The Race for The White House by midhun raj

The Race for The White House 25 AUGUST, 2016

Trump, Clinton spar over minority voters

REUTERS/David Becker

CONTENTS

Trump, Clinton spar over minority voters Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump clashed on Thursday over who would make a better president for the country's minorities, with each accusing the other of posing a threat to the interests of blacks and Latinos.

Clinton to accuse Trump of embracing nativist political movement Democrat Hillary Clinton will accuse Donald Trump of embracing a brand of U.S. political conservatism associated with white nationalism and nativism when she makes a Nevada campaign stop on Thursday.

EXCLUSIVE - Clinton leads Trump in key swing states, would likely win - poll If the U.S. presidential election were held today, Democrat Hillary Clinton would win the key swing states of Florida, Ohio and Virginia and have a 95 percent chance of beating Republican Donald Trump to become America’s ﬁrst female president, according to the Reuters/ Ipsos States of the Nation project.

Brexit leader Nigel Farage addresses Trump rally, bashes Clinton Nigel Farage, a key ﬁgure in the successful campaign to get Britain out of the European Union, lent his support to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying Trump represented the same type of anti-establishment movement that he masterminded in his own country.

Chorus grows for Clintons to shutter charitable foundation The Clinton Foundation, the family philanthropy of Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, should shut down or transfer operations to another charity despite its good work to avoid perceptions of "pay-for-play," The Washington Post and USA Today said in editorials on Wednesday.

WikiLeaks to release 'signiﬁcant' Clinton campaign data: Assange WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange said on Wednesday his organization planned to release "signiﬁcant" information linked to the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton before the Nov. 8 election.

Clinton launches Asian outreach in three closely fought states Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is focusing an effort to win over Asian American voters on three states where it believes the small but rapidly growing group could make the difference in her race against Republican Donald Trump.

COLUMN - The (likely) real story behind Colin Powell’s email advice to Clinton Former Secretary of State Colin Powell blamed Hillary Clinton for “trying to pin” her email scandal on him.

ELECTIONS 2016

Trump, Clinton spar over minority voters By Amanda Becker and Steve Holland

residential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump clashed on Thursday over who would make a better president for the country's minorities, with each accusing the other of posing a threat to the interests of blacks and Latinos. Clinton needs to hold on to minority support to beat her Republican rival in the Nov. 8 election and was set on Thursday to deliver a speech blasting him as a divisive candidate stoking racist groups. Trump has polled poorly with minorities but lately has tried to broaden his appeal to them, hinting at a softening of his hard-line position on immigration. In an appearance in Jackson, Mississippi, on Wednesday he had called Clinton a "bigot" who would do nothing to help blacks. "Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always had great relationships with the African American community and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve made it such a focal point," Trump said on Thursday before a

meeting at his New York headquarters with black and Hispanic Republicans. "They have really been let down by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats." Trump has been heavily criticized by minorities for his proposals on immigration, which include deporting millions of undocumented foreigners, building a wall along the Mexican border, and suspending Muslim immigration to shore up national security. But recently he has suggested he could soften those positions. In comments broadcast on Fox News on Wednesday night, Trump said he would be willing to work with immigrants who have abided by U.S. laws while living in the country, backing away from his insistence during the primaries that he would try to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants. He said on Thursday he would deliver an immigration speech detailing his updated positions at a later date, after canceling previous plans

to address the issue. The softening comes as Trump hopes to erode some of Clinton's strong support with Hispanic and black voters, a central part of his campaign message for the past two weeks. Clinton was set to hit back on Thursday afternoon in Nevada, a state with a heavy Hispanic population, with a speech that a top aide said would criticize Trump's "divisive and dystopian vision." Aides said Clinton will link Trump's statements about immigration and religion to the rise of a political fringe movement in the U.S. known as the "alternative right," which opposes multiculturalism and immigration. When asked by CNN to respond to Trump's charge that she was a bigot, Clinton said he was "taking a hate movement mainstream." "He's brought it into his campaign," she said. "He's bringing it to our communities and our country. I will have more to say about this tomorrow."

