Donald Trump speaks at the First Niagara Center in Buffalo, New York, yesterday. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
THE BIG IDEA:
Donald Trump’s national field director resigned yesterday because he did not want to be layered over by Scott Walker’s old manager, the latest shake-up in a campaign that has been roiled by internal tension over the past few weeks.
The Republican front-runner worries that the nomination could slip away because the party establishment is more organized than he is. He’s trying to expand and professionalize his operation, playing catch up in the delegate hunt. To do that, he’s proved increasingly willing to push aside many of those who helped him get to this position in the first place.
Stuart Jolly, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who had never worked on a national campaign before he joined the Trump effort last year, is a close friend of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. They earlier worked together at Americans for Prosperity.
Lewandowski has been marginalized in recent weeks by Paul Manafort, who was brought on to help prepare for a contested convention but by all accounts is now essentially in charge. Last week, former Walker manager Rick Wiley – who has been at the National Republican Senatorial Committee – joined the Trump operation.
In a Saturday meeting at Trump Tower, the candidate informed staff that Manafort and Wiley will take the lead in upcoming states, and he gave them a $20 million budget for key contests in May and June, according to Politico’s Ken Vogel and Ben Schreckinger. “The spending authorization, which covers most of the month of May, is far more than the campaign has spent in any prior month.… Manafort also laid out a plan on Saturday for hiring at least five additional communications staffers to work in a national press office.”
Jolly, 52, told The Post in an interview last night that he is not angry about leaving. “While Lewandowski has been known to be tough on his staff, sometimes yelling or speaking harshly, Jolly was considered his friendly, soothing counterpart,” Jenna Johnson and Ed O’Keefe explain.
Trump manager Corey Lewandowski in Wisconsin earlier this month (Reuters/Jim Young/Files)
— Presidential campaigns are MRIs of the soul. They tell us a lot about a candidate’s character. When Trump defended Lewandowski in the wake of his incident with a Breitbart News reporter last month, many stories were written about what an intensely loyal fellow he is. Trump himself talked about how he fights for people who fight for him. That is a false narrative.
“Far from a tight-knit family of blood brothers, The Donald’s inner circle has been purged and repopulated many times over the years,” BuzzFeed reported recently, offering many examples. “Devoted workaholics burn out and flame out. Longtime alliances end with lawsuits and tabloid sniping. Sometimes reconciliation follows, sometimes grudges endure.”
Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wis.) presides over a hearing of the Senate Investigations Subcommittee in 1954. Seated at his right is chief counsel Roy Cohn. (AP Photo/File)
— The case of Roy Cohn is very instructive when it comes to understanding Trump’s soul. Joe McCarthy’s notorious chief counsel during his Senate investigations into communism was a key early mentor to Trump. The red-baiter visibly shaped the real estate mogul’s worldview and belligerent public persona, Michael Kruse explained in an excellent piece for Politico Magazine earlier this month.
“By the 1970s, when Trump was looking to establish his reputation in Manhattan, the elder Cohn had long before remade himself as the ultimate New York power lawyer, whose clientele included politicians, financiers and mob bosses. Cohn engineered the combative response to the Department of Justice’s suit alleging racial discrimination at the Trumps’ many rental properties in Brooklyn and Queens. He brokered the gargantuan tax abatements and the mob-tied concrete work that made the Grand Hyatt hotel and Trump Tower projects. He wrote the cold-hearted prenuptial agreement before the first of his three marriages.… To all of these deals, Cohn brought his political connections, his public posturing and a simple credo: Always attack, never apologize.”
BUT when Trump found out in the mid-1980s that his friend and associate had AIDS, he shifted legal business away from him and pushed him out of his inner circle. “Donald pisses ice water,” Cohn reportedly said. “Donald found out about it and just dropped him like a hot potato,” Bell, Cohn’s secretary, told Kruse. “It was like night and day.”
