Senate fails to pass new gun control restrictions
Today’s Minute: Trump axes top aide
As Trump founders, Clinton has perfect way to sink him: Barack Obama
11.54pm BST
The US Senate failed to advance new restrictions aimed at curtailing gun violence on Monday, as lawmakers voted down four separate measures just one week after a terrorist attack in Orlando marked the deadliest mass shooting in the nation’s history.
Democrats and Republicans had put forth competing amendments to both strengthen background checks and prevent suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms. But all four bills fell short of the 60 votes needed to clear a procedural hurdle in the Senate, in a near replica of a vote held in December when a pair of shooters killed 14 people and wounded 22 more in San Bernardino, California.
Related: Senate fails to pass new gun control restrictions in wake of Orlando shooting
11.51pm BST
Senator Dianne Feinstein’s amendment, Amendment #4720, has failed in a 47-53 vote.
Sponsored by Democrats, this amendment would have prohibited anyone on the terror watch list from buying a gun. Omar Mateen, the man who killed 49 people and injured 53 more in a gay nightclub in Orlando last weekend, was at one time on the terror watch list but had been taken off after being investigated by the FBI.
11.35pm BST
Senator John Cornyn’s amendment, Amendment #4749, has failed in a 53-47 vote.
Sponsored by Republicans, this amendment would have enabled the justice department to delay an individual on the FBI’s terror watch list from completing a gun purchase for a period of 72 hours. Within that time frame, the attorney general would have to prove to a judge that there was probable cause that the individual should be barred from buying a gun.
11.18pm BST
Senator Chris Murphy’s amendment, Amendment #4750, has failed in a 44-56 vote.
Sponsored by Democrats, this amendment would have required background checks on all firearm purchases except for gifts and loans between family members. It would have closed loopholes within the system that currently allow for purchases at gun shows and private sales without a background check.
11.11pm BST
The Trump Victory Fund, the joint effort between presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican party, transferred a mere $3.06 million to the Republican National Committee in May, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
By comparison, Mitt Romney’s Romney Victory sent the Republican National Committee $25.9 million in May 2012.
11.01pm BST
Senator Chuck Grassley’s amendment, Amendment #4751, has failed in a 53-47 vote.
This amendment would have poured more resources into the existing federal background checks system. Designed to encourage better prosecution of violations of the current system, it would not have expanded background checks such as the so-called “gun-show loophole.”
10.52pm BST
Looks like someone’s gunning for a role as Donald Trump’s new campaign manager:
Corey who...?
10.47pm BST
A renewed debate over gun laws takes center stage in Washington this evening as the Senate holds a rare vote on new firearm restrictions. Washington refocused on gun control, a politically toxic issue on both sides of the aisle, after an attack on an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in which 49 people were killed and 53 more injured. The shooting, which took place early on June 12, was the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
Related: Can the US break its cycle of gun control failure?
10.35pm BST
According to the latest campaign filings submitted by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, just released this afternoon by the Federal Election Commission, the former secretary of state’s presidential campaign has nearly $42.5 million in cash on hand, after raising $26.4 million last month.
That’s an increase in cash on hand of more than $10 million, from $30.1 million at the beginning of the last reporting period. At the same time, the campaign raised $19.5 million in donations from individual contributors.
10.27pm BST
“Unforced errors have no place on a general election campaign for the White House.”
Here's why @MichaelRCaputo says he resigned from the Trump campaign after gloating about @CLewandowski_ firing. pic.twitter.com/01DfzVnfUd
10.12pm BST
According to a dishy New York Magazine story, quoting sources familiar with the campaign, Donald Trump’s ex-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was fired after a meeting this morning that was orchestrated by Trump’s adult children with the express purpose of ousting the controversial campaign chief.
According to two sources briefed on the events, the meeting was a setup. Shortly after it began, the children peppered Lewandowski with questions, asking him to explain the campaign’s lack of infrastructure. “They went through the punch list. ‘Where are we with staffing? Where are we with getting the infrastructure built?’” one source explained. Their father grew visibly upset as he heard the list of failures. Finally, he turned to Lewandowski and said, ‘What’s your plan here?’
Lewandowski responded that he wanted to leak Trump’s vice-president pick.
9.40pm BST
Donald Trump senior adviser Michael Caputo has resigned from the campaign after sending out a delighted tweet following news that campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was fired this morning.
Ding dong the witch is dead! https://t.co/pSqQwmAGz1 pic.twitter.com/5dE7GMeEK6
9.35pm BST
Texas senator Ted Cruz has joined colleagues Mike Lee of Utah and Jeff Sessions of Alabama by sending a letter this afternoon to President Barack Obama requesting that the US not pick sides as the United Kingdom prepares to take a public vote on whether to remain in the European Union.