Anti-Trump protesters begin their march to cross a bridge near the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 21. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

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Clinton to accuse Trump of embracing nativist political movement By Amanda Becker

emocrat Hillary Clinton will accuse Donald Trump of embracing a brand of U.S. political conservatism associated with white nationalism and nativism when she makes a Nevada campaign stop on Thursday. Aides said Clinton will link Trump's statements about immigration and religion to the rise of a political fringe movement in the U.S. known as the "alternative right", which opposes multiculturalism and immigration. Clinton's speech is an effort to keep attention focused on what a top aide called Trump's "divisive and dystopian vision" as he tries to reverse his slumping position in opinion polls in key battleground states before the Nov. 8 presidential election. Her campaign said Trump's recent installation of a new campaign leadership team was no indicator that he would move away from past statements criticizing the objectivity of an American judge of Mexican heritage or proposing to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the

United States. "Trump's newly installed brain trust," Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said in a statement, "completes Donald Trump’s disturbing takeover of the Republican Party. "Republicans up and down the ticket are going to have to choose whether they want to be complicit in this lurch toward extremism or stand with voters who can't stomach it," he said. Trump’s campaign declined to comment on Clinton’s campaign speech, but at a Mississippi rally on Wednesday, the Republican nominee called Clinton a "bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings." Trump is set to meet with AfricanAmerican leaders in New York City on Thursday and said he would unveil an immigration proposal within the next two weeks. In comments broadcast on Fox News on Wednesday night, Trump backed farther away from his hardline stance on deporting millions of illegal immigrants, saying he would be willing to work with those who have abided by U.S. laws while

living in the country. When asked by CNN to respond to Trump's charge that she was a "bigot" on Wednesday evening, Clinton said he was "taking a hate movement mainstream. "He's brought it into his campaign. He's bringing it to our communities and our country," Clinton said. "I will have more to say about this tomorrow." Her campaign cites Trump’s decision to bring on Breitbart News executive Steve Bannon as his new campaign chief as a sign Trump is strengthening his ties to the alternative right movement. During Bannon’s tenure, Breitbart News increased its coverage of altright issues, and Bannon told the magazine Mother Jones during the Republican National Convention last month that the website was "the platform for the alt-right". The term "alt-right" is used to describe a faction of political conservatives that have used the Internet in recent months to advance views of white supremacism, antiSemitism and nativism.

A version of Donald Trump's wall created by artists David Gleeson and Mary Mihelic is pictured next to the U.S. Mexican border in Jacumba Hot Springs, California, July 12. REUTERS/Mike Blake

ELECTIONS 2016 EXCLUSIVE

Clinton leads Trump in key swing states, would likely win - poll By Chris Kahn

f the U.S. presidential election were held today, Democrat Hillary Clinton would win the key swing states of Florida, Ohio and Virginia and have a 95 percent chance of beating Republican Donald Trump to become America’s ﬁrst female president, according to the Reuters/ Ipsos States of the Nation project. The project, which combines opinion polls with an analysis of voting patterns under different election scenarios, shows Clinton currently beating Trump in the popular vote by six percentage points and ahead in 19

states, including most of the largerpopulation ones that heavily inﬂuence the outcome of the election. At the moment, Clinton would win at least 268 votes in the Electoral College, the body that ultimately chooses the next president, just two shy of what she needs to win the White House. On average, the former secretary of state would win by 108 electoral college votes. Trump would win at least 21 states, many of them with smaller populations, giving him a minimum of 179 electoral votes. The election is still 10 weeks away,

and a great deal could change prior to Nov 8. The candidates are running about even in eight states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina, and the polling sample is too small to determine the winner in Alaska, Wyoming and Washington D.C. But Trump would need to win the 21 states currently in his column and sweep all of the remaining "toss-up" states to win the presidency. That is a steep challenge for Trump, whose bare-knuckled, antiestablishment campaign helped him win the Republican Party's nomination but has so far failed to

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build broad support with voters. If Trump cannot draw in far greater numbers of women, moderate Republican voters and minorities, he will almost surely lose the White House race, according to the polling project. Consider, for example, what would be an ideal scenario for Trump: white men with below-average incomes showing up in record numbers on Election Day. This group strongly favors the real-estate mogul, yet even if all of them vote it wouldn't hand Trump any of the states currently slated for Clinton or any of the tossup states. Clinton would still win the election. The Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project is driven by an online survey that gathers responses from about 16,000 people per week. Respondents answer questions about their demographic background, their party afﬁliation and their choice for president. Their responses are weighted according to the latest population estimates, and each respondent is ranked according to their likelihood to vote. Once the poll is complete, the project tallies the levels of support and estimated error for both candidates, and then runs multiple election simulations given their respective support. A separate set of simulations is run for each state and Washington D.C. The project runs more than 25 million simulations to determine the chances that one candidate would win. Representatives from the Clinton and Trump campaigns did not respond to requests for comment on the project. OCTOBER SURPRISE? A polarizing candidate, Trump has called for a more extensive border wall with Mexico, a ban on Muslim immigrants and a rejection of international trade agreements. His personal attacks, including his criticism of the parents of a MuslimAmerican soldier killed in action, have undermined his support within the Republican establishment.

