Delegate count puts Trump over the top

Clinton: Email report changes nothing

Donald Trump ends a speech on energy Thursday at a petroleum conference in Bismarck, N.D. Acknowledging that his nomination is wrapped up, he noted that Hillary Clinton “can’t close the deal.”
Donald Trump ends a speech on energy Thursday at a petroleum conference in Bismarck, N.D. Acknowledging that his nomination is wrapped up, he noted that Hillary Clinton “can’t close the deal.”

BISMARCK, N.D. -- Donald Trump reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination for president Thursday.

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AP

Hillary Clinton holds a rally Thursday in San Jose, Calif. During an interview with Univision’s Los Angeles affiliate, Clinton said “nothing has changed” after the report on her use of a private email server while secretary of state.

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AP

Graphs showing the current delegate tally.

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AP

Bernie Sanders speaks at a campaign event Thursday at Ventura College in Ventura, Calif. Sanders was quick to accept an offer to debate Donald Trump. “Game on,” he posted on Twitter.

With a majority of his party's delegates, the New York businessman shifted full-tilt toward the general election with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton still locked in a divisive primary contest with Bernie Sanders.

The New York billionaire shrugged off signs of discord within his own campaign hours after gaining support from the 1,237th delegate.

"Here I am watching Hillary fight, and she can't close the deal," Trump crowed during an appearance in North Dakota. "We've had tremendous support from almost everybody."

His campaign also released a celebratory Instagram video that features a montage of former rivals, including Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz, saying he would never be the party's nominee.

Trump's good news was tempered by internal problems. Those include the sudden departure of his political director and continuing resistance by many Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, to declaring their support for his outsider candidacy.

The New York businessman sealed the majority by claiming a small number of the party's unbound delegates who said they would support him at the national convention in July. Among them was Oklahoma GOP Chairman Pam Pollard.

"I think he has touched a part of our electorate that doesn't like where our country is," Pollard said. "I have no problem supporting Mr. Trump."

Steve House, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party and an unbound delegate who confirmed his support of Trump, said he likes the businessman's background.

"Leadership is leadership," House said. "If he can surround himself with the political talent, I think he will be fine."

It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination. Trump has reached 1,239 and will easily pad his total in the final round of GOP primaries on June 7.

At a rally Thursday night in Billings, Mont., Trump previewed his general-election strategy.

"What I'm going to do is I want to focus on 15-or-so states that could go "either way," he said.

But on Wednesday night, Trump's campaign lost a key figure in that fight, with the departure of political director Rick Wiley, whom he hired six weeks ago to lead the campaign's push to hire staff members in key battleground states.

In a statement, Trump's campaign said Wiley had been hired only until the candidate's organization "was running full steam."

Email questions

At the same time, Clinton's campaign hit its own bump, faced with fresh questions about the candidate's use of a private email server while secretary of state.

The State Department's inspector general released a report a day earlier concluding that Clinton did not seek legal approval for her private email server, guaranteeing the issue will continue nagging her campaign for a second summer. She insisted Thursday that she had done nothing wrong.

"It was allowed. And the rules have been clarified since I left about the practice. Having said that, I have said many times, it was a mistake. And, if I could go back, I would do it differently," Clinton said, according to an interview transcript provided by ABC News.

In an interview with Univision's Los Angeles affiliate, Clinton said "nothing has changed" because of the report.

"There may be reports that come out, but nothing has changed," Clinton said. "It's the same story. Just like previous secretaries of state, I used a personal email. Many people did. It was not at all unprecedented. I have turned over all my emails. No one else can say that."

Clinton added that she had been "incredibly open" about her emails, which were routed through a server located in the basement of her New York home during her tenure as the nation's top diplomat from 2009 to 2013.

Clinton declined to talk to the inspector general for the report, as did four of her closest aides.

In addition to the inspector general's investigation, the FBI is probing whether Clinton's use of the private email server imperiled government secrets.

Republicans have seized on the report as evidence that Clinton is not trustworthy or qualified to be commander in chief.

Trump on Thursday said the report on Clinton was "a disaster."

"Such bad judgment and temperament cannot be allowed," Trump said in a tweet.

Clinton returned those comments campaigning before union workers in Las Vegas. She decried Trump's anti-union comments and his proposal to deport millions of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. She said he is an "unqualified loose cannon" who should never be president. She warned would take the country "backward on every issue and value we care about."

Trump later told an audience in Bismarck that Clinton has "declared war on the American worker," that she's "going to abolish your right to own guns" and that she created a foreign-policy legacy "of total chaos."

