Subject: Positive/Negative Clips 5.16.2016
From: "Price, Jenna" <[email-masked]>
To: "Miranda, Luis" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Palermo, Rachel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 04:27:27 -0700

POSITIVE- DEMOCRATS

Dem party chief: 'We're ready for Trump'<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/279940-dem-party-chief-were-ready-for-trump>

THE HILL // KYLE BALLUCK

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz late Saturday said Democrats need to treat Donald Trump's candidacy as a "real threat." "At the DNC we are not going to make the same mistake his Republican opponents made," she said at the Alaska State Convention, according to prepared remarks. "We're ready for Trump." The Florida congresswoman said Democrats will hold the presumptive Republican presidential nominee accountable "for the damage he's doing as a candidate and the damage he's promising he would do as president." Wasserman Shultz said Trump, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are "getting ready to sing 'kumbaya' and give us everything they've got" after a "nasty, mud-slinging primary."

NEGATIVE-REPUBLICANS

Mr. Trump, release your tax returns: Our view<http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/05/15/donald-trump-tax-returns-hillary-clinton-editorials-debates/84254136/>

USA TODAY // THE EDITORIAL BOARD

What's Donald Trump hiding by refusing to release his tax returns, the way every major party nominee has done for the past four decades? That the presumed Republican nominee is not as wealthy as he claims? That he uses aggressive tax-avoidance schemes? That he doesn't give much cash to charity? Whatever the reasons, Trump's constantly changing positions about his returns - gonna release them, can't release them, want to release them, might release them - raise suspicions that he's concealing something. On Friday, he went so far as to tell ABC's Good Morning America that his tax rates are "none of your business." Well, actually, they are because Americans have the right to know whether someone who wants to lead the nation pays what he owes, is free of financial conflicts of interest and gives generously to worthy causes.

Republican Split Is Deeper Than Ideology<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/us/politics/trump-ryan-republican-split.html?ref=politics>

NEW YORK TIMES // ALBERT HUNT

Odds are that Donald J. Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan will eventually patch together a rapprochement. Their well-established substantive differences on trade, immigration and entitlements should not be a barrier. There is plenty of room to fudge a unified Republican agenda, especially with Mr. Trump, whose positions and even principles often seem to evolve as he deems politically necessary. But it is harder to see how their basic approaches to politics can coexist comfortably. Mr. Ryan is the leading practitioner of an optimistic conservatism that reaches out and is inclusive. Mr. Trump has emerged as the presumptive Republican nominee by skillfully appealing to an angry and alienated conservative base that is driven in part by racial and ethnic fears. The Trump-Ryan schism can be best understood by looking at two proxies: former Representative Jack Kemp, the 1996 Republican vice-presidential nominee who was Mr. Ryan's mentor and political role model, and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is being considered as Mr. Trump's running mate.

Priebus ducks questions about Trump's character<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/15/priebus-ducks-questions-about-trumps-character/>

WASHINGTON POST // ELISE VIEBECK

The head of the Republican National Committee played down criticism of Donald Trump's character after new reports chronicled his troubling behavior toward dozens of women and his past habit of impersonating a publicist to boast about his private life. A visibly uncomfortable Reince Priebus defended Trump in three Sunday talk show interviews, arguing that questions about Trump's integrity do not matter to supporters of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and refusing to say whether they should. "It's something that Donald Trump is going to have to answer questions in regard to," Priebus said on "Fox News Sunday."

Donald Trump's Plans Don't Add Up. Do Voters Care?<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/05/13/donald-trumps-plans-dont-add-up-do-voters-care/>

WALL STREET JOURNAL // GREG IP

Donald Trump would slash taxes by trillions of dollars, leave entitlements alone, boost spending on infrastructure and defense, and, claims an advisor, deliver a budget surplus of $4.5 trillion to $7 trillion. There is no credible way to reconcile these claims. Mr. Trump's proposals will, if enacted, dramatically raise the debt, not decrease it, much less produce a surplus. Politically, though, it doesn't appear to matter. As Mr. Trump understands well, voters care a lot less than wonks and journalists do about policy details. Mr. Trump and Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton's competitor for the Democratic nomination, are riding high not because of their policies but because they aren't the establishment. This affords both men extraordinary freedom to make more extravagant promises than their more arithmetically deferential rivals. It also enables Mr. Trump to change those positions at will to neutralize his rivals' lines of attack. In others, this would be called flip-flopping or prevarication. To Mr. Trump's supporters, it's candor. "He talks before he thinks," one supporter said, "so he doesn't have time to think up something and lie to you."