The new 30-second TV spot, entitled “Two Americas: Economy”, paints Clinton’s policies as crushing the middle class, increasing spending and taxes and losing hundreds of thousands of jobs.
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In a speech on August 25 that flayed the Republican nominee as an outlier channeling the views of white supremacists and courting the “fringe element” of his party, Clinton invoked the names of former President George W. Bush, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Arizona Sen. Any discussion of inconsistencies, they suggested, reflected media focus on the wrong issue.
Trump, who has largely eschewed television advertising in his presidential campaign, burst onto the airwaves last week with his first ad of the general election, airing in four battleground states as part of a $5 million buy.
It’s been a long and sometimes puzzling journey to this point for the GOP nominee, who defeated 16 Republican opponents while promising to be the toughest on illegal immigration.
Trump, speaking on the Iowa State Fairgrounds with hay bales stacked behind him, sought to clarify his views on how to overhaul the US immigration system after saying earlier in the week that he was softening on his plan to deport all 11 million illegal immigrants.
The poll out Monday found the Democratic nominee led Trump 46%-39% among likely USA voters.
Ali Vitali points out that Trump has been adding to his immigration plan but is still offering only vague details on his view of deportations. “People that want to gain legal status, you heard Donald Trump say again and again, will have to leave the country”.
According to Costa’s reporting, Trump’s continued twists and turns over the issue over the course of the week were the result of whom he was talking to: advisers who either wanted him to stand his ground on immigration, like campaign CEO Steve Bannon and trusted ally Jeff Sessions, or who wanted him to moderate, like campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and surrogate Rudy Giuliani. And they wouldn’t say whether it was worrisome that such a consequential proposal remained unclear so close to the November 8 election.
“Donald Trump has put forward a laughable letter that omits basic health information including the date of his exam, past medications, family medical history, heart rate, respiratory rate, EKG, or cholesterol level”.
Tapper said he understands that Trump wants to remove violent, illegal immigrants, but he isn’t hearing what Trump will do about the 11 million people who came to the US illegally: “And you’re not saying – right now, Governor, you’re not saying, you’re not pledging that there will be a removal of all undocumented immigrants”.
The speech has been rescheduled at least once.
In his speech, Trump said he would seek to institute a tracking system to ensure illegal immigrants who overstay their visas are quickly removed, and would propose an e-verify system to prevent the illegal community from gaining access to welfare and other benefits. If you squint, you can perhaps perceive some movement back toward Trump in some of the red-tinged swing states, such as North Carolina.
But it’s not clear what he’ll say, apparently even to his top supporters.
The announcement, which was made on Twitter, comes after a week of differing statements about immigration, Trump’s signature campaign policy, and whether he would deport all of the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Pence, Conway and other surrogates said the main tenets of Trump’s immigration plan still will include building a wall along the southern USA border and making Mexico pay for it, no path to legalization or citizenship for people here illegally and stronger border enforcement.
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Shifting away from his promise to deport all 11 million people in the US illegally, Trump said in Des Moines, Iowa, that his priority will be to expel undocumented felons, which is also President Barack Obama’s deportation priority. That, he said, “is a subject for the future”. “The Clinton Foundation can play a vital role in filling important gaps in the public record by demonstrating its commitment to transparency and making public all correspondence its officials had with the State Department during Secretary Clinton’s tenure”, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a letter to the foundation’s president, Donna Shalala.