— Even in the best case scenario, the Cleveland convention seems likely to be a total nightmare for the GOP:
Mitch McConnell (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Mitch McConnell said he’s increasingly confident it will take at least two ballots to determine the nominee. “It is important for everyone to understand that the convention rules will require you to get 1,237 delegate votes and until one gets to 1,237 they will not be the nominee,” the Senate Majority Leader told the Louisville ABC affiliate. “He did not name the candidate but said one appears to be ‘suggesting that it’s somehow tricky to simply follow the rules of the convention.’”
In Staten Island on Sunday night, Trump left no doubt about how far he is willing to go to woo uncommitted delegates: “Nobody has better toys than I do. I can put them on the best planes and bring them to the best resorts anywhere in the world. You’re basically saying, ‘Delegate, listen, we’re going to send you to Mar-a-Lago on a Boeing 757, you’re going to use the spa, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do that, we want your vote.’ That’s a corrupt system.”
Mitt Romney said it is dangerous for John Kasich to stay in the race. He told “The David Gregory Show,” a new podcast from the former “Meet the Press” host who is now a CNN contributor, that a three-man contest likely paves the way for the billionaire to capture the Republican nomination. “If Kasich and Cruz are both going at it aggressively until the very end, then I think Trump gets it on the first ballot,” the 2012 nominee said.
How ridiculous are the next three months going to become? The Argus Leader writes about a South Dakota delegate, who will be bound to vote for whoever wins her state’s June 7 primary on the first ballot but then becomes a free agent. Char Cornelius said Kasich’s campaign has offered to “take care” of her while she’s in Cleveland. “If I get a lunch with LeBron James, that might be a turning point,” Cornelius told the paper.
Trump is now leaning on Jones Day for legal help: William McGinley, a veteran Republican attorney who is a partner at the firm, will advise him on the arcane process of selecting delegates and the convention rules process. Don McGahn, Trump’s top campaign attorney, is also a partner at Jones Day. The firm’s Capitol Hill office is where Trump met with lawmakers when he was in town recently.
The New York Times notes that a lot of really old guys are getting back into the political arena because of the dearth of operatives who have experience working a contested convention. “The last time Stuart Spencer courted delegates at a Republican National Convention, in 1976, he kept a roll of quarters in his pocket for when he had to run to the pay phones and call in reports to President Gerald R. Ford’s campaign headquarters,” Jeremy Peters writes. “This year there will be no running. Two hip replacements later, the closest Mr. Spencer plans to get to the convention floor in Cleveland is the deck of his Palm Desert, Calif., home, where he calls in advice to Gov. John Kasich’s campaign almost every day. ‘I’m 89, man. I’m lucky to be here,’ said Mr. Spencer, who last worked in politics 25 years ago.” Manafort is 67. Charlie Black, helping Kasich, is 68.
TODAY IS THE NEW YORK PRIMARY. Trump and Clinton are both looking to cement their front-runner status with big victories at home.
— Can Trump get more than 50 percent? If he gets more than half the votes cast, Trump automatically wins 14 statewide delegates.Then there are three delegates up for grabs in each of the state’s 27 House districts. To get all three, you need more than half the vote in the district. Polls show Trump should be able to pass the 50 percent threshold statewide. The Stop Trump forces have not really engaged in a state where it is very expensive to advertise. But New York is also a closed primary, so independents (who have been key to The Donald’s victories) will not be able to vote (including two of his own children).
— Clinton’s last win was in Arizona—on March 22! A losing streak in smaller, western states has made it hard for Hillary to pivot toward the general election. Since Arizona, Clinton has lost Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, Washington State, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Even so, Sanders needs something like two-thirds of the remaining pledged delegates to win the Democratic nod. More delegates are at stake in New York today than in any of the previous states. After tonight, IF the polls are correct, Bernie’s path will get meaningfully narrower.
— That’s why Hillary is hustling so hard. She made eight stops yesterday, from a hospital cafeteria in Yonkers to a unionized car wash in Queens and the Kung Fu Tea counter in Flushing. “I am hoping to do really well tomorrow,” she said at an ice cream parlor in Manhattan’s East Village. “I am hoping to wrap up the Democratic nomination.”
