Clinton slams Trump as unfit for presidency following 2nd Amendment comment

(Chuck Burton / Associated Press)

Donald Trump called President Obama the “founder” of Islamic State on Wednesday, the latest in a series of remarks suggesting that Obama sympathized with Muslim terrorists in the Middle East.

“ISIS is honoring President Obama,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., using an acronym for Islamic State. “He is the founder of ISIS.”

After making the allegation twice more, Trump added, “And I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton.”

Trump’s charges came moments after he said that Russia had seized Crimea “during the administration of Barack Hussein Obama,” a rare use of Obama’s middle name that was notable given Trump’s past insinuations that the Christian president was secretly Muslim.

The Republican presidential nominee also falsely stated twice that he had opposed the Iraq war from the start, despite a 2002 recording of Trump saying that he would support a U.S. invasion.

Trump, whose inaccurate statement on Iraq is a staple of his campaign stump speech, criticized Clinton, his Democratic rival, for voting as a U.S. senator to authorize the 2003 invasion. Previous Clinton rivals, including Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries, have used her support for the war to inflict political harm, but the audio proof of Trump taking the same position undermines that line of attack.

Trump’s remarks on Islamic State were open to interpretation. They were part of his policy argument that Obama’s withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq opened the way for the terrorist network to spread across Iraq and Syria.

After Omar Mateen killed 49 people in a mass shooting at an Orlando, Fla., nightclub in June, Trump questioned whether Obama was genuinely committed to stopping terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists.

“He doesn’t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands – it’s one or the other, and either one is unacceptable,” Trump told Fox News.

He said Obama was “not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind. And the something else in mind – you know, people can’t believe it.”

When NBC asked for clarification, Trump said: “There are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it. A lot of people think maybe he doesn’t want to know about it.”

Wasn’t it terrible, Donald Trump asked supporters at a Florida rally Wednesday night, that the father of the killer of 49 people in an Orlando nightclub “was sitting with a big smile on his face right behind Hillary Clinton” at a campaign event?

The attack turned into an embarrassing gaffe for Trump: Seated just behind him in the audience in Fort Lauderdale was former Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, a Republican who resigned after he was caught sending sexually explicit email messages to young male congressional pages.

On Monday, Seddique Mateen, whose son Omar was the Orlando terrorist, was seated in nearly the exact same spot behind Clinton at her rally in Kissimmee, Fla.

Trump tried to raise doubts about the Clinton campaign’s denial of any advance knowledge that Mateen would attend the event.

“How many of you people know me?” Trump called to the crowd behind him.

Foley and others raised their hands. “A lot of you people know know me.

“When you get those seats, you sort of know the campaign,” Trump said. “So when she said, �Well we didn’t know’ … they knew.”

Foley told the Sun Sentinel that he’d been a friend of Trump’s since 1987.

“I’ve admired so much of what he’s done,” Foley said. “He’s a different breed of leader and a different breed of candidate.”

A young man who said he had to discuss an important matter with Donald Trump climbed about 20 stories of the Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday, using suction cups to scale the building before police officers dragged him through a window to safety.

Once in custody, the climber did not express any intent to cause harm, according to NYPD officials.

Officials did say the man, who is from Virginia, wanted to meet with Trump and posted a YouTube video on Thursday asking for a meeting.

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Donald Trump on his phone, a Samsung Galaxy, during a campaign stop in February.

(Matt Rourke / AP)

The code has been cracked.

Donald Trump’s campaign has revolved largely around his Twitter presence. Many of his tweets are a mix of the enthusiastic, colorful and vitriolic. But not all of them. Some are downright dull. Some sound like campaign press releases. What gives?

Apparently, he’s not the only one with the keys.

A visual effects artist from San Francisco pointed out something interesting Wednesday. When you send a tweet, Twitter records and displays which device or service you used when hitting send. Some of Trump’s tweets are “via Twitter for Android,” and some are “via Twitter for IPhone.”

“Every non-hyperbolic tweet is from his iPhone (his staff),” Todd Vaziri wrote. “Every hyperbolic tweet is from Android (from him).”

