The Latest: Pence avoids discussion of GOP tensions

An Associated Press reporter later asked Pence if he would endorse McCain or Ryan while the candidate was signing autographs and posing for selfies with supporters. The Indiana governor appeared to ignore the question and kept on moving down the line.

Trump told The Washington Post earlier Tuesday that he’s “just not quite there yet” when asked about an endorsement of Ryan, who faces a primary election next week. In that interview, Trump also declined to support McCain’s re-election.

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11:15 p.m.

Top Republican donor and fundraiser Meg Whitman is endorsing Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, saying she cannot support a candidate who has “exploited anger, grievance, xenophobia and racial division.”

The Hewlett-Packard executive says in a statement Tuesday night that Republican nominee Donald Trump’s “demagoguery has undermined the fabric of our national character.”

Whitman says Trump’s “reckless and uninformed” positions on critical issues from immigration to the economy and foreign policy show he lacks the policy depth and judgment a president needs.

She says national security would be in danger under a Trump presidency and she encourages all Republicans to support Clinton in November.

The former eBay chief executive ran unsuccessfully for California governor in 2010, spending $144 million of her own money in a $178 million losing battle against Democrat Jerry Brown.

9 p.m.

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine made a quick dinner stop Tuesday night in a key Florida county, where local party leaders promised him a wide victory margin in November.

The Virginia senator stopped at Betty’s Soul Food Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, where state Sen. Chris Smith and other party leaders promised that Hillary Clinton will carry Broward County by 250,000 votes.

Broward is Florida’s most Democratic county, and Clinton needs a large margin there to counteract Donald Trump’s likely advantage in rural and northern parts of the state that are heavily Republican.

Kaine ordered Buffalo wings, fried shrimp and lemonade.

8 p.m.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence criticized comments President Barack Obama made Tuesday about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s lack of judgment, saying Obama himself knows a lot about being “woefully unprepared.”

Pence spoke before several hundred people at a town hall in Tucson, Arizona, and was scheduled to appear in Phoenix later Tuesday.

Trump’s running mate spent much of his speech railing against Obama policies.

Obama said Tuesday that Trump was unfit to be president and challenged Republicans to disavow their support for him.

Pence criticized Obama’s policies in Iraq, saying they led to the growth of the Islamic State group.

7:45 p.m.

Donald Trump is reiterating his concerns that the November election will be “rigged” against him, speculating that people without proper identification “are going to vote 10 times.”

Trump is discussing voter ID during an interview Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor.”

The Republican presidential nominee says, “You don’t have to have voter ID to now go in and vote and it’s a little bit scary.”

Over the last two weeks, courts have dealt setbacks to voter ID laws in several states. Critics of photo ID requirements say they fall disproportionately on minority voters and the poor.

Trump says without voter ID, “people are going to walk in, they are going to vote 10 times maybe. Who knows?”

6:10 p.m.

Donald Trump may be withholding his endorsement from House Speaker Paul Ryan, but Ryan says he never sought it in the first place.

The Wisconsin Republican’s spokesman, Zack Roday said neither Ryan nor anyone associated with his re-election ever asked for Trump’s backing.

Roday added that the Ryan team was “confident in a victory next week regardless.”

Ryan faces a challenge from longshot candidate Paul Nehlen (KNEE-lin) in the Aug. 9 primary.

Trump, in an interview with The Washington Post, refused to support Ryan and longtime Sen. John McCain in their upcoming Republican primaries.

Trump said he is “not quite there yet” in backing Ryan, echoing the words the Wisconsin Republican used several months ago in withholding his endorsement of Trump before relenting weeks later with tepid support.

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4:54 p.m.

Donald Trump is refusing to support House Speaker Paul Ryan and longtime Sen. John McCain in their upcoming Republican primaries.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Trump said he is “not quite there yet” in backing Ryan, echoing the words the Wisconsin Republican used several months ago in withholding his endorsement of Trump before relenting weeks later with tepid support.

Ryan’s primary is Aug. 9.

Trump also declined to back McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam who was critical of Trump’s criticism of a Muslim American parents whose son was killed in Iraq. Trump criticized New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who also admonished Trump for his comments.

Trump’s refusal to back the incumbents is a breach of political decorum that comes just two weeks after a convention designed to showcase party unity.

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4:47 p.m.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton says Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump should apologize for criticizing the parents of an American soldier killed in Iraq.

