To me, wealth is not money. Money maybe the last thing that wealth is.
To me, wealth is health, family, friends, living in a free country with opportunity with people you love and respect. Wealth is a good relationship with God and or Spirit. Wealth is a 24 hour a day feeling of peace in your heart from your relationship with life throughout the universe.
After all these things money might come into all this. But, without all these things first, money means nothing at all. You can own everything on earth financially but if you don't have health, family, friends and don't live in a free country or have a good relationship with God and with Spirit and are not friends with yourself it doesn't mean a thing except you are not starving for food and shelter and clothes.
Tibetan Buddhists call someone who is precious in all ways, Rinpoche which means "precious" and a Living Buddha. Some people feel this way about the present Pope too where all their spiritual good feelings reside in one or more "Good People".
But, true wealth is something you can share if you have it with yourself, your family, your friends and the world, and yet it grows greater every day.
By God's Grace
Thursday, March 31, 2016
America is still extremely wealthy—and these numbers prove it
Fri, Apr 1, 2016, 2:14AM EDT - US Markets open in 7 hrs and 16 mins
America is still extremely wealthy—and these numbers prove it
I’ve been having a running argument with Donald Trump supporters on social media. Is America poor? Rich? Somewhere in between?
Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, says the United States is poor, a claim I debunked in a recent story.
But some readers don’t buy my argument – so I’m digging deeper into the
numbers. The basic objection comes down to one thing: A nation can’t
possibly be wealthy with a national debt of $19.3 trillion, or about
$160,000 per U.S. household. If Washington had to pay that off all of a
sudden, it couldn’t possibly come up with the money. And if you can’t
pay your debts, you must be poor.
That logic might make sense for a
family or even a business, but not necessarily for the U.S. economy as a
whole. The U.S. government does, in fact, have a negative net worth. It
has assets of more than $5 billion, including buildings, land,
intellectual property, loans made to consumers, currency and many other
things. But its liabilities are much bigger, due mostly to the national
debt. On the whole, the government’s net worth is - $12.3 trillion,
according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve.
America’s wealth has never
resided in the government, however; it resides in the private sector,
which is bursting with bounty. Households, businesses and nonprofits
have a combined net worth of about $98 trillion, according to the Fed.
This table shows the entire net worth of the United States, including
all of the nation’s assets and liabilities, in every sector:
Bottom line: The total net worth of the U.S. is nearly $100 trillion,
give or take a few trillion due to fluctuations in the stock market and
other variations. Again, that accounts for all debt, both public and
private, including the $19.3 trillion Washington owes. (A methodology
note explaining each category is at the bottom of this story.)
So is $100 trillion of net worth
a lot of wealth? Uh, yeah. It’s 165 times the value of Apple, the
world's most valuable company, and 5.5 times America’s entire GDP, a
portion that has risen sharply since the recession. Total net worth
peaked at 5.7 times GDP in 2006, the final year of the housing boom. It
bottomed out at 4.8 times GDP from 2009 through 2011, as home values
fell, then turned upward in 2012 as both homes and stocks once again
gained in value. Here’s the ratio of total net worth to GDP since 1960:
It’s difficult to do
apples-to-apples comparisons with other countries, but the United States
ranks as one of the world’s wealthiest countries almost any way you
look at it. U.S. disposable income per household—what’s left of family
income after taxes—is the highest in the world,
and it’s multiples of what people earn in China and Mexico, the two
bogeynations Trump frequently blames for killing American jobs. And the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranks the United
States fourth in terms of household net worth as a percentage of
disposable income, after Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands.
That's an important measure of wealth when you account for income.
There’s one huge caveat to all
these rah-rah numbers: wealth in the United States is divided very
unevenly, with the rich snagging a larger portion than in virtually
every other advanced nation. The U.S. has a less generous safety net
than many other countries as well. Many lower-earning Americans are
undoubtedly struggling, while waiting for wealth stubbornly stuck at the
top to trickle down, which may never happen. When Trump says America is
poor, it resonates with a lot of people who feel that way.
