The Trail 2016: 11 hours, 800 pages, 0 changed minds

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

The House Benghazi Committee released its long-awaited report Tuesday — 800 pages and more than $7 million later, everyone acted exactly as predicted. 

While the general facts remained the same as the other inquiries into the 2012 death of four Americans in Libya, the report offered a critical assessment of Hillary Clinton’s culpability in the tragedy. And two Republicans on the panel, Mike Pompeo and Jim Jordan, carried that assessment further with their own supplemental report that bashed Clinton even further. 

But Clinton, knee-deep in her general election campaign, swatted aside the findings as rehashing “discredited conspiracy theories” and called on the country to “move on.”  And Democrats rallied around their presumptive nominee–committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings panned it as one of the “saddest exercises” of his career, and Xavier Becerra, a dark horse candidate for Clinton’s ticket, accused the committee of purposefully trying to torpedo Clinton.   

Stay tuned to The Hill tonight for more breakdown and analysis of the Benghazi report, and come back tomorrow for an exclusive investigation by The Hill’s Jonathan Swan and Harper Neidig into questionable super-PAC donations, our Democratic Veepstakes power rankings, and how the race between Trump and Clinton continues to tighten in a key swing state.

 

RACE TO 1600 PENN 

SWING STATES STILL SWINGING: The Hill’s Jonathan Easley reports: Battleground state polls show Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton locked in a tight race for the White House with just more than four months to go before Election Day. 

ON SECOND THOUGHT: The Hill’s Jonathan Easley reports: Donald Trump will draw back his proposed ban on Muslims entering the country once he’s elected president and focus instead on more precise policies meant to identify potential terrorists, his national security adviser told The Hill on Tuesday. 

TRUMP TALKS TOUGH ON TRADE: The Hill’s Vicki Needham reports: Donald Trump promised to renegotiate or withdraw from the NAFTA trade agreement during a pivotal speech in the swing state of Pennsylvania. He lambasted Clinton for her “politics of fear, futility and incompetence for supporting trade deals,” but faced a ribbing of his own on social media for speaking next to a pile of garbage. 

MCCAIN’S MESSAGE TO DELEGATES: The Hill’s Harper Neidig reports: John McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee, called on convention delegates to vote their conscience as to whether to join a plan to revolt against Donald Trump.

WE’LL DO IT FOR YOU: The Hill’s Mark Hensch reports: Elizabeth Warren thinks Republicans waited too long to go after Donald Trump during the primary. She said she would not make the same mistake regarding Trump, the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee.

 

ODDS AND ENDS: 

GINGRICH-MENTUM?: The Hill’s Mark Hensch reports: Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), who’s earned the reputation as a giant-killer for taking down former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, wants Donald Trump to pick former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as his running mate.   

GINGRICH ANGRY: The Hill’s Mark Hensch reports: Gingrich accused Hillary Clinton of being a serial liar in response to the findings from the House Benghazi Committee. 

KUMBAYA, BERNIE: The Hill’s Harper Neidig reports: Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the first Democratic lawmaker to back Bernie Sanders, called on the presidential candidate to endorse Hillary Clinton before the party convenes for its convention next month.

 

POLL POSITION 

TALKING TOUGH: The Hill’s Mark Hensch reports: Hillary Clinton won higher marks than Donald Trump on handling terrorism in a new ABC poll. 

CLINTON CLIMBS: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: The presumptive Democratic nominee’s national lead over Trump has grown to 8 points in NBC’s new tracking poll.

 

THE DAILY TRUMP 

HEFTY ACCUSATION: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Donald Trump’s lawyer shared a meme on Twitter Tuesday that said Hillary Clinton “murdered an ambassador” in reference to the Benghazi attacks. 

FRIENDS OVERSEAS: The Hill’s Mark Hensch reports: Nigel Farage,a leading figure in Britain’s push to exit the European Union says Donald Trump would benefit his country more than President Obama.

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY 

“I don’t plan to spurn him or denigrate him.”

— Marco Rubio on Donald Trump, his foe during the Republican presidential primary, during a National Republican Senatorial Committee conference call according to Buzzfeed News.

 

CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGNS 

NO LOVE LOST: The Hill’s Jordain Carney reports: Harry Reid called on taxpayers to sue Marco Rubio for missing votes and hearings while running for president. No word on how he feels about Bernie Sanders, who missed his fair share of official business too. 

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE: The Hill’s Lisa Hagen reports: Alan Grayson is ripping rival Florida Senate candidate Patrick Murphy for voting to create the House Select Committee on Benghazi in what’s shaping up to be a brutal Democrat-on-Democrat primary. 

ON TOP OF ENEMIES LIKE THESE: The Hill’s Lisa Hagen reports: Patrick Murphy is facing attacks on both sides, as the Senate GOP’s campaign arm launched a new ad questioning his credentials. 

UNLIKE FRIENDS LIKE THESE: The Hill’s Timothy Cama reports: Things are going better for Patrick Murphy’s Republican House colleague, Carlos Curbelo, who won the endorsement of a clean energy group.

 

MONEY WATCH 

STUDY IN CONTRASTS: The Hill’s Jonathan Easley reports:Hillary Clinton is crushing Donald Trump in the great advertising wars of 2016, with her campaign and super-PAC spending $26 million on swing state ads compared to $0 for Trump.

DOWN TICKET CAVALRY: The Hill’s Lisa Hagen reports: The Senate Conservatives Fund is dumping $40 million into television buys aimed at shoring up vulnerable Republicans and the party’s top Senate targets.

 

WHAT WE ARE WATCHING FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW:

(All times Eastern) 

Colorado’s and New York hold primary elections Tuesday night, with a handful of major House primaries as well as Colorado’s wide-open Republican Senate primary. 

Donald Trump will hold a campaign rally Tuesday at 7 p.m. in St. Clairsville, Ohio, followed by a Wednesday rally in Bangor, Maine, at 4 p.m. 

Hillary Clinton will attend a fundraising lunch in San Francisco, Calif., with Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards and actress Jamie Lee Curtis.

 

TWEET OF THE DAY 

knock knock
who’s there
George Will
George Will what?
George Will not be a Republican anymore!!!

banana

— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) June 28, 2016

 

Write us with tips, suggestions and news: Jonathan Easley, Ben Kamisar, Jonathan Swan, Lisa Hagen. 

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