Subject: RE: FOR RESEARCH: Draft DWS Call Excerpts
From: "Lykins, Tyler" <[email-masked]>
To: "Price, Jenna" <[email-masked]>, RR2 <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 13:09:13 -0700

Good here

From: Price, Jenna
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2016 4:05 PM
To: RR2
Subject: FOR RESEARCH: Draft DWS Call Excerpts

For Immediate Release
May 11, 2016
Contact: DNC Press - 202-863-8148<tel:202-863-8148>
Remarks from DNC Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz Press Call on the State of the Presidential Race

Today, DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz hosted a press call to discuss the state of the race and preview Donald Trump's meetings with Republican leadership tomorrow. From senior leaders to the voters of Nebraska and West Virginia yesterday, Republicans have started to fret about their party's deepening divide to embrace 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. Despite the historic chaos among Republicans, it's now clear that Donald Trump is the Republican Party.
Please find remarks below as prepared for delivery:

Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Of course we now know that Donald Trump is the Republican 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. 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 own his ugly, divisive and dangerous rhetoric all the way to the general election.

...

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's division. 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 polls favor Democrats who have seen week after week that our voters are excited about our primaries and enthusiastic about our candidates. Democrats are building the infrastructure for the general election, and we're doing it with enthusiastic voters 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 threatening our credit rating. Put simply, Trump and the Republicans he's meeting with cannot be trusted on the economy, they have already proven that. 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.

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