But if the question is whether
America has the resources to pay its current and future obligations —
even in an emergency -- the answer is yes. It may not be possible under
the current tax structure, which doesn’t raise enough money to cover
what the government spends—especially with the economy growing at an
anemic 2% or so. But the power to levy taxes is a remarkable tool, and
it makes government finances quite different from the typical household
budget.
Tax rates can and do go up,
usually when there’s an urgent need for government revenue and other
measures aren’t enough. The top tax rate soared from 25% before the
Great Depression to 63% in the early 1930s, to 79% in the late 1930s,
and to 91% during World War II. Today the top tax rate is 39.6%, and
even lower for capital gains, which mostly accrue to the wealthy.
Parting with some of that $100 trillion, if ever necessary, would surely
be painful for those who own it. But ruinous, no.
[Methodology:
Here’s some of the fine print on net worth astute readers will no doubt
wonder about. The sector known as nonfinancial corporate business
includes all U.S. for-profit public companies. The net worth number
seems small because the market value of those companies—the stock—is
mostly accounted for in the household category, under financial assets.
Nonfinancial noncorporate business includes all privately owned U.S.
companies. Financial business includes the banking sector, asset
managers, insurance companies and other financial institutions, and its
net worth is negative mainly because the loans and securities such firms
issue count as liabilities, offsetting deposits and other assets. Rest
of the world includes U.S. transactions by foreigners. And state and
local government has a positive net worth because assets such as
buildings, equipment, pension funds, and currency exceeds liabilities
such as municipal debt and pension obligations. For those who want to
know more, the Fed has published 47 pages of footnotes relating to these accounts.]
Donald Trump's Poll Numbers Collapse as General Election Looms
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Donald Trump's Poll Numbers Collapse as General Election Looms
| NBCNews.com | - |
The
bottom is dropping out for Donald Trump. While Trump was never popular
outside of his loyal slice of GOP voters, a raft of new polls show his
national position hitting new lows, including with groups that are
supposed to form his base.
The bottom is dropping out for Donald Trump.
While Trump was never popular outside of his loyal slice of GOP voters, a raft of new polls show his national position hitting new lows, including with groups that are supposed to form his base.
America's widespread loathing for Trump puts further pressure on Republican delegates to deny him the nomination in July if he falls short of a majority, a move that would set off an ugly civil war but that some in the party believe would be necessary to stave off generational damage.
A collection of recent surveys by Real Clear Politics finds, on average, 30 percent of respondents hold a favorable view of Trump versus 63 percent who hold a negative one. Those numbers are roughly parallel to former President George W. Bush's approval ratings during his final months in office, which set the stage for President Barack Obama's landslide victory.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton leads Trump by double digits in at least six national polls in March, even as her own favorability ratings appear weak. Using 2008 as a reference point again, Obama's popular vote margin against Sen. John McCain was just more than 7 percent.
Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan election forecaster affiliated with the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, handicapped the general election based on the latest numbers and the results were not pretty for the GOP. According to their best guess, Democrats would begin a race against Trump with states totaling 347 electoral votes already solidly in their camp or leaning that way. They need 270 to win.
RELATED: Donald Trump holds surprise meeting with RNC in DC
Top Democratic strategists have warned that Trump could be a tougher out than he appears. His campaign has emphasized its strength with blue collar white voters, and some Clinton allies and labor officials have expressed concern that Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin might flip under the right circumstances.
Recent polls, however, strongly undermine the idea Trump has the kind of popularity needed to make that approach work. A Washington Post/ABC News poll early this month found a majority of non-college whites (52 percent) and white men (51 percent) disapproved of Trump — a shocking find given their importance to his coalition.
There are red flags at the state level as well. A Marquette University poll of Wisconsin voters this week found 70 percent of respondents disapproved of Trump. Clinton led Trump by 10 points, despite only tying Sen. Ted Cruz in the same poll.
