CLEVELAND -- Converging on Ohio within miles of each other, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton made competing Labor Day pitches in Cleveland on Monday, setting the stage for a critical month in their presidential campaigns.

Clinton and Trump ran virtually parallel campaigns Monday as they geared up for the final stretch of the race.

Clinton opened up her campaign plane to the news media and chatted with reporters. Trump, extending a rare invitation for journalists to accompany him, allowed a smaller group of reporters onto his private plane and answered questions during a 30-minute flight from Cleveland to Youngstown, Ohio.

Both took along their running mates as they focused on Ohio and nearly crossed paths in Cleveland. Their motorcades all but passed each other, and all four candidates' planes ended up on the tarmac at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at the same time.

The airplanes of Trump and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence were parked on the tarmac as Clinton and Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia arrived in separate planes. It was a near encounter that forced the Trump press corps to the side of the road as Clinton's motorcade whizzed by.

Labor Day has traditionally been the beginning of a two-month sprint to Election Day, in which candidates try to seize voters' attention as summer fades and debates loom. Monday proved no exception.

Trump appeared to pivot away from his hard-line position on immigration, saying, "I'm all about jobs now." Any migrants who want full citizenship must return to their countries of origin and get in line, he told reporters -- but he would not rule out a pathway to legal status for the millions living in the U.S. illegally, as he did in a long-awaited policy speech last week.

"We're going to make that decision into the future," Trump said.

But, he added, "to become a citizen, you are going to have to go out and come back in through the process. You're going to have to go out and get in line. This isn't touchback. You have to get in line."

At a diner Monday in Cleveland, Trump met Maria Hernandez, a Mexican-American who said she was supporting him. "Mexican-American supports Trump," he said. "It's so nice." Then he turned to nearby reporters to emphasize his focus group of one: "Make a note of it, guys," he said.

Trump held a roundtable discussion with area labor leaders and union members at a suburban American Legion post and mingled with patrons at a city diner before heading to a county fair near Youngstown.

The Republican nominee was joined at both Cleveland-area stops by Tom Coyne, mayor of the suburb of Brook Park and a former Democrat. Trump showcased Coyne as a model of his ability to reach across party lines, including to working-class voters who like his anti-free-trade message and tough anti-immigration stands.

"I think the mayor is just one example that's happening across this country where voters who traditionally haven't voted Republican or haven't voted in a very long time seem to be coming out to support this messenger and this message," Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, told reporters.

The start of full-fledged campaigning opens a pivotal month, culminating in the first presidential debate Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

Trump told reporters that, "as of this moment," he plans to take part in all three presidential debates, joking that only a "hurricane" or "natural disaster" would prevent him from attending.

Clinton, reporters talk

While Clinton holds leads in many swing-state polls, she worked on Monday to confront doubts about her candidacy.

She let the press corps onto her campaign plane for the first time this election cycle and met with them briefly to say hello; she gathered with union leaders in Cleveland while her husband, Bill Clinton, appeared at a Labor Day parade in Detroit; and she enlisted the help of her primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who made his first solo appearance on Hillary Clinton's behalf in an effort to draw out his supporters in New Hampshire.

Clinton powered through a coughing fit at a Labor Day festival at a Cleveland park, sharply criticizing Trump's recent trip to Mexico as "an embarrassing international incident." Unwilling to allow Trump to modify his immigration stances, she said his address in Arizona last week amounted to a "doubling down on his absurd plan to send a deportation force to round up 16 million people."

"He can try to fool voters into thinking somehow he's not as harsh and inhumane as he seems, but it's too late," Clinton said.

In a bid to boost turnout among a traditionally Democratic constituency, Clinton ticked off a list of policy proposals aimed at lifting working-class families and warned that Trump does not have their best interests in mind, citing what she characterized as a long record as a businessman of "stiffing" contractors he employed.

"Just look at Donald Trump's track record when it comes to hard-working men and women," she told the crowd of about 3,000 people. "There may be people you know who are thinking about voting for him. And you know, friends don't let friends vote for Trump."

Clinton held a 25-minute question-and-answer session aboard her new campaign plane, her first extensive availability with reporters since early December.

She talked about her concerns about "credible reports about Russian government interference in our elections" and answered questions about the ongoing controversy surrounding her use of a private email server while secretary of state, which Trump has used to cast doubt over her ability to protect classified information.

"I take classification seriously," she said.

Asked in an interview on ABC later Monday whether she would accept Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's invitation to visit, as Trump did last week, Clinton said she wouldn't. She said she's "going to continue to focus on what we're doing to create jobs here at home."

Clinton stand-ins

Clinton's surrogates were also out in force. On a sunny morning in Pittsburgh, Kaine and the man he hopes to succeed, Vice President Joe Biden, spoke at an outdoor rally before the city's Labor Day parade, addressing a crowd that included many people in union T-shirts. Kaine assailed Trump for refusing to release his tax returns, then turned the stage over to Biden.

Biden portrayed Trump as out of touch with families struggling financially. "He really does believe that workers make too much," Biden said. "He really does believe that the problem is American workers are lazy."

Bill Clinton hit Trump over his foundation, referring to a Washington Post report that found that Trump's charitable organization paid the Internal Revenue Service a $2,500 penalty this year after improperly giving a political contribution to a campaign group with ties to the attorney general of Florida, Pam Biondi.

Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.

That disclosure from Bondi's spokesman in June provided additional details around the circumstances of Trump's $25,000 donation.

"She's a fine person beyond reproach," Trump said, when asked about his foundation and Bondi. "I never even spoke to her about it at all. She's a fine person. Never spoken to her about it. Never."

"Many of the attorney generals turned that case down [because] I'll win that case in court," he said.

Sanders, the runner-up for the Democratic nomination, made his first campaign stops for Clinton since the party's convention in July.

Sanders gave three speeches Monday in New Hampshire, where he defeated Clinton in February by the largest margin in the history of that state's primary.

At an AFL-CIO breakfast in Manchester, Sanders thanked New Hampshire voters for backing "radical ideas" like a $15-an-hour minimum wage, universal health care and paid family leave.

An hour later, at a park in the town of Warner, Sanders spoke to a crowd of at least 250 people. When he promised to "do everything I can" to elect Clinton, a dozen or so supporters of Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein booed, yelled "Jill" or waved signs with the slogan "Jill, not Hill."

"Trust me, I understand!" said Sanders. "But I feel like at this point in history, a candidate like Trump, who is running on reactionary economics, tax breaks for the wealthy and cutting programs for the very poor -- who rejects the science of climate change -- is running on a core of bigotry."

After asking supporters to make sure that Clinton, if elected, enacted the progressive Democratic Party platform, Sanders headed north to Lebanon High School, where he told the crowd to focus one more time on the issues.

Information for this article was contributed by Ken Thomas, Steve Peoples, Kathleen Ronayne and David Eggert of The Associated Press; by Ashley Parker, Amy Chozick, Thomas Kaplan and Yamiche Alcindor of The New York Times; and by John Wagner, Jose A. DelReal and David Weigel of The Washington Post.

A Section on 09/06/2016