Still, Clinton is far from guaranteed a victory in November. A majority of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of both Trump and Clinton, and nearly one out of four likely voters says they do not support either of them for president, according to a separate Reuters/ Ipsos poll. The candidates are scheduled to square off in a series of televised debates, and a poor showing by either could quickly change the dynamic of the race. A strong showing by a third party candidate could also inﬂuence the outcome. Democratic Party operatives also fear there may be more revelations about ties between wealthy foreign donors to the Clinton family charity, the Clinton Foundation, and the State Department under her stewardship. Clinton has denied any impropriety but Trump has seized on the disclosures as a new line of attack against his rival. “There’s always a chance of an October surprise – something deﬁnitive and striking about Clinton – that could change the race,” said Tom Smith, who directs the Center for the Study of Politics and Society at the University of Chicago. “But, short of any scandals by the Clintons,

I just don’t see any way that Trump catches up.” If Trump were to rely heavily on support from white voters, he would face an extremely narrow path to victory. Even if all male and female white voters showed up at the polls, and turnout among blacks and Hispanics was half of what it was in 2012, respectively, the project shows Clinton would still be favored to win. It appears that Trump’s best chance is to turn out Republican voters in huge numbers and hope that a lot of Democrats stay home. There’s only one problem with this: Republicans appear to have turned out as strongly as Democrats only once in presidential elections since at least 1976. That was in 2004, when the electorate was made up of 37 percent of Republicans, 37 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of Independents, according to exit poll data collected by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University. "There's still a lot of this demolition derby of an election to go," said Donald Green, a political scientist at Columbia University. "A lot of people who support Trump don't have a very good record of voter turnout, and who knows if they show up this time.

Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during her California primary night rally held in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S. on June 7. REUTERS/ Lucas Jackson

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Brexit leader Nigel Farage addresses Trump rally, bashes Clinton By Steve Holland

igel Farage, a key ﬁgure in the successful campaign to get Britain out of the European Union, lent his support to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying Trump represented the same type of antiestablishment movement that he masterminded in his own country. Farage appeared with Trump before a cheering crowd of thousands at a rally in Jackson, Mississippi. Farage partly based his Brexit drive on opposition to mass immigration to Britain that he said was leading to rapid change in his country. His appearance came as Trump sought to moderate his own hardline stance against illegal immigration. In remarks broadcast on Wednesday, Trump backed further away from his

vow to deport millions of illegal immigrants, saying he would be willing to work with those who have abided by U.S. laws while living in the country. Trump summoned Farage on stage in the middle of his appearance, shook his hand and surrendered the microphone to him. Farage said he would not actually endorse Trump because he did not want to repeat what he called President Barack Obama's meddling in British affairs when Obama urged Britons to vote to stay in the EU. "I cannot possibly tell you how you should vote in this election. But you know I get it, I get it. I’m hearing you. But I will say this, if I was an American citizen I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me," Farage said. "In fact, I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if she paid me," he added. Trump has sought to

align himself with the Brexit movement, noting he had said before the June 23 referendum that Britons should vote to leave. He visited one of his golf courses in Scotland the day after the vote and boasted that he had predicted the outcome and called it a sign his own campaign would be successful. Trump has since tumbled in national opinion polls and is ﬁghting to remain competitive with Democratic rival Clinton with little more than two months to go until the Nov. 8 election. "November 8 is our chance to redeclare American independence," Trump said, borrowing a phrase Farage used during the Brexit campaign. 'FANTASTIC OPPORTUNITY' Farage drew parallels between the Brexit movement and the support

Donald Trump watches as Nigel Farage speaks at a campaign rally in Jackson, Mississippi. August 25. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

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Trump has received from many Americans who feel left behind by Washington. "They feel people aren’t standing up for them and they have in many cases given up on the whole electoral process and I think you have a fantastic opportunity here with this campaign," he said. Trump's comments on immigration came in the second part of an interview conducted on Tuesday with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity. They signaled a further softening in his immigration position as he tries to bolster support among moderate voters and minority groups. Trump, who defeated 16 rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in part based on his opposition to illegal

immigrants, said he would not permit American citizenship for the undocumented population and would expel lawbreakers. To qualify to remain in the United States, Trump said, illegal immigrants would have to pay back taxes. "No citizenship. Let me go a step further - they'll pay back taxes, they have to pay taxes, there's no amnesty, as such, there's no amnesty, but we work with them," Trump said. "But when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and I've had very strong people come up to me ... and they've said: 'Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person who's been here for 15 or 20 years and throw

them and their family out, it's so tough, Mr. Trump,'" Trump said. "It's a very hard thing." Trump said he would outline his position soon. “Well, I’m going to announce something over the next two weeks, but it’s going to be a very firm policy,” Trump told WPEC, a CBS affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump's new position seemed to resemble in some respects the failed 2007 reform push by former Republican President George W. Bush. That effort offered a way to bring millions "out of the shadows" without amnesty and would have required illegal immigrants to pay a fine and take other steps to gain legal status.

