Subject: DWS Media in Los Angeles, CA
From: "Garcia, Walter" <[email-masked]>
To: Comm_D <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 May 2016 07:53:44 -0700

Below you'll find all the coverage in one place.

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Media's Trump Coverage 'Needs to Be Balanced' In General Election, Says DNC Chair<http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/debbie-wasserman-schultz-donald-trump-news-media-general-election-1201767027/>

VARIETY // TED JOHNSON

Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said that she expects that the "outrageously imbalanced" news media coverage of Donald Trump will "begin to even out" as the race heads to the general election.

In an interview with Variety on Wednesday, Wasserman Schultz said that the general election will present a different dynamic because it will be a head-to-head matchup, versus the GOP primary when Trump dominated coverage against 16 other opponents.

She said that the DNC "will be pushing for accountability when it comes to the media's coverage of this campaign from our perspective. The opportunities should be essentially even, and so it is my hope and our expectation that the coverage would begin to even out, and you not allow what they allowed to play out during the primary. And I expect that they will be more responsible about it than they have."

Analytics firm MediaQuant valued Trump's earned media coverage at $2.8 billion, compared to $1.2 billion for Hillary Clinton, $770.7 million for Ted Cruz and $658 million for Bernie Sanders. The figures are for 12 months ended April 30. The Trump coverage, she said, has "kind of been outrageously imbalanced."

Still, Wasserman Schultz said that it was "not for us to dictate" whether news networks conduct phone interviews with Trump, as opposed to in-studio or on camera interviews. Clinton has conducted phoners too, but news networks have been criticized for the extent to which they have featured Trump by audio only.

"I am just talking about the coverage needs to be balanced, and they can't just focus on ratings, and they need to focus on making sure that they present a fair opportunity that is presented to them without being mindful that there is a candidate on the other side," she said.

Wasserman Schultz was at the headquarters of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, the day after Trump trounced Cruz in the Indiana primary and Cruz dropped out. Trump's remaining rival, John Kasich, abandoned his bid on Wednesday, making Trump the presumptive nominee.

Wasserman Schultz called Trump an "abomination."

"Donald Trump is the Republican party," Wasserman Schultz said. "...So any comparison of Donald Trump being able to vanquish his opponents in the primary to he general election are really completely comparing apples and oranges. Donald Trump's success has proven that this is where the Republican party of today is. They are right wing and extreme. They support misogyny. They are willing to support the most bigoted, sexist, misogynistic bully that has campaigned for the presidency in modern times. And that certainly is not where a majority of Americans are."

Still, she said that she agrees with pundits and analysts who say that Trump should not be underestimated.

"We are a divided nation," she said. "We are going to take this election very seriously, unlike Republicans, who laughed Donald Trump off for far too long. We have been assuming for many months that he would be their nominee, have been preparing for him to be their nominee, and we will be running this election as if it were a down-to-the-wire close election."

The race between Clinton and Sanders has gotten heated, while the expectation had been that the Democrats would wrap up their primary race before the Republicans did. Instead, Sanders won Indiana's primary, although it didn't put much of a dent in Clinton's delegate lead.

Wasserman Schultz said that she was "confident" of party unity.

"On our side, compared to 2008, this is a relatively tame back and forth," Wasserman Schultz said. "Go back and watch some of the acrimony between Obama and Clinton at this point. The election was much closer, and you had a lot more acrimony. Surrogates were on TV trashing the other. And not only did we reunify even though it played out through the primaries, President Obama eventually asked Senator Clinton to be his secretary of state."

Wasserman Schultz said that she has "cautioned the candidates at this stage of the campaign to be mindful of tone," but she also noted that each candidate has vowed to support the other in the general election.

Instead, she said that it is Republicans who "have a real problem with unity" based on sentiments expressed by some conservatives on social media who say they will never back Trump.

She said that they would be reaching out to Republicans to support the Democratic nominee.

"There are a number coming out publicly on their own," she said. "We always do, but we see many more than usual on the Republican side who are actually saying they will not only go to the polls and vote for our candidate but will be willing to work for our candidate."

She predicted that there will be more voter interest in the Democratic National Convention than the Republican gathering, which she said is "going to be a circus."

"They are about to nominate the most extreme, racist, sexist, bigoted, misogynist in modern times," she said. "So watching their convention play out will be more like watching a train wreck. You shouldn't do it, but you can't help yourself."