A data scientist took it a step further, creating a complicated algorithm to parse which tweets came from which sources. In a blog post, David Robinson shared what he found when he analyzed the tweets that came from iPhones versus Androids.

Overall, it seems that Trump himself is the one penning tweets blasting “Crooked Hillary” and the “dishonest media.” He’s also the one doing most of the retweeting of occasionally questionable charts, quotes, sources and Photoshopped pictures.

His staffers appear to be the ones tweeting generic messages of thanks to cities where he’s held rallies. And the scientist found in some cases it seems like there’s a staffer “whose job is to imitate Trump’s unique cadence” in some tweets.

“Trump’s Android account uses about 40-80% more words related to disgust, sadness, fear, anger, and other �negative’ sentiments than the iPhone account does,” Robinson concludes.

Trump has been photographed with his phone, which is a Samsung Galaxy (see the photo above for a cameo of the device). A New York Times story from October noted he repeatedly interrupted an interview with the journalist to check his Galaxy, even firing tweets and pointing out his mentions.

Donald Trump told supporters in Appalachian coal country on Wednesday that Hillary Clinton would be a “horror show” for miners as he sought to move past the controversy over his statement that gun enthusiasts could block his Democratic rival from naming judges.

The presidential election in November will be “the last shot for the miners,” the Republican nominee told the audience at a rally in Abingdon, Va. “The mines will be gone if she gets elected.”

Trump, who was uncharacteristically subdued, has vowed to scrap federal rules that curb the burning of coal in order to reduce the emission of gases that cause global warming. Trump once called climate change a hoax created by China to harm U.S. manufacturing, but has avoided the topic during the campaign.

Miners, some of them in hard hats, sat on stage behind Trump at the rally, many of them holding signs reading, “Trump Digs Coal.” Trump held one up and told the cheering crowd: “If I get in, this is what it is, OK?”

He reminded the audience that Clinton said in March that she would “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” with her energy policies, a remark that could cost her votes in struggling coal regions of Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Trump also ridiculed “clean coal” technology, saying the Chinese were not subject to rules restraining pollution from mining.

“Believe me, they’re not cleaning it,” he said of Chinese coal. “We have a small — a very, very small planet compared to the universe, right? And that stuff is going up, and they’re not cleaning it. And here, we produce great stuff, and we’re not allowed to use it.”

Turning to Clinton’s record as a U.S. senator from New York, Trump said she had broken her promise to strengthen the upstate economy. Lamenting the loss of manufacturing jobs, he called the region a “war zone” and “wasteland.”

Trump did not mention attacks by Clinton and others over his comment Tuesday about 2nd Amendment backers stopping her from naming judges. But on Twitter, Trump denied a report that the Secret Service discussed the matter with his campaign.

Hillary Clinton has widened her lead over Donald Trump in Wisconsin, a virtual must-win state for the Republican, and now outpaces him by 15 points among likely voters, the state’s leading poll has found.

The numbers from the latest Marquette Law School poll in Wisconsin are the latest in a series of surveys that show Clinton with strong leads in states that will be crucial for the November election. Clinton leads Trump 52%-37% among likely voters, the survey found; that’s up from a 4-point lead, 45%-41% last month.

Trump’s strategists have argued that he can win the election by appealing to working-class white voters in industrial states from Pennsylvania through Ohio and Michigan to Wisconsin. So far, however, the latest polls show him trailing in each of those states, often by large margins.

In Pennsylvania, four polls taken since the end of the Democratic convention show Clinton ahead by between 10 and 11 points. Those include surveys by Marist College for NBC and the Wall St. Journal, Quinnipiac University, Franklin & Marshall College as well as a poll done by one of the ABC news stations in the state.

In Ohio, which typically is several points more Republican than Pennsylvania, the race appears closer, with the most recent polls by Marist and Quinnipiac showing Clinton ahead by 5 and 4 points, respectively.

The race in Michigan appears similar to Pennsylvania, according to two recent polls for the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press.

Clinton’s margins stay roughly the same whether the polls ask voters to consider a head-to-head matchup with Trump or a four-way contest with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The two smaller-party candidates pull a few points from both Clinton and Trump, but don’t appear to be significantly affecting the race in any of the four big industrial battleground states.

