certainly didn’t apologize.

For Trump, truth was always somewhat beside the point when it came to birtherism. As his former adviser Sam Nunberg told the New York Times earlier this year, “The appeal of the birther issue was, ‘I’m going to take [Obama] on, and I’m going to beat him. It was a great niche and wedge issue.”

Trump, a proud connoisseur of crazy talk, didn’t fully commit to the birther canard at first. For several weeks in early 2011, he publicly flirted with the fringe idea, as though testing its potency. A vague mention of Obama’s supposedly mysterious childhood drew loud cheers at CPAC that year. A Good Morning America interview in which he admitted to having “a little doubt, just a little” about the president’s true nationality sent the press into a tizzy.

When, in April 2011, Obama released his long-form birth certificate — thoroughly debunking the conspiracy theory and exposing its champions as either loons or con artists — Trump was entirely unchastened. In fact, he celebrated the presidential attention as a momentous victory, the kind that grants one permission to speak in third person. “He only did it because of Trump!” he gloated.

Trump’s birther crusade sent him rocketing up the pre-2012 primary polls, and made him a hero to an ascendant wing of the Republican Party. As a matter of political history, few would now dispute that it laid the foundation on which he built his successful bid for this year’s GOP nomination. In the cynical win/loss column of Trump’s life, there’s little question about where this episode belongs. So, why on earth would he apologize for it now?

Of course, contrary to the narrative that the Trump campaign is now spinning, he did not drop the issue in 2011. In truth, he went on banging the birther drum for years — on TV, in speeches, and in countless press interviews. When I sat down with him in early 2014, he spent a considerable portion of the time laying out his latest theories about the president’s birth certificate. For a while, there was nothing I could do to get him off the subject.

His stubborn loyalty to the fully-quashed conspiracy theory long after it stopped serving his purposes might speak to his genuine belief in it. More likely, it reflects one of Trump’s most unwavering characteristics: a staunch refusal to ever give his critics the last word.

As effective as Trump’s birtherism was in building a conservative grassroots fan base, it did not come without social costs. The first time he went full-bore birther, during a 2011 appearance on The View, he endured an indignant chorus of crosstalk from the co-hosts, who were outraged by his attempts to delegitimize America’s first black president. Even his good friend Whoopi Goldberg declined to come to his rescue, telling him, “I think that’s the biggest pile of dog mess I’ve heard in ages.”

Trump’s chief retort to the ladies of The View was more tribal than rational. “Let me just tell you,” Trump said, “I was a really good student at the best school. I’m, like, a smart guy, OK? They make these birthers into the worst idiots.”

The longer he championed the birther movement, the more radioactive he became to his celebrity pals. David Letterman berated Trump on air, and mused about banning him from the show. Jerry Seinfeld cancelled a scheduled appearance at an Eric Trump Foundation benefit, with a rep explaining that the comedian had grown “increasingly uncomfortable” with Trump’s “demagoguery.”

The pile-on of public ridicule reached its climax at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, where the night’s most memorable punchlines all seemed to come at the Donald’s expense.

In the end, Trump thrived not only by championing the birther cause, but the birthers themselves — stoking the flames of white grievance and victimization, reminding his fellow Obama-hating conspiracy theorists at every opportunity that the political class was laughing at them, mocking them, calling them stupid. In Trump’s narrative, he — and his followers — got the last laugh when he stood on a stage in Cleveland and formally accepted the Republican presidential nomination. To disavow the movement that got him there now would be an unacceptable surrender to the haters.

LINK: Donald Trump Finally Admitted Obama Was Born In The US — And Lied Twice While Doing So

LINK: 16 Other Conspiracy Theories Donald Trump Has Pushed

LINK: Inside The Fraternity Of Haters And Losers Who Drove Donald Trump To The GOP Nomination

Trump Says Clinton's Security Detail Should Disarm: "Let's See What Happens To Her"

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Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

MIAMI — For the second time during the course of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump invoked the possibility of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's assassination.