Trump's numbers are horrific among black and Hispanic voters — two groups that the RNC argued the party needed to aggressively court in its autopsy of the 2012 election. Some Republican strategists have argued, however, that the GOP could still squeak by in 2016 by improving their margins with white votersalone.
That second option looks a lot harder, however, the more Trump exacerbates his already weak position with women.
The Post/ABC News survey found three-quarters of women held an unfavorable view of Trump — and that was before his campaign manager was charged with battery against a female reporter and Trump proposed "some form of punishment" for women who terminate a pregnancy should abortion be outlawed. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll the same month found 70 percent of women nationally held an unfavorable opinion of Trump.
For a worst case scenario, look no further than former Senate candidate Todd Akin who won just 39 percent of the total vote in red-leaning Missouri in 2012 after claiming women rarely get pregnant from"legitimate rape."
Trump's remarks on abortion Wednesday infuriated Republicans and pro-life activists who have spent years trying to train candidates to avoid inflammatory rhetoric and positions around the issue. Trumpwalked back his comments the same day, but his frequent blow-ups are heightening fears within the GOP that Republicans down the ballot will spend the entire election reacting to his stumbles.
RELATED: Why Trump's controversies matter for all Republicans
For the first time this cycle, some analysts are suggesting the Republican House majority — commonly thought to be impregnable until at least 2022 thanks to GOP-friendly maps — could come into play if Trump's numbers were to hold and the party fractured over his candidacy. As for the Senate, Democrats started the year on offense thanks to an outsize number of vulnerable GOP seats and it's hard to imagine the majority not changing hands in a crushing Trump defeat.
While Trump was never popular outside of his loyal slice of GOP voters, a raft of new polls show his national position hitting new lows, including with groups that are supposed to form his base.
America's widespread loathing for Trump puts further pressure on Republican delegates to deny him the nomination in July if he falls short of a majority, a move that would set off an ugly civil war but that some in the party believe would be necessary to stave off generational damage.
A collection of recent surveys by Real Clear Politics finds, on average, 30 percent of respondents hold a favorable view of Trump versus 63 percent who hold a negative one. Those numbers are roughly parallel to former President George W. Bush's approval ratings during his final months in office, which set the stage for President Barack Obama's landslide victory.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton leads Trump by double digits in at least six national polls in March, even as her own favorability ratings appear weak. Using 2008 as a reference point again, Obama's popular vote margin against Sen. John McCain was just more than 7 percent.
Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan election forecaster affiliated with the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, handicapped the general election based on the latest numbers and the results were not pretty for the GOP. According to their best guess, Democrats would begin a race against Trump with states totaling 347 electoral votes already solidly in their camp or leaning that way. They need 270 to win.
RELATED: Donald Trump holds surprise meeting with RNC in DC
Top Democratic strategists have warned that Trump could be a tougher out than he appears. His campaign has emphasized its strength with blue collar white voters, and some Clinton allies and labor officials have expressed concern that Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin might flip under the right circumstances.
Recent polls, however, strongly undermine the idea Trump has the kind of popularity needed to make that approach work. A Washington Post/ABC News poll early this month found a majority of non-college whites (52 percent) and white men (51 percent) disapproved of Trump — a shocking find given their importance to his coalition.
There are red flags at the state level as well. A Marquette University poll of Wisconsin voters this week found 70 percent of respondents disapproved of Trump. Clinton led Trump by 10 points, despite only tying Sen. Ted Cruz in the same poll.
Trump's numbers are horrific among black and Hispanic voters — two groups that the RNC argued the party needed to aggressively court in its autopsy of the 2012 election. Some Republican strategists have argued, however, that the GOP could still squeak by in 2016 by improving their margins with white votersalone.
That second option looks a lot harder, however, the more Trump exacerbates his already weak position with women.
The Post/ABC News survey found three-quarters of women held an unfavorable view of Trump — and that was before his campaign manager was charged with battery against a female reporter and Trump proposed "some form of punishment" for women who terminate a pregnancy should abortion be outlawed. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll the same month found 70 percent of women nationally held an unfavorable opinion of Trump.
