WASHINGTON — Unite the Country, a super PAC that supports apparent Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and President Trump’s campaign are spending big money ahead of the parties’ conventions this summer.
Unite the Country’s $10 million ad campaign launched Friday and will last until the Democratic convention. Their first ad of this campaign, entitled “Deserve”, focuses on rebuilding the economy and Biden retelling his family’s story of leaving Pennsylvania for work opportunities during the 2012 Democratic convention.
“A job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about dignity, it’s about respect, it’s about your place in the community,” Biden said in 2012.
Unite the Country was formed by Biden allies in October to support his candidacy during the Democratic primaries. Now, it is one of several super PACs working to boost Biden in the general election. While this ad signals a positive message, another prominent super PAC, Priorities USA, has been spending heavily on Biden’s behalf with spots strongly critical of President Trump and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
On Thursday, the Trump campaign came out with its own 60-second ad attacking the former vice president on China. Like past ads the campaign and PACs supporting the president have run against Biden, the ad alleges Biden would be soft on China.
The new ad, which is a part of an expected $10 million comprehensive ad buy, focuses on past Biden remarks where he called the Chinese “not bad folks”, and footage of Biden meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping when he was vice president.
Harris, Sanders, Markey push $2,000 monthly payments during coronavirus
WASHINGTON — Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., rolled out legislation Friday that would provide monthly payments of up to $2,000 for U.S. residents during the coronavirus pandemic.
The bill also includes an extra $2,000 per child on top of the initial monthly payment and would begin to phase out for individuals who make more than $100,000 and married couples earning $200,000, according to the 10-page text reviewed by NBC News. The payments would zero out for individuals making at least $120,000 or couples making twice that.
The payments would be retroactive from March. Recipients would not require Social Security numbers, making undocumented people and certain legal residents eligible after they were excluded from the one-time payments of up to $1,200 in the CARES Act, which passed in late March.
The legislation comes as the Senate returns to Washington and considers the next phase of coronavirus relief. While it faces long odds in the Republican-controlled chamber, the bill carries political undertones, as two of its sponsors ran for president against the apparent Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden. Harris is a potential running mate, and Sanders has been nudging him in a progressive direction.
“The CARES Act gave Americans an important one-time payment, but it’s clear that wasn’t nearly enough to meet the needs of this historic crisis,” Harris said in a statement. “Bills will continue to come in every single month during the pandemic and so should help from government.”
A recent CNBC poll shows that a majority of voters in presidential battleground states support “sustained” direct payments from the federal government while the pandemic continues to affect the economy.
RNC adds public health expert to convention team
WASHINGTON — The Republican National Committee added Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge to its convention team as a “senior advisor for health and safety planning.” The addition comes as the Republican Party has promised an in-person convention in Charlotte, N.C. this summer, but as the RNC has begun to consider alternative plans.
“We are committed to hosting a safe and successful 2020 Republican National Convention in Charlotte, and Dr. Runge’s background and expertise will be instrumental as we continue to map out our plans that ensure the health safety of all convention participants and the Charlotte community,” said RNC convention president and CEO Marcia Lee Kelly.
Last month, the RNC said was it moving “full steam ahead” in planning their August convention, but some involved in the planning now say the convention may look drastically different than past conventions. Some alternative considerations include only having delegates and alternate delegates attend the convention and to have less parties and gatherings on the sidelines of the convention.
Republican Jewish Coalition backs Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King’s primary opponent
WASHINGTON — The Republican Jewish Coalition is endorsing Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King’s primary opponent, Randy Feenstra, NBC News has learned, a rare rebuke from an organization that almost never gets involved in intra-party races.
“Rep. Steve King’s record includes inflammatory rhetoric condoning white supremacists and anti-Semites. He has also met with and endorsed extremist foreign leaders,” RJC’s executive director Matt Brooks said, calling King’s record “egregious” enough to warrant the unusual move.
The RJC’s political action committee has cut a $5,000 check to Feenstra and plans to fundraise for him, according to Brooks.
