Morning Jumpstart
- Obama to Dallas: Console, reassure
- Dallas shootings: Vigil / Doctors speak out
- Trump veepstakes: He likes the “political”
- “Trumped!” audio: Hillary/sex/guns/sex
- Clinton emails: Republicans forge ahead
- Clinton & Sanders together in NH today
- South Sudan’s leaders order truce
- Theresa May promises “better Britain”
• President Obama travels to Dallas today to mourn the deaths of five white police officers gunned down by a black Army veteran. Obama huddled with his speechwriters for much of Monday, hoping to find words that would not only console the families but also reassure a nation fearful that racial divisions are worsening (first, accept that race is USA’s most challenging issue)
• Obama approached the effort with the frustration of a man who has poured his heart and soul into similar speeches, only to later feel that nothing has changed and no one is listening. This will be the 11th time in his presidency that he has sought to comfort a city after a mass killing, and the second time in a month that such a killing grew out of bias
• Obama’s task is especially tough because Dallas has already undertaken many of the steps that his admin has advocated to improve race relations and foster better community ties with the police
• Former President George W. Bush, who lives in Dallas, will also speak at today’s memorial, a rare event in his post-presidency. VP Joe Biden will also attend the service. Obama’s speech will almost certainly call for greater understanding from all sides of the debate while emphasizing that race relations are much improved since the 1960s (we need to talk – and listen – to each other)
• Obama has been criticized by civil rights leaders for choosing to visit Dallas instead of Louisiana or Minnesota, the scenes of recent killings of black men by police officers. In every speech on policing and race, Obama has tried to strike a balance, acknowledging bias in the criminal justice system but saying that it’s not an indictment of all police officers. He walks a tightrope
• More than 1,000 people gathered in downtown Dallas Monday night to attend a candlelight vigil for the five police officers killed during a protest march. Speakers included police officers and friends of the slain officers. Dallas Police Chief David Brown told the crowd that police officers were like superheroes
• President Obama on Monday described the Dallas shooting as a “hate crime” similar to the Dylann Roof shooting in Charleston, said Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, who attended a nearly two-hour meeting with Obama, VP Joe Biden and seven other police assn officials, as well as rank-and-file officers (Obama should say that today)
• Wednesday, Obama will gather law enforcement officials and policing reform activists to discuss ways to jumpstart the reforms outlined by a WH task force last year. Also Wednesday – funerals for the officers will begin. Brown said attending them was “going to be the most challenging thing in my life”
• The gunman who killed the officers has bomb-making skills and a large cache of material to make bombs, Brown said at a presser Monday, but investigators will don’t know how he learned to make explosives or how he planned to use them (he was in carpentry in the Army – and he didn’t see combat)
• During the standoff after the shooting, Micah Johnson told police that he had planted explosives, but they haven’t found any. “The concern is that we haven’t found something that’s out there,” Brown said
Protests / Doctors Speak Out
• The chief made his comments amid another day of protests, vigils and calls for peace around the country after a week of unsettling violence that began with the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn
• Amid the protests, a shooting in a Michigan courthouse on Monday underscored the danger faced by law enforcement personnel. Two court bailiffs were fatally shot in St Joseph, in southwestern Michigan, before the gunman was killed, sheriff officials said (this was pretty appalling – that the inmate was able to get hold of the gun)
• Detectives in Dallas are poring over 170 hours of video taken by officers’ body cameras, Brown said, and “countless hours” of video from police dashboard cameras, security cameras at local businesses and more than 300 witness interviews
• In a summary of an interview with Johnson’s parents with The Blaze, the killer’s mother, Delphine Johnson, reported that he had “displayed a noticeable change of behavior” after his Army discharge in 2015. Johnson said her son had transformed from an extrovert into a “hermit” after serving in the military (yeah? wonder what impact he had on the woman he sexually harassed)
• At Parkland Hospital, doctors held an emotional presser on Monday. “That I was unable to save those cops when they came here that night, it weighs on my mind constantly,” said Dr Brian Williams, a trauma surgeon, who is black
• President Obama will deploy 560 more troops to Iraq to help retake Mosul, the largest city controlled by ISIS, SecDef Ash Carter announced on Monday, bringing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to 4,647. GOP leaders in Congress are demanding Obama seek additional funding to pay for the troops (floor fight coming) (NYT, TMN)
Trump Veepstakes: He Likes the “Political” (WaPo, Hill, me)
• “I have five people, including the general,” Donald Trump told WaPo in a phone interview Monday (weird as WaPo is banned from his rallies for lying…) referring to retired Lt Gen Michael Flynn. “I do like the military, but I do very much like the political. In my mind, I have someone that would be really good.” Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Mike Pence and Who Else??
• “I have such great respect for the general, but believe it or not that will be one of my strong suits,” Trump said (really?) I was against the war in Iraq from the start.” (no he wasn’t – check it out – recurrent lie) Trump said he would make up his mind in the “next three to four days.”
• “I don’t need two anti-establishment people,” Trump said. “Someone respected by the establishment and liked by the establishment would be good for unification. I do like unification of the Republican Party.” Trump also cited “great chemistry with me” (is this Match.com?) and someone “who can help you win” as major factors in his VP selection process
• Trump laid into Hillary Clinton. “She is highly overrated in the brains department,” he said. “She is really bad at reacting under pressure.” Of himself, Trump said “I was always a good athlete,” adding: “Under pressure, some good athletes become bad athletes” – referring to Clinton (would like to see him grilled by a highly hostile House committee for 11 hours and not lose it…)
• Later, “I’m the law and order candidate,” Trump said at the top of his carefully scripted speech in Virginia Beach, Va. Trump used the event to outline his strategies to streamline the Dept of Veterans Affairs. He argued that Clinton would pursue policies benefiting only the nation’s elites. For others, “she couldn’t care less,” Trump said (ouch)
• Donald Trump in a speech on Monday proposed a “private WH hotline” that veterans could call, which would be operated 24/7 to ensure that “no valid complaint” about the VA and “its wrongdoing” falls through the cracks. He’s had such a hotline since the primaries – and it works like – well, actually, it doesn’t work – according to The Blaze and HuffPo (HuffPo, Hill)
“Trumped!”: Hillary/Sex/Guns/Sex… (WSJ, me)
• Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton would “make a good president” in 2008, according to a previously unreported clip from “Trumped!”, a syndicated radio feature that aired from 2004-2008 and consisted of a daily commentary of about 60 seconds from the real estate mogul. WSJ tracked down audio clips and transcripts
• In an early 2008 broadcast on Clinton, aired as she and Barack Obama still were dueling for the Democratic nomination, Trump said that “at least one member of
Excellent! Very thorough roundup — especially interesting on the quick “leadership” change in the UK.