She added, "If you look comparatively at 2012, the Republican National Convention, with a so-called establishment nominee, ended with Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair." She said that this years DNC "will be such a clear and stark contrast about the choice that voters will have in being able to move us forward and focus on the future or be dragged backwards and worse."

Wasserman Schultz said that she expected the electoral map to look like it did in 2012, although she pointed to demographic shifts and expected turnout from voters alarmed at the prospect of Trump being elected. Although California is reliably blue, she pointed to 14,000 new Democrats registered in Orange County, a traditional conservative bastion.

"They are generating interest on our side simply because of how badly [the Republicans] are alienating large groups of voters," she said.

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders bring Democratic battle to California<http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20160504/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-bring-democratic-battle-to-california>

LA DAILY NEWS // DAVID MONTERO

Welcome to what battleground state status feels like, California Democrats. At least for a little while.

Just hours after Indiana sent Sen. Ted Cruz packing and Ohio Gov. John Kasich called it quits, essentially making Donald Trump the presumptive Republican nominee for president, the Democrats found they were the ones in the middle of the political drama, with their front-runner being chased by a challenger who not only won in the Hoosier State but has vowed to keep fighting through California's June 7 primary.

Bernie Sanders may be a mathematical long shot to get the Democratic presidential nomination, despite winning the Indiana primary Tuesday, but Hillary Clinton isn't taking chances and has begun flooding California with rallies, office openings and fundraisers.

The tussle between Clinton and Sanders for the state's 475 delegates started in earnest today, as early primary voting gets underway Monday.

Former President Bill Clinton spoke in Los Angeles on behalf of his wife at the Grand Suite Hotel on Wednesday before participating in a panel discussion about gun violence with members of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and actor Brad Pitt in the evening.

His appearances in Southern California also included a speech in San Diego.

The former president is also participating in a fundraiser this week and will deliver the commencement speech for undergraduates at Loyola Marymont University on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Sanders had surrogates speaking for him at UC Irvine and Cal State Long Beach on Wednesday, a move that played to his popularity among college-age millennials. He went Hollywood with the move, tapping actors Kendrick Sampson of "How to Get Away With Murder," Heather Matarazzo of "The Princess Diaries" and Oscar winner Susan Sarandon.

Coming into Los Angeles on Wednesday to see the Golden State shuffle was Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who said she preferred her position of watching two of her party's candidates duel for the nomination rather than the task facing her Republican counterpart, Reince Priebus.

"I've never seen so much churn and angst and opposition to the presumptive nominee from a political party like what is taking place here," she said in an interview at the Los Angeles County Democratic Party headquarters. "You know they have a massive problem on their hands."

When Cruz and Kasich dropped out, some Republicans posted photos of themselves burning their voter registration cards or switching to independent, unaffiliated or Libertarian parties.

Priebus on Twitter urged Republicans to "unite and focus on defeating (Hillary) Clinton."

Wasserman Shultz said the campaign has been "substantive" on the Democratic side but acknowledged it's also gotten stickier as the primary season wears on.

"They're in the narrow end of the funnel right now, and so it's been a bit more intense towards the end here," she said. "The reality is that our voters are coming out of primaries saying that the primaries energized them and made them more enthusiastic about supporting either one of our candidates."

Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders in delegates and is just a few hundred short of securing the presidential nomination in Philadelphia this summer, although the Sanders campaign hopes to persuade some superdelegates to switch sides. In California alone, of the state's 73 superdelegates, more than 50 have already committed to Clinton. Sanders has suggested superdelegates who come from states he won should flip their votes to him.

Wasserman Shultz said after the 2008 election "it's a completely reasonable and fair process" and the 712 superdelegates are a small fraction of the 4,763 total delegates going to the convention in Philadelphia this summer. She also said superdelegates - in place since 1984 - have never determined the nominee.

"We separate those 712 unpledged delegates and give them an opportunity to vote for who they want to because they are party leaders and elected officials and people who have been in the trenches to help build the party," she said.

--

Walter Garcia
Western Regional Press Secretary
Democratic National Committee (DNC)
Email: [email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
Twitter: @WalterGarcia231<https://twitter.com/WalterGarcia231>
[SigDems]<http://www.democrats.org/>