Trump intends to tweet VP debate to Clinton camp’s excitement

Clinton will watch, probably won’t be on social media

WASHINGTON — The Latest on the presidential race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton:

3:46 p.m.

Hillary Clinton’s communications chef isn’t exactly upset that Donald Trump plans to live tweet tonight’s vice presidential debate.

Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said, “Oh good,” when informed of Trump’s plans. She made the comments Tuesday afternoon at the debate site in Farmville, Virginia, where Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine will take on Trump’s No. 2, Mike Pence.

Palmieri said Clinton would be watching the debate from her home in Chappaqua, New York. She wasn’t sure whether the former secretary of state would be active on social media.

Trump was campaigning in Colorado on Tuesday. He tweeted earlier in the afternoon that he would be “live tweeting the VP debate tonight starting at 830pm est!”

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3:13 p.m.

Mike Pence is among the Republicans who have compared Donald Trump favorably with Ronald Reagan.

Michael Reagan isn’t buying it.

The conservative commentator and son of the 40th president has been using his Twitter account to dismiss suggestions that the billionaire businessman from New York is the coming of a new Ronald Reagan.

He’s predicted that if Nancy Reagan were still alive, she would vote for Hillary Clinton.

And in reference to Trump, he tweeted that “my father would not support this kind of campaign.”

He added on Twitter Sunday: “If this is what the Republican Party wants leave us Reagans out.”

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2:20 p.m.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign didn’t have anything to do with the release of Donald Trump’s taxes, says Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

Podesta answered flatly, “No,” when asked whether Clinton’s campaign was involved in leaking the returns. He spoke to reporters Tuesday afternoon ahead of the vice presidential debate in Virginia.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that Trump may have avoided paying federal income taxes for nearly two decades after he claimed business losses of more than $900 million in 1996. The Trump campaign has not refuted the report.

It’s unclear who leaked the documents. The Republican presidential nominee has broken from decades of tradition by refusing to release his tax returns.

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2:10 p.m.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman says Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will have to defend Donald Trump’s “division” and “bigotry” at tonight’s debate.

Chairman John Podesta suggested Tuesday afternoon that Clinton’s running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, would press Pence to answer tough questions.

Podesta addressed reporters from the so-called “spin room” at the debate site ahead of the vice presidential debate.

He said Pence would “have to defend what in my view is the indefensible, the division that Donald Trump has shown in this campaign, the bigotry that he has shown.”

He added, “I think he’s got a very tough road to hoe.”

Podesta also raised Pence’s record on women’s rights and gay rights. He said the Indiana governor has “an extreme record.”

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2 p.m.

Bill Clinton is shrugging off Donald Trump’s threats to bring up the former president’s marital infidelity in upcoming debates with Hillary Clinton.

At a stop Tuesday in a Marietta, Ohio, restaurant, Bill Clinton said that Trump has “been making those attacks from the beginning of this campaign, so I don’t think that’s anything new.”

The Republican nominee struggled at times during his first debate performance against his Democratic rival. Since then, Trump has called Bill Clinton as a “one of the great abusers of the world” and cast his wife as “an enabler.” Trump has said he’s considering renewing those assertions during the next presidential debate on Sunday.

Bill Clinton’s relationship with a White House intern was the subject of his impeachment in 1998.

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1:30 p.m.

Campaigning for Democrat Hillary Clinton, first lady Michelle Obama says the presidency “reveals who you are.”

The first lady had sharp criticism for Clinton’s Republican rival, Donald Trump, in Charlotte.

“The presidency doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are,” she said. “That’s the kind of president they will be. And trust me, a candidate is not going to suddenly change once they’re in office.”

Obama rebuked Trump for his false claim that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, his overnight Twitter tirade about the former Miss Universe and his refusal to release income tax returns.

She encouraged the crowd to vote, saying Clinton is “the real deal.”

President Barack Obama won North Carolina in 2008, but lost the state to Mitt Romney in 2012.

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1:20 p.m.

A day after framing President Barack Obama’s signature health care law as crazy, former President Bill Clinton is trying to avoid muddling his message again as he touts Hillary Clinton’s plans on the economy.

Bill Clinton only briefly mentioned health care during the Ohio University speech campaigning for his wife. It was a far cry from his comments Monday, when he called the health care law “the craziest thing in the world.”

“You’ve got this crazy system where all the sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half,” he said.

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama still has “strong confidence” in the law.

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12:50 p.m.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest says President Barack Obama doesn’t think Trump is a role model for Americans, and the president has “made that clear in a variety of settings.”

Asked whether Trump might be a role model in any setting, not just as president, Earnest added:

“There are hundreds of millions of Americans that, by the way they live their lives every day, are role models for our kids. Based on the president’s deep concern about the rhetoric of the Republican nominee, I feel confident telling you that he would not be comfortable with describing the nominee in that way.”

The question came after Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire said Monday that Trump is a role model for kids, then reversed herself, saying he is not.

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12:20 p.m.

Republican Sen. Pat Toomey says Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump isn’t a role model for his children, nor is his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

The Pennsylvania senator’s comments come after Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire said Trump is a role model for kids and then reversed herself, saying he is not. Both Toomey and Ayotte are in competitive re-election contests.

On Trump, Toomey said he’s not a role model for his children, “but honestly, neither is Hillary Clinton, I mean, the serial dishonesty, the repeated lies to the American people, to the families of Benghazi victims, the list is endless, and the serious ethical challenges.”