The organization contributed more than half a million dollars to help Republicans in the 2018 elections, according to the nonpartisan Center For Responsive Politics.
King, a congressman since 2003 who’s known for his crusade against illegal immigration, was removed from House committees last year after he questioned whether “white supremacist” was an offensive term.
King has said he was treated unfairly by a “political lynch mob” and told NBC News last year: “I reject white nationalism. I reject white supremacy. It’s not part of any of my ideology. I reject anyone who carries that ideology.”
Other GOP groups have come out to back Feenstra, a state senator, including the Republican Main Street Partnership. Feenstra has argued that King’s diminished stature in Congress makes him an ineffective representative for the district.
Biden appeals to progressive groups to unite party
WASHINGTON — Joe Biden’s campaign is making inroads with key progressive groups in an effort to keep the former vice president’s pledge and unite the factions of the Democratic Party. The campaign hopes that finding common ground on policy with these groups will strengthen their ability to defeat President Trump in November.
Biden earned notable endorsements from grassroots to legacy organizations in recent weeks, like Let America Vote and End Citizens United. Some of the groups backed Biden after the campaign engaged them to discuss policy interests and how to best utilize their vast networks to efficiently turnout voters in the general election.
On Wednesday, the Human Rights Campaign endorsed Biden on the eighth anniversary of Biden pre-empting President Barack Obama and announcing his support for legalized gay marriage on “Meet the Press.” The group cited his career-long commitment to fight for LGBTQ rights, and his promise to pass the Equality Act in the first 100 days of his presidency.
“Joe Biden has said publicly and to us directly that the Equality Act will be a priority in his administration,” HRC president Alphonso David said on MSNBC on Wednesday. He added that Biden also promised to address the high violence rates faced by the transgender community.
Biden also earned the backing of the Progressive Turnout Project on Wednesday after pledging to support nationwide same-day registration and restoring voting rights to those previously incarcerated.
Earlier this week, the progressive group “Indivisible” endorsed Biden after the apparent nominee incorporated policies championed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The group is still working with the Biden campaign to adopt policies like D.C. statehood and country-wide vote by mail.
While it isn’t rare for organizations to coalesce around their party’s apparent nominee, the Biden campaign’s added effort to win over these groups shows a commitment to energizing supporters of Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — key constituencies of young and diverse voters who may remain hesitant to embracing his candidacy.
Two senior campaign advisers, Symone Sanders and Cristóbal Alex, and Biden’s policy director Stef Feldman continue working to engage groups that haven’t endorsed Biden yet like Sunrise Movement.
Lucas Acosta, a spokesperson for HRC told NBC News that their group’s nationally recognized brand and community of 3.3 million members will allow them to promote Biden’s candidacy not just through social media activism, but in battleground states where they have already placed field organizing teams for the election.
“The campaign has made the strongest commitment to the community of any nominee in history and so we’re very confident in Joe Biden as an ally and are ready to start knocking on doors to make sure that we defeat Donald Trump,” Acosta said.
Biden campaign launches digital letter series
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign has launched a new digital feature “Sincerely, Joe” which feature letters he has sent to Americans struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In the first installation of “Sincerely, Joe,” Biden wrote to Susan Sahai, a food safety distribution manager from Ridgewood, N.J., who chronicled the numerous essential workers who are working overtime to ensure that the short supply of food is kept safe for consumption in the New York Metropolitan Area and for hospital workers.
Biden responded to her saying he hoped the pandemic will make the public realize the work she and many other essential workers do to keep food on their tables.
“I’ve said from day one of this campaign and throughout my career, American workers are the heart and soul of this nation and too often, we take them and the work they do for granted,” Biden wrote. “We have to not only acknowledge and thank you for your sacrifice, but also fight for your safety and economic security.”
The new digital series will highlight a sample of the “hundreds” of letters the Biden campaign says the former vice president receives on a weekly basis. The campaign also asked supporters to write their own submissions to share their “own stories during this time of uncertainty,” as Sahai noted in her letter.