For a worst case scenario, look no further than former Senate candidate Todd Akin who won just 39 percent of the total vote in red-leaning Missouri in 2012 after claiming women rarely get pregnant from"legitimate rape."
Trump's remarks on abortion Wednesday infuriated Republicans and pro-life activists who have spent years trying to train candidates to avoid inflammatory rhetoric and positions around the issue. Trumpwalked back his comments the same day, but his frequent blow-ups are heightening fears within the GOP that Republicans down the ballot will spend the entire election reacting to his stumbles.
RELATED: Why Trump's controversies matter for all Republicans
For the first time this cycle, some analysts are suggesting the Republican House majority — commonly thought to be impregnable until at least 2022 thanks to GOP-friendly maps — could come into play if Trump's numbers were to hold and the party fractured over his candidacy. As for the Senate, Democrats started the year on offense thanks to an outsize number of vulnerable GOP seats and it's hard to imagine the majority not changing hands in a crushing Trump defeat.
There's still a decent chance Trump will not be the nominee. He's unlikely to win a contested convention thanks to his weak support among party leaders and a complicated set of delegate rules that make it hard for him to pack the room with loyal supporters.
Such a move would come with its own downsides, however. Trump has predicted "riots" from his supporters if he loses, and it seems highly likely he would direct his voters to not support the Republican nominee in November. That would likely do fatal damage to someone like Cruz, whose path to victory is difficult enough without Trump undermining him.
This would normally be the point in an article where all the caveats are listed: It's early, maybe Trump can improve his standing with voters, perhaps he can heal rifts within the GOP by November, etc.
Unlike past candidates, however, Trump is almost universally well known at this point and respondents to polls indicate strong feelings about his candidacy. He's also yet to weather any attacks from the left, where Democrats are preparing a massive campaign to drag him down in ways that his Republican rivals cannot. Unless something big changes, Trump could cross a point of no return well before the Republican convention takes place.
This article originally appeared on MSNBC.com.
Donald Trump's unpopularity is poised to make history
begin quote from:
In Depth:The Daily Trail: Donald Trump's unpopularity is poised to make history
The Daily Trail: Donald Trump's unpopularity is poised to make history
The worst week of his campaign didn't get any better today. REUTERS/Jim Young
"Three-quarters of women view him unfavorably. So do nearly two-thirds of independents, 80 percent of young adults, 85 percent of Hispanics and nearly half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.
"Those findings, tallied from Washington Post-ABC News polling, fuel Trump’s overall 67 percent unfavorable rating — making Trump more disliked than any major-party nominee in the 32 years the survey has been tracking candidates."
It's the latest depressing development for Trump, amid the worst week of his campaign. And as Chris Cillizza points out, now's a particularly bad time for a stumble.
"Losing Wisconsin wouldn't zero out Trump's chances of getting to 1,237. But it make the odds far longer than if he were to win convincingly. To put it simply: Losing Wisconsin would erase any margin of error for Trump in the states still waiting to vote," he writes. "...This week looks and feels like a gigantic momentum-killer for Trump at a time when he can least afford it."
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves to onlookers
and reporters as he departs through a back door after meetings at
Republican National Committee (RNC) headquarters in Washington March 31,
2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
“Just had a very nice meeting with @Reince Priebus and the @GOP. Looking forward to bringing the Party together — and it will happen!” Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon.
But the fallout from his pledge walkback continued today, reported Zeke Miller, with news those comments could hypothetically cost him the automatic support of the 50 delegates he won in South Carolina -- if he wavers on the party loyalty pledge, they might not necessarily be bound to abide by primary results and back him. Would Republicans really go through with that sort of move? Nobody really knows (not even them.) We do know that Donald Trump -- and his supporters -- would not take the development well.