In a tribute to his son at the Democratic National Convention last week, Khizr Khan said Trump had sacrificed nothing. Trump said he was “viciously attacked” and questioned why Khan’s wife stood silently during her husband’s speech.

After speaking to the Political Animals group in Little Rock, Cotton said Tuesday that Trump should “express his regret and apologize,” then build his campaign around making Americans safer and more prosperous.

The Republican freshman senator is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He told the group that failures in the intelligence community become well-known, but that its successes must remain a national secret.

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4:35 p.m.

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine is back in Florida, taking the Clinton campaign’s job-creation promises to the important battleground state.

Kaine was speaking Tuesday in Dayton Beach, his second appearance in central Florida in 10 days. The campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been targeting Florida, which Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012.

Kaine talked about shared prosperity between business owners and workers.

“As businesses succeed, it’s not just the CEO taking it all himself. It sharing,” Kaine said.

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3:05 p.m.

Two more Democratic Party officials have resigned in the wake of an embarrassing email hack.

Chief finance officer Brad Marshall and communications director Luis Miranda left their jobs on Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee says.

Earlier Tuesday, The Associated Press reported that DNC chief executive Amy Dacey had resigned. Dacey has been hired to work for a Democratic communications firm, AP reported.

It’s the latest fallout from the hacked emails, which exposed an apparent lack of neutrality in the primary race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, with some party officials disparaging Sanders.

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2:45 p.m.

One of Donald Trump’s top allies — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — says that it’s inappropriate to criticize the parents of an American soldier killed in Iraq.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has been engaged in an emotionally charged feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq.

Khizr Khan, who is Muslim, gave a tribute to his son last week at the Democratic National Convention that was heavily critical of Trump.

Christie said Tuesday that the pain of losing their son gives the Khans the right to say whatever they want.

Responding to comments from President Barack Obama that Trump isn’t qualified to be president, Christie says Obama has disqualified himself from giving comments like that because he says Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person in American history to be president.

Christie is the head of Trump’s transition team.

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2:30 p.m.

Former President Bill Clinton is paying tribute to a longtime friend who died last week.

Bill and Hillary Clinton attended the service for Mark Weiner (WEY’-ner) Tuesday at the Temple Beth-El synagogue in Providence, Rhode Island. Weiner was a major Democratic donor and fundraiser.

In the eulogy, Bill Clinton said Weiner was fiercely competitive in business and politics and would do anything for his friends, as well as for complete strangers. Clinton remembered Weiner as “forever young.”

Weiner died in Newport after a long battle with cancer. He was 62.

The Clintons departed with the family. Hillary Clinton appeared upset and nodded to people as she left.

Weiner has been friends with the Clintons since 1976, when he worked with Hillary Clinton on Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign.

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1:35 p.m.

Donald Trump is reacting to comments by Barack Obama that he is unfit to lead the country, accusing the president of “failed leadership.”

Trump issued a statement Tuesday with a barrage of attacks against Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, saying they have “single-handedly “destabilized the Middle East, handed Iraq, Libya and Syria to ISIS.”

He accused the pair of putting Iran “on the path to nuclear weapons” and said they have allowed “dozens of veterans to die” and “repeatedly admitted migrants later implicated in terrorism.”

Trump also accused Obama and Clinton of sending America’s “best jobs overseas to appease their global interests.”

The Republican nominee concluded his statement saying: “we need change now.”

1:05 p.m.

Donald Trump says the Arab Gulf states wouldn’t exist without U.S. help. But the U.S. relies on Gulf states too.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, all Arab Gulf nations, are part of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group in Syria, conducting airstrikes and providing other support.

Trump told supporters in Ashburn, Virginia Tuesday that if he is elected president, he would require the Arab Gulf states to finance a safe zone in Syria. “They are going to pay,” Trump told the crowd.

The Arab gulf states, which make up a co-operative body called the Gulf Cooperation Council, are home to 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply.

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12:55 p.m.

The chief executive of the Democratic National Committee has resigned in the wake of an email hack that embarrassed the party on the eve of its convention.

That’s according to three Democratic strategists familiar with Amy Dacey’s decision to leave her job. The people spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The Democrats say other personnel moves at the party are also expected Tuesday.

The content of the hacked emails exposed an apparent lack of neutrality in the primary race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, with party officials disparaging Sanders.