Trump, telling a crowd in downtown Miami, Florida, on Friday that Clinton wants to "destroy" their Second Amendment, said the Secret Service detail protecting her should disarm.

"I think they should disarm immediately," Trump said. "Take their guns away, she doesn't want guns. Take their— and let's see what happens to her. Take their guns away. OK, it would be very dangerous."

In August, Trump suggested that "Second Amendment people" could prevent Clinton from appointing liberal justices to the Supreme Court.

The rally capped off a whirlwind week for the Republican nominee — one that saw his poll numbers rise in critical battleground states, and one in which he finally acknowledged President Obama was born in the United States, although he offered no apology for spreading the conspiracy and instead falsely pinned the blame on Clinton.

Trump made no mention when he spoke in Miami of his pseudo-mea culpa that dominated much of the news cycle, walking out on stage Friday night to the protest anthem "Do You Hear The People Sing?" from the broadway musical Les Misérables. On the video screen behind Trump, the phrase "Les Deplorables" appeared in giant letters — a reference to Clinton's describing half of Trump's supporters as "deplorable."

"Welcome to all of you deporables!" he said to his cheering supporters, before bragging about his "tremendous" poll numbers.

In a riff later in the speech on some of the labels that have been used to describe him and his supporters, Trump said, "Clinton’s campaign relies on the tired tactic of smearing opponents who question her policies as racists. It’s the oldest play in the Democratic play book – and Americans have had enough."

Trump also told his audience, many of them Cuban Americans, that he would reverse the Obama administration's actions which have eased restrictions on the relationship between the US and Cuba.

"The president's one-sided deal for Cuba benefits only the Castro Regime," Trump said. "But all of the concessions that Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them – and that is what I will do, unless the Castro regime meets our demands. Those demands will include religious and political freedom for the Cuban people."


Clinton: People Have Thrown "Hateful Nonsense" At The Obamas

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Carlos Barria / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton answered her opponent’s admission Friday that Barack Obama was born in the United States with an ardent tribute to the president as a leader and a man of “class, grace, and integrity.”

Accepting an award at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual gala, Clinton did not refer to Donald Trump by name, but addressed Obama directly before an audience of thousands here in the Washington Convention Center, calling him "one of the best presidents our country has ever had," even in the face of what she described as "hateful nonsense."

"I know I speak for not just everyone in this room, but so many tens of millions of Americans: Mr. President, not only do we know you are an America, you’re a great American," she said. "And you make us all proud to be Americans, too.

"As Michelle says," Clinton added, paraphrasing the first lady's speech at a campaign rally on Friday afternoon in Virginia, "when others go low, we go high."

The 46th annual awards dinner, a black-tie gala hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, featured a line-up of elected officials who spoke in urgent terms about the election this fall just one day after the Republican nominee acknowledged Obama's birthplace without an apology, and lying about his years-long involvement in fueling what's known as the birther movement.

The chair of the board of the foundation’s directors, R. Donahue Peebles, opened the program by referring to Trump as a “bigot.” Others, like Rep. G. K. Butterfield, Congressional Black Caucus chair, stressed the importance of “100% turnout in this election” among black voters.

Clinton’s nine-minute speech here marked her first extended reaction to Trump’s widely criticized event on Friday. His campaign stop, held inside the GOP nominee’s new hotel in Washington, was billed as an event with veterans and a press conference, then later promised to emphasize his beliefs about Obama’s birthplace. Instead, Trump offered 30 seconds of remarks on the subject, took no questions, and in the process promoted his new property.

For months, particularly in front of black audiences, the Democratic nominee has highlighted her opponent's central role in pushing the racist conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the United States.

In a sharply worded speech to the NAACP this spring in Detroit, Clinton cast Trump as a direct threat to Obama’s legacy as first the black president of the United States.

