Trump responds to criticism from Mattis

Notable Quote of the Day

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”

– Statement by James Mattis, former U.S. secretary of defense

Election Updates

• Joe Biden’s campaign is running a new ad on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The ad features clips from his June 2 speech in Philadelphia.

• Donald Trump responded to the above statement from Mattis: “Probably the only thing Barack Obama & I have in common is that we both had the honor of firing Jim Mattis, the world’s most overrated General. I asked for his letter of resignation, & felt great about it. His nickname was ‘Chaos’, which I didn’t like, & changed to ‘Mad Dog’ … His primary strength was not military, but rather personal public relations. I gave him a new life, things to do, and battles to win, but he seldom ‘brought home the bacon’. I didn’t like his ‘leadership’ style or much else about him, and many others agree. Glad he is gone!”

• Trump said in a phone call to the Brian Kilmeade Show, “I have other polls where I’m winning, and you’ve seen them too, I guess. But, I have polls. Just like last time, I was losing to Hillary in every state, and I won every state, OK. I won Michigan, I won Wisconsin, I won places that they didn’t even think were pollable, they didn’t even want to go bother. …  I saw another poll where I’m winning every swing state, substantially. And why wouldn’t I?”

Flashback: June 4, 2016

Ahead of the final primaries of the 2016 election, Bernie Sanders said, “The media is in error when they lump superdelegates with pledged delegates. … Hillary Clinton will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to win the Democratic nomination at the end of the nominating process on June 14. Won’t happen. She will be dependent on superdelegates. … The Democratic National Convention will be a contested convention.” He said, “And what I hope that the delegates going to the Democratic National Convention understand is that in virtually every state poll we do much better against Trump than does Secretary Clinton.”