WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the 2016 presidential campaign (all times EDT):
11:59 p.m.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are expected to meet separately with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York on Sunday ahead of their first presidential debate on Monday night.
Netanyahu has sought to project neutrality in this year’s U.S. election after there were perceptions that he favored Mitt Romney over President Barack Obama in 2012.
The Israeli leader met with Obama last week, capping what has been a contentious relationship between the leaders of the two allies.
The Obama administration has opposed Israel’s push to expand settlements in the West Bank while Netanyahu has been a leading critic of the U.S. nuclear agreement with Iran.
The U.S. recently completed a 10-year, $38 billion military aid package for Israel.
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9:15 p.m.
Republican vice presidential hopeful Mike Pence is praising Ted Cruz’s long-delayed decision to back Donald Trump’s presidential bid, and not surprisingly, Pence chose Iowa as the place to heap praise on the Texas senator’s noteworthy about-face.
Cruz defeated Trump in February’s Iowa caucuses, starting a drawn-out and bitter primary campaign in which the two men traded personal insults. Cruz pointedly refused to endorse Trump at the Republican National Convention last summer in Cleveland, where he told delegates to “vote your conscience.”
On his Facebook page Friday, Cruz for the first time said explicitly he would be voting for Trump.
At the Faith and Freedom Coalition dinner Saturday, Pence said Cruz wrote “eloquently” about his decision, and the Indiana governor praised Cruz as “one of the great conservative leaders in this nation.”
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8:10 p.m.
Donald Trump has stumbled over the name of the new Washington museum commemorating black history.
Speaking at a rally in Roanoke, Virginia, Trump told supporters the new museum is “really a beautiful place,” calling it “the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, African-American Art.”
Actually, it’s the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It officially opened Saturday.
Another one of the Smithsonian Institution’s many museums in Washington is the National Museum of African Art. It too is on the National Mall.
The stumble comes as Trump has been trying to improve his standing with minority voters who have an overwhelmingly negative view of the GOP candidate.
Trump on Saturday also declared school choice the “new civil rights issue of our time.”
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7:45 p.m.
Donald Trump is trying to make the case that he’ll do more to help women if he’s elected to the White House than rival Hillary Clinton.
The appeal came hours after Trump threatened in a tweet to invite a woman who had an affair with his rival’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, to sit in the first row at Monday’s presidential debate.
Speaking in Roanoke, Virginia, Trump told supporters that Clinton likes to say she’s been fighting for women and children for decades. He then asked why 70 million women and children are in poverty or on the brink of poverty.
Clinton co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families early in her career and delivered a seminal speech as first lady declaring that “women’s rights are human rights.”
Trump has been criticized for crass comments he’s made about women over the years.
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7 p.m.
Hillary Clinton has spoken by phone with African-American pastors in Charlotte, North Carolina, as the city deals with the aftermath of the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. Clinton’s campaign says the pastors told her the city would come together to rebuild trust between the police department and community. Charlotte police have released body and dashboard camera footage of the shooting.
Clinton is expected to travel to Charlotte on Oct. 2.
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5:30 p.m.
Ted Cruz says his decision to support Donald Trump was “agonizing.”
He denies he caved in to Republican pressure when reversed course and announced that he will vote for Trump in the election. He says, “whatever path I went down, there were going to be people dismayed.”
He appeared Saturday at a Texas Tribune policy forum in Austin.
The Texas senator refused for months to swing behind Trump, saying the Republican nominee went too far in insulting his family during the bitter primaries.
But polls suggested Cruz’s popularity was slipping nationally and in Texas, where he may face a primary challenger for his 2018 re-election.
Cruz said he spoke to Trump after his decision, but Trump didn’t apologize to him or his family.
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5:15 p.m.
Republican vice presidential hopeful Mike Pence has promised home-school advocates that a President Donald Trump would be their “champion” in the White House.
The Indiana governor delivered that assurance Saturday in North Carolina at a national convention of home-school activists and families. The home-school movement is driven overwhelmingly by evangelical Christians.
Pence was introduced by movement leader Mike Farris. Previously, Farris has criticized other evangelical Christians for backing Trump. And he has described Trump as a “candidate whose worldview is greed and whose God is appetites.”
Trump has proposed using $20 billion in existing federal education spending to expand “school-choice options,” including home-schooling. But Trump’s proposal focuses on students living in poverty, while the overwhelming majority of home-school families earn more than the federal poverty rate.
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4:40 p.m.
Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence is praising North Carolina officials and “all the good people of Charlotte” for “restoring order” after protests in reaction to the latest high-profile killings of black men by police.
The Indiana governor made the remarks Saturday at a national convention of home-schooling advocates in Asheville. His appearance comes after four consecutive nights of demonstrations sparked by the killing of Keith Lamont Scott by Charlotte police.
