First Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC
Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why
they matter.
As GOP race gets nastier, Clinton pivots to the general election
In one of the least eventful weeks of the 2016
campaign in recent memory -- due to the tragic terrorist attacks in
Belgium and the lack of primary contests -- two important developments
took place. First, the Republican race got nastier (if that was
possible) after Donald Trump and Ted Cruz battled over their wives.
"Donald, you're a sniveling coward, and leave Heidi the hell alone,"
Cruz said after Trump retweeted
an unflattering photo of Cruz's wife. Still, Cruz didn't answer the
question from NBC's Hallie Jackson if he'd support Trump as the GOP
nominee after this episode. "Donald Trump will not be the nominee," Cruz
maintained. And consider that Trump vs. Cruz, as well as the "Stop
Trump" effort, is going to last another FOUR months until the Republican
convention in July. The second development that took place this week
was that Hillary Clinton started pivoting heavily toward the general
election after her primary victory in Arizona. Note her public events
since Tuesday: a counterterrorism speech at Stanford after the attacks
in Belgium, and then a homeland security forum at the University of
Southern California. And today, per NBC's Monica Alba, Clinton
surrogates like former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will hold a
conference call contrasting her foreign-policy/national security
approach with the Republican candidates. Now that pivot could be
somewhat risky for Clinton, given that Bernie Sanders will likely close
his delegate deficit in this weekend's three Democratic contests. But
the trends are unmistakable: Democrats are turning to the general, while
Republicans are likely bracing themselves for another four months of
what we saw this week.
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