Good Friday morning. Donald J. Trump had a big day on Thursday, but on Friday, other candidates, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Hillary Rodham Clinton, will find themselves in Puerto Rico at the same time. And Mr. Rubio is wasting little time previewing his idea of what the general election might look like.
“Marco vs. Hillary in Puerto Rico this Friday,” reads the news release from the Rubio campaign, like a flyer promoting an event more suited to a boxing ring than a presidential race.
And while Mrs. Clinton has acted like she would rather just ignore the Florida senator — her campaign sent out a statement of its own saying only that she would be visiting a cardiovascular care center on the island primarily to discuss health care issues — Mr. Rubio sees their visits on Friday as an opportunity to draw clear contrasts with the candidate that many expect to be the Democratic nominee.
Their trips were not planned to coincide, but Mr. Rubio, seems eager to make the most of it. Mrs. Clinton does not speak Spanish. He does, and he plans to make good use of it while he’s there.
He also wrote an op-ed (in English and Spanish) that was published on Friday in El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper by readership. In it, Mr. Rubio outlined how, unlike Mrs. Clinton and Jeb Bush, another Floridian who is one of Mr. Rubio’s chief rivals, he does not support allowing the island’s municipalities to reorganize their debt in bankruptcy. (Stateside municipalities can do so under bankruptcy law, but as a commonwealth, Puerto Rico’s cannot.)
“So far, Hillary Clinton’s liberal hosts in San Juan today have failed to propose any serious measures to fix Puerto Rico’s economic challenges,” he wrote in the piece.
Of course, there is a subtext to Mr. Rubio’s jabs. He hopes their dueling appearances are just a preview of what’s to come in the general election.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida spoke at the Prescott Bush Awards Dinner in Stamford, Conn., in June. Eric Thayer for The New York Times
9/04/2015
By Jeremy W. Peters
Good Friday morning. Donald J. Trump had a big day on Thursday, but on Friday, other candidates, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Hillary Rodham Clinton, will find themselves in Puerto Rico at the same time. And Mr. Rubio is wasting little time previewing his idea of what the general election might look like.
“Marco vs. Hillary in Puerto Rico this Friday,” reads the news release from the Rubio campaign, like a flyer promoting an event more suited to a boxing ring than a presidential race.
And while Mrs. Clinton has acted like she would rather just ignore the Florida senator — her campaign sent out a statement of its own saying only that she would be visiting a cardiovascular care center on the island primarily to discuss health care issues — Mr. Rubio sees their visits on Friday as an opportunity to draw clear contrasts with the candidate that many expect to be the Democratic nominee.
Their trips were not planned to coincide, but Mr. Rubio, seems eager to make the most of it. Mrs. Clinton does not speak Spanish. He does, and he plans to make good use of it while he’s there.
He also wrote an op-ed (in English and Spanish) that was published on Friday in El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper by readership. In it, Mr. Rubio outlined how, unlike Mrs. Clinton and Jeb Bush, another Floridian who is one of Mr. Rubio’s chief rivals, he does not support allowing the island’s municipalities to reorganize their debt in bankruptcy. (Stateside municipalities can do so under bankruptcy law, but as a commonwealth, Puerto Rico’s cannot.)
“So far, Hillary Clinton’s liberal hosts in San Juan today have failed to propose any serious measures to fix Puerto Rico’s economic challenges,” he wrote in the piece.
Of course, there is a subtext to Mr. Rubio’s jabs. He hopes their dueling appearances are just a preview of what’s to come in the general election.
What We’re Watching Today
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King Salman of Saudi Arabia will visit President Obama at the White House, but the kingdom’s oil production will barely get a mention. Instead, the first order of business for the Saudi king is likely to be the Iran nuclear deal, analysts said.
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Jake Sullivan, a key staff member for Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state, will be interviewed privately by the House committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Another aide, Cheryl D. Mills, testified on Thursday.
