OFF TO THE RACES: Healing time
From Alex Seitz-Wald: "Voting in the Democratic primary may be coming to an end — and Hillary Clinton has already been declared the presumptive nominee — but the aftermath has resulted in a fragile party in need of healing at a time when the stakes have never been higher. As the front line between the Clinton and Bernie Sanders camps moved to a hotel ballroom here Wednesday, party officials began the process of drafting their platform for the general election."
Who does Clinton want as a running mate? Our NBC News cheatsheet is here.
And what about Trump? Here's our shortlist.
Obama told Jimmy Fallon he hopes that "over the next couple of weeks" that Democrats will be able to "pull things together."
The AP notes that evangelicals are feeling anxious about their waning influence. "Religious conservatives could once count on their neighbors to at least share their view of marriage. Those days are gone. Public opinion on same-sex relationships turned against conservatives even before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide. Now, many evangelicals say liberals want to seal their cultural victory by silencing the church. Liberals call this paranoid. But evangelicals see evidence of the threat in every new uproar over someone asserting a right to refuse recognition of same-sex marriages — whether it be a baker, a government clerk, or the leaders of religious charities and schools."
Bloomberg notes that of all the spots aired between Clinton and Sanders, none have been negative.
CLINTON: In an interview with NBC's Lester Holt, Clinton said she won't go insult-for-insult with Trump.
The New York Times notes that the historical nature of Clinton's nomination caused plenty of mixed emotions from voters.
NBC's Kelly O'Donnell confirms reports that Elizabeth Warren plans to endorse Hillary Clinton but that a formal announcement will likely come next week.
Elizabeth Warren will call Trump a "nasty, loud, this-skinned fraud" in a speech today.
Clinton also says she'll take aim at Trump on economics. In the Wall Street Journal: "With the Democratic primary behind her, Hillary Clinton said she now plans to put Republican Donald Trump’s business record and economic agenda at the center of her campaign, calling his ideas “deeply misguided” and “dangerously incoherent.” In an interview Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton said she would deliver an economic speech soon contrasting Mr. Trump’s record and policies with her own. It will be modeled after a foreign-policy speech she gave last week where she used sometimes identical language to offer a biting critique of the presumptive Republican nominee, charging he was unfit to serve as commander-in-chief."
The Washington Post editorial board: "What kind of campaign will Ms. Clinton wage? We hope she will focus on more than the negative. It’s understandable for Ms. Clinton to run an anti-Trump campaign in the face of his unprecedented ugliness and bigotry. Yet surely one effective antidote to his vacuity would be substance; one answer to his divisiveness: a commitment to civil dialogue and a respect for independents and Republicans who will disagree with many of her views."
SANDERS: In the New York Times: "Mr. Sanders sees himself as not only a candidate but the leader of a political movement. To advance that movement, he wants to see his views reflected in the party’s official platform and at the convention. That could mean stronger platform language on the regulation of big banks, or a plank demanding free public college. Mr. Sanders is also seeking changes to the Democratic primary rules, including the abolition of superdelegates — though in the short term he wants their support — and the expansion of “open” primaries in which non-Democrats can vote for Democratic candidates."
TRUMP: From Benjy Sarlin: "Trump reached presumptive nominee status on May 3, a month ahead of Clinton, giving him a head start to prepare. At the time, he faced two immediate challenges: unifying the GOP and building an effective campaign and fundraising operation. So far both goals are works in progress. In some ways, it feels like the primaries never really ended. Trump is still clashing with high-profile members of his own party, who continue to criticize his inflammatory rhetoric and unconventional positions, and he's still struggling to field a professional operation that can compete with Democrats."
His female fans are speaking out, POLITICO notes.
His comments on Judge Curiel are reviving some in the Never Trump movement.
"Donald J. Trump has some advice for panicked Republicans in Washington who are melting down over his most incendiary statements: Man up," writes the New York Times. "'Politicians are so politically correct anymore, they can’t breathe,' Mr. Trump said in an interview Tuesday afternoon as fellow Republicans forcefully protested his ethnically charged criticism of a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against the defunct Trump University."
From the Wall Street Journal: "Donald Trump’s effort to defuse controversy over his criticism of a Latino federal judge was welcomed by fellow Republicans on Wednesday, but their relief was tempered by a recognition that their presumptive nominee might be always just one tweet away from another political eruption."