Pence did not mention Scott by name, but urged his audience to “pray for God’s comfort” for all involved.
Pence did specifically commend North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory’s handling of the matter. McCory introduced Pence to the home-school gathering. The first-term Republican governor is locked in a tight re-election battle.
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4:30 p.m.
Hillary Clinton appears to be preparing for the first presidential debate at a Westchester hotel near her home in Chappaqua, New York.
Clinton was spotted Saturday afternoon at the hotel, along with what appeared to be her vehicle and Secret Service detail. Also seen on the hotel grounds was senior aide Huma Abedin.
Clinton appeared to hold practice sessions for Monday night’s debate at the hotel on Friday and Saturday.
Campaign aides declined to comment on that.
Her aides have said she has prepared for the debate at her suburban New York home and another location.
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3:30 p.m.
Donald Trump is threatening to bring Gennifer Flowers to the first presidential debate and seat her next to a Hillary Clinton guest he doesn’t like. It’s not clear whether Trump is joking.
Flowers once had a relationship with Bill Clinton.
Trump’s warning came on Twitter after Hillary Clinton invited businessman Mark Cuban to the debate. He’s a frequent Trump critic.
In his tweet, Trump calls Cuban “dopey.” And he says if Cuban wants to sit in the front row, he may put Flowers “right alongside of him.”
Trump misspelled Flowers’ first name, with a J, then tweeted again to fix the mistake.
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1:40 p.m.
The New York Times is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.
The newspaper’s editorial board on Saturday praised Clinton for bringing “a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas” to the election. It calls her “one of the most tenacious politicians of her generation, whose willingness to study and correct course is rare in an age of unyielding partisanship.” Donald Trump is described as the worst nominee put forward by a major party in modern times.
The Times has endorsed only Democrats for president back to John Kennedy in 1960 and has backed that party’s presidential nominees more often through its history. Its last Republican endorsement for the presidency was Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. And its first endorsement, in 1860, was for Republican Abraham Lincoln.
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1:30 p.m.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine is taking a day to visit a Native American festival near his Richmond, Virginia home.
Kaine made a hastily arranged visit to the Chickahominy Indian Tribe Fall Festival on Saturday where he gave a brief speech praising American Indian culture and highlighting his efforts to win federal recognition of Virginia’s tribes.
Kaine called the visit personal and a “restore-the-soul kind of thing for me.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has focused heavily on the swing state and plans a rally in Roanoke on Saturday evening.
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12:15 p.m.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren says Donald Trump and Republicans are “making hate OK.”
Hillary Clinton’s campaign sent Warren to New Hampshire for the day to fire up Democrats in the battleground state. Warren is also campaigning Saturday alongside Gov. Maggie Hassan, who is challenging Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte.
Warren told reporters that Trump has scapegoated groups of Americans in a way she never expected from a major party candidate.
And she’s criticizing Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for saying he’ll vote for Trump, after months of speaking out against the GOP nominee.
She asked, “Is that really what your word is worth, Ted Cruz?”
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Noon
While the opening ceremony of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture was a nonpartisan event, there was a little politicking going on.
After her soulful rendition of “A Change is Gonna Come,” singer Patti LaBelle said “Hillary Clinton” into the microphone before leaving the stage. Clinton is the Democratic nominee for president.
Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump will participate in their first presidential debate Monday. Neither candidate attended the museum’s opening.
But former President Bill Clinton was in the front row of the crowd.
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11:30 A.M.
Hillary Clinton and her allies will be campaigning in several battleground states after Monday’s first presidential debate. The events will focus on registering voters.
The Democratic presidential nominee will travel to North Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa and Florida. Former President Bill Clinton will be in Ohio on Tuesday and take part in a bus tour of Florida on Friday.
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Clinton’s running mate, will campaign in Florida on Tuesday while Vice President Joe Biden will be in Philadelphia that day.
First lady Michelle Obama will also be in Pennsylvania, making stops in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on Wednesday.
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida have voter registration deadlines in early October.
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9:50 a.m.
Hillary Clinton has tapped longtime adviser Philippe Reines to play Donald Trump in her mock debate preparations. That’s according to a person familiar with Reines’ involvement.
Reines worked closely with Clinton during her years as a senator and secretary of state, as well as during her first presidential campaign. He’s a combative political operative and fierce defender of Clinton’s but has not had a formal role in the 2016 campaign.
Democratic strategist Michael Feldman, who is not involved in the Clinton campaign, said Reines “does verbal combat at a high level and has for a long time.”
Clinton has spent weeks preparing for Monday’s first debate against Trump. The person familiar with the debate preparations was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity.
- Contributed by AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace
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