Crowd for Pope’s Congressional Visit to Spill Onto the Lawn
The hottest ticket in town this month may be inside the House chamber, but second to that will be passes to the lawn of the West Front of the Capitol, where 50,000 people are expected to gather to watch a broadcast of Pope Francis’ address to a joint meeting of Congress.
After his speech, plans call for the pope to walk out to the speaker’s balcony to appear before the public gathered on the lawn, which has been the site of holiday concerts and other events. Each member of the House will receive a ticket for the lower west terrace and 50 tickets for the West Lawn; each member of the Senate will receive a ticket for the lower west terrace and 200 tickets to the West Lawn. So bug your representative to see what’s left. Who knows? Francis might well wade into the crowd.
While the broadcast may seem almost impromptu, the Capitol police have been developing the master plan for the event, including security, for months, along with Speaker John A. Boehner, who has been trying to get a papal visit to Congress for the better part of two decades.
– Jennifer Steinhauer
Our Favorites From The Times
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A group of software developers and designers, product managers and other tech supporters have volunteered to create apps and other tools to help Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
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Ben Carson has developed a head of steam in the Republican field. Mr. Carson, a retired brain surgeon, outperformed Mr. Trump in a head-to-head matchup, according to a new Monmouth University poll.
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Bulletins: A Trump Thursday
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After much hand-wringing by his Republican rivals, Mr. Trump signed a party pledge, along with all the other candidates, to forgo a third-party run and support the eventual nominee.
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Corey Lewandowski, once a lobbyist, a political operative and a congressional aide who was arrested after he brought a gun to work, is running Mr. Trump’s campaign.
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And Mr. Trump revealed gaps in his mastery of international affairs during a radio interview on Thursday, appearing to mistake the Quds Force, an Iranian military group, for the Kurds, a Middle Eastern people, and growing testy over questions about foreign leaders.
Oh, and one of his guards hit a protester in the face.
What We’re Reading Elsewhere
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Mr. Carson is this season’s “stealth candidate,” MSNBC writes, in part, because of his “contrasting humility and soft-spoken demeanor – paired with his outsider credibility and far-right views.”
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Rick Santorum is the first in the crowded presidential field to campaign in each of Iowa’s 99 counties, according to CBS News.
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The Washington Post reports that Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said Mr. Obama’s “inaction” and “deceit,” had helped fuel the Syrian refugee crisis.
A Range of Emojis for Bernie Sanders
Berniemoji is an app that allows users to text, tweet and share emojis based on caricatures of Mr. Sanders. Scott Nash/NASHBOX Graphic Design and Illustration
As the hundreds of top-flight developers and programmers have volunteered their efforts to Mr. Sanders, some of his supporters have offered up their own quirkiness and services.
The latest: the Berniemoji, an app that allows users to text, tweet and share emojis based on caricatures of the senator.
“It started as a dare,” said Scott Nash, a 55-year-old graphic designer from Portland, Me. “One of my colleagues laid down the gauntlet and said ‘What’s the equivalent of the Shepard Fairey portrait for Bernie?’”
Mr. Nash was referring to the portrait of Mr. Obama in 2008, his stoic gaze sitting above an all-caps “Hope” message. But every time Mr. Nash sat down to create an iconic portrait of Mr. Sanders, he struggled to find a gaze or a look that captured his momentum.
“And then it occurred to me that the key to Bernie, is he’s not iconic, he’s emotive,” Mr. Nash said. So he set about making not one portrait, but 12, all cartoonishly emotional (which was fairly unsurprising, given Mr. Nash’s background: He designed the logo for Nickelodeon way back when).
Two programmers who work with Mr. Nash, Akimitsu Hogge and Wade Brainerd, helped him amplify his illustrations.
So though Mr. Nash’s portraits of Mr. Sanders are dotting the texts and chats of supporters, when it comes to the original dare, Mr. Nash jokes, “if you can tell, I failed miserably.”
– Nick Corasaniti
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