The Bidens have privately reached out to frontline workers since self-isolating in their home in Delaware. The campaign is using what they describe as a “traditional format of communication” to highlight online the conversations between Biden and Americans who “are longing for empathetic leadership and a president who listens to and understands their problems.”
The letter series is the newest example of the digital campaign the apparent Democratic frontrunner is launching while working from home. To reach voters outside of virtual events and TV appearances, Biden has also launched a podcast, a weekly newsletter and is holding “virtual rope lines.” Plus, the campaign hopes to build the series — and their digital content — by posting video exchanges or phone calls of these conversations on a regular basis.
Never-Trump group’s ‘mourning’ ad gets presidential reaction
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump took to Twitter overnight to attack the Lincoln Project — a PAC consisting of Never-Trump Republicans including George Conway, the husband of high-ranking White House advisor Kellyanne Conway — for their latest ad criticizing the president’s coronavirus response.
The group’s one-minute ad, titled “Mourning in America,” plays on President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 hopeful re-election campaign ad. In contrast with Reagan’s “Morning in America,” the new spot released Monday takes on a negative tone, pointing to the over 60,000 Americans who “have died from a deadly virus Donald Trump ignored” and the more than 26 million Americans who have lost their jobs amid the pandemic.
“Under the leadership of Donald Trump, our county is weaker, and sicker and poorer,” the ad goes on, adding that Americans are now asking if America will exist if Trump wins reelection this fall.
In response, Trump tweeted: “A group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me, a political first timer, 4 years ago, have copied (no imagination) the concept of an ad from Ronald Reagan.”
The president continued in the thread that the anti-Trump group doesn’t care about GOP causes like tax cuts or the protection of gun rights.
“I didn’t use any of them because they don’t know how to win, and their so-called Lincoln Project is a disgrace to Honest Abe,” Trump noted.
Trump called out several of the Lincoln Project’s members by name, including George Conway, who has been a vocal opponent of the president despite his wife’s work in the administration. Trump also singled out long-time Republican advisers John Weaver, Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, Reed Galen and Jennifer Horn, some of whom have worked for GOP administrations or lawmakers.
The Lincoln Project has spent less than $37,000 on TV ads so far this cycle, according to Advertising Analytics, and another $36,000 is booked through the end of the month.
The group recently announced their endorsement of former Vice President and apparent Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president despite their Republican backgrounds.
New Montana poll shows Bullock ahead and Biden inching forward
WASHINGTON — A new online poll from Montana State University shows Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock leading incumbent GOP Sen. Steve Daines in Montana’s competitive Senate contest, 46 percent to 39 percent. However, that thin lead falls within the poll’s 3.6-point margin of error.
The poll, which was conducted between April 10 and 27, shows a closer-than-expected presidential race. President Trump leads apparent Democratic nominee former Vice President Joe Biden 45-40 percent.
Bullock’s lead in the Senate race, and Biden’s good showing in the poll, might track with how Montanans are viewing the parties’ coronavirus responses. While 53 percent of Montanans approve of the president’s coronavirus response, 70 percent of Montanans approve of Bullock’s handling of the crisis.
When that focused flipped to the incumbent senator, just 48 percent of those polled said they approved of Daines’ response to the pandemic while 28 percent said they didn’t know. And if those views stay in place, the race could help decide which party controls the Senate.
Democrats need to pick up a net of three Senate seats (plus the White House) in November to retake control of Congress’ upper chamber, and a Montana win would put them on track to do just that.
Biden calls for immediate $13 minimum wage increase for frontline workers
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden Monday called for an immediate $13 minimum wage increase for essential workers and criticized President Trump for viewing these front-liners as “disposable” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking at a virtual town hall with the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the apparent Democratic nominee proposed giving employees required to work through the public health crisis — many of whom are minorities and are working in a “war zone” — a $13 minimum wage increase on top of their current salaries to ensure that they can sustain their families, especially if they were to get sick on the job.