This morning’s tabloids:
Nervous Hillary downplays potential of New York landslide https://t.co/OJxaFaQLxu pic.twitter.com/BCaN9Gpaoi
— New York Post (@nypost) April 19, 2016
The Daily News makes fun of Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan, formerly of the the Jets, for introducing Trump yesterday.
Tomorrow’s front page:
HE’S WITH STUPID, TOO!
Dopey ex-Jets coach Ryan supports bigot Trumphttps://t.co/CkF0vQfeqz pic.twitter.com/cASw1Y4Ffv
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) April 19, 2016
— HRC went to Carnegie Deli for an interview with Stephen Colbert: The “Late Show” comedian instructed her on how to eat cheesecake after she bypassed it at Junior’s Deli the weekend before last (“You want to use a fork, take a little off the top and…”). The two also discussed the differences between her and Trump (“I’m not sure what I have in common with him,” she said), as well as her husband’s newfound commitment to clean eating.
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— Sanders emphasized local issues in his closing argument:
I strongly oppose the proposed Constitution Pipeline that would carry fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New York.https://t.co/i6tdsL7xzr
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 18, 2016
For 30 years, GE dumped dangerous chemicals into the Hudson River. We must clean it up and hold GE accountable.https://t.co/ZjMCHqQZAI
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 18, 2016
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:
A forensic expert inspects a window after a blast in Kabul today. (Reuters/Ahmad Masood)
— Taliban militants attacked a government agency in Kabul, killing dozens and wounding more than 320. “The target was an elite Afghan intelligence unit tasked with protecting senior government politicians,” Tim Craig and Sayed Salahuddin report from Kabul. “It began when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the gates of the agency, located less than a mile away from the presidential palace and the Ministry of Defense headquarters in a densely populated part of the city. After the explosion at the height of the morning rush hour, assailants apparently made their way inside the agency compound, sparking a three-hour gun battle with Afghan forces.”
— The U.S. agreed to deploy more than 200 additional troops to Iraq and to send eight Apache helicopters for the first time into the fight against ISIS, the first major increase in U.S. forces in nearly a year, the AP reports.
— About 300 arrests were made at the U.S. Capitol, bringing to more than 1,200 the total number of arrests connected with demonstrations (in support of campaign finance reform) that have been held there since April 11. “The total is one of the largest in any protest here in years,” Martin Weil reports. “The Ben & Jerry’s ice cream website said the company’s cofounders, Jerry Greenfield and Ben Cohen, were among those arrested. The Capitol police said Monday’s arrests came at the East Front stops. Those arrested were charged under laws banning crowding and obstructing.”
Supporters of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff show their dejection after the lower house voted for impeachment. (AFP/Getty Images)
— In her first public remarks since losing a critical impeachment vote, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she will not go down without a fight. “Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla who was jailed by Brazil’s military dictatorship in the early 1970s, said she is fighting for the same democratic principles now as then. She called the impeachment effort a ‘coup’ masquerading as a legal procedure,” Dom Phillips and Nick Miroff report from Brasilia. “We are at the beginning of a struggle, which will be long and slow,” she said. “But the impeachment vote in the lower house of Congress showed that her chances for survival are narrowing. … The fight now shifts to Brazil’s Senate — and possibly to its streets, where Rousseff’s Workers’ Party will try to show it still has some muscle.”
