Clinton receives first intelligence briefing as presidential nominee
Published 3:23 pm Saturday, August 27, 2016
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Hillary Clinton received her first national security briefing Saturday as the Democratic presidential nominee, meeting with intelligence officials for an overview of the major threats facing the nation around the globe.
Clinton attended the briefing for more than two hours at the FBI office in White Plains, New York, near her suburban New York City home. Republican Donald Trump received his briefing earlier this month, a customary move for major party nominees but one that has been the subject of a political tussle during the campaign.
Trump was campaigning on Saturday in Iowa, headlining Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s annual “Roast and Ride” fundraiser at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The celebrity businessman was not planning to join the 42-mile motorcycle ride that is part of the event but bringing his campaign to a state where polls show a tight contest, a rare bright spot for Trump amid a sea of challenging battleground states.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Iowa’s Republican Gov. Terry Branstad said he’d like Trump to focus his message more on a renewable fuel standard that is important to his state’s corn farmers. Trump and Clinton are polling “about even” in Iowa, he added, and he’d like Trump to launch campaign ads in the state since Clinton has already done so.
“I don’t like that but hopefully that’s going to change,” he said.
The activities capped a week that saw some of the harshest exchanges between the two presidential rivals, with Clinton asserting in a fiery Reno, Nevada, speech on Thursday that Trump was stoking a “radical fringe” within the Republican Party, including anti-Semites and white supremacists. Trump, who is trying to win over moderate voters and minorities who have been unsettled by some of his provocative remarks and policy proposals, has tried to paint Clinton as a racist.