Toomey, who has declined to endorse Trump, said he is not a role model because of “the vulgarity and gratuitous insults of people.”

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Noon

Former President Bill Clinton wants voters to know that his wife shouldn’t be held responsible for spiking incarceration rates that stemmed in part from a crime bill he signed into law.

Bill Clinton had barely begun his remarks Tuesday at Ohio University when a man at the rally began yelling at him about the 1994 law.

As Hillary Clinton’s supporters started to drown out the man, the former president waved them off and engaged him. Bill Clinton said his wife “didn’t vote for the bill” or try to put “millions of your people in prison.”

He noted Hillary Clinton has called for a criminal justice overhaul.

The former president did offer one defense of his decision on the 1994 law: He said it was popular at the time across all income and racial lines.

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11:55 p.m.

Donald Trump is condemning the “tremendous problem with regulations” that he says are damaging the nation’s energy business.

The Republican presidential candidate held a roundtable Tuesday with around a dozen oil and gas industry leaders in Denver. At the event at the Denver Energy Center, he acknowledged that some regulations are needed for safety or environmental reasons.

But he warned that if his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, wins in November, she will “double the regulations and put you all out of business.”

He also repeated his promise to protect the nation’s mining industry.

Trump’s energy plan calls for a reliance on federal fuels and a vow to cut bureaucracy.

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11:45 p.m.

President Barack Obama is postponing a planned Florida rally for Hillary Clinton because of Hurricane Matthew.

Obama had been scheduled to appear for Clinton on Wednesday in Miami Gardens. He was expected to emphasize the need for Democrats in Florida to make sure they’re registered to vote ahead of Election Day.

But Clinton’s campaign says the event is postponed.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center has issued a hurricane watch for South Florida.

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11:30 p.m.

Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea Clinton are holding a family town hall meeting in Philadelphia’s suburbs, pointing to ways the Democratic presidential nominee would try to help children and families.

The Clintons were joined on stage with actress Elizabeth Banks as the former secretary of state vowed to help provide paid family leave and sick days for working mothers.

Responding to a question about Donald Trump’s views on women, Hillary Clinton notes that her opponent “insulted Miss Universe. I mean how do you get more acclaimed than that?”

Clinton has made Pennsylvania one of her top targets on the 2016 battleground map and is appealing to women as she tries to become the nation’s first female president.

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10:50 a.m.

Democrat Tim Kaine has invited civil rights leader Jesse Jackson to be a guest at Tuesday’s vice presidential debate.

Kaine has also invited former Virginia state Sen. Henry Marsh, a civil rights attorney and mentor to Kaine; Lily Habtu, a survivor of the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shooting, and Okianer Christian Dark, a law professor who Kaine represented in a fair housing case.

Also joining Kaine will be Carol Schall and Mary Townley, a lesbian couple who were plaintiffs in a lawsuit that led to Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage being overturned. Their daughter, Emily Schall Townley, is also a guest.

Kaine is a former civil rights lawyer and Virginia governor. He is now a U.S. senator.

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8:30 a.m.

Donald Trump’s campaign manager says Trump has paid “hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes over decades.” How much of that was federal income tax, however, remains unclear.

In an interview Tuesday on CBS “This Morning,” Kellyanne Conway lists the types of taxes Trump has paid: excise, payroll, real estate, property and state and local taxes.

When the anchor interjects that she left out income taxes, Conway says, “Well, he certainly has, in years that he made a profit, like anybody else.”

The New York Times has reported that Trump claimed a loss of nearly $916 million in a single year on his personal tax filings and this could have allowed him to avoid federal income taxes for nearly two decades. Trump’s campaign has not denied the report.

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7:30 a.m.

Vice President Joe Biden is criticizing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for remarks suggesting that soldiers who suffer from mental health issues might not be as strong as those who don’t.

Biden says, “How can he be so out of touch.” In a CNN interview Tuesday, the vice president also said Trump is “not a bad man.” But he added: “His ignorance is profound, so profound.”

Trump made the reference Monday as he discussed his commitment to improving mental health services for veterans.

He said, “When people come back from war and combat, and they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over, and you’re strong and you can handle it. But a lot of people can’t handle it.”

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7:10 a.m.

Donald Trump’s campaign manager says Trump’s running mate will put in a “fiery performance” in the vice presidential debate.

Speaking Tuesday on CBS “This Morning,” Kellyanne Conway says even though Mike Pence is “known as low key,” he will fight to defend the Republican candidate and will go after his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Pence faces off against Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, on Tuesday night in the only vice presidential debate.

Even though Pence and Kaine have campaigned for more than two months, many people say they still don’t have a feel for either man. In a recent Associated Press-GfK poll, more than half of registered voters said they didn’t know enough about Kaine to venture an opinion about him, and about 44 percent said the same for Pence.

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6:00 a.m.

Hillary Clinton is campaigning in the Philadelphia suburbs on Tuesday with daughter Chelsea Clinton and actress Elizabeth Banks at an event aimed at making the case to female voters.

Clinton is expected to talk about her agenda to help children and families and take questions from voters in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Her campaign is making a major push in the suburbs around Philadelphia and appealing to college-educated voters who have backed Republicans in past presidential elections.

Clinton will campaign later in the day in Harrisburg. Her campaign is looking to deny rival Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, which has supported a Democratic presidential nominee in every election since 1988.