GET SMART FAST:
Residents work to rescue up to 70 horses in Houston after flooding submerged subdivisions and several major interstate highways. (Mark Mulligan/AP)
Four people died in Houston in severe flash flooding that has crippled the surrounding area and left thousands of residents stranded. First responders have made nearly 900 emergency rescues so far. (ABC)
In Jerusalem, two buses burst into flames during rush hour after an explosive device was detonated in one of the vehicles. More than 20 people were injured, two seriously, in what security officials called a terrorist attack. (William Booth)
The Israeli military announced it has uncovered and destroyed a Hamas tunnel that stretched from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory. (William Booth)
A Russian fighter jet barrel-rolled over a U.S. spy plane in international airspace, just days after the Russians buzzed a U.S. destroyer in the Baltic. Pentagon officials have decried both incidents as “unsafe and aggressive.” (Thomas Gibbons-Neff)
A front-running candidate for president of the Philippines joked publicly that a victim of gang rape was “so beautiful” that he wishes he had “been first.” (Travis M. Andrews)
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) said he plans to drink and cook with filtered tap water from Flint for an entire month, as part of an ongoing effort to prove its safety to residents. (Detroit Free Press)
Tennessee suspended its controversial “bathroom bill” for the year, after the House sponsor of the legislation requested more time to study the issue. (Tennesseean)
Obama would likely veto bipartisan legislation to allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said it is “difficult to imagine a scenario in which [he] would sign the bill as it’s currently drafted.” The pronouncement is an olive branch ahead of Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia tomorrow, where he will see the king. (Karoun Demirjian)
Syrian peace talks in Geneva suffered a blow, as one of the main opposition groups said it will at least temporarily suspend its participation. (Hugh Naylor and Karen DeYoung)
Ethiopian leaders vowed to hunt down South Sudanese gunmen who massacred 200 villagers and kidnapped more than 100 children last week during a cross-border raid. (Paul Schemm)
Cuban President Raúl Castro reiterated his intention to step down two years from now, at age 86, and said that in the future, all top Communist Party and other officials should be restricted to two five-year terms and should retire at age 70. (Karen DeYoung)
An Ohio teenager accused of live-streaming her 17-year-old friend’s rape is now facing criminal charges as severe as the accused 29-year-old attacker. (New York Times)
Ethiopian runners won both the men’s and women’s races in the Boston Marathon. (Cindy Boren)
Actor Mark Wahlberg, who is playing the role of a Boston police officer in a movie about the 2013 marathon bombing, was in character at the finish line of yesterday’s marathon. (Reuters/Gretchen Ertl)
WAPO HIGHLIGHTS:
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) endorses Trump at a rally in Alabama in February. (Reuters/Marvin Gentry)
— “Jeff Sessions is Donald Trump’s biggest fan. Here’s how their relationship began,” by Elise Viebeck: “It was 2005, and Trump was busy criticizing the U.N.’s plan to launch a $1.2-billion renovation of its Manhattan headquarters. After Sessions learned of Trump’s views, the Alabama Republican and former Sen. Tom Coburn invited the businessman to talk about building renovation and air his criticism of the U.N. project at a Senate subcommittee hearing. The result was the best congressional testimony Sessions says he had ever heard. Even now, as Trump’s sole Senate endorser and the heart of his presence in Washington, Sessions loves telling the story. That’s partly because he likes to do his Trump impression. ‘Y’all are gettin’ taken to the cleaners!’ Sessions said while mimicking Trump in a recent interview, his accent drifting somewhere between Queens and the Alabama Gulf Coast. ‘There is no way it should cost that much! … If you give it to me, I’ll save you a billion dollars!’” Bonus: Hear Sessions do his Trump impression…
Jeanette Vizguerra of Denver, left, embraces her son, Roberto Baez, 9, outside the Supreme Court on Monday as justices heard oral arguments in the legal challenges to President Obama’s executive actions. (Photo by Matt McClain/ The Washington Post)
— “Initial prognosis poor for Obama’s immigration program at Supreme Court,” by Robert Barnes: ““The conservative justices on the Supreme Court gave little indication Monday that they were inclined to fully revive Obama’s stalled plan to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and give them the right to work legally in this country. Instead, the court’s conservatives and liberals seemed split while hearing a challenge to the plan, and a 4-to-4 tie would leave in place a lower court’s decision that the president exceeded his powers in issuing the directive. In questions and comments over 90 minutes, the Obama administration did not receive support from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. or Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, seen as most likely among the four conservatives to let the program proceed … In the arguments, the court showed a familiar divide in confronting a fundamental tension of Obama’s tenure: whether the president is correctly using the substantial powers of his office to break through political gridlock, or whether he has ignored constitutional boundaries to unilaterally impose policies that should require congressional acquiescence.”
