Welcome to The Lid, your afternoon dose of the 2016 ethos… A Florida man who shares the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin was arrested this weekend after causing a disturbance outside of a Publix grocery store. At press time, Donald Trump had not yet definitively clarified the nature of his relationship with either the Russian president or the Publix dude.
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‘16 from 30,000: Hillary Clinton is beating Donald Trump in almost all national polls, in TV ad spending and in nearly every measure of campaign organization. But she’s way behind on one tally that Donald Trump will continue to make into a talking point every day that goes by: Press conferences. NBC’s Ali Vitali calculates that Trump has held 17 press conference since the beginning of the year, compared to a big zero for Clinton.
Plenty of pols are media-averse -- and Clinton’s decades in public life have certainly given her a wealth of examples of the risks associated with a media free-for-all. And her team counters that she’s participated in hundreds of one-on-one interviews throughout her campaign. But her avoidance of even casual gaggles with reporters this cycle has become nearly a campaign-defining condition. Hard-core Clinton loyalists will forgive her -- after all, who doesn’t like bashing the media? But for those unsure about backing her, Trump’s continued hammering away at the “days since Hillary Clinton held a press conference” could take a toll, particularly because poll after poll shows that Clinton’s most basic weakness with voters comes down to a perceived lack of candor. Even more important: Isn’t engagement with the press simply part of the job of being president?
POPPING ON NBC POLITICS
Clinton is still outspending Trump by a margin of 10-1 on the airwaves.
But, Ali Vitali notes, there’s one area where Trump is walloping Clinton: the number of press conferences each candidate has done in 2016.
The rumors are true: Rick Perry will be joining Dancing With The Stars.
Trump’s campaign claims that it will spend money on ads in Michigan.
CNBC’s Eamon Javers read more than 3,000 pages of Clinton’s State Department schedule. Here’s what he learned.
Trump is chipping away at Clinton’s lead, according to our latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll.
FOR THE RECORD…
“If I ever sold my assets, I would get well over $10 billion from my assets. I have the best assets.”
- Donald Trump, to the Washington Post, according to a recently released interview transcript
TOMORROW’S SKED
Hillary Clinton speaks to the American Legion’s 98th national convention in Cincinnati.
Tim Kaine campaigns in Pennsylvania.
Mike Pence is in Florida.
And Donald Trump has his big immigration speech in Phoenix.