(His efforts to battle delegate drain kicked into high gear this week with a complaint to the RNC -- and a lawsuit threat -- over apportionment in Louisiana, and the arrival of delegate-wrangling veteran Paul Manafort.)
(Yet.)
Meanwhile, Ted Cruz has increasingly stressed the fact that he would have a similar reaction to any scenario that included candidates other than Donald Trump and himself. "In interviews this week, Cruz has repeatedly invoked the RNC's rule 40b, which allows candidates to be nominated only if they've won total delegate majorities in eight states or more," reported Dave Weigel. "That rule, hastily written in 2012 after then-Rep. Ron Paul of Texas nearly grabbed enough wins to be nominated, is now favored by allies of both Cruz and Donald Trump as a way of making [John] Kasich — or any establishment 'savior' — irrelevant."
"I think that would be a terrible idea for the Washington power brokers to change the rules, because they’re unhappy with the candidates who the voters are voting for," Cruz told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday. "It was the Washington establishment that put this rule in place. So now when the Washington establishment candidates are losing, they want to change the rules to try to parachute in some candidate who hasn’t earned the votes of the people. That is nothing short of crazy."
(Of course, Cruz himself hasn't yet met the current threshold, which requires a candidate to have not just wins, but delegate majorities in at least eight states. Cruz has nine wins so far; of those, six represented delegate majorities.)
As Cruz tried to knock Kasich out of convention consideration, the pro-Kasich New Day for America super PAC fired back. It released a new spot that borrows a Cruz nickname from Donald Trump ("Lyin' Ted"), and its imagery from your worst nightmares.
The ad -- in which Cruz's nose grows, eventually wrapping itself around his neck -- is the work of Fred Davis, the man responsible for the legendary Demon Sheep ad (reminder before you click: that spot is nightmare fuel. View during daylight hours only.)
The new spot is "unsettling, creepy and provocative — three things Kasich's long-shot presidential bid could probably do with more of," says Aaron Blake. "The candidate himself has avoided attacking his opponents much, but the super PAC is here to do his dirty work for him."
SURVEYING THE FALL LANDSCAPE: Terrain is getting rougher for the GOP.
(Jonathan Newton / The Washington Post)
The NRSC "launched a five-state digital ad campaign Thursday, releasing four similar web ads set to run on YouTube and Facebook tying Democratic candidates to the approval of the Iran nuclear deal, the rise of the self-declared Islamic State and President Obama’s desire to close the military prison at Guantanamo," reports Mike DeBonis.
"The ads released Thursday target four Democrats. One is Sen. Michael Bennet of Colo., who is considered to be the sole Democratic incumbent in a competitive race this fall. The others are candidates Jason Kander of Missouri, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania. A fifth ad is set to be released next week.
"Each ad tars the Democrat as 'just another supporter of Obama’s weak foreign policy' and features a snippet of the candidate’s record on national security matters."
Republicans are hoping that spots like this will help swing state lawmakers weather a loss at the top of the ticket. But what happens if a hurricane hits -- like, say, a hypothetical landslide win for the Democratic presidential nominee?
Larry Sabato and his team at the University of Virginia released their first Electoral College projection of the year today. Based on current trends, there were more than a dozen changes made to the forecast issued in 2015. All of those changes favored Democrats.
IF THEY CAN MAKE IT THERE...
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders takes the stage
during a campaign rally at Saint Mary's Park in Bronx, New York March
31, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
There's a good chance you knew that. Looking at the campaign schedules for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, you might be forgiven for thinking they didn't. With a tight race back in Wisconsin, where Sanders appears to have taken a small single-digit lead, both candidates spent the day in the Empire State: Sanders held an evening rally in the Bronx, and Clinton campaigned a short drive away in Westchester, near her home.
Both were back on home turf based on the same calculation: a photo-finish victory in Wisconsin is likely to leave the winner with, at best, an advantage that amounts to a handful of the state's 86 delegates, thanks to the Democratic Party's proportional system. But in New York, the landscape looks a lot different.