— “A cold-eyed view of allies has left Obama with few overseas friends,” by Greg Jaffe and Griff Witte: “For someone who preaches the importance of diplomacy and outreach, even to longtime enemies, President Obama can be awfully tough on his friends. In recent months, he has offended most of the United States’ Persian Gulf allies. ‘All I need in the Middle East is a few smart autocrats,’ he joked privately … Publicly, he has said he ‘weeps’ for Saudi and Kuwaiti children. Even the United Kingdom, a U.S. ‘special’ partner, has received criticism. Obama’s cool relations with European leaders is partly a product of his style … He disdains neediness and sometimes struggles to empathize with allies. It’s also a product of an era in which Western leaders have been focused inwardly on domestic politics.”
“I’ve never heard that Obama has a personal relationship with any of them,” said Xenia Wickett, head of the Americas program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. “It is neither hot nor cold. There is no personal relationship.”
“It’s clear that the president’s cerebral, dispassionate approach isn’t well suited to the Gulf leaders,” said Perry Cammack, a former State Department official in the Obama administration and associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The end of the Obama administration can’t come quickly enough for these leaders.”
— “Post series on police shootings wins Pulitzer Prize for national reporting,” by Paul Farhi: “After covering several high-profile incidents involving the killings of civilians by police officers in 2014, Washington Post staff writer Wesley Lowery was surprised to discover that there were no official statistics about such fatalities. So Lowery pitched an idea to his editors: The newspaper, he suggested, should collect the information itself and analyze it for patterns in law enforcement. The Post soon marshaled an extraordinary team of reporters, editors, researchers, photographers and graphic artists to do just that. The result was a database containing the details of 990 fatal police shootings across the nation in 2015 and a series of articles describing trends in the data. On Monday, The Post’s series was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in the national reporting category. The prizes, in their 100th year, are newspaper journalism’s highest honor. The Pulitzer board also recognized ‘Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS,’ a book by Post reporter Joby Warrick, in the general nonfiction category.” See the full list of winners here.
MORE ON THE DEMOCRATIC RACE:
Sanders addresses supporters during a rally in Queens, NY. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
— Tensions between Sanders and Clinton reached a fever pitch last night, as Bernie accused Hillary of violating campaign finance laws with joint fundraising committees. “In a letter to the Democratic National Committee, a lawyer for Sanders said the joint committee, which can accept far larger donations than Clinton’s campaign, appeared to be improperly subsidizing her campaign by paying Clinton staffers with funds from the committee and cited other alleged violations as well,” John Wagner and Matea Gold report. Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said Sanders’s attacks have gotten “out of hand.” “As Senator Sanders faces nearly insurmountable odds, he is resorting to baseless accusations of illegal actions and poisoning the well for Democratic candidates up and down the ticket,” Mook said.
— Clinton’s national lead over Sanders has narrowed from 9 points to 2 points since last month, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. She’s up 50 to 48, which is within the margin of error.
— THIS WILL BE A LESSER OF TWO EVILS ELECTION. The same poll showed that a majority of Americans cannot see themselves supporting Trump, Cruz or Clinton in the general election. Nearly seven in ten voters couldn’t see themselves casting a vote for Trump, while 61 percent felt that way about Cruz and 58 percent said they couldn’t back Clinton.
Intraparty fighting is feeding Trump and Clinton’s rising unpopularity: “Forty-one percent of Sanders’ voters [now] have a negative opinion of Clinton, versus 40 percent who have a positive view of her. Republicans backing Trump’s rivals are even harsher about the GOP frontrunner: 56 percent of Cruz’s voters and 71 percent of Kasich’s have a negative view of Trump.”
Trump is the most unpopular candidate in the poll’s history, with 65 percent holding a negative view of him. 56 percent of voters feel that way about Clinton, which is up five points from last month.
