Subject: IF YOU'RE GOOD RR2 IT
From: "Miranda, Luis" <[email-masked]>
To: "Paustenbach, Mark" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 19:18:47 -0700

HERE IT IS, IF YOU'RE GOOD RR2 IT.

Trump-Ryan Press Call Script 5.11.16

Mark Paustenbach:

Thank you, everyone, for joining today's on-the-record call. This call is being recorded. We look forward to discussing the state of the race following the results of last night's latest primary contests in West Virginia and Nebraska. We will also discuss the tomorrow's meetings between the Republican Party's new presumptive nominee for President, Donald Trump, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and the rest of the House Republican leadership. It's now clear that Trump is the Republican Party.

Now, I'd like to introduce Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Chair Wasserman Schultz:

Thank you Mark.

And thank you to everyone who is on the call. Of course we now know that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee, but we wanted to take a moment to discuss the historic and unprecedented division taking place on the Republican side --- especially visible this week as Donald Trump prepares to sit down tomorrow with Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The irony is that Trump's impending nomination is the result of years of the Republican Party elevating extreme voices, and using divisive campaigns that sought to exploit unfounded fears for political gain. Well they've made their bed, and now they're lying in it.

With his lock on the Republican nomination, Donald Trump has ensured that his Party's problems won't be limited to convention chaos -- he's going to force GOP races big and small across the country to have to own his ugly, divisive and dangerous rhetoric all the way to the general election.

That's why the party faithful -- from senior leaders to the voters of Nebraska and West Virginia yesterday -- have started to fret publicly about their party's deepening divides, and stumble with no real strategy for embracing their divisive and dangerous standard bearer. Democrats, on the other hand, have shown in state after state that our voters are excited about our primary, and optimistic about both of our candidates.

There has never been a situation in which the sitting Speaker of the House of Representatives simply doesn't want to support his party's nominee. It's stunning that Paul Ryan had to say he was willing to step down as the Chair of his party's convention.

The distress amongst party leaders is palpable. The list of Republican leaders who refuse to support Donald Trump got longer this week, with Ted Cruz joining Ryan, and a slew of former GOP presidential candidates and Republican presidents who are equally dismayed at his divisive and dangerous rhetoric.

In exit polls yesterday, just ten percent of Republican voters in West Virginia and three percent in Nebraska said they think their party is united. Majorities of Republican primary voters in recent weeks have expressed concern about their party being divided.

When you look at the trend lines nationally on our side, In contest after contest, Democratic voters are reporting their enthusiasm for both of our candidates.

*         The national trend favors Democrats, who have seen in exit polls week after week that our voters are excited about our primary.

o    In Indiana last week, three-quarters of Democrats said they've been energized by the nomination contest, while nearly six in ten Republicans said they think their party has been divided.

o    In Pennsylvania the week before, the story was the same, as it was in New York the week before that, and Wisconsin before that.

Democrats are building the infrastructure for the general election, and we're doing it with voters enthusiastic because they see our candidates have the right ideas to build on the progress of the last seven years.

So we're very confident that we're well positioned heading into the general election and that we'll have the strongest candidate.

But we're not taking anything for granted, we're going to hold Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot accountable for their repeated promises to drag our country right back to the reckless policies that were in place in 2009 when the last Republican president left office; when we were losing 800,000 jobs a month; and, when countless Americans lost their homes and savings.

So that's another reason that this Trump - Ryan - McConnell meeting matters. It's a reminder that what the Republican presumptive nominee is promising is the same brand of trickle-down economic policies that help those at the top while costing hardworking Americans.

Despite their fretting over his divisive and dangerous rhetoric, when you look under the hood, Trump doesn't look much different from Ryan or McConnell, and certainly like many of the down ballot Republicans.

Despite his attempts at slight-of-hand, for example, it's clear that Trump's reckless tax plan is modeled on what the Republican Party has done for years, built on the same failed foundation of rewarding those at the top<http://www.npr.org/2015/12/22/460743371/analysis-trump-tax-plan-boosts-the-rich-could-be-a-drag-on-the-economy> by slashing the top income tax rate. Trump's plan would bring that tax rate to 25 percent from 39.6 percent. That would give<http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/first-read-why-trump-s-flip-flop-taxes-matters-n570431> the "top 0.1% of income earners like himself an average tax cut of more than $1.3 million."

Republicans in Congress also want to lower<http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2015/10/paul_ryan_wants_to_cut_taxes_f.php#.VzJmBoSDGkp> the individual tax rate for the wealthiest Americans to 25 percent. Trump also plans to substantially<https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/tax-reform> reduce the corporate tax rate, instead of fixing loopholes that allow some large companies to pay no federal income tax at all. Paul Ryan and his colleagues have also proposed cutting corporate taxes down to 25 percent - making Trump's 15 percent plan even more extreme than the Ryan Budget.

It's the same old Republican playbook. And it's consistent with Trump's history of making money off the backs of hardworking people.

Trump's Republican bona fides go further. He actually said at one of the Republican Party's debates that wages were "too high". He not only opposes raising the federal minimum wage but thinks there shouldn't be a federal minimum wage at all. Now he tries to play sleight of hand, but that's what he promised.

And Trump's statement this past week that the United States of America, as a country, shouldn't honor its debt and just print more money is flat out dangerous. But it's consistent with McConnell and Ryan, who have allowed their colleagues in Congress to bring our country to the brink of default by playing games with the debt ceiling, and threatened our credit rating.

Put simply, Trump and the Republicans he's meeting with cannot be trusted on the economy. When they win, the American people lose.

Trump is divisive and dangerous, and he lacks the judgment and temperament to be president. The contrast couldn't be clearer with our candidates, who I'm proud of, who have run substantive and spirited campaigns.

Now we can open it up to questions.

[SigDems]<http://www.democrats.org/>Luis Miranda, Communications Director
Democratic National Committee
202-863-8148 - [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]> - @MiraLuisDC<https://www.twitter.com/MiraLuisDC>