The Latest: Trump says 'nobody even knows' what alt-right is

The Latest: Trump says 'nobody even knows' what alt-right is


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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. presidential race (all times EDT):

9:10 p.m.

Republican Donald Trump is continuing to push back on allegations from rival Hillary Clinton that his candidacy has courted the "alt-right" movement.

In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Trump insists: "Nobody even knows what it is. And she didn't know what it was."

He says, "There's no alt-right or alt-left. All I'm embracing is common sense."

Trump's new campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon, had previously said that the news site he oversaw, Breitbart News, was "the platform for the alt-right."

Trump says, "I don't know what Steve said," adding, "We're bringing love."

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9 p.m.

Donald Trump says he doesn't support legalizing the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally — unless they leave the U.S. first.

The Republican presidential candidate has suggested recently he might be open to allowing those who have not broken other laws to remain in the country. But Trump tells CNN's Anderson Cooper that under his plan, "There is no path to legalization unless people leave the country" and then return.

Trump says he plans to deport the "bad dudes" if he's elected, adding, "After, that we're going to see what happens."

Still, he says, "It's a process. You can't take 11 at one time and say, boom, you're gone."

He says he expects to deliver a speech within a week providing more detail.

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5:30 p.m.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine says GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's shifting positions on immigration can't be trusted.

Speaking during a Thursday afternoon taping of CBS's "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," Kaine attacked Trump for wavering on whether immigrants here illegally must be deported.

"I don't buy it," Kaine said, before saying in Spanish that Trump is always fighting against the Latino community.

Trump has previously promised to deport the estimated 11 million people living in the United States illegally. In recent days, he's suggested he might be open to allowing them to stay.

A former missionary in Honduras, Kaine frequently peppers his campaign appearances with remarks in Spanish.

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4:50 p.m.

Donald Trump is accusing rival Hillary Clinton of "using race-baiting" to lure black voters and "pandering to the worst instincts in our society" with a speech in which she accused the Republican presidential candidate of stirring up racial divisions.

Minutes after Clinton's speech ended, Trump tweeted that Clinton should be ashamed of herself. Without specifying what he was referring to, he tweeted that her speech contained lies and added, "She is the only one fear-mongering!"

He also tweeted Thursday that blacks know that Clinton "is all talk and NO ACTION!"

Clinton used her speech to link Trump to the "alt-right" movement, which is often associated with far right efforts to preserve "white identity." The Democrat spoke in Reno, Nevada.

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3:55 p.m.

A spokeswoman says Chelsea Clinton will remain on the board of directors of her family's foundation.

Chelsea Clinton is the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee who has come under criticism for meeting with some of the foundation's donors when she was secretary of state.

The former president announced last week that if his wife were elected president, he would step down from the foundation's board and the organization would no longer accept foreign and corporate donations. But the continued role of Chelsea Clinton on the board and the foundation directing corporate and foreign money to its global health care project could create exceptions to those plans.

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3:50 p.m.

Hillary Clinton says voters should not be "fooled" by Republican rival Donald Trump's efforts to rebrand his campaign.

She says Trump is the first nominee of a major party to stoke and encourage racial hate. The country, she's arguing, is at a "moment of reckoning" where voters and public figures must stand up and denounce prejudice and paranoia.

Trump's real message, she says, is "make America hate again."

Clinton was delivering a speech Thursday highlighting Trump's support within the "alt-right" movement, which is often associated with efforts on the far right to preserve "white identity."

She says: "No one should have any illusions about what's really going on here."

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3:40 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is pushing back on unfounded accusations from Donald Trump and others that she suffers from poor health.

She says: "His latest paranoid fever dream is about my health. All I can say is, Donald, dream on."

The Democratic presidential nominee says Trump's questions about her health are an outgrowth of treating "the National Enquirer like Gospel."

She was speaking in Reno, Nevada.

Trump, the Republican nominee, and his allies have said that unspecified maladies leave Clinton unfit to assume the presidency.

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3:35 p.m.

Hillary Clinton says rival Donald Trump is spreading hateful messages online by retweeting white supremacists and anti-Sematic tweets and images to his millions of Twitter followers.

She says: There's been a steady stream of bigotry from him."

Clinton is citing a series of hateful remarks posted by Trump's account.

She's also accusing the Republican nominee of "pushing discredited conspiracy theories with racist undertones" including suggesting that GOP primary candidate Ted Cruz's father was involved in the Kennedy assassination.

Clinton is delivering a speech Thursday in Reno, Nevada, highlighting Trump's support within the "alt-right" movement, which is often associated with efforts on the far right to preserve "white identity."

She's making the case that Trump's flirtation with conspiracy theories leaves him "detached from reality" and unqualified to be commander-in-chief.

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3:10 p.m.

Donald Trump is defending his supporters against a litany of charges that have been leveled against them because they support his candidacy.

The Republican presidential candidate says that, "People who want their laws enforced and respected, and who want their border secured, are not racists."

And he says that, "People who speak out against radical Islam, and who warn about refugees, are not Islamophobes."

Trump is painting his supporters as "decent American citizens" ahead of a speech by rival Hillary Clinton that will highlight his support among far-right groups, including many white nationalists and supremacists.

Trump was speaking at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire.

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3:05 p.m.

A Clinton spokeswoman says that Chelsea Clinton will stay on the board of the Clinton Foundation.

She is the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

The former president announced last week that the Clinton Foundation would no longer accept foreign and corporate donations and said he would step down from the board if Hillary Clinton is elected president.

It comes as a health project connected to the foundation is exploring a range of changes but may continue to accept foreign government and corporate funding.