— Hillary said during an NYC radio interview that she carries hot sauce in her purse. The host believed she was making an allusion to a lyric in Beyonce’s new hit “Formation.” The haters immediately assumed Clinton made it up to ingratiate herself with a key constituency. In fact, Clinton does carry hot sauce. (“Ninja Squirrel” is her preferred brand.) “Clinton is a well-known lover of hot things,” Abby Phillip reports. “She has been known to munch on hot jalapeno peppers like ‘potato chips’ and as first lady, she had a collection of more than 100 hot sauces.”
that the hot sauce thing is true, but everyone thought hillary was making it up, is kind of a metaphor for how she’s perceived
— Adam Serwer (@AdamSerwer) April 19, 2016
— The Democratic National Convention is underperforming on fundraising: “GOP officials said the two committees charged with raising money for the festivities are already close to meeting their goals, with $67.8 million in contributions secured to date. The two Democratic committees, by comparison, have lined up $43.6 million so far,” Matea Gold reports. “Both totals include pledges, so it remains to be seen how much the final tallies will be in the end. But Republicans have had more early success tapping wealthy donors, who can now give $100,200 to new convention accounts authorized by a budget bill passed in late 2014.” Corporations are skittish about giving to either convention because of the potential for nastiness.
MORE ON THE REPUBLICAN RACE:
— Funny: Cruz claims he’d have a “positive and productive” relationship with Congress should he become president. (Good Morning America)
— Oops: Trump accidently said 7-Eleven instead of 9/11 during an emotional testimonial to “New York Values” last night: “I wrote this out, and it’s very close to my heart — because I was down there, and I watched our police and our firemen down on 7-Eleven, down at the World Trade Center, right after it came down, and I saw the greatest people I’ve ever seen in action,” Trump said at a rally near the Buffalo waterfront. He did not stop to correct himself. (Jenna Johnson)
– Trend: Attacking staff has increasingly become fair game this election year. Speaking yesterday to a group in Manhattan that included many Jewish Republicans, Cruz ripped Trump for hiring Paul Manafort. “Donald’s campaign is now being run by a longtime Washington lobbyist who has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Saudi Arabia to lobby against moving the American embassy (in Israel) to Jerusalem,” Cruz said at a closed-door session. “That’s who’s running Donald’s campaign!” (The audio was obtained by Politico’s Katie Glueck.)
— The world in 2016: A GOP strategist mocked by Trump on Twitter sued him for defamation. Cheryl Jacobus claims he “incited a virtual mob” against her with the tweet and wants $4 million. “Trump said publicly that Jacobus begged him for a job in an effort to belittle her, according to the suit. In fact, Jacobus claims, the Trump campaign had tried to recruit her as a communications director. Jacobus says she declined the job due to Lewandowski’s ‘erratic’ behavior during a June 2015 meeting at Trump Tower,” Bloomberg reports.
— Hidden camera footage obtained by HBO’s “Vice” show migrant workers who are building the Trump International Golf Club in Dubai living in squalor. From The Daily Beast: “In a clip from the episode set to air this Friday, correspondent Ben Anderson follows a bus full of workers as they depart the golf site and drive two hours into the desert to retreat to their grimy, overstuffed living quarters … One worker complains that Pakistan was better than being in Dubai but he cannot go home because his employers took his passport. The project has Trump’s licensed brand name attached to it but is not being built directly by Trump’s company.”