Trump, she reminded the crowd at that event, was the man who “led the insidious birther movement,” who played “coy” with white supremacists, and hedged of questions about his support from fringe figures like David Duke. “We cannot let Barack Obama’s legacy fall into Donald Trump’s hands,” she said.

At the CBC dinner on Saturday, Clinton addressed Trump with the same contempt, telling attendees here that the presidency can't "fall into the hands someone who doesn’t understand" Obama's legacy, and "whose dangerous and divisive vision for our country will drag us backwards."

And, Clinton said, “it’s not just the president he’s been, but the man he is. Even when hateful nonsense is thrown their way, Barack, Michelle, their two beautiful daughters, have represented our country with class, grace, and integrity.”

“It’s not about birth certificates, it comes down to who will fight for the forgotten.”

Obama Jokes: "I Am So Relieved That The Birther Thing Is Over"

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Chris Kleponis / AFP / Getty Images

"Now, there’s an extra spring in my step,” President Obama opened his remarks to the annual Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner.

“I don't know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the birther thing is over.”

"I mean, [ISIS], North Korea, poverty, climate change — none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate," he said, before joking that with months left before the end of his presidency, it would be a “boost.”

The remark was Obama’s second joke in two days about Donald Trump’s self-congratulatory announcement on Friday that he finally accepted that the president was born in the United States, an announcement in which he offered no apology and took credit for the conspiracy theory he propagated for years.

Though Obama did not specifically address Trump by name at length, his speech to the CBC dinner on Saturday night ultimately turned into both a defense of his record as president and an intense pitch to voters on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

“You may have heard Hillary’s opponent say there’s never been a worse time to be a black person,” Obama said. “I mean, he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery and Jim Crow, but we’ve got a museum for him to visit.”

(Trump has often said that black Americans “have nothing to lose” by voting for him, because, he says, they live in poverty, and that the Obama economy and Democratic control have been bad for black Americans.)

Framing his legacy as president as one step toward improved health care, criminal justice, and a better economy, Obama said it would be a "personal insult" and "an insult to my legacy" if black voters did not turn out in November, describing the history of voting rights and a series of comments about what is on the ballot even if his name is not.

“My name may not be on the ballot, but our progress is on the ballot,” Obama said, voice rising. “Tolerance is on the ballot. Democracy is on the ballot. Justice is on the ballot. Good schools are on the ballot. Ending mass incarceration, that’s on the ballot right now!”

“And there is one candidate who will advance those things, and there is another candidate whose defining principle — the central theme of his candidacy — is opposition to all that we have done,” he said. “There’s no such thing as a vote that doesn’t matter.”

Closing his speech, Obama described visiting the soon-to-open African-American History Museum, and viewing the shackles that slaves had worn, arguing that progress is not inevitable and depends on individuals. “All those ordinary people, all those folks who aren’t in a history book — they never got a video providing a tribute to them. That’s why we’re here. That’s how progress is sustained.”

RNC Chair Says Candidates Who Don't Back Trump Could Be Punished In The Future

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Eric Thayer / Reuters

Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus said on Sunday that primary candidates who have not made good on their pledge to support Donald Trump could be punished by the party if they decide to run again in the future.

All of the Republican candidates for president signed a pledge last September promising to endorse the party's nominee "regardless of who it is." Some former candidates, like Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, have not formally endorsed Trump.

"I think these are things that our party's going to look at in the process," Priebus said on CBS News's Face the Nation when asked about potential penalties for those who did not follow through on the pledge. "And I think that people who gave us their word, used information from the RNC, should be on board. I mean if you want to take part in the process."

"People in our party are talking about what we're going to do about this," Priebus added. "I mean, there's a ballot access issue in South Carolina. In order to be on the ballot in South Carolina, you actually have to pledge your support to the nominee, no matter who that person is. So what's the penalty for that? It's not a threat, but that's just the question that we have a process in place."

