Donald Trump has just over one million dollars cash-on-hand, which is roughly equivalent to his hand sanitizer budget. His campaign is staffing up a rapid response team, an effort we’re going to codename “Operation Your Stupid.” And Steve King introduced a bill blocking Treasury from placing Harriet Tubman on the $20, probably because of all those people she shepherded north to give birth to Canadian anchor babies. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, June 21st, 2016:
DONALD TRUMP: HILLARY NOT LIKEABLE ENOUGH TO GOD - Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “I'm Great. Really Great,” he said. “My dad. Really classy guy. Repent and believe the good news!” Sam Levine: "Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday questioned the faith of Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, insinuating that neither may really be a Christian. He told a group of evangelical leaders that he doesn’t believe there is enough public information about Clinton’s religious beliefs. 'She’s been in the public eye for years and years, and yet there’s no, nothing out there. There’s like nothing out there,' he said. 'It’s going to be an extension of Obama, but it’s going to be worse, because with Obama you had to have your guard up. With Hillary you don’t and it’s going to be worse.'" [HuffPost]
THE LATEST ON TRUMP'S SCAMPAIGN - Sam Stein: "Documents show the Trump campaign made four payments totaling $35,000 to a firm called Draper Sterling… It was registered with the New Hampshire secretary of state’s office with the address of 18 Crosby Lane, Londonderry…. Someone named Jon Adkins applied for registration in New Hampshire on Feb. 14 and the firm was formally created on March 25…. Trump’s campaign did make a payment to Adkins directly in May: $3,000 for field consulting work. And on that payment, Adkins listed 18 Crosby Lane as his address. The campaign paid Paul Holzer $3,000 for field consulting work as well. He, too, listed his address as 18 Crosby Lane. While it’s unclear if the two live together (the neighbor suggested it was unlikely) they certainly are connected. Holzer and Adkins are the chief executive officer and director of business, respectively, at a company called Xeno Therapeutics, a 501(c)3 in Boston. The company says it uses 'lifesaving xeno technology' to help burn victims. It was founded in 2016 but its place of business appears to be an apartment, at least according to this Zillow listing. There is no phone number listed and after this story was published its website was taken down." [HuffPost]
GOP OPTS TO SAVE SECOND AMENDMENT, DESTROY THE FOURTH - Pay-as-you-go Constitution shredding. Responsible. Dustin Volz: "U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on Monday to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s authority to use a secretive surveillance order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing history information. The move, made via an amendment to a criminal justice appropriations bill, is an effort by Senate Republicans to respond to last week’s mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub after a series of measures to restrict guns offered by both parties failed on Monday...The bill is also supported by Republican Senators John Cornyn, Jeff Sessions and Richard Burr, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. Privacy advocates denounced the effort, saying it seeks to exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government’s digital spying powers. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, criticized a similar effort last month as one that “takes a hatchet to important protections for Americans’ liberty.” [Reuters]
DELANEY DOWNER - Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) wants to wash his hands of the federal food stamp program because beneficiaries eat so much filthy junk food. LePage told the Obama administration that he’d end the state’s administration of food stamps if the U.S. Department of Agriculture won’t let him decide which foods Mainers can buy with their benefits. “It’s time for the federal government to wake up and smell the energy drinks,” LePage wrote in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Doubtful that it will, I will be pursuing options to implement reform unilaterally or cease Maine’s administration of the food stamp program altogether,” LePage wrote. States distribute the benefits but the federal government sets the rules for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves roughly 44 million Americans nationwide, including nearly 200,000 in Maine. [HuffPost]
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TRUMP REALLY NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY - Trump raised *adopts Dr. Evil voice, places pinky to mouth* THREE MILLLLIIOOON DOLLARS. Paul Blumenthal: Presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump entered June with just $1.3 million cash on hand in his campaign account, according to a campaign finance report filed on Monday. The tiny sum is the result of Trump’s poor first month of fundraising from donors that netted just $3.1 million. … Clinton, by comparison, raised $26.4 million for her campaign in the same time period as Trump’s $3.1 million. In May 2012, when Romney was the presumptive Republican nominee, he raised $23.4 million. When party committees and supportive super PACs are factored in, the disparity between Clinton and Trump becomes astronomical. Aside from the $26.4 million raised for Clinton’s campaign, Priorities USA Action (the super PAC endorsed by her campaign) pulled in an additional $12.4 million. The Democratic National Committee also raised $12.3 million. In total, these three committees comprising Team Clinton entered June with $103.4 million cash on hand." [HuffPost]