Cruz wrote that he, Lee and Sessions were “disturbed to see your Administration seeking to pressure the United Kingdom into remaining in the European Union,” writing to the president that his joint press conference with Prime Minister David Cameron last month “made it clear that you will use the power of the presidency to intervene in Britain’s decision, and that you place negotiations with Britain at ‘the back of the queue.’”
9.24pm BST
A federal agent has filed a report stating that a man who allegedly attempted to grab a police officer’s gun at a Donald Trump rally on Saturday intended on shooting the candidate, according to the Associated Press.
Michael Steven Sandford, a 19-year-old California native, was arrested on Saturday after allegedly trying to seize a police officer’s sidearm from its holster. Sandford reportedly told his arresting officers that he had driven from his home stat with the goal of shooting Trump. Before he arrived at the Treasure Island Casino, where Trump was holding a rally, Sandford told officers that he had gone to a Las Vegas shooting range in preparation.
9.02pm BST
Roughly 1,000 people joined in on a conference call meant to gauge interest in a long-shot rules change before the Republican National Convention next month, with the goal of preventing presumptive nominee Donald Trump from acceding to the party’s presidential nomination.
According to CNN, the conference call took place on Sunday and was organized by New Jersey Republican Steve Lonegan, in the hopes of raising money and hackles in the face of Trump’s nomination. Lonegan, Ted Cruz’s former New Jersey campaign chair who once described Trump as “Hillary Clinton with a penis,” clearly sees an opening after weeks of terrible press and polls that have Trump on the defensive while his general election campaign is still in the crib.
8.13pm BST
A super Pac tied to Donald Trump raised $1m in May, doubling its previous month’s haul. Hillary Clinton’s main outside group, meanwhile, raised $12m... and it now has more than $52m on hand.
Trump super PAC in May: $1 million
Clinton super PAC in May: $12 millionhttps://t.co/ppjYDtwXuI https://t.co/AOGozB73fr
NEW: Clinton super PAC @prioritiesUSA raised $12.1 million in May, its best month yet in 2016. $52 million on hand. https://t.co/RYTJDF7K7t
7.57pm BST
Henry J Gomez writes in Cleveland.com that “Hillary Clinton is off to a faster start than Donald Trump is in Ohio – and it isn’t even close”:
Trump is poorly organized in this region – he’s not particularly well organized anywhere – and hasn’t visited the Buckeye State since March. Conversely, Clinton’s stop Tuesday will be her second in eight days.
Consider some other numbers.
7.53pm BST
Who’s in charge?
Donald Trump Jr says "Paul [Manafort] has been in charge for a few weeks now." Lewandowski said Manafort had been in charge since April 7
7.39pm BST
Hillary Clinton said she was very proud of Democratic senators who mounted a filibuster last week to demand a vote on new gun safety laws. The senate was scheduled to vote Monday evening on universal background checks for gun purchases and on barring suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms.
Clinton to supporters on today's Senate guns votes https://t.co/ocwzOGkqEL pic.twitter.com/J05tq7srUJ
7.33pm BST
Corey Lewandowski has just completed an extensive, half-hour-long interview with CNN’s Dana Bash in which he insisted that nothing was going wrong with the Trump campaign and said he has no regrets.
Lewandowski said that 16 other campaign managers had tried to steer their candidates to victory, but only he “had the privilege” of doing so, and that if someone would have told him beforehand how it all came out, he would have asked, “is that possible”?
sounds from this Lewandowski interview like he left because campaign was going so well there was nothing left to do
This @DanaBashCNN interview with Lewandowski is becoming quietly epic. He's sounding as if he was just hired, not fired.
6.55pm BST
Campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has given a gracious interview to MSNBC in which he says he has no regrets about working for the Trump campaign, that he will continue to support Trump and that’s it’s “been an honor to be part of this from the beginning”.
Lewandowski told MSNBC’s Ali Vitali that he would still serve as chairman of the New Hampshire delegation to the Republican convention and that he looked forward to doing so because the convention would be so unique and have “so much flair” – “it’s going to be so different”.
Just spoke w/ Corey Lewandowski. He tells NBC exclusively that he's "honored" for time spent with campaign; "no regrets."
When I asked if it was fair for the past 6 weeks of rough news to be pinned on him he told me the buck stops with him as camp mgr. #nbc2016
Lewandowski also pushed back on NBC reports that family members pushed for his firing.
