Subject: First Draft on Politics: Republican Infighting Puts Party Elders Back in Demand
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Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 07:18:04 -0400

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Monday, May 9, 2016

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Monday, May 9, 2016

Supporters of Donald J. Trump during the national anthem at a campaign rally at the Northwest Washington Fairgrounds in Lynden, Wash., on Saturday.

David Ryder for The New York Times

Republican Infighting Puts Party Elders Back in Demand

By ALEXANDER BURNS

Good Monday morning.

The Republican establishment is finally having its moment.

Up to this point, no one has had a rougher 2016 than the party’s ostensible chieftains: Its top strategists and donors have been thwarted at the ballot box, and Donald J. Trump has turned Republican congressional leaders into a punch line on the stump.

But that has changed in the last few days, as Mr. Trump has struggled to make peace with Republicans in Washington – and Hillary Clinton has made an aggressive bid to win over party elders aghast at Mr. Trump’s emergence as the presumptive Republican nominee.

Suddenly, these dreaded insiders are the most sought-after people in politics.

Mr. Trump is headed to Washington on Thursday to huddle with Paul D. Ryan, the speaker of the House, who announced last week that he was not prepared to back Mr. Trump for president. It could take a command performance on Capitol Hill for Mr. Trump to turn around his listing candidacy, at least with the elite groups that have rounded on him since last week.

His impatience in demanding their support has irked them only further: Mr. Trump huffed at a campaign stop over the weekend that Mr. Ryan was being “cute” about his endorsement. But a senior aide to Mr. Trump, Paul J. Manafort, said on Fox News that the campaign took the need for party unity seriously. (“Trump understands this,” he said.)

Mr. Trump is facing serious competitive pressure from outside the party: Mrs. Clinton, implicitly turning the page on her primary against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has begun casting her campaign as a safe haven for anti-Trump Republicans. She told CBS over the weekend that she saw her campaign welcoming non-Democrats who had “respect for the office” of the presidency and “deep concern” about Mr. Trump’s capacity to hold the job.

And the voters will get to weigh in again, too, this week: Mr. Sanders is seen as having an upper hand in the West Virginia primary, and it is worth watching whether any significant protest vote shows up against Mr. Trump there or in Nebraska’s now-ornamental Republican primary election.

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What We’re Watching Today

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Mrs. Clinton, her campaign says, will be in Virginia, which has already voted, to meet with women and families to talk about balancing work and family. Mr. Sanders will hold a rally in Atlantic City, N.J., which votes on June 7.

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Donald Trump’s Warning to Paul Ryan Signals Further G.O.P. Discord

By JEREMY W. PETERS

Mr. Trump’s refusal to rule out removing Mr. Ryan as the chairman of the party’s convention threatened to upset an event that is normally a display of unity.

Eric Thayer for The New York Times

Congressional Memo

Ted Cruz at a Crossroads as He Returns to the Senate

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Mr. Cruz is expected to return to Washington this week, but it is unclear whether he will fall in line with Donald J. Trump’s candidacy and with his fellow lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Why Republicans in Congress Are Opposing or Supporting Trump

By ALICIA PARLAPIANO

Lawmakers have grappled with the question of whether to support the presumptive nominee.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

First Draft

Hillary Clinton Says She Is Available for F.B.I. Interviews Over Emails

By ALEXANDER BURNS

Mrs. Clinton said on Sunday that the agency has not asked to interview her as part of its inquiry into her use of a personal email server as secretary of state.

Democrats Intend to Turn Up Pressure on Charles Grassley Over Merrick Garland

By CARL HULSE

As the Senate returns from a week off, Democrats and their allies intend to step up their efforts to make Mr. Grassley the poster boy for refusing to act on President Obama's nomination of Judge Garland.

Stay tuned throughout the day: Follow us on Twitter @NYTPolitics and on Facebook for First Draft updates.

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First Draft

John McCain Demands Donald Trump Make Amends to Veterans

By ALEXANDER BURNS

Mr. McCain called on Mr. Trump to apologize to veterans for his belittling comments about prisoners of war, and suggested that he would be unlikely to appear on a stage with Mr. Trump until that happens.

First Draft

Donald Trump Won’t Rule Out Effort to Remove Paul Ryan as Convention Chairman

By ALEXANDER BURNS

In an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Trump said there could be consequences in the event that Mr. Ryan continues withholding his support.

North Carolina Governor Won’t Concede That Bias Law Discriminates

By ALAN BLINDER

After failing to reach an agreement with the Justice Department that would have allowed him to delay his reply, Gov. Pat McCrory said he would respond on Monday.

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What We’re Reading Elsewhere

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Max Boot, “a foreign policy adviser to John McCain in 2008, Mitt Romney in 2012 and Marco Rubio this year,” writes in The Los Angeles Times that “the risk of Trump winning, however remote, represents the biggest national security threat that the United States faces today,” and that “for all her shortcomings (and there are many), Clinton would be far preferable.”

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CNN says that for Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio, who ended his campaign last week, it “often seemed more about the journey than the destination.”

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The Washington Post argues that Mrs. Clinton’s “wonky policies of fine-grained complexity contrast with rivals’ grandiose ideas.”

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