Good Thursday morning. While President Obama celebrates the success of his strategy to secure enough votes to put the Iran nuclear agreement in place, the head of the Republican National Committee was seemingly engaging in some strategy of his own, calling for all 17 candidates to make a promise meant to ease concerns about one candidate’s intentions.
At 2 p.m. Thursday, the Trump show will resume its regularly scheduled programming, with a special guest star, Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, at Trump Tower in Manhattan.
According to Donald J. Trump’s official schedule, he is holding a news conference at that time. The advisory makes no mention of Mr. Priebus, but a spokesman for Mr. Trump confirmed that a meeting between them is scheduled for Thursday.
All of this togetherness, on Mr. Trump’s terms, at his office tower, with his name on the front in gold, comes after Mr. Priebus abruptly asked all 17 presidential candidates in the Republican nominating contest to sign a loyalty pledge against running as a third-party candidate.
The pledge seems to be aimed directly at Mr. Trump, since no other candidate has left open, at least in previous comments, the possibility of such a run. And that threat, by a rich candidate, has sent a jolt of fear through the Republican establishment over splitting votes and potentially tipping the election to Democrats. Mr. Priebus has been under enormous pressure to try to rein in Mr. Trump.
But reining him in is more easy in theory than in fact. And the fact that whatever announcement will take place on Thursday is being done on Mr. Trump’s turf merely emphasizes how much he is dictating the terms of the primary.
Donald J. Trump made a campaign stop at the Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N.H., last month. Mary Schwalm/Associated Press
9/3/2015
By Maggie Haberman
Good Thursday morning. While President Obama celebrates the success of his strategy to secure enough votes to put the Iran nuclear agreement in place, the head of the Republican National Committee was seemingly engaging in some strategy of his own, calling for all 17 candidates to make a promise meant to ease concerns about one candidate’s intentions.
At 2 p.m. Thursday, the Trump show will resume its regularly scheduled programming, with a special guest star, Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, at Trump Tower in Manhattan.
According to Donald J. Trump’s official schedule, he is holding a news conference at that time. The advisory makes no mention of Mr. Priebus, but a spokesman for Mr. Trump confirmed that a meeting between them is scheduled for Thursday.
All of this togetherness, on Mr. Trump’s terms, at his office tower, with his name on the front in gold, comes after Mr. Priebus abruptly asked all 17 presidential candidates in the Republican nominating contest to sign a loyalty pledge against running as a third-party candidate.
The pledge seems to be aimed directly at Mr. Trump, since no other candidate has left open, at least in previous comments, the possibility of such a run. And that threat, by a rich candidate, has sent a jolt of fear through the Republican establishment over splitting votes and potentially tipping the election to Democrats. Mr. Priebus has been under enormous pressure to try to rein in Mr. Trump.
But reining him in is more easy in theory than in fact. And the fact that whatever announcement will take place on Thursday is being done on Mr. Trump’s turf merely emphasizes how much he is dictating the terms of the primary.
What We’re Watching
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Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is on a trip to Florida that further raises speculation about a potential presidential run, will meet with Jewish community leaders on Thursday to discuss the Iran nuclear deal. He will return to Washington and then fly to Atlanta where he will speak to other Jewish groups.
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On the campaign trail, Senator Ted Cruz will make appearances in his home state of Texas; New Hampshire will host several candidates, including Jeb Bush, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Democrat, will be in Iowa.
After Losing Fight for Votes, Opponents of Iran Deal Press for More
Mr. Obama has secured enough votes to make sure he can put the Iran nuclear deal in place, but opponents of the agreement are not about to stop trying to run up the vote count against it.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a leader of the drive against the deal, is hosting an event in New Jersey on Thursday evening to urge Senator Cory Booker, one of about 10 remaining undeclared Democrats, to oppose the deal. It will feature former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the onetime Connecticut Democrat turned independent who now leads United Against Nuclear Iran, and other Jewish community leaders.
While a veto of the deal cannot be overridden if the current support holds, opponents of the agreement are eager to enlarge any majority against it. And the addition of a Democrat like Mr. Booker would also give more credibility to the portrayal of the opposition as bipartisan. Critics of the deal would still like to force a final vote in the Senate, and they need at least four more Democrats to join them to have sufficient support to break a filibuster.
“We are in this until the end,” said Patrick Dorton, who has been overseeing a $20 million media campaign against the deal for Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran. “We think that every vote matters,” he said. “Our view is that proponents of the deal should support an up-or-down vote and not hide behind a filibuster.”