— Gov. Susana Martinez (R-N.M.) canceled plans to headline a dinner at the North Carolina Republican convention next month. A contentious event is likely (state leaders are trying to oust the party chairman) and there is political turmoil over HB2 (signed by Gov. Pat McCrory) that could hurt her back home. An aide to the the RGA chairman blamed a scheduling contest. (Santa Fe New Mexican)
SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ:
— ZIGNAL VISUAL: Sanders may be down double digits in the polls, but he is getting the most buzz on social media in New York. Over the past week, the senator has been mentioned 216,317 times across the mediums being tracked by our analytics partners at Zignal Labs. Clinton has been mentioned 126,017 times. That’s a 63 percent share of voice for Sanders. Here are total mentions for each of the past seven days. You can see the spike during Thursday night’s debate in Brooklyn:
For the earlier primaries, Twitter offered an #IVoted emoji for users who cast ballots. Because New York is so diverse, they have unveiled eight translations for today:
Trump urged supporters in New York to vote:
But it would not be an Election Day without Trump taking shots at his rivals:
Kasich only looks O.K. in polls against Hillary because nobody views him as a threat and therefore have placed ZERO negative ads against him
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2016
Lyin’ Ted Cruz even voted against Superstorm Sandy aid and September 11th help. So many New Yorkers devastated. Cruz hates New York!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2016
Cruz used an appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show last night to press Trump to release his tax returns:
I’ve released 9 years of tax returns. RT if you agree it’s time for Donald Trump to release his! https://t.co/08whtFVC0r
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 19, 2016
Here’s a crowd shot of Trump’s huge rally in Buffalo:
View of the Trump rally in Buffalo (in the arena where the Sabres play) pic.twitter.com/mrFP3zTtB7
— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) April 18, 2016
Protesters at Donald Trump’s rally in Buffalo are sitting down, forcing security to drag them out. pic.twitter.com/j5FQqXfPj7
— Jenna Johnson (@wpjenna) April 18, 2016
Clinton held a baby in Washington Heights:
She weighed in on immigration as SCOTUS heard oral arguments:
No child should have to live in fear of losing her parents to deportation. #FightForFamilieshttps://t.co/iOICFi8uQ2
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 18, 2016
Danny Glover campaigned for Sanders:
50 yrs ago Dr. King was building a beloved community for social justice. I felt that spirit w @BernieSanders tonight pic.twitter.com/Hqfz9HAeSY
— Danny Glover (@mrdannyglover) April 19, 2016
WATCH: @CecileRichards at Clinton rally: “A woman voting for Ted Cruz is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders” https://t.co/01YIyQUJEm
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 18, 2016
Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) congratulated Lin-Manuel Miranda on his Pulitzer for “Hamilton”:
Pearl Jam canceled a concert in North Carolina this week over H.B. 2:
It’s with deep consideration & much regret that we must cancel the Raleigh, NC show on 4/20: https://t.co/Z7I65UJmhP pic.twitter.com/P89wysiNFe
— Pearl Jam (@PearlJam) April 18, 2016
Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) posted this shot of the flood in Houston:
Another Texas Republican, Blake Farenthold, celebrated spring:
So did House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz:
Beautiful night
A photo posted by Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) on Apr 18, 2016 at 4:53pm PDT
HOT ON THE LEFT
“New York’s primary is ‘closed shut’ by insane registration rules,” from The New York Post: “New York’s deadline to switch parties or change affiliation is the earliest in the country … If you’re a Republican, Democrat or unaffiliated voter, you’d better know six months out whom you’re supporting, because there won’t be an opportunity to reconsider. This system both reinforces partisanship and punishes independent-minded voters, effectively disenfranchising them … In a state stacked with delegates, New Yorkers have an opportunity to change the race for the first time in 25 years. However, 3 million voters who aren’t registered Democrats or Republicans — 27 percent of all registered New York voters … will not be eligible to vote. And the multitude of ‘party switchers’ will be left out, too.”
HOT ON THE RIGHT
“Hillary Praised ‘Corrupt’ Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff For Her Transparency,” from The Daily Beast: “On Sunday, Brazilian lawmakers voted to impeach President Dilma Rousseff over alleged corruption. And that could make life a little uncomfortable for Hillary Clinton, who said just four years ago that Rousseff herself set ‘a global standard’ for transparency. [In 2012], Clinton pointed to Rousseff as a great example of an enemy of corruption. ‘So we now have a chance to set a new global standard for good governance and to strengthen a global ethos of transparency and accountability,’ Clinton said. ‘Her commitment to openness, transparency, her fight against corruption is setting a global standard.’”