Clinton currently holds a lead in the double digits that appears to be narrowing dramatically. If Clinton can hold on to her current lead, it would represent a crushing blow to Sanders (with the impact of any victory magnified by the fact that New York's 247 delegates represent the second-biggest haul in the Democratic race.)
Sanders is feeling some momentum -- but even if he doesn't chalk up a win, it's crucial to narrow the gap. His team says he has a path to a delegate lead that can work without a New York victory (though they won't say what it is.) Of course, for it to happen he'd have to both erase Clinton's leads in the three remaining large primary states -- New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California -- and win 71 percent of the delegates in the remaining contests. He'd also have to talk hundreds of super delegates into switching sides. (This is where a voter mandate could be a critical talking point. Right now, though, Clinton has 45 percent more actual votes than Sanders.)
The Vermont senator does continue to dominate one key metric, passing $42 million and shooting for more as tonight's March fundraising deadline neared.
With the campaign moving back to New York, it probably makes sense that the trail might feel a bit more...unfiltered. Today, the state's former senator showed some edge when asked a question about donations from fossil fuel companies. Her response: "I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me."
Clinton would prefer to pivot to her possible faceoff with another New Yorker; her campaign released a spot today hitting Donald Trump over his statement yesterday about the possible prosecution of women who have illegal abortions, a remark he later walked back.
SPOTTED: #BirdieSanders lives.
THE VIEW FROM THE FIELD: A BRONX CHEER FOR BERNIE
TRAIL MIX: The D.C. Board of Elections plans a hearing next week to address the filing snafu that would otherwise leave Bernie Sanders off the primary ballot.
--Hillary Clinton got the Page Six treatment over a very pricey salon visit.
--The White House denounced Trump’s Asian nuclear idea as "catastrophic": The suggestion that Japan and S. Korea obtain weapons runs counter to decades of U.S. policy, a senior adviser said.
YOUR DAILY TRAIL PIT STOP: THE GREAT PIZZA DEBATE At some point in the dimly remembered past, someone decided that candidates for the nation's highest office would be required to publicly consume local cuisine that requires the sacrifice of most diet regimens, and at least some dignity. (No, it is not a constitutional requirement. Yet. But it is no less inviolate.)
Yesterday, John Kasich paid his ritual respects to the city of New York with the ceremonial consumption of a slice at Gino's Pizzeria and Restaurant in Queens. (This was a good move.) He began with a knife and fork. (That wasn't.)
. (Photo by Bryan Thomas/Getty Images)
Kasich seems to have caught himself, discarding the silverware midway through the meal (though not folding the slice, as per Big Apple tradition.)
. (Photo by Bryan Thomas/Getty Images)
That's right -- GOP front-runner (and certified native New Yorker) Donald Trump has also been spotted consuming pizza via the silverware method. Today, Kasich pushed back at critics.
"Look, the pizza came scalding hot -- okay? And so I used a little fork," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "You know what? My wife who is on spring break with my daughters said, 'I'm proud of you. You finally learned how to use a utensil properly.’ But I mean -- not only did I eat the pizza, I had the hot sausage. It was fantastic."
Even some liberals came to his defense.
Trump’s abortion flub shows risks of ‘winging it’ on policy
| Huffington Post | - |
Supporters
of Donald Trump claimed the interview was a “trap” and he “wasn't
ready” for questions on abortion. But the real reason Trump took a stand
that even antiabortion groups don't support is because he's been fooled
by some Republicans who imply ...
begin quote from:
Trump’s abortion flub shows risks of ‘winging it’ on policy
Wisconsin votes next on Tuesday. Stay caught up with the race.
Trump's general election challenge
Three-quarters
of women view him unfavorably. So do nearly two-thirds of independents,
80 percent of young adults, 85 percent of Hispanics and nearly half of
Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Those findings, tallied
from Washington Post-ABC News polling, fuel Trump’s overall 67 percent
unfavorable rating — making Trump more disliked than any major-party
nominee in the 32 years the survey has been tracking candidates.