In Wisconsin, for example, the four-way matchup among likely voters found Clinton at 47%, Trump 34%, Johnson 9% and Stein 3%, the Marquette poll found.

The survey also found that voter impressions of Clinton had grown more favorable since July while those of Trump had remained steady -- and highly negative. Among registered voters, just 27% had a favorable view of Trump and 65% viewed him unfavorably.

For Clinton, 43% of registered voters had a favorable view and 53% were unfavorable. Last month, the comparable figures were 36% to 58%.

More than seven in 10 voters said they did not know enough about Johnson to have a view one way or the other. Almost eight in 10 responded that way about Stein.

Clinton gets support from 90% of her fellow Democrats in Wisconsin, the survey found. By contrast, Trump gets support from 79% of Republicans.

An unidentified man was climbing Trump Tower in New York City using suction cups for hours before police captured him by pulling him through a broken window.

The climber used a harness and suction cups to scale the side of the 58-story building. According to the Associated Press, “police officers smashed windows and broke through a ventilation duct” to try to stop him from continuing his ascent.

Trump Organization executive vice president Michael Cohen called the man’s climb a “ridiculous and dangerous stunt” in a statement issued during the climb. He added, “if Trump were here he’d be thanking law enforcement for the job they’re doing.”

In a video published Tuesday titled “Message to Mr. Trump (why I climbed your tower),” a man who calls himself an “independent researcher” says he was seeking a private meeting with Trump. The man ends the video with a request for people to vote for the candidate. It’s not clear if he is the same man climbing the building.

Trump lives and works in Trump Tower but is currently campaigning in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. On Thursday, he’s scheduled to be in Kissimmee, Fla.

Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump’s suggestion that gun rights supporters could take action if she were to appoint judges they do not like was a “casual inciting of violence” that makes him unfit to serve as president.

Clinton pointed to the remark, which was met Tuesday with condemnation across party lines, as one more reason for Republicans to bail on Trump.

“Words matter,” Clinton said at a rally in Des Moines. “If you are running to be president or you are president of the United States, words can have tremendous consequences. Yesterday we witnessed the latest in a long line of casual comments from Donald Trump that crossed the line.”

Clinton pointed to Trump’s insulting comments about Muslim couple whose son, a U.S. military officer, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq, his loose talk about nuclear weapons and, “now his casual inciting of violence” to argue he is unfit for the Oval Office.

“Every single one of these incidents shows us that Donald Trump simply does not have the temperament to be president and commander in chief,” she said. “The stakes have never been higher. I am humbled and moved by the Republicans willing to stand up and say Donald Trump doesn’t represent their values. We may not agree on everything, but this is not a normal election.”

Clinton’s remarks come as the list of GOP defectors grows and grows and grows.

A crowd waits for Donald Trump at a rally at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, N.C., on Tuesday.

(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

Many gauges measure the rapid drop in Donald Trump’s support this summer: Polls show the Republican nominee losing nationally and in most battleground states, prominent Republicans have publicly defected, and GOP elected officials rarely rush to his defense.

Twenty women, mostly swing voters, sitting at conference tables in Columbus, Ohio, and Phoenix on Tuesday night, provide another.

“He’s crazy,” says one.

“He kind of acts like a 2-year-old,” says another. “I have a 2-year-old. I see the similarities.”

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Hillary Clinton will work to court Mormon voters in Utah in an op-ed set to be published by the Deseret News, a church-owned publication in Salt Lake City.

A portion of the op-ed published in a Buzzfeed piece shows Clinton will tout her commitment to securing religious freedom around the world.

“I’ve been fighting to defend religious freedom for years,” Clinton said in the excerpt. “As secretary of State, I made it a cornerstone of our foreign policy to protect the rights of religious minorities around the world — from Coptic Christians in Egypt, to Buddhists in Tibet.”

Clinton’s efforts in a consistently Republican state further emphasize Trump’s low popularity among Utah’s Republicans. Trump came in third during the state’s primary in March, taking in only 14% of the vote.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Wednesday launched a group dedicated to drawing support from independents and Republicans defecting from their conservative party and from Donald Trump’s campaign.

