Well, that was a newsy Wednesday. Trump, figuring he needs to look Presidential gives a mess of a speech with a TelePrompter, the usual Republicans clap, and the foreign policy experts scratch their head. Let’s start with Madeleine Albright:
Fred Kaplan:
A Mess of Contradictions
Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech was even worse than his usual incoherent rambling.
I didn’t think it possible, but Donald Trump’s “major foreign policy address” on Wednesday—a written speech, which he read off a teleprompter—was even more incoherent than his impromptu ramblings of the past several months. In fact, it may stand as the most senseless, self-contradicting foreign policy speech by any major party’s presidential nominee in modern history.
Daniel W. Drezner:
Donald Trump’s big foreign policy speech, explained.
I suffered through all of Donald Trump's foreign policy speech. This is my story.
Trump doesn’t really have any useful ideas or strategies to offer for how to improve American foreign policy. What he does have, however, is a really stinging indictment of the existing foreign policy establishment. This certainly resonates with a lot of Americans, even people who wouldn’t otherwise sympathize with Trump.
The challenge for Hillary Clinton will be to point out that whatever qualms one has about the foreign policy status quo, Trump’s alternative would be worse.
Meanwhile, as you all know, Bernie is cutting back staff. Here’s what’s being said about it:
On Wednesday, Sanders told the Times that he was letting go "hundreds" of staff members in states whose primaries and caucuses had already passed, streamlining his campaign to focus on California. “If we win this, every one of those great people who have helped us get this far, they will be rehired,” Sanders said, according to the newspaper. “But right now, we have to use all of the resources we have and focus them on the remaining states.”
He'll move staffers to the California, too, he said, describing a primary win there as both a symbolic and practical goal.
Even so, Sanders' speech Wednesday at Purdue University in West Lafayette signaled an acknowledgment that his campaign’s way forward might be influencing the next presidency rather than winning it.
“And our job, whether we win or whether we do not win, is to transform not only our country, but the Democratic Party—to open the doors of the Democratic Party to working people and young people and senior citizens in a way that does not exist today,” Sanders said, according to CNN.
Robert Schlesinger on playing the ‘woman card’.:
As Greg Sargent notes in The Washington Post this morning, Trump seems to view this line of attack against Clinton as a sign of alpha-strength and dominance over her. "This is not strength," Sargent writes. "It's weakness. It's his weakness, in the sense that he plainly can't help but respond to her in this way. And more to the point, Trump doesn't appear to know it."
Indeed, as I noted last December, Trump has a bully's instinct for finding and zeroing in on an opponent's vulnerabilities, and it's served him well inasmuch as it's helped him casually dispatch so many opponents over the last several months; but combined with his sexism – and his lack of awareness that it's even a problem – it will be his undoing.
Atlantic:
The Sanders campaign has proven remarkably successful in bringing in small-dollar donations over the course of the race. But it’s easier to motivate donors when they believe their money will have a real impact. If it seems like the race is no longer competitive, those donations tend to run out, and that may be exactly what is starting to happen. The Sanders campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether fundraising has taken a hit. Still, even if the layoffs are not an indicator of money troubles, it will likely be harder to raise money as the campaign’s prospects grow increasingly dim.
Sanders has drawn massive crowds on the campaign trail and raised millions of dollars. If that support evaporates in the wake of primary-contest defeats, it will be much more difficult for the Vermont senator to translate the gains he has made on the trail into tangible influence on the Democratic Party or Clinton’s eventual presidential platform. To do that, he’ll need his loyal followers to stand by him. He’ll need their money too.
Brent Budowsky:
Sanders can say to those tempted by Trump: One thing you can count on is that Bernie Sanders will never send his campaign chief to Wall Street or the political establishment and say he will suddenly change to another persona! Sanders can say that he has spent a lifetime fighting for workers in ways that Trump never dared to dream of.
Additionally, if Sanders does end his criticism of Clinton, he can say to those supporters of Clinton in California who also hope that she takes the most progressive positions that they can vote for him in the Golden State in a referendum for a progressive future, sending a message to the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign that even many of her supporters largely agree with him.
My guess is that if Sanders pursues this course, he will win the California primary in a way that does not hurt Clinton, but in fact helps her. I have made the point for many months that there are reasons why Sanders defeats Trump by landslide margins in virtually every poll, and runs stronger against Trump and all Republicans than Clinton does. There is a progressive populist wave across America and Democrats should stand in favor of it, and transform America because of it.
The California primary should not be the end of Sanders's campaign; it should be the beginning of the next stage of the progressive movement.
Chris Cillizza:
Donald Trump isn't the presumptive Republican presidential nominee yet. And he won't get close to -- or over -- the 1,237-delegate barrier until June 7 at the earliest. But in the wake of Tuesday's I-95 primary results, there's one reality that's very hard to deny: Republican voters want Trump to be the nominee.
On Tuesday, Trump won by 3o percentage points (Connecticut), 41 (Delaware), 31 (Maryland), 35 (Pennsylvania) and 40 (Rhode Island). And that's in a three-way race! Yes, the states that voted on Tuesday were, like New York, more naturally friendly to Trump than to Ted Cruz. But remember two months ago when John Kasich and all of his allies insisted that the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states were where he was going to start winning? He came nowhere close. Neither did Cruz.
WaPo:
The successes of Trump and Clinton underscore important nuances in the sentiments coursing through the two parties. While voters in both share a frustration with the state of the nation’s economy and politics, Republicans blame their own leaders as much as anybody else and are, therefore, more eager for a radical fix, whereas Democrats still believe their elected leaders can bring change from within.
Alexandra Petri:
Take the Woman Card on the subway with you, put your headphones in, and you are guaranteed a free, lengthy, one-on-one conversation or lecture from a man who will not leave you alone unless you also remembered to bring your I Have A Boyfriend Card (they accept no substitutes).
Show the Woman Card to your health-care provider and you will enjoy new limits on your reproductive rights, depending on what the legislators of your state have decided is wise. Get ready to have a lot of things about your body explained to you!