Wisconsin GOP polling averages
Ted Cruz: 35%
Cruz looks positioned to be successful in the state, according to Real Clear Politics.
Donald Trump 32%
Trump may earn fewer than half of the delegates in Wisconsin.
John Kasich: 23%
Kasich seems to have picked up some votes from drop-out candidates.
Wisconsin Democratic polling averages
It's a tight race in Wisconsin for the Democrats, according to Real
Clear Politics polling averages. But Sanders would have to win by a lot
to make a dent in Clinton's delegate lead.
| 48% | 47% |
Here's what's at stake in the Wisconsin GOP primary
The upcoming voting schedule
April 5
Wisconsin holds its primaries.
April 9
Wyoming holds it Democratic caucuses.
April 19
New York holds it primaries.
Campaign 2016
✕
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves as he gets into his vehicle in Washington, Thursday, March 31, 2016, following a meeting at the Republican National Committee. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)
“What should the law be on abortion?” asked MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to Donald Trump at a town hall event in Wisconsin.
“Should the woman be punished for having an abortion?” Matthews pressed. “This is not something you can dodge.”
Campaign 2016 Email Updates
Get the best analysis of the presidential race.
The episode demonstrated the extent to which Trump has glossed over the rigorous policy preparation that is fundamental to most presidential campaigns, underscoring the risks of the billionaire businessman’s winging-it approach as he inches closer to the Republican nomination.
“Well, bear in mind I don’t believe that he was warned that that question was coming” and didn’t have a chance to really think about it, said Ben Carson, a former Trump rival who has since endorsed him, in an interview with CNN.
He should have, said political professionals.
“When you’re just winging it, that’s what happens,” said Kevin Madden, a veteran of 2012 nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign. “Running for president, it’s not a take-home exam.”
And this wasn’t the first time Trump’s approach has gotten him in trouble.
He raised eyebrows during a debate when he appeared unfamiliar with the concept of the nuclear triad, an oversight his opponents happily pointed out.
At a town hall on CNN earlier this week, Trump appeared to falter when asked to name what he believed were the top three priorities of the federal government. Among his answers: health care and education. Trump has vowed to repeal President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law and gut the budget of the Department of Education.
The lack of preparation extends beyond policy. This week, Trump called into a series of radio stations in Wisconsin, apparently unaware the interviews were likely to be combative.
At the end of a remarkable interview in which he compared Trump’s behavior to that of “a 12-year-old bully on the playground,” WTMJ-AM’s Charlie Sykes asked Trump if he was aware he’d called into someone unabashedly opposed to his candidacy.
“That I didn’t know,” Trump said.
During a recent rally in Vienna, Ohio, Trump delivered his usual indictment of the North American Free Trade Agreement and blasted American companies that have shipped jobs overseas.
But he seemed unaware that Chevrolet, which builds the Chevy Cruze sedan in nearby Lordstown, had recently announced that it was planning to build its 2017 hatchback model in Mexico. It was the kind of local knowledge that requires research and legwork, and could have helped Trump connect with his audience and others in the state.
For most presidential candidates, especially those new to it all, getting up to speed on the intricacies of domestic and foreign policy is a process that begins early. While Trump’s campaign did not respond Thursday to questions about the kind of briefings he receives, it’s clear he has done things differently.
Who does he consult on foreign policy?
“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things,” Trump said on MSNBC this month. He’s also said he gets information about international affairs from “the shows” and newspapers.
He announced members of his foreign policy team only this month and met with them Thursday as part of a series of appointments in Washington.
Out on the trail, Trump largely skipped town hall events in the early-voting states that were the hallmarks of several rival campaigns. Chris Christie and John Kasich, for example, held dozens of the events, fielding hundreds of questions on every topic imaginable.
Trump might well note that most of his GOP rivals are gone, and he’s still the front-runner.
But what about his abortion comments?
“None of the other candidates would have made that mistake,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which supports anti-abortion legislation and candidates.