– Carl Hulse
Former Clinton Aide to Testify at House Benghazi Committee
One of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s longtime advisers is scheduled to appear on Thursday before the House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks for an interview under oath.
The adviser, Cheryl Mills, was Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department and one of the lawyers who led the defense of President Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial. The Republican-led panel wants to question Ms. Mills about the personal email account Mrs. Clinton used when she was secretary of state and how the administration responded to the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
It’s not clear that Ms. Mills will be able to answer all the questions. Some of the issues the committee wants to ask about relate to classified materials, and Ms. Mills does not have a security clearance.
Ms. Mills played a significant role in providing legal advice to Mrs. Clinton regarding the release of her emails to the State Department last year. In response to questions about that process, Ms. Mills could exert attorney-client privilege. Ms. Mills’s lawyer had asked the committee to have the interview in public in an apparent effort to prevent Republicans from selectively leaking her testimony.
The committee declined. None of the transcribed interviews the panel has conducted have occurred in public.
The appearance comes after news that a former Clinton aide who helped set up the server that housed Mrs. Clinton’s private email account plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment right in response to congressional questions about the email practices.
– Michael S. Schmidt
Our Favorites From The Times
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Often in her political career, Mrs. Clinton has found cover amid some of her stumbles in Republicans who have troubles of their own.
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A once-sunny Mr. Bush seems irked to be in Mr. Trump’s shadow and stuck in a race that embodies what he likes least about politics.
Perhaps as a case in point, on Wednesday Mr. Trump suggested that Mr. Bush was setting a bad example by speaking Spanish, and Mr. Bush criticized Mr. Trump for, among other things, being “a germaphobe.”
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In a speech aimed at raising her national profile amid talk of a potential vice-presidential pick, Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina sharply criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, saying it was imperiling black lives and property.
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And on the third day of his visit to Alaska, Mr. Obama delivered promises of new aid for Arctic communities whose shorelines and infrastructure are crumbling because of rising temperatures.
Bulletins: Rubio on Clerk; Clinton’s Drug Plan; Sanders Nears Deal
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Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said the government should respect the beliefs of the Kentucky county clerk who has denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples, saying society needs to accommodate public officials who object to carrying out duties they say violate their religious beliefs.
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And Mr. Sanders is on the verge of signing a joint fund-raising agreement with the Democratic National Committee, his aides said, a week after Mrs. Clinton entered such an arrangement.
Warren Offers a Glimpse Into Her Lunch With Biden
Senator Elizabeth Warren touched on some of her signature issues — like student loans, big banks and the Affordable Care Act — Wednesday evening in an appearance with a Boston Globe reporter at Suffolk University.
But it was her potential role in next year’s presidential election, including her meeting late last month with Mr. Biden, that drew the evening’s most eager attention.
“Actually, he called me twice,” Ms. Warren said, explaining how the lunch meeting was set up.
Ms. Warren and Mr. Biden met over some sort of chopped salad — “I wasn’t entirely sure what it was,” she said — for a “good, long, rambling policy conversation,” Ms. Warren said.
The reporter, Joshua Miller, asked if the two had discussed the idea of a joint ticket, even jokingly.
Ms. Warren paused.
“It was a long conversation,” she said.
Ms. Warren then sidestepped Mr. Miller’s repeated questions about whether she intended to serve out her six-year Senate term, which began in 2013.
“I love my job,” Ms. Warren said, emphasizing each word. “It’s all I’m thinking about.”
Mr. Miller reminded Ms. Warren that, in 2013, she had pledged to serve out the term.
“There’s nothing that has changed my thinking on this,” Ms. Warren said. “I’m working hard.”
Ms. Warren also said that she expected to endorse a Democratic presidential candidate, but that she was not ready to do so.
– Jess Bidgood
What We’re Reading Elsewhere
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Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor who has harshly criticized the Democratic National Committee for scheduling six debates, a number he sees as too few and as benefiting Mrs. Clinton, has called for protests at the committee’s headquarters, The Hill writes.
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And, The New Yorker writes, “In contemporary campaigns, which rely so much on artifice and the huge gobs of money that manufacture more artifice, it’s often hard to figure out who these striving people are apart from who they say they are.”
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Correction
The newsletter on Wednesday misidentified, in some references, the country that is the focus of the nuclear deal. As the newsletter correctly noted elsewhere, it is Iran, not Iraq.
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