Subject: Stitch — Bern Bright: Sanders Rages Against the Dying of the Light; Trump's Megyn Kelly Interview; Chats: '4 x 2', 'Central Time', Ed Rendell et all
From: Jonathan Allen <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 11:46:43 +0000
List-Id: dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8fmc list <dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8f.326717.list-id.mcsv.net>

** WHAT'S THE STITCH?
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The Stitch is a morning news speed-read highlighting the work and insights of Newsmakers. It's followed by a daily chat on hot political topics.

**
TODAY'S SIDEWIRE CHATS
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* 9:30 a.m. Eastern — ANITA McBRIDE, former chief of staff to First Lady Laura Bush and an aide to the last three Republican presidents, chats about Donald Trump's interview with Megyn Kelly and gender politics in the 2016 campaign.
* 10 a.m. Eastern — DAVID DRUCKER of the Washington Examiner joins the Stitch to talk politics.
* 10:30 a.m. Eastern — Former Pennsylvania Gov. ED RENDELL, a co-founder of Building America's Future, chats about the state of the nation's infrastructure, efforts to boost funding for it and his views on how infrastructure policy should be rewritten.
* 4:30 p.m. Eastern — MIKE MURPHY hosts comedy writer JON MACKS on the recurring Sidewire Chat "4 X 2."
* 6:30 p.m. Eastern — TRACY SEFL & ANA MARIE COX host Minneapolis MayorBETSY HODGES on the recurring Sidewire Chat "Central Time."

** BERN-ING BRIGHT: SANDERS RAGES AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT
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Democrats have a real problem on their hands: The closer Bernie Sanders gets to losing the party's presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton, the angrier and more defiant his supporters become.

Over the weekend, their frustration at what they saw as a heavy-handed attempt to rig the Nevada state Democratic convention resulted in chair-throwing and harassment of state party chairwoman Roberta Lange, who received threats, as ALAN RAPPEPORT reported for the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/us/politics/bernie-sanders-supporters-nevada.html) .
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"It’s been vile. ... It’s been threatening messages, threatening my family, threatening my life, threatening my grandchild."

—Nevada Democratic Party Chair Roberta Lange / NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/us/politics/bernie-sanders-supporters-nevada.html)

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JEFF STEIN of Vox has a pretty good rundown (http://www.vox.com/2016/5/17/11680904/bernie-sanders-nevada-convention)  of the particulars of fight over Nevada delegates. But the delegate battle in Nevada is basically irrelevant to the question of who will win the nomination.

On Tuesday, Sanders won the Oregon Democratic primary — 54 percent to 46 percent at last count — but narrowly lost Kentucky to Clinton. The AP delegate tracker (https://interactives.ap.org/2016/delegate-tracker/)  now shows Clinton just 92 delegates away from a majority, meaning she would surpass the threshold if she won 20 percent of California's 475 pledged delegates on June 7 and nothing else in any of the other remaining states.

It's easy to see why Sanders and his team think he's being treated unfairly: At every turn, a Democratic official who supports Clinton is running things. When reports surfaced that Clinton had "unofficially" won Kentucky last night, the official cited on the unofficial result was Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, a family friend whose father is a major donor to the Clintons.

But the combination of Clinton's impending victory and Democratic concerns about the tone and temperament of his supporters has done little to convince Sanders that he should try to rein in his backers. As BYRON TAU of the Wall Street Journal reports (http://www.wsj.com/articles/bernie-sanders-says-campaign-committed-to-nonviolence-amid-nevada-dust-up-1463516614) , Sanders' response to the Nevada fracas suggested he's nowhere near that place.
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"In the latest turn, the Vermont senator in a statement Tuesday rejected accusations that his supporters were prone to violence and insisted the party must accommodate people fighting for 'real' change. The comments stood as a clear sign that the Democratic underdog is unwilling to play the role of fence-mender while he battles Mrs. Clinton in the final primaries."

—Byron Tau / WSJ (http://www.wsj.com/articles/bernie-sanders-says-campaign-committed-to-nonviolence-amid-nevada-dust-up-1463516614)

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JANET MULLINS GRISSOM, the former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said on Sidewire last night that Sanders is continuing to make Clinton look bad.
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"A win is a win but no solace for Clinton camp tonight. Bernie's thousand cuts keeps adding to the Hillary misery index."

—Janet Mullins Grissom / Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/articles/3675071636236ecbe6b82fc3696a2804/commentary/9efa86d3-a629-4390-b996-c6bb286bb022)

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** TRIVIAL PURSUITS
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ABOUT TODAY
In 1980, 57 people were killed when Mount St. Helens erupted.

ONE THING TO KNOW ABOUT SPORTS TODAY
The Philadelphia 76ers won the NBA draft lottery (http://espn.go.com/nba/draft2016/story/_/id/15581021/philadelphia-76ers-win-lottery-pick-first-2016-nba-draft)  and are expected to pick one of two freshman forwards: Duke forward Brandon Ingram or LSU Ben Simmons.

ONE THING TO KNOW ABOUT ENTERTAINMENT TODAY
Robin Wright revealed that she demanded, and received, compensation equal (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robin-wright-kevin-spacey-equal-pay_us_573b619ce4b0aee7b8e7f5a9) to the amount Kevin Spacey makes for "House of Cards."

YESTERDAY'S TRIVIA

The last Kentuckian to chair the House Appropriations Committee before current gavel-wielder Hal Rogers was Democrat Bill Natcher.

TODAY'S TRIVIA

Which current senator has served in the elected leadership in both the House and the Senate?

Send answers to [email-masked]. The first person to respond correctly wins digital ink tomorrow and the right to ask a trivia question.