DAYBOOK:
— Polls close in New York at 9 p.m. Eastern. “Counties typically report their votes quickly, so expect about half the total vote to be counted and released within the first hour after polls close,” the AP reports. “Upstate counties usually are the first to report, with New York City boroughs following. Based on past voting patterns, New York City should represent about half of the Democratic primary vote, and about 13 percent of the Republican primary vote. Overall, about 90 percent of the statewide vote should be counted by 11 p.m.”
“Since New York’s delegate distribution system is so complicated in both parties, it is going to be a while before we know the final delegate count out of the state,” USA Today notes. “Both Republicans and Democrats distribute a statewide chunk of delegates as well as a pot of delegates for each of New York’s 27 congressional districts. That means there are really 28 different races that need to be tallied before we know the delegate outcomes. Making matters worse, while Republicans award three delegates per congressional district, Democrats award four, five or six delegates depending on the district. While Democratic delegates are distributed on a proportional basis, Republican delegates in any of the 28 contests are winner-take-all if a candidate takes over 50% of the vote.”
On the campaign trail: Here’s the rundown:
Sanders: Erie, University Park, Pa.
Clinton: Evening event near Times Square
Trump: New York, N.Y.
Cruz: Philadelphia, Pa.
Kasich: Pittsburgh, Pa.; Annapolis, Md.
At the White House: President Obama departs Washington, D.C. en route to Ramstein, Germany, on his way to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Vice President Biden speaks at the White House Forum on Increasing Access to Justice.
On Capitol Hill: The Senate meets at 10 a.m. to resume work on the FAA bill. The House meets at noon for legislative business, and will vote on seven suspension bills.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
“A lot of black people feel like they can’t trust you because you mispronounced Beyonce’s name,” New York radio personality Charlamagne told Hillary during an interview. (Abby Phillip)
NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.:
— Another day of sunny skies and pleasant weather. The Capital Weather Gang forecasts that it will again be a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. “Another easy Nice Day qualifier with sunny skies this morning becoming partly sunny by afternoon. Highs in the upper 70s to low 80s as winds pick up a bit more. Low humidity continues to blow the pollen around, so allergy sufferers feel the downside of our spring weather bonanza.”
— The Capitals beat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-1 to take a 3-0 lead in the playoff series.
— The Nationals lost 6-1 against the Miami Marlins.
— The Federal Transit Authority called for “immediate action” from the D.C. Metro after finding the transit agency is failing to provide even basic safety protections — including working fire extinguishers and clear escape routes to help riders in the event of an emergency evacuation. (Lori Aratani)
— A student was dismissed from the elite Bullis School in Potomac after a video of him using vulgar racial epithets went viral. The senior was caught on tape using the N-word and “saying that he would hunt them down using dogs and lynch them.” (T. Rees Shapiro)
— A former Fairfax County police officer pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting John B. Geer in 2013 as he stood unarmed in the doorway of his Springfield home. (Tom Jackman)
— Virginia police widened their search for 31-year-old Nicole K. Mittendorff, deploying additional search and rescue operations after finding her car in Shenandoah National Park. (Justin Jouvenal)
— Baltimore congressman Dutch Ruppersberger endorsed Chris Van Hollen in Maryland’s Senate primary, becoming the first member of the state’s delegation to pick between the two House Democrats seeking the nomination. (Rachel Weiner)
— Cruz campaigned in Towson alongside Carly Fiorina. The Texas senator is battling Kasich for second place in Maryland. (The Baltimore Sun)
VIDEOS OF THE DAY:
A reporter saved a man from high flood water on live TV in Houston:
Funny or Die explored the experience of getting high at a Sanders rally. Watch the video here.
Jimmy Fallon cut together a clip of Sanders rapping:
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Check out Sanders’s and Clinton’s Brooklyn offices:
John Kasich got frustrated with a Financial Times reporter who asked him how he can be the nominee if he only won the Ohio primary:
John Kasich responds angrily to @DimiSevastopulo’s question on winning only 1 state in Republican race pic.twitter.com/MWAZbTrP6D
— Ben Marino (@benmarinojourno) April 18, 2016
Here are 18 of the countless times Trump has whined about being treated unfairly:
Finally, watch three rare Siberian tiger cubs grow up:
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