Trump takes side trip; rival doesn't let up

WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump pushed his business empire to the center of his political campaign Wednesday, making the case at the formal opening of his newest hotel that all Americans should look to his corporate record as evidence of how well he'd run the country.

"Under budget and ahead of schedule. So important. We don't hear those words so often, but you will," said Trump, who redeveloped Washington's Old Post Office Pavilion into Trump International Hotel -- just blocks from the White House. "Today is a metaphor for what we can accomplish for this country."

Hillary Clinton agreed that people should look at Trump's record, but not in the way he intended. At campaign events in Florida, she criticized the GOP presidential nominee for having "stiffed American workers," saying he built his empire with Chinese-manufactured steel, overseas products and the labor of illegal aliens.

"Donald Trump is the poster boy for everything wrong with our economy," the Democratic presidential nominee told several thousand supporters in Tampa, Fla. "He refuses to pay workers and contractors."

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Later Wednesday, after his corporate business interlude, Trump campaigned in Charlotte, N.C., where he unveiled what he billed as a "New Deal for black America" in front of a mostly white crowd. Trump, who has struggled to earn the support of minority-group voters, said "too many African-Americans have been left behind."

He revealed a handful of new proposals aimed at revitalizing impoverished urban areas. They included new tax incentives for inner cities, new micro-loans for black people to start companies and hire workers, and reinvesting money from suspended refugee programs in inner cities.

He also wants cities to be able to seek federal disaster designations to help them rebuild infrastructure, demolish abandoned buildings and invest in law enforcement.

Earlier, at the hotel opening in Washington, Trump -- who announced his campaign for president in the gilded lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan and has held dozens of campaign events at his various properties -- again showed how his political aspirations are intertwined with his business life.

Although he focused his remarks on his political message, the hotel event also was heavy with marketing. Standing under chandeliers, top company executives -- including Trump's daughter Ivanka -- touted the hotel.

And after Trump's brief speech, he and his family headed to the hotel's grand lobby where they cut a red ribbon with golden scissors.

The new luxury hotel has struggled to fill rooms as controversy surrounds Trump's presidential bid.

Rooms at the overhauled $212 million hotel that bears his name have been heavily discounted and smartphone data suggest that fewer people are visiting his properties compared with rival venues nearby.

Trump blasted critics Wednesday for making a big deal of his break in campaigning to attend the hotel opening and not making a big deal of Clinton's decision to attend an Adele concert Tuesday night. During the GOP primaries, Trump took a break from campaigning to see the singer perform.

"I can't take one hour off to cut a ribbon at one of the great hotels of the world? I mean, I think I'm entitled to it," he said in an interview with ABC News. He was more defensive in a CNN interview in which he called questions about his time away from swing-state campaigning "insulting" and "rude."

Trump said he had wanted "to be there for my children who worked so hard."

Also Wednesday, Trump dispatched his running mate Mike Pence to play political defense in Utah -- a state that hasn't backed a Democrat for president in 52 years.

Besides Utah, Pence also was stopping in the swing states of Nevada and Colorado before heading today to solidly Republican Nebraska, a state that divides some of its electoral votes by congressional district, rather than awarding them winner-take-all.

Clinton keeps campaigning

Clinton didn't stop campaigning Wednesday, not even to celebrate her 69th birthday. She told a crowd of supporters earlier in the day at Lake Worth, Fla., that "we can't afford to take our foot off the gas for even one second."

In Tampa, Fla., she was introduced by restaurateur Jose Andres, a naturalized U.S. citizen who pulled out of working at Trump's Washington hotel to protest Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric. Trump and Andres are currently locked in litigation over that decision.

At a rally on the Palm Beach State College's Lake Worth campus, in the middle of the first week of early voting, Clinton focused on getting out the vote. She asked the crowd to vote for Democratic candidates for Senate and Congress, including Florida's U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, who is running against Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

"Ten million people have already voted, and 2 million of them right here in Florida. That means Florida has already cast 20 percent of the votes that are in the ballot box," she said. "Don't let anyone tell you they don't have time to vote."

She finished her speech by telling the 2,100 in the crowd that change is ahead, but what that change is going to be is up to them.

"On Jan. 20, we're going to have a new president. Things are going to change no matter what, the question is what kind of change we're going to have," Clinton said.

She also began retooling her campaign message to emphasize unifying the country after a divisive race.

"What Trump has done is to make it possible for people who had racist, sexist, and all kinds of prejudices and bigotry to put them right out there," Clinton said on The Breakfast Club, a syndicated radio show based in New York City. "I'm not going to be able to wave a magic wand and change everybody's thoughts."

Clinton did take time Tuesday to celebrate her birthday. On Univision's entertainment news show El Gordo y La Flaca she was feted with a bottle of tequila and a large cake featuring her face. In her appearance on The Breakfast Club, popular with black voters, singer Stevie Wonder serenaded the woman he called "Madam President Clinton."

Clinton is using the last days of campaigning to expand her scope and help down-ballot Democrats. Party supporters see an opportunity to win control of the Senate and reduce the Democrats' deficit in the House.

Priorities USA, the super political action committee aligned with Clinton, is now funding a 30-second advertisement in Iowa that has the double effect of hitting Trump for his controversial statements and tagging freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Rod Blum for his continued support of his party's presidential nominee.

Priorities USA ran ads in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire attacking Republican U.S. Sens. Pat Toomey and Kelly Ayotte, respectively, for their reluctance to completely denounce Trump.

Those two Senate seats are key to the effort to win back the Senate majority, and in the House, Blum's seat is part of the strategy to chip away at the Republican majority there.

The group's officials declined to say how many more ads targeting House Republicans are on the way.

GOP operatives take solace in the fact that Blum's race is considered a tossup at this stage, a sign, they believe, that Trump's struggling candidacy has not produced a wave that will wipe out their majority. Blum first won in 2014 in a good year for Republicans, snatching a seat previously held by Democrat Bruce Braley, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate that year.

On the stump, Clinton has been taking sharper aim at Republican members of Congress for their support of Trump, as her campaign has moved resources and staffing into states that have gone traditionally Republican in presidential contests.

Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Lerer, Jill Colvin, Jonathan Lemire and Ken Thomas of The Associated Press; by Dan Sweeney of the Sun Sentinel; and by Paul Kane of The Washington Post.

A Section on 10/27/2016