But the continued role of Chelsea Clinton on the board and corporate and foreign money into the health project could create exceptions to those plans.

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2:55 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is warning that the Republican Party is being taken over by "a radical fringe," motivated by "prejudice and paranoia."

Clinton's comments, released as excerpts ahead of her speech in Reno, Nevada Thursday, targeted Donald Trump. She said he "built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia," which is "taking hate groups mainstream."

Clinton also said that Trump's "disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous."

The Democratic nominee has been painting her opponent as fearmongering and racist as he works to win over minority voters. Trump has struggled to win over Hispanic and black voters.

At a rally earlier in the day, Trump said Clinton's speech is aimed at distracting from questions about her family foundation and use of private emails.

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2:50 p.m.

Donald Trump is accusing rival Hillary Clinton of "trying to smear" him and his supporters with a speech that will try to link him with hate.

Clinton is delivering a speech Thursday highlighting Trump's support within the "alt-right" movement, which is often associated with efforts on the far right to preserve "white identity."

Trump says that Clinton is trying to accuse all of his millions of supporters, including those attending the New Hampshire rally where he is speaking, "of being racists, which we're not."

He says, "It's the oldest play in the Democratic playbook."

He said her speech is aimed at distracting from questions about her family foundation and private emails use.

He calls it "one of the most brazen attempts at distraction in the history of politics."

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2:40 p.m.

Donald Trump is escalating his attacks on Hillary Clinton, accusing her of running "a vast criminal enterprise run out of the State Department."

There is no evidence of any such thing.

But Trump, who is trailing in the polls, says that revelations that many donors to the Clinton family foundation met with as secretary of state represents "one of the most shocking scandals in American political history."

"It's Watergate all over again," he claims.

Trump is speaking at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire.

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1 p.m.

Hillary Clinton's campaign has released an online video that compiles footage of white supremacist leaders praising Donald Trump.

The video comes ahead of a Clinton speech Thursday that will seek to attach Trump to the so-called "alt-right" movement that is often associated with efforts on the far right to preserve "white identity."

Trump has been criticized for failing to immediately denounce the support that he's garnered from white nationalists and supremacist, including former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.

Trump's campaign responded with a strongly worded statement from a prominent black supporter, Pastor Mark Burns, who says Clinton and her campaign "went to a disgusting new low" with the video tying the Trump Campaign to "horrific racial images."

He called on Clinton to disavow the video.

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11:20 a.m.

Donald Trump is promising to unveil his new immigration policy over "the next week or two."

Trump had originally aimed to give his speech Thursday in Colorado but it was postponed and a makeup date has yet to be announced. Trump, in recent days, has signaled that he is backing away from one of his signature immigration policies, mass deportations of the 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.

But Trump, speaking Thursday at a meeting with minority Republicans at Trump Tower, emphasized that he's still "very strong on illegal immigration." He said "we have to be, we have no choice."

"We either have our country or we don't. We either have borders or we don't," he said, stressing that he plans to build a stronger border wall with Mexico.

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11:05 a.m.

Top Indiana officials have visited a tornado-ravaged neighborhood in Kokomo.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly walked around one neighborhood Thursday morning, speaking with some residents whose homes were destroyed or damaged by Wednesday's storm.

Many trees were knocked down in the neighborhood and a large truck was also knocked onto its side, but other houses are largely undamaged.

Pence arrived in Kokomo by helicopter and is viewing storm damage in the area and in other parts of central Indiana hit by the storms.

Pence returned to Indiana after campaign stops in North Carolina on Wednesday as Donald Trump's running mate and called off a campaign trip planned Thursday.

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10:45 a.m.

Donald Trump is meeting with participants in a new Republican Party initiative meant to train young — and largely minority — campaign volunteers.

More than a dozen members of the Republican Leadership Institute were meeting with Trump Thursday morning at Trump Tower in New York City.

The meeting comes as Trump tries to increase his outreach to black and Latino voters, saying his economic policies would help minorities.

Trump said: "We have great relationships with the African-American community."

He claimed that Democrats have been "very disrespectful" toward minorities and taken their support for granted. Polls show minorities overwhelmingly favor Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Ben Carson, a Trump ally, and Sean Spicer, the Republican National Committee's communications director, were among the other prominent Republicans present.

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9:20 a.m.

Donald Trump's campaign manager is contrasting the Republican presidential nominee's immigration stance with that of former primary rival Marco Rubio. Kellyanne Conway says that Trump "is not for amnesty."

Trump took a tougher stance on immigration than Rubio did during the Republican primary campaign. On CNN Thursday, Conway rejected a suggestion that Trump is now adopting a position similar to that of Rubio and other primary rivals.

She described Rubio as a leader of the bipartisan Senate "Gang of Eight" that favored a pathway to citizenship for some immigrants now in the country illegally.

She said: "Their plan was amnesty."

Rubio has offered lukewarm support for Trump as he seeks reelection to his Senate seat from Florida.

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3:45 a.m.

It's a conspiracy: The 2016 campaign features one candidate who warned against the "vast right-wing conspiracy" and another who was a leader of the so-called "birther" movement.

Donald Trump and his surrogates hint at a mysterious "illness" afflicting rival Hillary Clinton. She's warning of murky ties between Trump and the Russian government, suggesting that her Republican opponent may be a puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Rumors and innuendo which have been long confined to the far reaches of the Internet are dominating the presidential race.

Clinton plans to speak in Reno, Nevada, on Thursday in an address that will accuse Trump of supporting an "alt-right" campaign that presents "a divisive and dystopian view of America."

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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