6.01pm BST
Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski tells CNN that not only is Trump “a great candidate”, he is “better than Hillary Clinton ever will be”:
Corey Lewandowski statement: "I stand by the fact that Mr. Trump is a great candidate and is better than Hilary Clinton ever will be."
5.56pm BST
Cleveland’s Quicken Loans arena finishes with basketball for the year (the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Golden State Warriors Sunday night, in Oakland, to win the NBA championships) and turns to politics – see you in a month!:
Goodbye @NBA finals; hello @GOPconvention Cool time lapse video from @theQArena
h/t @SteveScully https://t.co/j36MUFEnCW
5.53pm BST
For the past month, Donald Trump has been steadily falling in the polling averages - and the latest numbers to come from Monmouth University don’t offer good news for the presumptive Republican nominee.
In mid-May, Trump was averaging 43% of the vote share after a string of three polls put him slightly ahead of Democrat Hillary Clinton. Since then, Trump has fallen back behind Clinton (a position he has held in most polls for the past year) and worse still for Trump, Clinton’s lead has grown.
5.51pm BST
Fired Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has disclaimed responsibility for the difficulties the Trump campaign has encountered, blaming rival Paul Manafort, who, Lewandowski tells the Associated Press, was in charge:
Reached on Monday, Lewandowski deflected any criticism of his approach, pointing instead to campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
“Paul Manafort has been in operational control of the campaign since April 7. That’s a fact,” Lewandowski said, declining to elaborate on his dismissal.
"Paul Manafort has been in operational control of the campaign since April 7," Lewandowski tells the @AP https://t.co/BnhwrcRWPm
4.52pm BST
Lewandowski was escorted from Trump Tower by security, according to multiple sources.
And Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, appear to have been key proponents of the “ditch Corey” movement:
Trump source suggested final straw was "conflict between Corey and Hope which Ivanka didn't like" https://t.co/UjxY0ery7e
Lewandowski escorted out of Trump Tower by security per @KatyTurNBC / @AprilDRyan @KristalHigh @rolandsmartin
I'm told the person who convinced Trump to fire Corey is Ivanka - who met with her dad and said get rid of him or she can no longer help
I'm told that also intimately involved in getting Corey out was Trumps son in law Jared, who has a large and growing behind the scenes role
This is the top story on the website of the Jared Kushner owned New York Observer right now pic.twitter.com/UcD339be2o
4.50pm BST
A poll released today could shed some light on a crucial set of voters in the 2016 election: the undecided voters. Presidential candidates will be fiercely fighting over those voters between now and November while trying to shore up the support of those who say they have already made up their mind.
But the poll, which comes from CNBC and was published today with the headline “25% of voters in 2016 race remain undecided”, might not be all that useful. For starters, that 25% headline figure includes the 14% of respondents who said they planned to vote for “neither” candidate (they sound pretty decided to me and underscore just how much this election is shaping up to be an unpopularity contest).
4.25pm BST
Lewandowski’s Twitter profile remains loyal:
4.13pm BST
Our news story on the Lewandowski ouster, by Guardian politics reporter Ben Jacobs, is now up on the site – read it here:
Related: Donald Trump fires campaign manager Corey Lewandowski
4.12pm BST
Some Trump insiders say they were not given a heads up before Lewandowski’s ouster – but the Trump campaign did inform the Republican National Committee, Time’s Zeke Miller reports:
RNC was given a heads up on Trump campaign shakeup (which hasn't been the case previously)
4.10pm BST
Awkward? Corey Lewandowski, the deposed Trump campaign manager, is still slated to chair the delegation that New Hampshire will send to the Republican convention in support of Trump, the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs reports:
Just talked to New Hampshire Republican Party and was told Lewandowski is still slated to be delegation chair as of now.
According to NHGOP rules, Trump campaign cannot remove Corey as NH delegation chair to the convention. Can replace him only if he resigns.
3.59pm BST
As the Clinton campaign and outside groups supporting her ramp up ad spending in swing states higher into eight figures, the Trump campaign visibly does nothing (Note: Trump has apparently deleted a tweet sent early Monday morning boasting about two weekend fundraisers in which “I raised a lot of money for the Republican National Commiittee”).
Here’s NBC’s Mark Murray on Trump versus Clinton on ad spending:
Trump campaign, by the numbers
- trailing HRC by 6pts in RealClear avg
- Just $2.4M in bank
- Zero ad spending in battleground states
Clinton's battleground ad buy is now up to $20.9M, and here are the market-by-market spending numbers https://t.co/9Idi58f0Rj
Bombing the planes on the runway right now. Trump has $0 in ads. https://t.co/57tiWrYMw2
Trump still needs $$$$ and for him to not say stuff like he did about Curiel. Maybe ditching Corey L. helps. Or maybe the problem is Trump.