BREAKINGVIEWS

Trump and Farage have one big thing in common By Gina Chon

igel Farage has become America’s ghost of populism past. The British politician, who strongly advocated a UK exit from the European Union, urged Americans at a Donald Trump rally to defy the elite by voting for the Republican presidential nominee. Farage, like Trump, relied little on facts during the Brexit campaign and lots on public anger. A similar fury is percolating in the United States. Trump’s missteps in the last month have pollsters, bookies and investors forecasting a win for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. His criticism of the parents of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, and vague suggestion that gun rights supporters could commit violence against Clinton, helped widen her lead. Poll averages had Clinton ahead at 48 percent, compared to 40 percent for Trump just after the Democratic convention, according to RealClearPolitics. The Nasdaq, S&P and Dow are at or near record highs. Britons may ﬁnd this eerily familiar. In the UK in the weeks leading up to the referendum in June, most polls showed that Brexit

advocates were behind. The ﬁrst poll of voters released on the evening of June 23 showed a win for those who wanted to stay in the EU. Yet in the end, “Leave” supporters made up 52 percent of the vote. The liberal elite failed to gauge the anger of Brits who felt that EU membership and immigration had worsened inequality - or at least failed to make it better. Farage said on Wednesday that the “little people” in the United States could do the same. He could have a point. Inequality worries fueled the candidacies of Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who turned out to be a tough competitor

for the Democratic presidential nominee. About 47 percent of voters say life is worse now than 50 years ago, according to a Pew Research poll released last week. Trump has deﬁed bigger campaign war chests and seasoned politicians to defeat Republican rivals in the presidential race. Multiple scandals continue to haunt Clinton. While a victory for the bombastic mogul may be less than likely, it’s not quite unthinkable. -- The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

Nigel Farage poses during a media launch for an EU referendum poster in London, Britain June 16. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

ELECTIONS 2016

Chorus grows for Clintons to shutter charitable foundation

he Clinton Foundation, the family philanthropy of Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, should shut down or transfer operations to another charity despite its good work to avoid perceptions of "pay-for-play," The Washington Post and USA Today said in editorials on Wednesday. Despite plans announced earlier this week to reorganize the Clinton Foundation if Hillary Clinton wins the Nov. 8 election, USA Today said the global charity must close for the Democratic candidate to avoid any appearance of unethical ties. "The only way to eliminate the odor surrounding the foundation is to wind it down and put it in mothballs, starting today, and transfer its important charitable work to another large American charity such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation," the paper's editorial board wrote. The Gates Foundation declined to share its thoughts on the idea. "We really can’t speculate about the future of the Clinton Foundation," Amy Enright, a Gates Foundation spokeswoman, wrote in an email. The newspaper also published an editorial by Donna Shalala, the Clinton Foundation's president, in which she argued that the foundation helps millions of people, especially in developing countries, and so scaling down its work was not simple. "This suggestion ignores how global philanthropy works, and the reality that there are human beings around the world who would be affected by these decisions," Shalala wrote. The foundation announced on Monday that it would stop accepting at least some foreign and corporate donations if Clinton wins the presidency and that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, would resign from the foundation's board. The Washington Post said in its editorial that these changes were insufﬁcient and should have

Supporters of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump dressed in costume prison uniforms as Bill and Hillary Clinton sing the U.S. national anthem before a campaign rally in Austin, Texas, U.S., August 23. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

happened sooner, before Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. "The foundation undoubtedly does worthwhile work," the Post's editorial board wrote. "Should Ms. Clinton win, all of that work and all of the foundation's assets should be spun off to an organization with no ties to the ﬁrst family." The Clintons' daughter, Chelsea Clinton, remains on the board of the charity, the full name of which is the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. The call from two leading U.S. news organizations came as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and other members of his party have taken to calling for a special prosecutor to investigate what they say is corruption. The Clinton campaign has dismissed such calls as groundless political smears. Republicans see attacking Clinton over the organization as a way of unifying conservatives divided over Trump, who has never held elected

