WASHINGTON POST
Hillary Clinton unveiled another new line of attack on Donald Trump today, "seizing on the controversy surrounding the now-defunct Trump University to argue that he is attempting to defraud the country," reported Abby Phillip.
"His own employees testified that Trump U. -- you can't make this up -- that Trump U. was a fraudulent scheme where Donald Trump enriched himself at the expense of hard-working people," Clinton said. "This is just more evidence that Donald Trump himself is a fraud."
"He is trying to scam America the way he scammed all those people at Trump U.," she added.
That isn't the only front Clinton is trying to open this week: tomorrow, she'll deliver what her campaign is calling a major foreign policy speech, focused in part "on what she will describe as the threat Trump poses to national security," reported Anne Gearan.
"The speech Thursday in San Diego marks a turning point toward an argument that, by design, has not been as large a part of the primary campaign as Democrats expect it to be in the general election campaign. Although Clinton cast herself as by far the more experienced and qualified person to be commander in chief when campaigning against her rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders, she often tried not to feed liberal suspicions that she is a hawk."
Of course, they're not the target audience here. The demographics Clinton is trying to reach, say her backers, include "moderate Republicans and independents...suburban women turned off by Clinton but unwilling to support Trump, and some white men."
Of course, the Clinton team still has to woo liberals somehow. And so a new push is underway, report Abby Phillip and Karen Tumulty:
"Even as Sen. Bernie Sanders continues to insist he can win the Democratic nomination, several prominent liberals have lined up behind front-runner Hillary Clinton in recent days — signaling that the time is now to begin unifying the party to take on Republican Donald Trump.
"In endorsements of Clinton this week, California Gov. Jerry Brown and an influential environmental group, the NRDC Action Fund, argued that Democrats must stop fighting each other over their party’s nomination. ..."Both efforts seemed aimed at bolstering Clinton in California.
"...Perhaps the biggest sign that a new effort is underway among liberals to begin healing fissures within the party comes from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the heroine of the left. Although Warren still has not endorsed Clinton — and remains the lone Democratic woman in the Senate not to do so — she has stepped up her attacks on Trump, and her advisers have begun communicating regularly with the Clinton campaign.
It's a...sensitive operation. "The effort is a delicate one given the ardor of Sanders’s most steadfast fans — and their insistence that he can still win the nomination. Sanders is already preparing supporters to reject any pronouncements of Clinton as the party’s presumptive nominee next Tuesday, when primary results in New Jersey are expected to bring her total of pledged delegates (those won in nominating contests) and superdelegates (party leaders and elected officials who may back the candidate of their choosing) past the 2,383 she needs to secure the nomination.
"...Democrats had largely accepted that Sanders was unlikely to concede the race until after the last votes are counted June 14, when the final nominating contest will take place in the District of Columbia.
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| House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi |
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Objectively, given the numbers right now, it is very, very unlikely that Democrats have a shot at taking back the House this year. But unlikely isn't impossible. There's no question the battlefield looks a lot more promising for the party than it did six months ago — the question is whether they can get their troops in place in time to launch a real offensive.
"Republicans are on the verge of formally nominating Donald Trump, a presidential candidate who remains deeply unpopular among minorities, women and younger voters — just the kind of voters Democrats need to win House seats in swing districts,"report Ed O'Keefe and Mike DeBonis.
"Democrats have scrambled to convince enough credible, well-funded candidates to enter key races that could flip control of the chamber ..."Democratic consultants think that Trump’s rise has, broadly speaking, tilted the House battlefield in their favor by firming up candidates’ chances in battleground districts, allowing resources to be focused on more marginal seats. Trump, they say, has accelerated the party’s 'demographic pivot' into more affluent, better educated, suburban districts.
'It’s unlikely that Democrats win back the House, but we can’t completely rule it out,' said Nathan Gonzales, editor of the Rothenberg & Gonzales political report.
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—Over the past three decades, Donald Trump has been involved in about 3,500 lawsuits, reported USA Today. (Yes, that's three thousand, five hundred legal actions, including roughly 1,900 where he or his companies were the plaintiff and 1,300 where he or his companies were the defendant.)