Welcome to THE TRAIL 2016, your daily rundown from The Hill on all the latest news in the White House, Senate and House races.
Tonight, Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka will bring what they hope will be an attractive policy to the electorally crucial Philadelphia suburbs: Paid leave for new mothers.
Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway knows her candidate needs to raise his standing among college educated whites – particularly suburban women – if he’s to beat Hillary Clinton in November.
And Trump, prodded by his daughter Ivanka, figures child care is part of the answer.
The Trump campaign held a conference call Tuesday morning to foreshadow his expanded child care plans. His policies will include six weeks of mandatory paid leave for new mothers and expanded tax credits to pay for child care.
Trump’s team says it will make up the savings to pay for his plan by eliminating fraud in unemployment insurance.
Clinton’s campaign craves a fight over child care – an issue the first female nominee of a major political party views as her own. They’re calling Trump’s plan insufficient and discriminatory, reports The Hill’s Ben Kamisar.
Stay with TheHill.com tonight and tomorrow for plenty of news from the trail. Stay tuned especially for Amie Parnes’ and Niall Stanage’s latest reports on Clinton’s rolling dilemmas, and how Trump plans to make her pay.Check back as well for Reid Wilson’s inside look on Sen. Mitch McConnell’s 30-year quest to turn Kentucky red.
RACE TO 1600 PENN
SUPER SURROGATE: The Hill’s Jordan Fabian reports: Hillary Clinton stayed home sick, but she had a fairly OK substitute campaigning on her behalf: The President of the United States.
CHARACTER REFERENCE: The Hill’s Scott Wong reports: Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence huddled with more than 200 House Republicans in a closed-door meeting Tuesday, seeking to assuage lawmakers still skeptical of Donald Trump.
TESTY OVER TRANSPARENCY #1: The Hill’s Katie Bo Williams reports: Three IT specialists involved with Hillary Clinton’s private email server on Tuesday refused to testify before the House Oversight Committee on deletions of some of Clinton’s emails.
TESTY OVER TRANSPARENCY #2: The Hill’s Katie Bo Williams reports: Former senior Clinton adviser Justin Cooper repeatedly professed that he could not provide specific details about the security protections in place on Hillary Clinton’s private email server during a Tuesday congressional hearing.
TESTY OVER TRANSPARENCY #3: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Donald Trump’s campaign manager defended her boss’s transparency in a CNN interview Tuesday morning, facing off with a news anchor in a testy exchange.
SEPTEMBER DISASTER: The Hill’s Niall Stanage reports: Hillary Clinton’s health problems — and, in particular, the shocking video of her being helped into a van on Sunday — are the worst developments yet for a campaign that has hit a serious rough patch.
ODDS AND ENDS
SOFT EDIT: The Hill’s Joe Concha reports: CBS News edited a video clip and transcript to remove former President Bill Clinton’s comment during an interview that Hillary Clinton, now the Democratic presidential nominee, “frequently” fainted in the past.
FROM RUSSIA WITH HATE: The Hill’s Joe Concha reports: Hinting at potentially malevolent Russian influence, a well-known forensic pathologist speculated that Clinton may have been poisoned and that this could have led to her collapse on Sunday after a 9/11 memorial service.
SEX BOMB: The Hill’s Rebecca Savransky reports: Former Rep. Joe Garcia (D-Fla.) apologized Tuesday for “poorly worded” comments he made over the weekend, when he said Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “is under no illusions that you want to have sex with her.”
DUKE-ING IT OUT: The Hill’s Nikita Vladimirov reports: Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Tuesday that Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, should have called David Duke “deplorable” to avoid negative headlines. In case Pence hasn’t had enough free advice yet, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) advised him to call Duke’s ideas deplorable.
IS DAVID DUKE GETTING ENOUGH PUBLICITY? The Hill’s Harper Neidig reports: Clinton’s VP pick Tim Kaine is defending his running mate for her “basket of deplorables” comment. Kaine has accused Trump of “chumming around” with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
POLL POSITION
CLINTON UP IN VIRGINIA: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 6 points in the battleground state of Virginia, according to a poll released Tuesday.