ofﬁcer and who often deviates from conservative orthodoxy. Democrats hope the controversy comes too late to make a difference in the election, in which most national public opinion polls show Clinton ahead. The foundation has said Hillary Clinton was not involved with the group while serving as the nation's top diplomat. The Clinton campaign denies Clinton ever took any action because of donations to the foundation. Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told MSNBC on Wednesday that Clinton does not have a conﬂict of interest with charitable work, and pointed to her rival's business interests with Wall Street, China and Russia. "Donald Trump and his bottom line and his networks are directly connected to all kinds of international entities ... and nobody's asking him to disclose or divest," Mook said of the New York businessman. Trump has responded by saying it is Clinton, not he, who has close ties to Russia.

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Mylan offers discounts on EpiPen after Clinton criticism By Ransdell Pierson and Ankur Banerjee

ylan NV said on Thursday it would reduce the out-of-pocket cost of its severe allergy treatment EpiPen through a discount program, a day after Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton joined lawmakers in criticizing the drug's high price. The company, which did not lower the drug's list price, said it would reduce the patient cost of EpiPen through the use of a savings card, which will cover up to $300 of EpiPen 2-Pak. Price of the product, acquired in 2007, has zoomed to $600 from $100 in 2008. For patients previously paying the full list price, the card effectively reduces their out-of-pocket cost

exposure by 50 percent, Mylan said. The company said it is also doubling the eligibility for its patient assistance program, which will eliminate out-of-pocket costs for uninsured and under-insured patients and families. Clinton on Wednesday called on Mylan to voluntarily drop EpiPen's price. Drugmakers are increasingly being called to task by lawmakers and consumers for routinely hiking drug prices, especially after acquiring the products. Mylan Chief Executive Heather Bresch, defending EpiPen's price in an interview on Thursday on CNBC, said her company had spent hundreds of millions of dollars

improving EpiPen, including making its needle invisible, since acquiring the device from German generic drugmaker Merck KGaA. "When we picked up this product, they (Merck) weren't spending a dollar on it," said Bresch, Bresch said Mylan recoups less than half of EpiPen's list price because pharmacy beneďŹ t managers, which often require discounted prices or rebates from drugmakers, are involved, along with insurers and others. Rather than roll back EpiPen's price, Bresch said Mylan is offering coupons equivalent to cash. "We went around the system." Clinton's comments on Wednesday came after a bipartisan group of

EpiPen auto-injection epinephrine pens manufactured by Mylan NV pharmaceutical company for use by severe allergy sufferers are seen in Washington, U.S. August 24. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

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lawmakers called for investigations into the price increase of EpiPens, which are preloaded injections of epinephrine (adrenaline) used in case of a dangerous allergic reaction that could cause death, if untreated. On Wednesday, Republican Senator Susan Collins and Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill requested that Mylan provide abrieﬁng to explain the price change. A group of lawmakers said on Wednesday they had written the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asking about its approval process for alternatives to the EpiPen. The comments from Clinton and

lawmakers hit biotech stocks on Wednesday, similar to the slump last fall when Clinton ﬁrst criticized the high cost of drugs. But Mylan's stock, which had fallen over 10 percent this week, rose 3.2 percent on Thursday, after announcement of its discount program. Clinton admonished Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc, which raised the price of a heart drug. In March, she released a campaign ad vowing to target the company. She has also sharply criticized Turing Pharmaceuticals for raising the price of an antiviral medication commonly used by AIDS patients and pregnant

women, to $750 from $13.50 a tablet. Turing was then led by Martin Shkreli, who became the poster child for the issue of soaring prices for prescription medications. He later stepped down as CEO of Turing. Bresch, daughter of Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, said she contacted members of Congress in the past two days and asked to meet with them to discuss what she called an "unsustainable" drug pricing system. She said one of the calls was to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who recently wrote a letter to Mylan asking for an explanation of big EpiPen price increases.

WikiLeaks to release signiﬁcant Clinton campaign data: Assange By Gina Chon

ikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange said on Wednesday his organization planned to release "significant" information linked to the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton before the Nov. 8 election. Asked if the data could be a gamechanger in the election, the Australian told Fox News in an interview conducted by satellite: "I think it’s significant. You know, it depends on how it catches fire in the public and in the media.” Assange has been living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for five years to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces sexual assault accusations. He denies the allegations. WikiLeaks released files in July of what it said were audio recordings pulled from the emails of the Democratic National Committee that were obtained by hacking its servers. That release, during the Democratic National Convention where Clinton was officially named the party's presidential nominee, was the second batch in a series that deeply rattled the party and prompted the

The logo of the Wikileaks website is pictured on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken in Tokyo November 29, 2010. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

committee's chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to step down. "I don’t want to give the game away, but it’s a variety of documents, from different types of institutions that are associated with the election campaign, some quite unexpected angles, some quite interesting, some even entertaining," Assange said

when asked how the next revelations would compare with those in July WikiLeaks publishes leaked material, mostly from governments. In 2010, the organization published classiﬁed U.S. military and diplomatic documents in one of the largest information leaks in U.S. history.

