The Trail 2016: Off the sick bed

by Jonathan Swan - 09/15/16 5:58 PM ET

Welcome to THE TRAIL 2016, your daily rundown from The Hill on all the latest news in the White House, Senate and House races.

Hillary Clinton is back – her first public speech since pneumonia sent her literally stumbling off the trail on Sunday.

In North Carolina on Thursday, Clinton kicked off what looks like a new phase in her campaign. She wants voters to know that a vote for Hillary Clinton isn’t only a vote against Donald Trump and his “basket of deplorables.”

“I want to give Americans something to vote for, not just against,” Clinton told reporters after her rally at Greensboro, N.C.

“I confess, I’ll never be the showman my opponent is and that’s OK with me. Just look at the show he put on with Dr. Oz today,” she added. “But I am going to deliver for you and your family just like I did for Sarah all those years ago with the Children’s Health Insurance Program.”

Trump spent Thursday talking up the economic transformations that would attend a Trump presidency. Addressing the prestigious Economic Club of New York, the GOP presidential nominee promised his economic plan would deliver an average of 3.5 percent growth and 25 million new jobs over the next decade.

In a separate appearance on Fox News, Trump followed his attacks on Ford Motor Company’s offshoring of small-car production by pledging to impose a 35 percent tax on any cars made overseas by U.S. companies.

Stay with TheHill.com through Friday and the weekend as our campaign team tracks every beat of this tightening election. In fact, read Jonathan Easley right now on how the polls are darkening for Democrats.

RACE TO 1600 PENN

TRANSPARENCY COMPETITION: The Hill’s Rebecca Savransky reports: Hillary Clinton says she has been more transparent than Donald Trump in the presidential campaign.

TRUMP’S OTHER CHILD CARE POLICY: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Donald Trump insisted Thursday that if elected president he would sever ties with his businesses, although he also repeated his plan to put his adult children in charge of his organization.

THE WORD FROM ON HIGH: The Hill’s Nikita Vladimirov reports: Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Thursday said that Donald Trump should release his tax information to the public. But don’t expect it to happen any time soon. Donald Trump Jr. defended his father’s decision not to release his tax returns, saying scrutiny of the documents would be a distraction.

DEPLORABLE DILEMMA: The Hill’s Jonathan Easley and Amie Parnes report: Hillary Clinton faces a major dilemma in the wake of her controversial “basket of deplorables” comment: keep hammering Donald Trump on race or pivot to other issues.

MARCHING FROM THE LEFT: The Hill’s Ben Kamisar reports: Liberal stalwarts Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will campaign for Hillary Clinton in Ohio this weekend as the Democratic presidential nominee tries to halt her slide in the polls.

NO DICE: The Hill’s Ben Kamisar and Lisa Hagen report: Third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein are likely to be shut out of the upcoming presidential debate after being unable to parlay dissatisfaction with the major party candidates into higher poll numbers.

ODDS AND ENDS

SAY WHAT? The Hill’s Ben Kamisar reports: Donald Trump’s son on Wednesday made an apparent reference to the Holocaust while slamming the media’s treatment of his father in a radio interview.

I’LL BE A PRO-PILL PRESIDENT: The Hill’s Lisa Hagen reports: Donald Trump says women should be able to purchase birth control without a prescription.

THE MOST TREMENDOUS HEALTH EVER: The Hill staff report:Donald Trump on Thursday released a letter from his doctor claiming he is in “excellent physical health,” on the same day his appearance on “The Dr. Oz Show” is set to air. Dr. Oz backs up Trump’s assertion, but Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is less convinced. She described both Trump and Dr. Oz as “snake oil salesmen.”

I FEEL YOUR PAIN: The Hill’s Mark Hensch reports: Hillary Clinton on Thursday said she has a lot of sympathy for Colin Powell, linking his leaked emails to Russia and raising alarms that the Kremlin is trying to impact the presidential election.

THE COSMO YOU DIDN’T KNOW: The Hill’s Paulina Firozi reports: Ivanka Trump accused a Cosmopolitan magazine reporter of asking “negative” questions in a tense interview about her father’s new child care and maternity leave policy.

ANOTHER TRUMP CHILD WHO DOESN’T LIKE TOUGH QUESTIONS: The Hill’s Rebecca Savransky reports: An interview with Donald Trump Jr. was shut down when a reporter from a Pittsburgh television station asked a question about his father, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, spending his foundation’s money to purchase a portrait of himself.

