Subject: STITCH: Trump Says He Can Win Without Unity, Ryan Trying to Deal with Puerto Rico Debt Issue, and Saturday Stitch Links
From: Jonathan Allen <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2016 16:46:20 +0000
List-Id: dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8fmc list <dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8f.326717.list-id.mcsv.net>

** THE BIG QUESTION

What's the first aspect of a general-election campaign operation Trump needs to build if he's the Republican nominee?

TRUMP SAYS HE'LL WIN WITH OR WITHOUT UNIFIED GOP
------------------------------------------------------------
JONATHAN MARTIN & ADAM NAGOURNEY report on the conflicting messages issued by Donald Trump during remarks to the California Republican Party's state convention yesterday. Trump spoke at times about unity but also continued to insult his rivals and former rivals, they write in the New York Times.
------------------------------------------------------------

"Ideally we’re going to be together. ... I think we’re going to win even if we’re not together. There are some people I honestly don’t want their endorsement.”

—Donald Trump/via NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/us/politics/trump-campaign.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0)

------------------------------------------------------------

Even as the GOP establishment becomes more comfortable with, or resigned to, the idea that Trump will lead the party in the fall, there's concern about more than just his politics, as JENNIFER JACOBS & KEVIN CIRILLI explain in the digital pages of Bloomberg Politics. Some Republicans worry that Trump hasn't done enough yet to build a fundraising operation, create a vetting process for a potential running mate or coordinate with the RNC about the convention, they write.

TRUMP WORLD'S RESPONSE: He's got this.
------------------------------------------------------------

"I think the campaign is totally focused on winning the nomination on the first ballot and positioning for the race against Hillary Clinton. ... And they’re well aware of both the opportunities and challenges they face in terms of fundraising and the vice presidency."

—Trump ally Roger Stone/Bloomberg Politics (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-04-29/trump-lacks-plan-for-november-fundraising-running-mate-vetting)

------------------------------------------------------------

** PUERTO RICO DEBT CRISIS ISSUE HEATING UP ON CAPITOL HILL
------------------------------------------------------------
PUERTO RICO'S FINANCIAL CRISIS has put House Speaker Paul Ryan in a tough spot, KRISTINA PETERSON & NICK TIMIRAOS report in the Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com/articles/paul-ryan-treads-a-tricky-line-on-puerto-rico-1461966677) .
* Puerto Rico is expected to default on a $422 million debt payment Monday.
* House conservatives don't want to bail out the territory or be perceived as bailing it out.
* Ryan has pushed for a fix now, knowing that the debt situation will only become more severe over time.
* Since many Americans are unaware that Puerto Rico is in fact part of the United States, it follows that most of them aren't pressing their elected representatives to act on Puerto Rican debt.
* Opponents of a debt-restructuring plan have been poured money into tough ads that are running in the Washington media market — ensuring that lawmakers and staff see them — and in House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop's district in Utah.

REP. SEAN DUFFY, like Ryan a Wisconsin Republican, introduced legislation in December that would allow for the restructuring of Puerto Rico's debt, and Bishop has been working on a revised version of that bill since it ran into resistance from some committee members. He told reporters he hopes to introduce that new version in a couple of weeks, according to Bloomberg'sBILLY HOUSE AND LAURA LITVAN (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-29/puerto-rico-s-fate-in-congress-rests-with-ex-high-school-teacher) .

IN THAT WAY THAT ONLY HE CAN, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid delivers a backhanded compliment to Ryan in the Journal in a manner clearly designed to exacerbate the division in the GOP over the issue.
------------------------------------------------------------

"Paul Ryan’s trying to do the right thing. ... But he’s running into the same problem that Boehner ran into.”

—Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid/WSJ (http://www.wsj.com/articles/paul-ryan-treads-a-tricky-line-on-puerto-rico-1461966677)

------------------------------------------------------------
REPUBLICAN LEADERS are trying to figure out how to write the bill in a way that solves the problem and can win the support of at least a majority of the House GOP.
------------------------------------------------------------

"We’re going to carry it with a majority of Republican votes. The number of Republicans opposed to it on my committee is highly overstated."

—Rep. Rob Bishop/Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-29/puerto-rico-s-fate-in-congress-rests-with-ex-high-school-teacher)

------------------------------------------------------------

** TRIVIAL PURSUITS
------------------------------------------------------------
ABOUT TODAY
The U.S. bought the Louisiana territory for $15 million on this day in 1803.

YESTERDAY'S TRIVIA
Ron Faucheux was the first person to correctly respond that Howard University is the HBCU named for a Union general from the Civil War, Oliver Otis Howard.

TODAY'S TRIVIA
Courtesy of Ron: What was the first primary Bobby Kennedy won in his 1968 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination?

Send answers to [email-masked]. The first person or automaton to send in the correct answer wins the right to ask Sunday's trivia question.

PLEASE SEND TIPS, suggestions, comments, complaints, corrections andawesome White House Correspondents Association dinner selfies with real, live celebrities to [email-masked].

------------------------------------------------------------

**
DIFFERENT PRESIDENTS, DIFFERENT PROCESSES FOR WHCD JOKE-WRITING
------------------------------------------------------------
A DAY AFTER former White House aides Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor talked about how the Obama team puts together his humorous White House Correspondents Association dinner speech each year, MARY KATE CARY, who wrote speeches for President George H.W. Bush, talked about the process in the elder Bush's White House in a live chat on Sidewire yesterday.
------------------------------------------------------------

"Our writing process was different from the Obama model — people didn't send jokes in (other than professional joke writers). Everything was written in house, at night, with funny people drinking a lot of scotch. No lobbying from outsiders."

—Mary Kate Cary/Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/c0c5e7b5ed3e0caa8485cc529da3b955/commentary/bb08d8b8-f333-4eac-87aa-46c36e32dd15)

------------------------------------------------------------
Can't really argue with scotch as a comic ingredient.

------------------------------------------------------------

**
SATURDAY STITCH LINKS
------------------------------------------------------------
Here are few quality reads this Saturday:
* Andrew Ross Sorkin on President Barack Obama's theory (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/magazine/president-obama-weighs-his-economic-legacy.html?action=click&contentCollection=magazine&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront)  about why American voters feel left behind despite a strengthening economy. (New York Times Magazine)
* In conjunction with tonight's White House Correspondents Association dinner, Emily Heil of the Washington Post looks at Obama as the first alt-comedy president (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2016/04/25/barack-obama-the-first-alt-comedy-president/?tid=a_inl) .
* Having trouble with how the delegate process works? Ed Kilgore of New York Magazine interviews expert Josh Putnam (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/gop-nomination-process-guru-answers-all.html)  to explain it all.
* Bill Kristol writes that Trump's foreign policy address (http://www.weeklystandard.com/donald-j.-obama/article/2002171)  this week reveals that the president he's closest to on foreign policy is ... Obama.

------------------------------------------------------------
—30—

============================================================
Have feedback for us? Email ** [email-masked] (mailto:[email-masked])
.

Sidewire, Inc.
633 Battery Street
Suite 100
San Francisco, CA 94111
USA

Want to change how you receive these emails? ** Update (http://sidewire.us11.list-manage1.com/profile?u=dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8f&id=7eeab627b3&e=584f90e12b)
your preferences or ** unsubscribe (http://sidewire.us11.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8f&id=7eeab627b3&e=584f90e12b&c=a330ec56f1)
.