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“Oh, there’s softening,” Donald Trump said of his immigration position, though he shouldn’t be embarrassed, as it happens to lots of guys’ policy platforms. Republicans are baffled by Trump’s immigration speech, and it takes A LOT to baffle Republicans ― these are the people who nominated Donald Trump. And Senate Democrats want to to clean house ahead of a possible Hillary Clinton administration, passing a long-term budget and taking all the dirty clothes and dishes and stuffing them in the bedroom where guests won’t see them. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, September 1st, 2016:
HISPANIC STAFFERS RESIGNING TRUMP CAMPAIGN AFTER IMMIGRATION SPEECH - Not all the taco bowls in all the world… Elise Foley: “Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is quickly losing some of his Hispanic advisers and supporters after a hardline anti-undocumented immigrant speech on Wednesday. Jacob Monty, an immigration lawyer based in Houston, withdrew his support, and at least two other members of Trump’s National Hispanic Advisory Council have followed suit. Monty said Trump’s speech made him question whether the businessman even wants to win...Ramiro Pena, a Texas pastor and another member of the board, emailed campaign and Republican officials after the speech to say he thought it had killed Trump’s election chances, Politico reported. ‘I will pray over the next couple of days but it is difficult to [imagine] how I can continue to associate with the Trump campaign,’ he wrote, according to Politico. “I owe my national audience an explanation.’” [HuffPost]
TRUMP STILL MAKING NO SENSE ON IMMIGRATION - Attempts to make him seem presidential are about as successful as making Bernie Lomax dance. Elise Foley: “Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump offered the most detailed account yet of his immigration policy on Wednesday night. That didn’t stop him from trying to muddy the waters on Thursday about his positions. Appearing on the Laura Ingraham radio show Thursday morning, he went back to using the kind of language that caused speculation that he was open to legal status for undocumented immigrants. ‘Where’s the softening?’ Ingraham asked him, ‘Oh, there’s softening,’ he said, reiterating that he would carry out his policies ‘in a very humane way’ and deport gang members, drug dealers and criminals first, ‘We’ve got a lot of people in this country that you can’t have, and those people we’ll get out,’ Trump said. ‘And then we’re going to make a decision at a later date once everything is stabilized. I think you’re going to see there’s really quite a bit of softening.’” [HuffPost]
GOP PERPLEXED BY TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION SPEECH - McKay Coppins: “Trump’s much-hyped speech in Phoenix came after two roller-coaster weeks in which the nominee flailed and flip-flopped on the immigration issue, and suggested he was “softening” his stance. This brief flirtation with moderation led many to speculate that Trump was courting Hispanic voters — a theory that was buoyed by the candidate’s last-minute meeting with the Mexican president Wednesday. But interviews with a wide range of Republicans — from unabashed Trump supporters to #NeverTrump bitter-enders — suggested few in the party are still clinging to that hope. Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary and a reluctant Trump supporter, praised the nominee’s visit to Mexico, which he said made Trump ‘appear more presidential’ and could help win over ‘college-educated voters, a group with whom he’s greatly underperforming.’ But as for courting Latinos, Fleischer said, ‘I’m afraid it’s too late. He likely has already made too many Hispanics think he doesn’t want them in the country. They’re not listening to his next sentence. He’s already lost too much support that his words now won’t make any meaningful difference.’” [BuzzFeed]
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TRUMP’S FLORIDA OPERATION STILL FLEDGLING - Jennifer Jacobs and Kevin Cirilli: “How many of the 24 field offices that Team Trump said in early August they’d open this month in Florida are now up and running? None yet, according to Republican officials in the state. The Republican presidential nominee has one of his campaign’s weakest ground games in his most crucial swing state, several political insiders and donors told Bloomberg Politics. Now, some Republicans are worried it’s getting too late to recover, with vote-by-mail ballots going out starting in late September and Democrats pledging a big push in early voting. Karen Giorno, a senior Trump adviser who oversees Florida operations, said the promised 24 offices are coming. ‘We are going to be opening them shortly. The leases are being signed,’ she said.” [Bloomberg]
CLINTON USED TAXPAYER DOLLARS FOR CLINTON FOUNDATION - “Including servers” might win this year’s award for journalistic side eye. Ken Vogel: “Bill Clinton’s staff used a decades-old federal government program, originally created to keep former presidents out of the poorhouse, to subsidize his family’s foundation and an associated business, and to support his wife’s private email server, a POLITICO investigation has found. Taxpayer cash was used to buy IT equipment — including servers — housed at the Clinton Foundation, and also to supplement the pay and benefits of several aides now at the center of the email and cash-for-access scandals dogging Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. This investigation, which is based on records obtained from the General Services Administration through the Freedom of Information Act, does not reveal anything illegal. But it does offer fresh evidence of how the Clintons blurred the line between their nonprofit foundation, Hillary Clinton’s State Department, and the business dealings of Bill Clinton and the couple’s aides.” [Politico]