He continued, "If a private entity puts forward a process and has agreement with the participants in that process, and those participants don't follow through with the promises that they made in that process, what — what should a private party do about that if those same people come around in four or eight years?"

Trump Surrogates Are Spreading False Claims To Defend His Birtherism

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Two days after Donald Trump finally admitted that President Obama was born in the United States, the Republican candidate's surrogates came to his defense on Sunday, repeating his false claim that the conspiracy theory was started by Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Mike Segar / Reuters

“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it," Trump told reporters on Friday. "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period."

The conspiracy theory known as the birther movement can actually be traced back to a 2004 press release distributed by Illinois candidate Andy Martin that falsely said Obama was secretly a Muslim who concealed his religion.

Although some supporters for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2008 and numerous Republicans promoted the conspiracy, there is no evidence that Clinton or her senior staff have propagated the theory.

Yet, in an interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC's This Week on Sunday, Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence said that news reports link the conspiracy theory to Clinton’s 2008 bid for the White House.

Yet, in an interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC's This Week on Sunday, Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence said that news reports link the conspiracy theory to Clinton’s 2008 bid for the White House.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

"I know there's news reports that trace this birther movement all the way back to Hillary Clinton's campaign back in 2008," Pence said.

"You believe that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement?” Raddatz asked.

"Look, I’ll let the facts speak for themselves," the Indiana governor replied.

When pressed on the issue, Pence referred to "news reports with the McClatchy News Service and reports of people in your industry, Martha."

"The reports of people in my industry say there's no proof they can find that Hillary Clinton had anything to do with it," she responded.

In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also alleged Clinton “injected” birtherism into her 2008 campaign.

In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also alleged Clinton “injected” birtherism into her 2008 campaign.

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

“It was a contentious issue and, by the way, an issue that Patti Solis Doyle of the Clinton campaign in 2008 has recently admitted was an issue that Mrs. Clinton also injected into her campaign in 2008 in a very quiet but direct way against then-Senator Obama,” Christie said.

Solis Doyle, Clinton's 2008 campaign manager, told CNN on Friday that a campaign volunteer coordinator for Iowa did forward an email promoting the conspiracy in 2007 and was subsequently fired by the campaign.

"Hillary made the decision immediately to let that person go," she said, describing the incident as "beyond the pale" and "not worthy of the kind of campaign that certainly Hillary wanted to run."

In 2011, the White House released Obama’s long-form birth certificate after Trump repeatedly and prominently questioned Obama’s true birthplace, stating that he sent investigators to Hawaii to look into the claim.

In tweets and statements every year since — including as recent as January 2016 — Trump has continued to question Obama’s birthplace and ponder if the birth certificate was real.

Despite this, Christie denied that Trump had questioned the president's birth place "on a regular basis."

“It's simply not true. Jake, it wasn't like he was talking about it on a regular basis until then. When the issue was raised he made very clear the other day what his position is,” Christie said.

Speaking with John Dickerson of Face The Nation on CBS, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway also reiterated the false claim that Clinton started the birther movement and erroneously said that Trump had “put the issue to rest” when “he got Obama to to release his birth certificate years later.”

Speaking with John Dickerson of Face The Nation on CBS, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway also reiterated the false claim that Clinton started the birther movement and erroneously said that Trump had “put the issue to rest” when “he got Obama to to release his birth certificate years later.”

Carlo Allegri / Reuters

Conway pointed to a 2007 campaign memo entitled "Lack of American Roots" by Clinton pollster Mark Penn that suggested Obama's international upbringing was a "very strong weakness" for him.

While the memo did question whether Americans would be willing to elect Obama — then a first-time presidential candidate — at no point did it refer to Obama’s citizenship or place of birth.

“We are never going to say anything about his background,” Penn also wrote in the memo, which as Politifact points out, was never acted on by Clinton’s campaign.