THE HISPANICS (DON’T) LOVE HIM: The Hill’s Jessie Hellmann reports: Clinton leads Trump by massive margins among Latino voters in four battleground states, a poll released Tuesday shows.
JEWISH SUPPORT: The Hill’s Rebecca Savransky reports:Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has a large lead over Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump among Jewish voters, according to a poll released Tuesday.
THE DAILY TRUMP
BREAKING THE MOLD: The Hill’s Timothy Cama reports: In another trip to a poor, disaster-stricken, neighborhood, Donald Trump is planning to visit Flint, Mich., Wednesday as the city works to recover from its devastating drinking water crisis.
JURY’S OUT: The Hill’s Timothy Cama reports: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said there is still a lot about climate change that needs to be investigated.
OH, ROGER! The Hill’s Nikita Vladimirov reports: A super-PAC started by Trump ally Roger Stone, will pay $25,000 for a 55-foot digital billboard in Times Square. The billboard will show Trump flying through the clouds in a Superman costume with a letter “T” on his chest and the name “Super Trump” above the image.
RELAX, MR. TRUMP; THIS WON’T HURT A BIT: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Television personality Mehmet Oz says he won’t ask Donald Trump questions the Republican presidential nominee doesn’t want to answer when he appears on “The Dr. Oz Show” to discuss his health records.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I have talked to a lot of undecided voters in last day. Their reaction to Hillary’s illness is that they have great compassion for her.”
— Matthew Dowd, former top strategist for president George W. Bush.
CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGNS
UGLY IN LOUISIANA: The Hill’s Harper Neidig reports: The wife of Rep. Charles Boustany (La.), a Republican Senate candidate in Louisiana, is calling reports of him being linked to prostitutes “false attacks” meant to damage his campaign, according to The Associated Press.
IT’S SPANISH FOR #NEVERTRUMP: The Hill’s Jessie Hellmann reports: Sen. Mark Kirk, one of the few Republicans up for reelection who has openly denounced Donald Trump, released a 30-second ad aimed at Hispanics, in which the Illinois Senator says “Yo no apoyo a Trump.” That’s Spanish for “I do not support Trump.”
HAPPY AS HARRY: The Hill’s Jordain Carney reports: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday brushed off a spate of recent polling that shows GOP candidates leading in crucial Senate races, arguing his party will win control of the upper chamber in November.
MONEY WATCH
IT’S ON THE HOUSE: The Hill’s Jonathan Swan reports: A super-PAC linked to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is dropping record amounts of cash to help Republicans preserve their majority in the House.
SAVE OUR SENATE: The Hill’s Jonathan Swan reports: A super-PAC run by allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) launched its fall advertising campaign Tuesday, bombing Democratic Senate candidates with more than $35 million in attack ads.
WHAT WE ARE WATCHING FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW
(All times Eastern)
Tonight, Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka are holding a rally at 7:30 in Aston, Pa. Later, Ivanka Trump will be on Megyn Kelly’s show at 9 p.m. on Fox News, as will Katrina Pierson, Trump campaign national spokeswoman. The GOP presidential nominee will be a guest with Sean Hannity at 10 p.m. on Fox. On Wednesday, he holds a 7 p.m. rally in Canton, Ohio. He reportedly will also visit Flint, Mich.
On Wednesday, with her mother still resting from pneumonia, Chelsea Clinton has a busy day on the campaign trail. She’ll campaign in Raleigh, N.C., at 8:30 a.m. then go to Carrboro, N.C., for a voter registration drive at 10:30 a.m. She’ll then be off to Roanoke, Va., to tour Small Steps Learning Academy at 1:30 p.m and to talk about college debt at Roanoke College at 3:30 p.m.
Clinton will have another active family surrogate in her husband, Bill Clinton. The 42nd president will sub in for his wife at a 2 p.m. event at the College of Southern Nevada in North Las Vegas.
TWEET OF THE DAY
Evan McMullin is an independent presidential candidate who launched his campaign in August as an alternative to Trump.
Write us with tips, suggestions and news: Jonathan Easley, Ben Kamisar, Jonathan Swan, Lisa Hagen.
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