Michael Steel, an adviser to former Trump rival Jeb Bush, said candidates and presidents have to be able to respond to issues as they arise, which requires a “tremendous amount” of work behind the scenes. It’s one reason major candidates from both parties typically have government experience.
“I think we’ve seen in a variety of venues including the debates that he doesn’t seem to have the knowledge and background on important policy issues that you would expect from a presidential candidate,” Steel said.
Bush spent the months after he announced his candidacy last summer developing a comprehensive domestic and foreign policy platform. Campaign employees assisted by more than 100 outside advisers briefed him in frequent sessions, said Justin Muzinich, the campaign’s policy director.
“He took policy extraordinarily seriously,” Muzinich said.
Dannenfelser, the abortion opponent, said there is still time for Trump.
“The question is, will he be able to get to the point of confidently communicating his position to contrast with Hillary Clinton in way that helps?” she said. “I think it’s possible.”
___
Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, and David Crary in New York contributed to this report.
___
Follow Jill Colvin on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/colvinj
Gov. Brown joins heads of state at nuclear summit
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Gov. Brown joins heads of state at nuclear summit
| SFGate | - |
WASHINGTON
- Acting as much like a head of state as the head of a state, Gov.
Jerry Brown joined President Obama and leaders of more than 50 nations
in Washington on Thursday for a two-day global summit aimed at stopping
nuclear proliferation.
Gov. Brown joins heads of state at nuclear summit
Updated 9:16 pm, Thursday, March 31, 2016
Gov. Jerry Brown shares with President Obama a deep concern about the threats posed by both nuclear arms and climate change.
Brown shares with Obama a deep concern about the threats posed by both nuclear arms and climate change, which Obama also addressed Thursday during a simultaneous bilateral summit with Chinese president Xi Jinping. The two world leaders pledged to sign the global climate accord reached last year at talks in Paris — which Brown also attended — on April 22, Earth Day.
Brown also said a video created by a fellow panelist, former Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry, “scared the hell out of him.” Called “Nuclear Nightmare in Washington,” the video depicts a terrorist setting off a nuclear explosive on Pennsylvania Avenue, killing tens of thousands of people and decapitating the government.
“It’s goodbye America as a democracy,” Brown said, adding that such an event would put the country under military control.
“The fact that you don’t hear a lot about it doesn’t mean it isn’t real,” Brown said of the threat. He cited the terrorist attack in San Bernardino by a county employee, Syed Rizwan Farook, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik.
Farook’s fellow workers gave him a baby shower, “and he comes back and kills 14 of them ... there are people who want to do this,” he said.
Perry, who now heads the Preventive Defense Project at Stanford University, told the group that the danger from nuclear weapons is higher now than it was during the Cold War, because more countries have the weapons and terrorists are trying to get them.
The event was sponsored by the Atlantic Council and Global Zero, a group pushing for the elimination of nuclear weapons. It was one of several events outside the summit where critics said Obama has not done enough to fulfill his pledge seven years ago to help rid the world of nuclear weapons. Ploughshares Fund, a San Francisco anti-nuclear group, said the administration has laid the groundwork to spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years updating the nuclear arsenal.
But in an op-ed in the Washington Post published Thursday, Obama singled out the potential for nuclear catastrophe as “the most dangerous” immediate threat to global security.
Brown, an intellectual politician who ran for president three times, is not shy about mingling with world leaders.
Asked whether attending nuclear summits in Washington is part of his job, he replied: “It is my job as the highest elected executive outside the president. We also have our own weapons labs. This is a matter of democratic concern, and it isn’t just for the elites.”
The White House Nuclear Security Summit, the fourth held by the administration, focused this year on confronting North Korea’s nuclear provocations, including a recent nuclear test, and on preventing the Islamic State from obtaining nuclear weapons, a rising concern following the terrorist group’s deadly attacks on Brussels and Paris.
The summit came two days after GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump suggested in a televised town hall that Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.
Carolyn Lochhead is the San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com
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