TRUMP: WADDA BUSINESSMAN - Presumably his lectern at the presidential debates will be a cardboard box atop which he'll place three cards and ask America to keep an eye on the ace of spades. Christina Wilkie: "Donald Trump’s presidential campaign paid more than $1 million last month to companies controlled by the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, according to reports the Trump campaign filed late Monday with the Federal Election Commission. The figure represents payments for facilities rental, catering, monthly rents and utilities at more than a half-dozen Trump-owned companies and properties. It includes nearly $350,000 that the Trump campaign paid a Trump-owned company, TAG Air, for the use of Trump’s private jets and helicopters. The most striking expenditure in the new filings was $423,372, paid by the Trump campaign for rentals and catering at Trump’s 126-room Palm Beach, Florida, mansion, Mar-A-Lago, which Trump operates as a private club. Though the payment was in May, the Mar-A-Lago bill likely covers a number of campaign events Trump has staged there in recent months. A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign did not respond to an email from The Huffington Post inquiring about the expenditures and Mar-A-Lago." [HuffPost]
TRUMP CAMPAIGN ACTUALLY TRYING . . . A LITTLE BIT - Nick Gass: "A Trump campaign aide with knowledge of the plans told POLITICO that the rapid-response effort is a 'small team, but it's growing' and is 'actually only going to be growing from here.' 'This is Mr. Trump's vision and Mr. Trump's directive being executed,' the official said, adding that the team will respond in real time through TV interviews, press releases, emails and social media. Going forward, the campaign official said Trump's messages would target Clinton's policies to make the case that she is beholden to Wall Street interests, foreign governments and corporations — an argument frequently visited in the campaign's multiple coordinated messages Tuesday and all but assured to be the main subject of his Wednesday morning speech at Trump SoHo." [Politico]
Come to think of it, Trump is like a living, breathing robocall: "Donald Trump is sending out his first small-dollar fundraising email to supporters after a disastrous May fundraising report showed his campaign account drying up. The email pitch, sent Tuesday morning, promises that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee will personally match up to $2 million in donations between Tuesday and Thursday as he hopes to jump-start his fledgling fundraising organization and make up some of the gap between himself and likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.'This is my first fundraising email I have sent on behalf of my campaign,' he writes. 'That's right. The FIRST ONE.'" [The Hill's Ben Kamisar]
FATTAH FOUND GUILTY - Rema Rahman: "Rep. Chaka Fattah was convicted Tuesday on federal corruption charges that included a scheme to pay off debt from his failed campaign for mayor of Philadelphia, the Justice Department said. In a statement, Fattah acknowledged the conviction but stopped short of saying outright he had any plans to resign. He's already lost his primary, however, so he wouldn't be returning to Congress next year anyway...Fattah, 59, had been charged in a 29-count indictment with racketeering conspiracy, bribery and wire fraud as part of a probe launched by the IRS and FBI in March 2013." [Roll Call]
YOU KEEP DOING YOU, STEVE KING - Surprising we haven't heard him weigh in on Sacagawea dollars. "A Republican congressman is trying to block the Treasury from redesigning U.S. currency, a move that could prevent the government from replacing Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill with abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Rep. Steve King of Iowa has offered an amendment to a spending bill barring the use of funds to redesign any Federal Reserve note or coin. It wasn't immediately clear why King opposed the redesign, and his office did not immediately respond to messages...King is a conservative Republican known for his outspoken criticism of U.S. immigration policy. His Democratic opponent in Iowa, Kim Weaver, said it's "a headline-grabbing piece of stunt legislation.' 'And what chance does this meaningless and mean-spirited gesture have of actually passing? Just like most measures introduced by Steve King, none,' she said." [AP]
Very important Kim Davis update: "Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who made a splash last summer with her refusal to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, wants an appeals court to officially forget all about the incident and make the case go away. In a motion filed Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, where Davis is contesting an earlier contempt order against her, her lawyers asked for the whole matter to be dismissed because of recent developments in Kentucky law." [HuffPost's Cristian Farias]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here is a Summer '16 mashup.
It rained inside the Capitol complex today, but not like that.
COMFORT FOOD
- Exploring the interiors from "Murder She Wrote."
- If early 90s video games met Seinfeld .
TWITTERAMA
@daveweigel: Schumer, seeing huge scrum around Corker: "Did Trump announce him for Vice President?"
@mviser: The guy who owns a 64-story hotel gilded in 24-carat gold is running a Motel 6 campaign.
@ProfJeffJarviss: If I were @RoyalFamily I'd pull a Henry VIII and start a tweet war with @Pontifex. Huge engagement.
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