Former Arizona governor and Trump supporter Jan Brewer blamed Democrats at large for the birther conspiracy during a roundtable discussion on CNN.

Former Arizona governor and Trump supporter Jan Brewer blamed Democrats at large for the birther conspiracy during a roundtable discussion on CNN.

Sam Mircovich / Reuters

“It was a feeding frenzy on both sides of the aisle,” Brewer said on State of the Union of the conspiracy, arguing that Democrats at the time were also questioning where the president was born, but providing no proof for her claim.

Speaking on the same panel, Marc Morial, former New Orleans mayor and president of the National Urban League, a civil rights organization, described the conspiracy as “offensive” and a “smear campaign” with “incredibly racist undertones.”

“It was offensive to us. It was offensive to me. It was offensive to Americans," he said.

"You can't just sweep it under the rug and say you know what? We closed the deal."

Is The Supreme Court Ever Actually Going To Be An Election Issue?

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Chris Geidner/BuzzFeed

WASHINGTON — For one day this week, it looked like the Supreme Court might take center stage on the political scene.

In an interview on Sept. 15, Hillary Clinton avoided answering Roland Martin's question about whether she would renominate President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, if she wins the presidency and takes office with the current vacancy remaining.

The same morning of that interview, the Huffington Post published a story claiming that Peter Thiel — the tech entrepreneur and Trump backer who supported Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker — has been telling friends that Donald Trump had told him that he would be a nominee for the Supreme Court in a Trump administration.

In the Senate, the chair of the Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, Sen. John Cornyn, talked about a new set of lower court judicial nominees backed by Texas' two Republican senators, saying that he hopes to see their "confirmations after the election." The White House — regularly trying to push the story of Republican inaction on judicial nominees in the press, especially in the months since Obama nominated Garland for the high court — used Cornyn's comments to claim hypocrisy.

For a flickering moment, the Supreme Court seemed to be getting the attention the White House and its allies had been hoping it would be getting all summer. As was quickly seen, though, it’s difficult to keep the spotlight on the Supreme Court. Hillary Clinton’s pneumonia diagnosis — and questions about when she disclosed it — dominated the earlier part of the week. Then, Trump gave the campaign news cycle another twist, refusing to tell the Washington Post's Robert Costa whether he believed President Obama was born in the US and setting off the day of nonstop press coverage that followed — ending with Trump's now-infamous campaign event at his new DC hotel.

And the Supreme Court, once again, fell to the wayside.

So, when and why will people actually be paying attention to the Supreme Court?

October 3: The Supreme Court comes back to begin its new term on the first Monday of October. On that day, the justices will be announcing orders relating to the many petitions submitted to the high court over the course of the summer. The next day, Oct. 4, the court will hear its first new cases of the term. Because of the continued vacancy after the death of Antonin Scalia — and because the justices have not yet agreed to hear many cases, let alone any of the type of high-profile cases the court has heard in recent terms — expect a lot of the coverage to focus on "the eight-person court" and how that is creating an unusual term.

Two cases addressing racial bias in the justice system will be heard in the weeks before the election, both of which could draw some attention to the court, but there are no big blockbuster cases expected to garner nationwide attention set for argument before the election.

The Debates: As the presidential debates get under way, expect the topic to come up at some point. Whether Trump’s list of potential justices comes up or whether issues likely to come before the court are raised or whether a more broad question about the fights over judicial nominees — like Garland — is posed to Clinton and Trump, it is likely that Supreme Court will be a topic of discussion in at least one of the debates. Whether that leads to any further attention on the high court, of course, depends on the questions asked and answers given.

November 8: If the presidential election is close, the Supreme Court — as in 2000 — quickly could become the center of the nation's attention. Given one recent election dispute out of North Carolina, though, the current makeup of the court raises the very real possibility of a 4-4 split along ideological lines. A tie vote of the court leaves the lower court's decision in place — meaning that, if the court is split on those lines in such a scenario, a federal appeals court would, effectively, decide the election for the nation. (That reality already has given significant power to the federal appeals court in setting the law for the states in their circuits this election cycle.)