3.53pm BST
In which Trump in March vows loyalty to Lewandowski, and attacks Ted Cruz in February for firing his communications director (for spreading a false story about Marco Rubio and the Bible):
Wow was Ted Cruz disloyal to his very capable director of communication. He used him as a scape goat-fired like a dog! Ted panicked.
https://t.co/gi7DVMN20s
3.45pm BST
Apparently that has not been decided yet. Or it’s currently unknown or unclear.
You don't fire campaign manager w/out his replacement already lined up. That shd be the story. Now it's just more drama.
The Apprentice: Campaign Manager Edition
So when does Ivanka take over as campaign manager?
3.38pm BST
Lewandowski just “ran the tour” for Trump, NBC News quotes an unnamed source as saying:
Trump camp source downplays Corey's success: he "ran the tour. The tour manager for the Stones doesn't get inducted into the hall of fame."
Actually, Ian Stewart was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame https://t.co/ZAJROUcgtd
Trump insisted in our recent interview that Corey & Manafort got along great. Otherwise, "I get rid of one." pic.twitter.com/z55c6use4n
Campaign shake ups aren't new (gore '00, McCain '07, HRC '08), but has any WINNING campaign done major shakeup this deep into campaign?
3.31pm BST
NBC News reports that Trump dumped Lewandowski over the phone:
Trump informed Lewandowski he was out in a phone call today, @KellyO reports
"Lewandowski" is ancient Aramaic for "Scapegoat"
Reminds me of that time on The Apprentice where Mr Trump fired Gary Busey for not selling enough sno-cones, cuz it sure wasn't Trump's fault
3.28pm BST
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs detects some gaps in Trump’s internal communications around this major campaign overhaul:
I just talked to a high ranking Trump source who had "no idea what was going on"
I'm told by sources that Trump surrogates and campaign staffers were not told in advance about the Lewandowski news. Found out through media
Step 1: Drop campaign manager on Monday AM without telling top backers first
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit https://t.co/cjJE9cWzGp
Trump, again eschewing trad.
pol rules, didn't even attempt to bury Lewandowski on a summer Friday. Goes AM Mon. to ensure it drives week.
Fair or not, dropping a campaign manager can calm the waters. But this isn't how you do it https://t.co/eYSuTjy67r
3.22pm BST
Saturday: still on the Trump train.
Thank you Las Vegas, Nevada! #Trump2016 #TrumpTrain pic.twitter.com/qiea8bj12e
3.20pm BST
The departure of Corey Lewandowski from the Trump campaign began, in retrospect, in early April, when Trump hired Paul Manafort, 67, a longtime political fixer, to sort out his delegates woes.
At the time it appeared that Manafort’s main job might be to drive home the nomination for Trump even if the candidate fell short of a delegate majority. Texas senator Ted Cruz had succeeded in installing sympathetic delegates in states such as Louisiana that Trump had won cleanly, frustrating the Trump campaign.
Lewandowski had become an increasingly controversial figure after being charged with committing misdemeanor battery against a female reporter for conservative news site Breitbart.com. In a separate incident, Lewandowski accosted a protester in a crowd at a rally. Despite Trump’s willingness to unabashedly stand by Lewandowski, the candidate’s growing issues with delegate selection and preparing for a contested convention have put Lewandowski increasingly in the line of fire.
In an interview on Friday, Manafort further asserted his independence from Lewandowski, saying: “I work directly for the boss.”
Worth noting that prior to this, the Manafort-Lewandowski tension had reached a certain equilibrium
When Donald Trump decided towards the end of 2014 to make a bid for the most powerful job in the world, one of his first tasks was to appoint a manager to run his presidential campaign. The name he landed on was pure Trump: a former lobbyist for the seafood industry who had never run a national campaign, who had staged debates in public with a cardboard cutout, and whose only claim to fame was sneaking a gun into the US Capitol.
And so it came to pass that Corey Lewandowski became the behind-the-scenes mastermind of one of the most bewildering political campaigns in history. In no small part, Trump’s unlikely rise from maverick outsider to frontrunner on the verge of securing the Republican party nomination must be credited to this 42-year-old, who himself has undergone an astonishing ascent from the relative obscurity of New Hampshire politics to stand at the real estate billionaire’s side.
Related: Trump manager Corey Lewandowski: the poster boy of a brash new politics
Trump campaign says @PaulManafort is now fully in charge.