Biden already supports a $15 minimum wage for federal workers, but is calling for this extra amount just for essential employees working in virus hotspots like meatpacking plants and hospitals while the crisis continues. He said that Congress is considering adding a policy like his latest proposal in the new CARES Act.
During the town hall, the former vice president praised those on the frontlines, saying that the nation “would not survive” without their sacrifices. He stressed the need for essential employees to receive better pay, free coronavirus treatment regardless of their immigration status or health insurance, and paid sick leave during the outbreak.
“We can afford to do that,” Biden said.
Pre-empting the availability of a vaccine, Biden said the country must prepare now to ensure that all vaccines are free and accessible to everyone.
The candidate repeatedly swiped at President Trump and his administration for not empathizing with these workers, some of whom have died from exposure to the virus on the job.
“They designate them as essential workers, then treat them as disposable,” Biden said. “It’s quite frankly inhumane and downright immoral because these workers are essential to our society. Not just in times of crisis, but always.”
At one point in the town hall, Biden dared Trump to “look one of these essential workers in the eye — the meat packers, delivery drivers, health care workers, grocery store clerks and tell them they don’t deserve a livable wage, paid sick leave.”
As he’s often said throughout his virtual campaign, the former vice president emphasized that the teachable moment from this pandemic is that the country is recognizing how much it relies on minority workers. He hopes that this realization will lead to structural reforms in the system that reflects the dignity of their work.
—Liz Brown-Kaiser contributed
New Trump coronavirus ad hits critics, argues America writing the ‘the greatest comeback story’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is out with its new coronavirus television ad aimed at coming to the president’s defense on his handling of the virus.
The new, 60-second spot blends optimism with Trumpian attacks.
It begins by recounting the spat over Nancy Pelosi’s decision to rip up a copy of Trump’s State of the Union and goes on to take swipes at both former Vice President Joe Biden as well as the media.
“No matter how hard they try to stop us, they can’t,” Trump is quoted saying in the ad.
Then the ad shifts to telling the story of the attempt at recovery, touting the resilience of the American economy, cheering first responders and highlighting praise of the federal response by blue-state governors.
The campaign says the new spot will run as part of a seven-figure ad buy.
But as we explored last week on the MTP Blog, the pro-Trump effort has already been significantly outspent by Democratic groups that frame the Trump administration as asleep at the wheel.
And recent polling, including from last month’s NBC/WSJ poll, found a clear plurality of registered voters believe he has not taken the threat seriously and also the president lagging Biden on the question of who would handle the virus better.
So it’s with messaging like this that the Trump administration hopes to turn those numbers around.
Trump says Biden “should respond” to sexual assault allegation
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump Thursday said he thinks former Vice President Joe Biden should respond to the claim from a former staffer that the then-Delaware senator sexually assaulted her in the spring of 1993 even as he cast doubt on the veracity of the allegation.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said when asked by reporters Thursday evening about the allegation. “I don’t know exactly. I think he should respond. It could be false allegations, I know all about false accusations. I’ve been falsely charged numerous times. There’s such a thing.”
More than a dozen women have alleged that Trump sexually harassed or assaulted them. The president denies their accounts.
A former Senate staffer, Tara Reade, told NBC News that Biden — who at the time headed the Senate Judiciary Committee — penetrated her with his fingers under his skirt when she brought him a gym bag. She was a staff assistant in his office on Capitol Hill at the time.
Biden has not responded himself to Reade’s claims, but through his campaign has denied Reade’s account.
On Friday, Biden will conduct his first national news interview in two weeks with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
He has remained off the campaign trail and at his home in Delaware since mid-March, as Reade’s allegation has slowly gained attention and scrutiny. Prominent Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several possible Biden vice presidential selections, have been asked about Reade’s claim, with most defending Biden.
“I have great sympathy for any woman who brings forth allegations. I do support Joe Biden,” Pelosi said in a CNN interview this week.