Economy sets tone of week for 2 hopefuls; Trump, Clinton planning to make cases in Detroit

WASHINGTON -- The two major-party presidential candidates are advertising dueling economic speeches this week -- both set to be delivered from Detroit.


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The campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton announced Sunday that she will give a "major speech" Thursday, a rebuttal to Republican nominee Donald Trump, who addresses the prestigious Detroit Economic Club today.

"Donald Trump ceded the national conversation on the economy because he was focused on creating the scandal-of-the-hour, so he's now been forced to schedule a Monday speech in Detroit to try and reclaim standing on what was supposed to be the one sure-fire issue for him in this campaign -- the economy," the Clinton campaign said in a statement announcing her speech.

Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort promoted Trump's speech in remarks broadcast on Fox Business' Sunday Morning Futures. He seemed to suggest that in the race to Election Day on Nov. 8, nothing before today's speech counts: "The campaign is a three-month campaign; we're at the beginning," he said.

"Mr. Trump on Monday will lay out a vision that's a growth economic plan" that will focus on cutting taxes, cutting regulation, energy development and boosting middle-class wages, Manafort said. "When we do that, we're comfortable that we can get the agenda and the narrative of the campaign back on where it belongs, which is comparing the tepid economy under [President Barack] Obama and Clinton, versus the kind of growth economy that Mr. Trump wants to build."

One prominent Republican supporter, however, said he wouldn't quarrel with an interviewer's suggestion that the numbers for the Trump economic plan "don't add up."

"Of course not," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Fox News Sunday. "I think historically no candidate's numbers add up." But Gingrich said paring government regulations would spur economic growth, bringing in revenue to compensate for tax cuts.

Clinton's most recent speech on the economy was in late June, when she sought to offer reassurance to Democratic primary voters that she would stick to the positions she'd established over the past year even as she aimed to widen her appeal.

"Donald Trump offers no real solutions for the economic challenges we face," Clinton said then in Raleigh, N.C. "He just continues to spout reckless ideas that will run up our debt and cause another economic crash."

Clinton said her plans would ensure that the "economy works for everyone -- not just those at the top, not just for the rich or the well-connected, not just for people living in some parts of the country or people from certain backgrounds and not others."

Trump's GOP critics

Trump's speech today presents an opportunity to change the subject from the previous week, which was dominated by a series of controversies, including a conflict with parents who lost their son in combat and Trump's hesitancy to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in his upcoming primary.

As recently as Saturday night, Trump focused more on Clinton's mental health and appearance than on policy. During a rally in Windham, N.H., he called the former secretary of state unhinged, unstable and unbalanced.

Two Republican officials who have been critical of Trump raised concerns Sunday about his divisiveness and how it might affect his ability to win in the key battleground states of Ohio and Arizona.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said on CBS' Face the Nation that Trump needs to take different positions on immigration and his proposed ban on Muslim entry into the United States, and that Trump should reconsider his opposition to trade and his calling into question the U.S. participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

"If none of us on the Republican side are pushing back and saying that needs to change, I don't think it will change," Flake said. "You can't go on and expect that you're going to be president of the United States when you make statements like that."

"We need a more responsible campaign, and we haven't seen it so far," he added.

Flake's comments were echoed by Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, who in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's State of the Union voiced doubts about Trump's ability to win the Buckeye State.

"He's going to win parts of Ohio where people are really hurting," Kasich said. "There will be sections he will win because people are angry, frustrated and haven't heard any answers. But I still think it's difficult if you are dividing to be able to win in Ohio. I think it's really, really difficult."

Kasich has not endorsed Trump, and he skipped the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

The governor said he does not support Clinton. As for what he will do at the ballot box this fall, Kasich said he was undecided.

Trump did not appear on the Sunday morning news shows. On Twitter, he went after Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who defended Clinton and attacked Trump on CNN.

"I see where Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore is pushing Crooked hard. Look at the job she has done in Baltimore. She is a joke!" Trump tweeted, referring to one of his nicknames for Clinton, "Crooked Hillary."

Several of Trump's supporters appeared on the Sunday morning shows, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who spoke on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos. He referred to Trump's support for Republicans including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., after he initially refused to back them.

"I think his reaching out and supporting John McCain and Kelly Ayotte in particular, and Paul Ryan, who had been critical of him, you know, a couple of days earlier, shows that he has the ability and the understanding to realize that there are going to be disagreements and you've got to be able to reach out to the entire party," Giuliani said.

Gingrich also praised Trump's efforts to reach out to members of his party.

"If you look at the last few days, I think he's gotten the messages," Gingrich said. "It's very tricky if you've never run for public office, to jump from being a businessman to being one of the two leaders fighting for the presidency, and he's made some mistakes."

Seizing on Trump's week of contention, Clinton's running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., noted that their campaign has stuck to an economic message, while Trump has been beset by distractions of his own making.

"Hillary and I have been on the road this week. We've been talking about jobs and the economy," Kaine said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. "Donald Trump has been on the road talking about how the [Capt. Humayun] Khan family viciously attacked him and why he's not supporting the speaker in his own primary. How many different people does he want to fight against?

"Donald Trump is shadowboxing against every last person on the planet," he added.

Lesson learned

Clinton will be "real transparent" with Americans after learning lessons from the outcry over her use of a private email server, Kaine added, expressing optimism that she could improve her trust deficit with voters.

Kaine's primary objective on NBC was to help Clinton move on from her inaccurate statement last week that the FBI director, James Comey, had called her answers about her private email server "truthful." Comey told Congress last month that he could not say whether Clinton had lied to Americans about her email practices, also saying the FBI had "no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI."

While Clinton said on Friday that she "may have short-circuited" by suggesting that Comey had unconditionally vouched for her, Kaine focused on Clinton's admission that her use of the private server had been a "mistake" and that she had apologized for the matter.

"I know that this is something that she's learned from, and we're going to be real transparent, absolutely," Kaine said.

Clinton made her first apologies roughly a year ago and has promised to be more open, yet she has been criticized for having gone more than 200 days without holding a formal news conference until Friday, when she took questions from reporters in Washington.

Kaine suggested that more voters may trust Clinton "even a month from now."

He also said that Clinton and Obama would together decide how to proceed with Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court if she wins the presidency in November.

Kaine and Clinton both support Garland's nomination, but his future remains unclear in the Republican-controlled Senate. If the Senate does not act on Garland, and Clinton becomes president in January, she would have to decide whether to stick with Obama's choice or to pick someone else for the vacancy. Republicans have said that Americans should have a voice in the selection of a Supreme Court justice with their choice for president.

Elsewhere on Sunday, Kasich confirmed a report in The New York Times Magazine that one of his aides had received a phone call from the Trump campaign to offer him the vice presidential slot with a promise that Kasich could have unusual authority over domestic and foreign policy.

The Trump campaign has disputed details about the call, and Trump has said he never offered the position to Kasich.

Kasich, in his remarks to CNN, said that he had never personally got a call.

"I was never interested in being anyone's vice president," Kasich said. "Never considered it. Why would I want to be? I would be the worst vice president. I have too many opinions."

Information for this article was contributed by John Wagner, Jose A. DelReal, Abby Phillip and Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post; by Jennifer Epstein, Todd Shields and Ben Brody of Bloomberg News; by Laurie Kellman, Jill Colvin and Anne Flaherty of The Associated Press; and by Patrick Healy of The New York Times.

A Section on 08/08/2016

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