ELECTIONS 2016

Trump targets China trade, says plans serious measures

epublican presidential candidate Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to slap tariffs on Chinese products to show Beijing that the United States is "not playing games anymore" when it comes to leveling the ﬁeld on trade. Addressing a rally in Tampa, Florida, Trump said that if he was elected in November, he would instruct the U.S. trade representative to bring cases against China both in the United States and at the World Trade Organization. Tariffs would be necessary in some cases "because they have to understand that we're not playing games anymore," he added. Trump

had previously pledged a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods. Trump said on Wednesday that the trade deficit with China was more than $500 billion, although the figure given by the U.S. government put it at $367 billion in 2015. The United States has brought cases against China at the WTO, and U.S. officials have frequently slapped antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese products under U.S. law based on complaints brought by U.S. producers. "We believe that whoever wins the U.S election, future U.S. leaders will continue to adopt a basic policy of mutual cooperation with China that accords with U.S. interests and the

interests of the U.S. people," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters on Thursday. Trump, who is running behind Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in opinion polls, has pledged to return manufacturing jobs to America, although many economists believe that the "China shock" has long since passed. Economists at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere estimate that the "China shock" in the wake of the country's accession to the WTO cost 800,000 to 1 million jobs in the United States. By way of comparison, U.S. manufacturing has shed 5 million jobs since 2000.

Clinton launches Asian outreach in three closely fought states By Luciana Lopez

emocrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is focusing an effort to win over Asian American voters on three states where it believes the small but rapidly growing group could make the difference in her race against Republican Donald Trump. The push in closely fought Nevada, Virginia and Pennsylvania follows a broader national effort by Clinton's campaign to court minorities who are critical to her chances of winning the White House in the Nov. 8 election. Asians make up less than 3.5 percent of the U.S. population, but are the fastest-growing racial group in the country, according to the U.S. Census, due largely to net migration, making them more important than ever in an election. “Secretary Clinton understands the importance of the AAPI community and has launched a program that reﬂects that, reaching AAPI voters in unprecedented ways,” said Jason Tengco, the Clinton campaign’s outreach director for Asian Americans and Paciﬁc Islanders (AAPI). The three states were targeted

Supporters of Hillary Clinton listen to her speak during a campaign event with VicePresident Joe Biden in Scranton, Pennsylvania, August 15. REUTERS/Charles Mostoller

because Asian voters could swing the outcome in the tight races between Trump and Clinton there. The effort will include print, digital and broadcast advertising in a handful of Asian languages and more coordination among volunteer groups representing ethnic communities within the Asian

American and Paciﬁc Islander group, according to the campaign. Among the recent hires for the effort was Philip Kim, a Los Angeles native who previously worked with Senator Tim Kaine, Clinton's running mate, as outreach director for Asian American and Paciﬁc Islander voters in Nevada. The campaign did not say how much

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the three-state push would cost. While small, the Asian population could eclipse the margin of victory in each of the states Clinton is targeting. Asians make up some 2.1 percent of eligible voters in Pennsylvania, 5 percent in Virginia and 9 percent in Nevada, according to APIAVote, a nonpartisan group. Polling from Reuters/Ipsos shows Clinton with a mere 1 point lead over Trump in Pennsylvania, a 6 point lead in Virginia, and a 2 point lead in Nevada. GETTING ASIANS TO THE POLLS The challenge will be to get Asian Americans to the polls. Asian American voters have tended to lean Democrat in the past but register

to vote much less frequently than whites and blacks. Asian registration was about 56.3 percent in 2012, according to the Census, versus 73.1 percent for black voters and 71.9 percent for white voters. “A big part of what we’re doing is voter registration,” said Xochitl Hinojosa, a Clinton spokeswoman. Clinton's campaign has already done significant Asian outreach. It launched the "AAPI for Hillary" campaign to engage Asian voters in January and has done phone calling in a range of languages for months. But the campaign said the latest push was the first with state-specific programs. The Clinton campaign is considering advertisements in Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, Hindi,

Urdu, Bengali and Chinese. A spokesperson for Trump's campaign did not respond to requests for comment about its Asian outreach. The Trump campaign has, however, recently made some efforts to appeal to black and Latino voters to undercut Clinton, including a meeting on Thursday with Latino and black Republicans in New York. Trump has had problems with minorities in the past and has angered some with his hardline antiimmigration rhetoric. He has accused Mexico of sending rapists and drug dealers over the border, vowed to build a wall to stop them and called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to shore up U.S. national security.