The campaign announced the formation of Together for America as a wave of new Republicans endorsed the Democratic candidate this week, including former National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, former Rep. Connie Morella (R-Md.), former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, former Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Carla Hills. Clinton’s campaign said these new endorsements bring in about 50 Republican supporters so far.

“Hillary Clinton understands the complex and volatile world we live in, and she has the temperament to be president and commander-in-chief,” the group’s website states. “Donald Trump does not. That’s why so many Republicans and independents are putting country over party and supporting Hillary for president.”

This is the latest move for Clinton’s campaign to capitalize on the voters who refuse to endorse Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

Backlash from Donald Trump’s comments on the 2nd Amendment continued Wednesday, but while some Republicans agreed the GOP candidate misstepped, others called the issue overplayed and misinterpreted.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) took Trump’s statement Tuesday that supporters of the 2nd Amendment might be able to stop Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton as a “dumb remark” he needs to take back, but not one meant as a violent threat, as some perceived it.

“Do you really think he was urging people to kill Hillary Clinton? Do you really believe that?” King asked MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski. “I think you’re reading far too much into it.”

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani argued that Trump doesn’t make indirect comments — he shares his opinion without reserve. If he wanted to tell gun rights advocates that they can use their weapons against Clinton, he would have said it outright.

“He was talking about how they [gun rights advocates] have the power to keep her out of office,” Giuliani said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

But for Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Trump’s latest remarks show how his history of “reckless” comments feeds violent assumptions.

“The fact that it’s interpreted that way reflects a constant stream of inappropriate and reckless comments that Donald Trump has made,” Collins said on CNN’s “New Day.”

On the Democratic side, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted that Trump only makes “death threats” against Clinton because of her gender. Warren has continued to attack Trump both on stage and on social media during the presidential election.

(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)

Vice presidential nominee Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine is headed to Southern California later this month to raise money for the Democratic ticket, according to invitations obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Kaine will join donors the afternoon of Aug. 20 at the home of Marcy and Jeffrey Krinsk in San Diego. The event also is hosted by former U.S. Rep. Lynn Schenk, who represented San Diego in the mid-1990s. Contribution levels are $1,000 to be a “fighter” and $10,000 to be a co-host and take a photo with Kaine.

He also will attend what the campaign has billed as an evening “conversation” that night at the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles. The minimum contribution is $1,000. Donors who contribute or raise $10,000 get a photo with Kaine, and co-chairs with $33,400 worth of donations get a private reception with the senator.

The general election is set between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. Whether she wins or loses, her run for president is unarguably one for the history books. (The same is true for Trump.)

To better understand and convey the Democratic nominee’s impact, we’re asking: What do you think about Clinton?

Follow the link below and give us your opinion. Your answer may be included in our upcoming reports.

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Donald Trump is stuck in a destructive loop of his own making, his words increasingly at odds with his needs as the presidential campaign moves into its final phase.

Trump won the Republican nomination on his willingness to say things to primary voters that ordinary politicians wouldn’t say. But going places where others won’t is a dangerous strategy when speaking to a broader audience, as Trump found out — again — Tuesday.

His remarks were vintage Trump. They could be interpreted various ways, but even the most benign gloss did nothing to expand his electoral reach or give uncertain voters a reason to cast a ballot for him.

Instead, his latest self-generated controversy represented, at best, another day on defense, another day explaining what he meant, another day in which Trump himself overrode whatever message might have cut into the advantages held by Hillary Clinton, the unpopular Democrat who has the great good luck to have him as an opponent.

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It was a case study in how a single remark can shake up a presidential campaign before a speech is even over.

The cameras were rolling in Wilmington, N.C., as Republican nominee Donald Trump told his audience about how his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, would clamp down on gun rights.

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the 2nd Amendment,” Trump said Tuesday afternoon, apparently reading from notes on his lectern. Then he looked up to freestyle with his audience. “By the way, and if she gets to pick” — here, Trump paused as the crowd booed — “if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks.”

He added: “Although the 2nd Amendment people -- maybe there is. I don’t know.”

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