One other wrinkle to consider, though, is that, while a 4-4 tie leaves a lower court decision in place, it only takes four justices for the Supreme Court to accept a case — meaning that, despite the potential split, an issue could nonetheless find its way in front of the justices.

The Lame-Duck Senate: If the presidential election is resolved on Election Day, though, the immediate question, if Clinton wins, will be whether the Senate will then act on Obama's nomination of Garland for the Supreme Court vacancy. There already have been signs from the Republicans that — especially if the GOP also loses control of the Senate — they would be willing to move forward with Garland's nomination to prevent a potentially more liberal and younger nominee from being put forward by Clinton in the new year.

If Trump wins and the Republicans keep the Senate, of course, the Garland nomination is done for and the Supreme Court will be one of several open questions left for the new administration.

January 3: If Garland's nomination doesn't move forward by the new year, Obama will face one last question — particularly if the Democrats retake the Senate this November. On Jan. 3 — with 17 days left in his administration — the new Senate will take office: Will Obama re-nominate Garland and ask the new Senate to hold immediate hearings and a vote on his nominee? If — in a highly unlikely scenario — Trump wins and the Democrats still retake the Senate, this would be Democrats' last chance at stopping Trump from getting to nominate Scalia's replacement.

January 20: If Garland is not confirmed during Obama’s presidency, the new president will face a situation that has not happened since the invention of the car and radio: beginning a presidency with a Supreme Court vacancy.

The last president to enter office with a vacancy on the court was President Chester Arthur in 1881 — and he had previously been vice president, taking office after the assassination of James Garfield, so even that is not a completely comparable situation. (More recently, in 1969, President Nixon took office knowing that he would be making a nomination to the Supreme Court because the Senate had refused to confirm President Johnson’s pick to replace Earl Warren as chief justice, but Warren had remained in office until his successor — eventually, Nixon’s nominee, Warren Burger — was confirmed.)

The timing of such a nomination, due to its unprecedented nature in the modern era, would be unpredictable. Generally, presidents take a few months to name their for nominees for lower court vacancies that were in existence when they took office. President George W. Bush named his first four lower court nominees in May of 2001; Obama named his first nominee in mid-March of 2009, two more in April, and four more in June. The delay, generally, is because presidents also are focused immediately on selecting the key nominees and appointees for their new administration; judges generally wait a few months. Here, the scenario could be seen differently, however, and a Supreme Court nominee could be part of the launch of the new administration or, at the least, a key piece of the new president's first 100 days. (Nixon, for his part, did no such thing, nominating Burger on May 21, 1969, after taking office on Jan. 20 of that year.)

Once a nominee is named, under this scenario, the attention will turn to the new Senate and a whole new set of questions will become relevant.

What party is in control of the Senate, and are they of the same party as the president? If Republicans control the Senate and Clinton is president, will the election have made a difference? Will they consider her nominee? If Trump is president and Democrats control the Senate, will they take the Republicans' move against Garland a step further and simply refuse to consider his nominee if they consider the person unacceptable? Finally, if the president and Senate majority are of the same party but the Senate still can't get through a nominee due to a filibuster led by the party out of control, will the Senate take the step presaged by Sen. Lindsey Graham earlier this year and eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees?

There are, in short, a lot of unknowns about when the Supreme Court will return to the center of national discussion, but there are many potential moments when that could happen — and when the current vacancy might itself return to the spotlight.

At some point, though, it is likely that Garland or another nominee will be confirmed to the Supreme Court and the court will move forward with nine justices.

Until there is another vacancy.

LINK: Democrats Ready Push To Exploit Continued Supreme Court Vacancy

LINK: Obama Says Republican Concerns About Trump Mean His Supreme Court Pick Should Get A Vote

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