SENATE DEMS WANT TO CLEAR LEGISLATIVE TO-DO LIST- Alexander Bolton: “Senate Democrats on Thursday ruled out the possibility that they would agree to a long-term spending measure, saying they will not let talks spill over into the new president’s term. ‘Everyone should be alerted today that we’re not going to be doing a long-term CR,’ Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) told reporters on a conference call, referring to a continuing resolution to fund government beyond the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. ‘We’re not doing anything into next year and every Republican should be aware of that right now,’ said Reid, who is retiring at the end of the Congress. Reid’s comments reflect Democratic confidence that Hillary Clinton will be elected president. Clinton is leading Republican Donald Trump in polls, and Democrats want to give her a clean start as president so that she does not have to negotiate funding for the federal government in her first 100 days in office.” [The Hill]
GRASSLEY REITERATES OPPOSITION TO GARLAND HEARING - Sam Levine: “During a question-and-answer session at the Sioux City Rotary Club on Monday, Grassley said he was personally opposed to having hearings if Clinton won the election, but added that he wouldn’t get in the way if a majority of senators disagreed with him. The comment marked a shift for Grassley, who said unequivocally in May that the next president should fill the Supreme Court seat left empty by Justice Antonin Scalia and refused to have a hearing for President Barack Obama’s nominee. On Wednesday, Grassley ― who is seeking re-election ― said he had been misunderstood. ‘Everybody who heard me say that I said got the wrong opinion. People ask me to speculate, maybe I shouldn’t be speculating, and that’s all it was,’ he told reporters in Dubuque, Iowa. ‘My position is exactly the same as it was when I wrote the letter signed by 10 other members of the judiciary committee to other senators that it’s advised by the principle of the 30-year understanding, that if you have a vacancy in the last year, the people are going to have a voice,’ he continued. ‘So my position is, it’s going to be decided by whoever is elected president.’” [HuffPost]
THIS IS NO WAY TO TREAT A SUPERVOL - Grandma deserves better than this. Jeremy Fugleberg: “Online volunteers seeking to help Donald Trump by making phone calls might be signing up for more than they bargained for. To sign up on Trump’s website, potential volunteers must agree to a 2,271-word non-disclosure agreement in which they also promise they won’t compete against or say anything bad about Trump, his company, his family members or products – now and forever. The agreement is a required part of the sign-up process for Trump Red Dialer, an online call system that connects volunteers for the Republican presidential candidate with potential voters. Earlier this year, volunteers for Trump in New York had to sign non-disclosure agreements in person before making phone calls at Trump Tower. But the website requirement is the first indication that online volunteers must also sign the form, even if they’ll never meet a Trump family member, attend a Trump rally, meet a campaign staffer in person or step inside a Trump campaign office.” [Cincinnati Enquirer]
HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO INVESTIGATE CLIMATE INVESTIGATORS - But who will investigate the investigation investigators? Who, we ask you?!? Kate Sheppard: “House Science Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) wants to exert congressional authority over state attorneys general who are trying to investigate ExxonMobil’s climate record. The committee announced plans to hold an oversight hearing on Sept. 14 to ‘examine Congress’ investigative authority as it relates to the committee’s oversight of the impact of investigations undertaken by the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts at the behest of several environmental organizations.’ The hearing will feature three conservative legal scholars,according to The Hill. The hearing title, ‘Affirming Congress’ Constitutional Oversight Responsibilities: Subpoena Authority and Recourse for Failure to Comply with Lawfully Issued Subpoenas,’ is a mouthful. But it basically seeks to lend credence to the committee’s efforts to investigate the state attorneys general who are investigating ExxonMobil.” [HuffPost] BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR - Here’s a bunny on vacation.
THE HOTTEST OF TAKES - “From our respective positions of rabbi-counselor and former Playboy model and actress, we have often warned about pornography’s corrosive effects on a man’s soul and on his ability to function as husband and, by extension, as father. This is a public hazard of unprecedented seriousness given how freely available, anonymously accessible and easily disseminated pornography is nowadays.” [WSJ]
COMFORT FOOD
- The driver of this postal truck works a lot harder than you.
- Every Britney Spears song, ranked.
- Expensive thing goes boom.
TWITTERAMA
@nickconfessore: If anyone can get away with not lining out which independent expenditures are going in which states, it’s God.
Bike cop: freeze scumbag
Me: nah, you’re wearing shorts.
@pattymo: If Penn State really wants to honor Joe Paterno’s memory they should not tell anyone about the ceremony, then admit to it in several decades
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