COLUMN

The (likely) real story behind Colin Powell’s email advice to Clinton By Peter Van Buren

ormer Secretary of State Colin Powell blamed Hillary Clinton for “trying to pin” her email scandal on him. Earlier last week, the New York Times, citing FBI notes from an interview with Hillary Clinton and an upcoming book, reported during a dinner conversation in 2009, Powell advised Clinton to use a personal email account as an efﬁcient way to communicate. Powell says he has no recollection of the conversation, though he did write Clinton an email after she started using her private email server, describing his limited use of a personal AOL email account. The media on this story missed the context, and simply played it as a he said-she said piece. Here's the likely full story. The Full Story What was almost certainly in the email Powell sent Clinton was the story of his successful efforts to drag the State Department into the modern age. I worked for State during that period of time, and watched it happen.

A ﬁle photo of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, joined by former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright (L-R), Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton for a ceremony before breaking ground on the U.S. Diplomacy Center museum at the State Department in Washington September 3, 2014. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

When the rest of the world was working on PCs and using thenmodern software in their ofﬁces, State clung to an old, clunky mainframe system made by the nowdefunct company WANG. WANG's version of a word processor was only

a basic text editor with no font or formatting tools. Spell check was an option many locations did not have installed. IBM had bid on a contract to move State to PCs in 1990, but was rejected in favor of a renewal of the WANG mainframes.

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WANG email, itself seen inside State Department as a major innovation when launched in 1991 (dates are approximate, as upgrades took place globally on a rolling basis), worked only inside the Department until around 1995 or so, when it could ﬁnally be used to send and receive outside email via a cumbersome workaround. Until then, State could not communicate by email with any other government agency, never mind a public rapidly moving online. Until Powell demanded the change, internet at State was limited to standalone, dial up access that had to be procured locally. Ofﬁces had, if they were lucky, one stand alone PC off in the corner connected to a noisy modem. If you wanted to use it, you needed in most cases to stand in line and wait your turn. Leading By Example Powell, coming out of the military where information is seen as a force multiplier, did what he had always done, lead by example. He demanded desktop internet and email for

himself, and told everyone about it. He then demanded the same for ambassadors overseas. When the sky did not fall via these "tests," he used his full powers as Secretary of State to overcome multiple bureaucratic obstacles and implement desktop internet for State worldwide. It was a massive game changer. I remember receiving internal staff-wide messages from Powell, saying that he checks his email and the news online when he enters the ofﬁce, even before his paper memo stack, and we should, too! Without Powell, the arrival of modern communications at State would have been delayed for years. So What Did Powell Tell Clinton About Email? Despite Clinton's claim that Colin Powell "told her" to use commercial email for her government business, it is very unlikely that is what he said. The way I see it, there's about a 99.9 percent probability that he discussed his signature accomplishment at

State with her, and cited his own limited, almost experimental, use of an AOL email account, as an example of how to break down the technical, security, bureaucratic, and cultural barriers that still plague the State Department today. After all, if the boss does it, so will the staff. In Powell's case, that was a positive example. What example did Clinton set? (Disclosure: Following the publication – during Clinton's time as secretary of state – of my book critical of the State Department's role in the Iraq War, the department unsuccessfully carried out termination proceedings against me. Instead, I retired voluntarily.) -- Peter Van Buren, who served in the State Department for 24 years, is the author of "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People,” a look at the waste and mismanagement of the Iraqi reconstruction. His latest book is "Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent." The opinions expressed are his own.

