Subject: DWS Briefing
From: "Miranda, Luis" <[email-masked]>
To: RR2 <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Banfill, Ryan" <[email-masked]>, "Paustenbach, Mark" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 16:18:07 -0700

For DWS briefing for tonight and tomorrow interviews. The top part is ALREADY vetted stuff with just new adds in yellow, so mostly new is the Q&A.

*         DWS Statement in Bullet format

Republicans Are Divided, a Historic Mess of Their Own Making

*         The list of Republican leaders who refuse to support Donald Trump got longer this week, with Ted Cruz joining the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, and a slew of former GOP presidential candidates and Republican presidents who are equally dismayed at the chaos in their own party.

*         Paul Ryan even offered to step down as convention Chair if Trump wants him out.

*         The Republican Party has elevated extreme voices using divisive campaigns for years, and now they're stuck with Donald Trump's reckless and dangerous campaign as they tumble toward the general election. For years, GOP leaders have pushed a cynical and feckless political strategy that obstructs any kind of progress and exploits unfounded fears of immigrants, minorities, the poor, the LGBT community and more, all for political gain.

*         Exit polls for weeks have confirmed that Republicans believe their primary has been divisive, while three fourths of Democrats are excited about our primary and majorities would support either candidate.

*         Today in Nebraska only 3 percent of Republicans said their Party is united, and it was just 10 percent in West Virginia.

*         But we're not taking anything for granted, our two Democratic candidates have made it clear they'll hold Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot accountable heading toward November 8th, while sharing a vision for moving America forward with the American people. The contrast couldn't be clearer.

Trump / Ryan on the Economy and Taxes:

*         For years Republicans have sold hardworking Americans the empty promise of trickle-down economics, while strangling America's middle class with backwards policies that only enrich those at the very top.

*         While the media has reported that Trump offered to be flexible in his tax plan, he didn't. All Trump said is that he'll have to negotiate with Congress, which includes the very Republican leaders he doesn't get along with.

*         But this doesn't mean Trump is by any means moderate. His 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.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-idUSKCN0XZ0I3> 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

*         Trump also plans to substantially<https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/tax-reform> reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 to 15 percent, instead of fixing tax loopholes that allow some large companies to pay no federal income tax at all.

*         Republicans in Congress want to cut<http://www.taxjusticeblog.org/archive/2015/10/paul_ryan_wants_to_cut_taxes_f.php#.VzCi6oQrK70> the top tax rate to 25 percent. Paul Ryan and his colleagues would also cut corporate taxes down to 25 percent - making Trump's 15 percent plan even more extreme and the perfect example of why he's not promising anything better than the Ryan Budget, just potentially worse.

*         Trickle-down economics simply doesn't work. The last two times Republicans implemented this agenda, our country was left mired in recession and facing massive deficits. Not only does trickle-down economics slow down the economy, but it means we won't have the money to pay for things like education and infrastructure and health care

Trump/Ryan on Debt:

*         For years, Republicans in Congress recklessly threatened the full faith and credit of the United States and threatened to breach the debt ceiling, leading one credit rating agency to remark<http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-government-shutdown-credit-rating-fitch-20150923-story.html> that any protracted fight over the issue could endanger America's credit rating.

*         Trump agrees that the United States should consider<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/trump-no-debt-default-222957#ixzz48AeHAolA> playing fast and loose with our nation's finances, even calling himself "the king of debt."

*         He also said, "you never have to default because you print the money." Such reckless positions, if implemented, could threaten America's standing in the world and lead to chaos in the global financial markets.

*         We saw what happened the last time a Republican president came in and made a mess of the economy. We have come too far since the Great Recession to hand the keys to the economy over to the folks who crashed it in the first place.

*         In conclusion, Donald Trump's reckless tax policies and his suggestion that we should play chicken with the country's finances are lifted directly from the same old failed Republican playbook. Trump can ignore reality and crown himself the "king of debt," but it's clear that his economic ideas, and those of his fellow Republicans are simply bankrupt. The American people and our economy can't afford a disastrous Trump presidency.
Q&A

Are you concerned that exit<https://twitter.com/Mosheh/status/730144564149948417> polls today showed that 44% of West Virginia Sanders voters said that they would vote for Trump in November?

*         It's not our job to analyze our primary candidates and their campaigns. They can speak for themselves, and both have done a great job to date in reaching out to voters.

*         But we also have to make sure the voters in West Virginia understand what Donald Trump is promising, and it's to drag us back to where we were in 2008 with an economic policy that only focuses on tax cuts for those at the very top. Well as the last Republican left office our economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month, and countless Americans were losing their homes and savings. We have to make sure voters hear that.

*         We think we'll be able to do that heading into November.

Follow up: Does that mean you think you can win West Virginia even while seeing so much opposition to the positions Democrats have staked out?

*         West Virginia has voted Republican in the last four elections, but they still need to hear what's at stake.

*         This week we're seeing Donald Trump argue about which one of them can more quickly destroy our economy with variations on the same failed George W. Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy. We have to remind voters how our economy was doing in 2009 when that was the case, and it was 800,000 jobs lost, countless Americans losing their homes and savings.

Exit polls also showed two-thirds of West Virginia voters say they're very worried about the direction of the nation's economy in the next few years. Do you think it will be harder for Democrats if that is the case?

*         They should be worried about the economy, because if Trump gets into the White House, the GOP is going to drag us right back to where we were in 2008, when the last Republican Administration prioritized tax cuts for those at the very top...and left us losing 800,000 jobs a month. The economy is certainly what's at stake in this election, and it's clear Republicans would wipe out the progress we've made with the hard work of the American people under Democratic leadership.

*         Just last week we found out we're now at 74 straight months of private sector job growth, more than 14 million new jobs - including nearly a million in manufacturing --- and that could all be wiped out if we elect a Republican who drags us right back to where we were 7 years ago.

This wasn't a good day for the Democratic Party. Only a quarter of Democratic primary voters in West Virginia want the next president to continue Obama's policies, a strong group for Clinton to date; that's down from 54 percent on average in previous contests this year. Do you attribute that to overregulation on coal and Clinton's comments about putting coal miners out of work?

*         What we have to do is remind the American people of how far we've come.

*         We have to make sure the voters in West Virginia and across the country understand what Donald Trump is promising, and it's to drag us back to where we were in 2008. Remember that Republicans had done then what they want to do now, focus economic policy on tax cuts for those at the very top. Well as the last Republican left office our economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month, and countless Americans were losing their homes and savings.

*         Just last week we found out we're now at 74 straight months of private sector job growth, more than 14 million new jobs - including nearly a million in manufacturing --- and that could all be wiped out if we elect a Republican.

And are you concerned that a third of Democratic voters in preliminary exit poll results say that, given a Clinton-Trump or Sanders-Trump race, they'd vote for Trump? That's a third of your voters choosing Donald Trump.

*         West Virginia has voted Republican for the last four presidential elections, so we understand the electoral dynamics there. But we're looking at the national trends, and what we've seen over the past several weeks is that exit poll after exit poll has shown in state after state that majorities of Democratic voters would support either of our candidates and as much as three fourths are excited about our primary.

*         We're seeing a lot of chaos in the Republican Party right now, with their party's senior leaders and vulnerable candidates trying to avoid their convention. That's unprecedented chaos, and it's a reminder that we as Democrats are in a much stronger position. But we're not going to take anything for granted, we're going to hold Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot every single day from now till November.

[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>