WHAT TO DO WITH NEWS TIPS, SUGGESTIONS AND CORRECTIONS

Please send them to [email-masked].

** TRUMP: NO APOLOGIES, BUT FORGIVE ME
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Nine months after they first clashed in the initial Republican primary debate of the 2016 cycle, Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly and presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump mended fences in a televised interview on Fox last night.

The basic takeaway, as JENNA JOHNSON writes for the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/17/marco-rubio-thinks-im-wrong-about-his-future-so-i-talked-to-someone-smarter-than-me-about-it/?postshare=5761463516058448&tid=ss_tw) , is that Trump is very reluctant to apologize — even when he thinks he's crossed a line.

When Kelly confronted Trump about calling her a "bimbo," he first denied it and then said "excuse me" before adding this:
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"Not the most horrible thing. Over your life, Megyn, you've been called a lot worse. Is that right? Wouldn't you say? You know, you've had a life that has not been that easy."

—Donald Trump / Fox

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In an exchange about Trump targeting Heidi Cruz, the wife of then-rival Ted Cruz, for derision over her looks, Trump denied ever having said it was "a mistake" — though Maureen Dowd of the New York Times quoted him saying just that in an April column (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/opinion/sunday/trump-does-it-his-way.html?referer) .

Trump said he will have gained nothing if he doesn't win the presidency.
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"If I don’t go all the way and if I don’t win I will consider it to be a total and complete waste of time, energy and money."

—Trump / Fox

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What's really important here, though is Trump's desire to end his feud with Fox and start trying to assure Republican and independent women that he's no more of a boor than he is a bore. It wasn't a soft interview — Kelly's disarming style resulted in some windows into the candidate's thinking, including his view that he is "a messenger" for the "disenfranchised" — but Trump was clearly trying to soften his tone.

After the interview aired, Trump, the only candidate actively seeking the GOP nomination, won the Oregon primary.

** SIDEWIRE CHAT RECAP: 'LIS & LABOLT' HOST NICK HACKWORTH
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NICK HACKWORTH, a top Democratic opposition researcher, joined LIS SMITH & BEN LaBOLT for their recurring "LIS & LaBOLT" chat yesterday. They talked about why the oppo set doesn't conduct interviews, where Trump is vulnerable and how the rules of the road have changed for candidates.

ON WHY MANY OPPOSITION RESEARCHERS DON'T CONDUCT INTERVIEWS
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"The reason is because we typically don't want people to know what we are doing. Documents don't talk to the press and rat us out —people might."

—Nick Hackworth / Sidewire Chat 'Lis & LaBolt' (https://sidewire.com/politics/articles/6acfb1a60eabce749b4396482f347e7b/commentary/ec44ea37-2937-4bff-9c9b-c4115591d8fa)

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ON TRUMP'S VULNERABILITIES
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"I think there is soooo much out there on him already, that it really is in many ways a matter of organizing and figuring out how to message it. I don't think thats been done super effectively up to this point. ... I do think that his business career has not really been fleshed out well. I think there is a potential way to go after Trump in very similar ways to the way we went after Romney in 2012"

—Hackworth / Sidewire Chat 'Lis & LaBolt' part 1 (https://sidewire.com/politics/articles/6acfb1a60eabce749b4396482f347e7b/commentary/efd122d2-3117-45ec-86fc-d1e4aeb44825) , part 2 (https://sidewire.com/politics/articles/6acfb1a60eabce749b4396482f347e7b/commentary/7355a4ae-62d6-47bb-8983-a1158226dd2f)

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ON THE TRACTION CLINTON'S RIVALS HAVE GOTTEN ON HER PAID SPEECHES
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"Speeches was one of those things where the culture changed to make something that wouldn't have been relevant several years ago topical this cycle."

—Ben LaBolt / Sidewire Chat 'Lis & LaBolt' (https://sidewire.com/politics/articles/6acfb1a60eabce749b4396482f347e7b/commentary/89a112de-209a-43f0-a242-298fd79f7c8e)

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ON TRUMP HAVING MORE ROOM TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SET MEME ON CLINTON'S SPEECHES
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"Even if it is set, the Trump campaign is doing a piss poor job of sticking to it. They keep going off in conspiracy theory land & attacks on her husband. All of which I think will backfire in November."

—Lis Smith / Sidewire Chat 'Lis & LaBolt' (https://sidewire.com/politics/articles/6acfb1a60eabce749b4396482f347e7b/commentary/995a0673-34b4-47f6-8bae-a2b2e1271108)

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Click here (https://sidewire.com/politics/articles/6acfb1a60eabce749b4396482f347e7b)  for the full chat.

** SIDEWIRE CHAT RECAP: SMOKE FILLED ROOM
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JUSTIN THOMAS RUSSELL debuted the "Smoke Filled Room" Sidewire Chat yesterday from Shelley's Backroom, a cigar lounge and restaurant in the nation's capital, with California Republican Party vice chairman KEVIN KRICKas his first guest.

HERE'S KRICK ON THE BACKLASH HE FACED FOR SUPPORTING SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
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"To your question Justin, did we get push back? Absolutely. I've weathered some serious storms during my merchant marine days and the Marin GOP same-sex marriage support response would be the equivalent of, well let's call it a Category 5 hurricane."

—Kevin Krick / Sidewire Chat 'Smoke Filled Room' (https://sidewire.com/politics/articles/709f165102e5cccbcc2ad77c3552e6bc/commentary/fafb3cde-d3fd-4edd-a79e-7b21d299d8cb)

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Click here (https://sidewire.com/politics/articles/709f165102e5cccbcc2ad77c3552e6bc)  for the full chat.

THE BIG QUESTION
Does Bernie Sanders have a responsibility to tamp down his supporters?

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