He said, "The choice in November is a choice between a Clinton agenda that puts donors first or an agenda that puts America first: my agenda."

That agenda includes unfettered production of oil, coal, natural gas and other energy sources to push the United States toward energy independence.

Trump said Thursday that he would do everything he could "free up the coal" and bring back thousands of coal jobs lost as the sector faced steep competition from cheaper natural gas and regulations designed to cut air pollution and reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

"They love it," Trump said of those who work in coal mines. "We're going to bring it back and we're going to help those people because that's what they want to do."

Trump also promised Thursday to cancel the Paris climate agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax money to a United Nations fund to mitigate effects of climate change worldwide.

North Dakota is at the heart of America's oil boom and now is the second-largest oil-producing state after Texas.

Sanders-Trump debate?

Still on the uphill battle with Clinton for delegates, Sanders embraced the possibility of a one-on-one sparring with Trump.

The Republican said he'd "love to debate Bernie" as he faced reporters Thursday.

"The problem with debating Bernie," Trump noted, "he's going to lose."

The idea came up on Wednesday when Trump appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live and Kimmel said that Sanders had passed along an invitation to Trump.

Trump said he would be open to debating Sanders if the proceeds were donated to charity.

"If I debated him, we would have such high ratings, and I think we should take that money and give it to some worthy charity," Trump said. "If we paid a nice sum toward a charity, I would love to do that."

Sanders was quick to sign on.

"Game on," he wrote in a post on Twitter. "I look forward to debating Donald Trump in California before the June 7 primary."

Asked if the offer to debate Trump was a serious one, Michael Briggs, a spokesman for Sanders, said it was "real."

At his news conference Thursday in North Dakota, Trump suggested that he was serious about the debate on the condition that the networks would donate $10 million to $15 million of the proceeds to charities that support women's health causes.

Trump said that he had already received calls from the television networks about hosting a debate with Sanders and that if something could be agreed upon, he envisioned it taking place in a big arena.

Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee told CNN on Thursday that a debate between Trump and Sanders would be "phenomenal."

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee declined to comment.

Sanders and Clinton had agreed to another debate before California primary, and last week Fox News extended invitations to both candidates to participate in one. While Sanders was eager to debate, Clinton, who is trying to turn her attention toward Trump, declined the offer.

Obama notes worry

Offering his on-the-sidelines take on the campaign for his successor, President Obama said Thursday that world leaders have been surprised by Trump's emergence as the GOP nominee and that they remain uncertain "how seriously to take some of his pronouncements."

After a day of meetings at the Group of Seven summit in Japan, Obama said in a news conference that his counterparts are "rattled by Trump -- and for good reasons -- because a lot of the proposals he makes display an ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude or an interest in getting tweets and headlines instead of actually thinking through what is required to keep America safe and secure and prosperous."

Obama remained cautious about weighing in on the Democratic contest between Clinton and Sanders. Some Democrats have begun to urge Sanders to drop his campaign as Clinton maintains a steady lead in delegates, even as the senator has continued to win individual primaries and caucuses.

"During primaries, people get a little grumpy with each other," Obama said. "That's the nature of the process. You start off thinking this is fine, a friendly competition in which we'll debate ideas. Then someone says something or another."

The president added that he has "urged both sides to try to stick to the issues because a lot of grumpiness arises when folks feel they are not talking about the issue but talking about personalities and character."

Of the Democratic contenders, Obama said: "They're both good people. I know them both well. I think that it's important for us to try to end this in a way that leaves both sides feeling proud of what they've done. Both sides have run serious and competitive races. ... I'm proud of Democrats for doing that."

Obama was asked whether the drawn out Democratic primary would make it more difficult for the party to turn its attention to Trump for the general-election campaign.

"No," he replied. But he acknowledged that "it would it be nice if everybody was immediately unified and singing 'Kumbaya' about whoever was the nominee and it could end up being two weeks of vacation and recharging, absolutely. I guarantee you the eventual nominee wishes it was over now. This is a grind. It's hard."

Information for this article was contributed by Stephen Ohlemacher, Jill Colvin, Steve Peoples, James Nord, Marc Levy, James MacPherson, Lisa Lerer, Catherine Lucey, Sean Murphy, Michael Biesecker, Matthew Daly, Erica Werner and Julie Pace of The Associated Press; by David Nakamura of The Washington Post; and by Alan Rappeport of The New York Times.

A Section on 05/27/2016

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