Party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned her position before the convention began. After being booed at a later appearance in Philadelphia, she chose not to speak from the convention stage.

—By Julie Pace and Julie Bykowicz

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12:50 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has arrived with her husband in Rhode Island to attend the funeral of a longtime friend.

Former President Bill Clinton will give the eulogy on Tuesday for Mark Weiner, a major Democratic donor and fundraiser.

The service for Weiner (WEY’-ner) is being held at the Temple Beth-El synagogue in Providence.

Weiner died last week in Newport after a long battle with cancer. He was 62.

The Democratic presidential nominee walked to the front of the synagogue shortly after noon, holding her husband’s arm.

Attendees also include the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and veteran political consultants James Carville, Paul Begala and Tad Devine.

Weiner has been friends with the Clintons since 1976, when he worked with Hillary Clinton on Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign.

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12:20 p.m.

Donald Trump is joking that he wants a crying baby ejected from his rally in northern Virginia.

Trump, the Republican nominee, was interrupted Tuesday by the wails of a child.

“Don’t worry about that baby, I love babies,” Trump said. “I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a beautiful baby.”

But when the baby continued to cry, Trump followed up by saying “Actually, I was just get kidding — you can get that baby out of here!”

Trump then seemed to suggest that he was joking and that the baby could stay. The child soon stopped crying.

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12:15 p.m.

About a dozen protesters have been escorted out of Donald Trump’s rally in northern Virginia.

The group started chanting “Hillary” in support of Trump’s general election opponent Hillary Clinton during the Republican nominee’s rally in Ashburn.

One protester was wearing a shirt reading “Islam means peace.” Many of them raised fists when they were escorted out.

Trump did not acknowledge them as they were removed. Several other attendees were escorted out before the event started.

12:10 p.m.

Donald Trump says that without the U.S., “the Gulf states won’t exist.”

Speaking to supporters in Ashburn, Virginia, Tuesday, Trump said that if he is elected president, he would require the Arab Gulf states to finance a safe zone in Syria. “They are going to pay,” Trump told the crowd.

The Arab gulf states, which make up a co-operative body called the Gulf Cooperation Council, are home to 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply.

Trump also reiterated his stance that the U.S. “can’t have people coming in from Syria who have bad intentions.”

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12:05 p.m.

Donald Trump claims that 20 people have given Hillary Clinton a total of $60 million and he would like to know who those people are.

Speaking at a rally in Ashburn, Virginia., Tuesday, Trump said he wants to “find out how many of them I know,” referring to Clinton’s top donors. Trump did not specify a time frame in which Clinton allegedly raised that money.

Clinton’s campaign said the Democratic nominee raised $63 million in July for her campaign.

Trump continued his attack on the Democratic nominee, calling her “Crooked Hillary,” which prompted chants of “lock her up” from the crowd.

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11:55 a.m.

Donald Trump is saluting a veteran who presented the Republican presidential nominee with his Purple Heart.

Trump said the man approached him before a Tuesday rally in Ashburn, Virginia, and presented him the medal he received for being wounded in combat.

Trump said he was “honoured” to receive it. He then joked that “I always wanted to get a Purple Heart. This was much easier”

His comments came amid his ongoing flap with the parents of a Muslim-American soldier who was killed in Iraq. Trump never served in the military, receiving medical and education deferments during the Vietnam War era.

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11:45 a.m.

President Barack Obama says that Donald Trump is unfit to be president and “he keeps proving it.”

Obama was speaking during a news conference with the prime minister of Singapore, who is visiting the White House.

The president is challenging Republican leaders to withdraw their endorsements of Trump.

Obama says Trump’s criticism of a fallen Muslim-American soldier’s family is the latest evidence that the GOP presidential nominee is unfit to lead America.

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11:40 a.m.

President Barack Obama is challenging leading Republicans to repudiate Donald Trump.

Obama says Trump’s criticism of a fallen Muslim-American soldier’s family is the latest evidence that the GOP presidential nominee is unfit to lead America.

Obama is also citing Trump’s misstatements on global crises.

At a news conference Tuesday, Obama noted that many leading Republicans in Congress have denounced various Trump statements.

But he asked why they are still endorsing him. Obama said there has to be a point when people break with the party’s standard-bearer. Otherwise, he said, the denunciations are hollow.

The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

The Latest: Pence avoids discussion of GOP tensions

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