3.06pm BST
Wait – what happened to “we wish him the best in the future”?
Lackluster message discipline here from the Trump campaign – a senior Trump adviser and New York state director tweets, “ding dong the witch is dead”:
Ding dong the witch is dead! https://t.co/pSqQwmAGz1 pic.twitter.com/5dE7GMeEK6
Lewandowski exit suggests Trump realizes campaign has imploded. Question is whether Manafort can quickly rebuild, esp before convention.
3.02pm BST
Corey Lewandowski, the now-former Trump campaign manager, was a controversial figure inside the campaign for an abrasive personal style and outside the campaign, most notably, for being investigated for battery after he manhandled a reporter at a press conference in March.
Lewandowski, 43, is a graduate of the New Hampshire police academy and served as a trainee with the state police. His work in conservative political circles prior to the Trump campaign included managing voter-registration for Americans for Prosperity, an outside political group backed by funding from the Koch brothers.
Hey @CLewandowski_ I hear @BreitbartNews is hiring https://t.co/YKOZqRdi0p
Related: Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski will not face battery charges
2.50pm BST
Corey Lewandowski has left his post as campaign manager for Donald Trump, according to the New York Times. Lewandowski “will no longer be working with the campaign” and “we wish him the best in the future”, the Trump campaign told the Times in a statement.
The Donald J. Trump Campaign for President, which has set a historic record in the Republican Primary having received almost 14 million votes, has today announced that Corey Lewandowski will no longer be working with the campaign,” the campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said in a statement. “The campaign is grateful to Corey for his hard work and dedication and we wish him the best in the future.”
2.26pm BST
Good morning and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Donald Trump is gathering the top minds of his campaign, including family members, in Manhattan on Monday to discuss possibly reworking his political strategy, Bloomberg News reports. The meeting follows weeks of falling poll numbers, Republican defections and general clumsiness emanating from campaign headquarters on East 56th street.
An Olivia Nuzzi piece in GQ this morning, “The mystifying triumph of Hope Hicks”, captures a startling snapshot from inside the campaign, in the telling of Trump
attorney
adviser Sam Nunberg. Here’s a paragraph:
A 42-year-old operative who’d worked for the Tea Party group Americans for Prosperity, Lewandowski was now the campaign manager. Hicks was told she couldn’t work for both the political and corporate branches of the Trump team. She had to choose: Join the campaign or go back to the kids’ floor of Trump Tower. Hicks, who hates to disappoint, nonetheless told Lewandowski he’d have to find a new press secretary, which apparently set him off. “He made her cry a bunch of times,” Nunberg said. In Nunberg’s telling, Lewandowski said to Hicks, “You made a big fucking mistake; you’re fucking dead to me.” Lewandowski declined to either confirm or correct Nunberg’s recollection. “I don’t recall the specifics of that,” he told me. “I can say definitively that I don’t recall the specific incident that you’re referring to.”
When I said that if, within the Orlando club, you had some people with guns, I was obviously talking about additional guards or employees
If some of those great people that were in that club that night, had guns strapped to their waist, or strapped to their ankle... you would have had a situation folks that would have been always horrible, but nothing like the carnage”
With Republicans offering competing measures on both proposals, a breakthrough remains unlikely. None of the four amendments on offer is expected to clear the 60-vote threshold. A nearly identical vote was held in December, yielding no result.
If Clinton picked Warren, her whole base on Wall Street would leave her,” said one top Democratic donor who has helped raise millions for Clinton. “They would literally just say, ‘We have no qualms with you moving left, we understand all the things you’ve had to do because of Bernie Sanders, but if you are going there with Warren, we just can’t trust you, you’ve killed it.’”
Warren calls Trump a 'thin-skinned, racist bully'... @morningmika: The Clinton campaign is smart to bring her on https://t.co/omhQ46YoLj
Every day it becomes clearer that he is just a small, insecure money-grubber who doesn’t care about anyone or anything that doesn’t have the Trump name splashed all over it. Every day it becomes clearer that he is just a thin-skinned racist bully. And every day it becomes clearer that he will never become president of the United States.
.@Reince statement on Cavs win "just the first winner Cleveland will produce this summer!"
The weekend in Texas and Arizona wss fantastic. I raised a lot of money for the Republican National Committee @Reince.
The RNC *is* Trump's infrastructure. It's all for Trump: https://t.co/qfi1OrJgIt https://t.co/WIEXLR7R7J
Related: Bernie's best: a brief history of the Sanders revolution's biggest moments
.@POTUS trolls Jeter https://t.co/iUblGiKVss
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