POLL

Clinton leads Trump by 12 points in Reuters/Ipsos poll By Chris Kahn

emocratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton leads Republican rival Donald Trump by 12 percentage points among likely voters, her strongest showing this month, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday. The Aug. 18-22 poll showed that 45 percent of voters supported Clinton, while 33 percent backed Trump ahead of the Nov. 8 election. Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state, has led Trump, a New York businessman, throughout most of the 2016 campaign. But her latest lead represents a stronger level of support than polls indicated over the past few weeks. Earlier in August, Clinton's lead over Trump ranged from 3 to 9 percentage points in the poll. The poll also found that about 22 percent of

REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan

likely voters would not pick either candidate. That lack of support is high compared with how people responded to the poll during the 2012 presidential election between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. "Those who are wavering right now are just

as likely to be thinking about supporting a third-party candidate instead, and not between Clinton and Trump," said Tom Smith, who directs the Center for the Study of Politics and Society at the University of Chicago. During the latest polling, Clinton faced renewed scrutiny about her handling of classiﬁed emails while serving as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, and Trump's campaign chief, Paul Manafort, resigned after a reshufﬂe of the candidate's campaign leadership team. Clinton held a smaller lead in a separate four-way poll that included Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party. Among likely voters, 41 percent supported Clinton, while 33 percent backed Trump. Johnson was backed by 7 percent and Stein by 2 percent. The poll was conducted online in English in all 50 states.

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Politics and economics often go hand in hand. The impact of the ﬁrst on the latter is signiﬁcant, particularly when it comes to electing a new President by the world’s leading nation. With the U.S. Presidential election on the horizon and big changes underway, this article examines potential effects of the outcome on the greenback and U.S. monetary policy outlook. A one cent U.S. coin depicting Abraham Lincoln is shown in this photo Illustration in Encinitas, California March 26, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Blake

What does ‘16 Election mean for the USD, monetary policy outlook? By Saida Litosh

he uncertainty that normally precedes elections tends to create increased levels of volatility on ﬁnancial and currency markets, and prompts investors to adopt a more cautious attitude. History also suggests that there is a lot more uncertainty and volatility in Presidential election years when the incumbent is not seeking reelection. Heightened volatility in the run-up to this year’s elections is therefore not even up for discussion; the more important questions are how much volatility, in which direction and what economic implications would the outcome bring about. We believe that increased uncertainty revolving around Presidential elections would put considerable

downward pressure on the U.S. dollar, particularly if the race between the two candidates tightens. Trump’s views on foreign policy and the uncertainty about the effects of his policies on the U.S. economy are likely to create a lot of short-term fluctuations in the dollar and global financial markets. Increased volatility and the potential for geopolitical tensions associated with a Trump victory are likely to fuel safe-haven buying, putting a further drag on the dollar. We therefore believe that the greenback would come under significant pressure under the scenario he wins, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the elections. That said, should his policies prove successful in the longer term, accompanied by a healthy growth path, the dollar should stabilise.

On the other hand, we expect the impact of a Clinton win to be less drastic on the political climate, not least because she belongs to the same party as the incumbent President. Given the importance of these elections, either outcome would create a degree of uncertainty and cautiousness across global markets. That said, a victory for Clinton is likely to generate less volatility and put less downward pressure on the U.S. dollar, which on the contrary could quickly stabilise after the election and move upwards should investors and ﬁnancial markets perceive the outcome as more favourable for the global climate. Before we move on to potential implications for monetary policy under each scenario, we would like to evaluate brieﬂy the development of

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the U.S. stock market during the administration of both parties. The chart below illustrates how the S&P 500 has evolved over time, including bands that highlight ruling periods of the Democratic and Republican Presidents. Calculations over the period between 1969 and 2016 show that annual growth in the value of the index averaged 9.6% during the years of a Democrat administration, compared to 4% growth under Republicans. On a historical basis, the stock market performed better, on average, during the Democratic presidencies, although future trends do not always reflect the past. While U.S. monetary policy is governed by an independent body, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the outcome of the Presidential elections will most likely have a degree of influence in shaping the Fed’s decisions. There will be appointments to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to fill the two vacant posts at some point under the new administration, which is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, as well as the end of Janet Yellen’s current four-year term as Chairman in early 2018. The next President will therefore have an indirect influence on interest rates, the outlook for the U.S. dollar and global financial markets. The Republicans might be expected to be more supportive of monetary policy tightening and, depending on the state of the economy, this could facilitate dollar strengthening in the longer term. On the other hand, a Democratic administration is expected to be less supportive and more in favour of loose policy, which could ultimately put pressure on the dollar outlook. While it is difficult to assess how successful policies proposed by one or another

S&P 500 since 1965

party may prove to be in the years to come, we can add with a degree of conﬁdence that all the uncertainty revolving around this crucial political and economic event will likely dampen investors’ enthusiasm and boost appetite for safe havens.

Indeed, as the U.S. economy slowed abruptly in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse the U.S. dollar gained as a safe haven even though the economy stuttered.

-- Group email: gfms@tr.com

The U.S. Dollar Index

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