POLL POSITION

LINE BALL NATION: The Hill’s Mark Hensch reports: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and GOP rival Donald Trump are tied among likely voters in a four-way race nationally, according to a new poll. The major-party nominees each take 42 percent in the CBS News/New York Times poll released Thursday morning.

TRUMP SURGES THROUGH THE CORNFIELDS: The Hill’s Lisa Hagen reports: Donald Trump opened up an 8-point lead over Hillary Clinton in Iowa, a new poll finds.

LINE BALL VIRGINIA: The Hill’s Mark Hensch reports: Donald Trump is gaining ground on Hillary Clinton in the swing state of Virginia, according to a new poll. Clinton leads Trump by 3 points among likely voters in the state, within the margin of error for the survey by the University of Mary Washington’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies.

COMMANDING LEAD: The Hill’s Rebecca Savransky reports: Hillary Clinton is viewed as more qualified than her Republican rival to serve as president, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday.

YOUNG PEOPLE TODAY: The Hill’s Nikita Chirkov reports: Hillary Clinton is struggling to win the support of younger voters, many of whom backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Democratic primary, a new poll finds.

THE DAILY TRUMP

MEDIA BASHER-IN-CHIEF: The Hill’s Rebecca Savransky reports: Donald Trump on Thursday took some credit for reducing Americans’ trust in news outlets.

POUNDING POWELL: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Donald Trump is responding to criticism from former Secretary of State Colin Powell, saying he was “never a fan” of the longtime GOP official. Hacked emails leaked this week revealed Powell calling Trump a “national disgrace” and “international pariah.”

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“She was so nervous, she was like a nervous mess…”

— Donald Trump takes to Fox News on Thursday to criticize the pastor who interrupted him during a church speech to stop him from attacking Hillary Clinton. (Clinton, of course, is defending the pastor.)

CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGNS

TAKE THAT, NRA: The Hill’s Ben Kamisar reports: Democratic Senate hopeful Jason Kander is fighting back against criticism of his loyalty to the Second Amendment with a new ad depicting him assembling a rifle blindfolded.

BAD OMEN FOR DEMS: The Hill’s Lisa Hagen reports: The Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council is staying out of the contentious Senate race in Ohio, declining to endorse either Republican Sen. Rob Portman or his challenger, former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D).

MONEY WATCH

KOCH WAR: The Hill’s Jonathan Swan reports: The powerful conservative network led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch is shifting its cash away from TV and to an all-out ground assault for the final stretch to Election Day.

WHAT WE ARE WATCHING FOR TODAY, TOMORROW AND THE WEEKEND

(All times Eastern)

On Thursday, Donald Trump holds a 7:30 p.m. rally in Laconia, N.H. and appears on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” which airs at 11:35 p.m. On Friday, he has a campaign event at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., at 10 a.m. and a rally in Miami at 6 p.m.

Saturday, he’ll speak at 2 p.m. in Houston, Tex., at a luncheon sponsored by The Remembrance Project, which unites families of those “killed by illegal aliens.” At 9:30 p.m., he’ll hold a rally in Colorado Springs, Colo.

On Thursday night, Hillary Clinton speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual gala in Washington, D.C., where President Obama will also speak. Clinton surrogate Bernie Sanders is a guest on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” at 12:35 a.m. and is on “Morning Joe” on Friday, which airs from 6-9 a.m.

Clinton stays in D.C. on Friday to speak at Black Women’s Agenda annual symposium, while First Lady Michelle Obama campaigns for Clinton at 3 p.m. at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. On Saturday, Clinton speaks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference, while Elizabeth Warren campaigns for her at 2:45 p.m. in Columbus, Ohio, and Sanders campaigns for her in Canton, Kent and Akron, Ohio. Warren heads to Cleveland on Sunday for a 10:30 a.m. campaign event.

Sanders will also be on the campaign trail on Friday for Democratic Senatorial candidate Katie McGinty, joining her for a 5 p.m. rally at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. McGinty’s primary opponent, John Fetterman, mayor of a suburban Pittsburgh city, will also be there.

Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin will be a guest on MSNBC’S “The Place for Politics,” on Friday, which airs from 2-3 p.m.

TWEET OF THE DAY

For guy who wanted to outlaw teleprompters, @realDonaldTrump sure gets testy when his teleprompter doesn’t work https://t.co/4lojx4fOtL

— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) September 15, 2016