WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. presidential race (All times EDT):
12:40 p.m.
Donald Trump’s campaign is painting Hillary Clinton as a proponent of the status quo as she prepares to deliver an economic speech in Michigan.
Trump’s Deputy National Policy Director Dan Kowalski says in a statement that: “right now, the American economy is only working for the rigged system in Washington and on Wall Street, yet Hillary Clinton is running to keep things as they are.”
He says Clinton’s plans will damage the economy by raising taxes, increasing spending and killing jobs.
Trump discussed his own economic plans in a speech this week that focused on cutting corporate taxes and eliminating federal regulations.
Clinton has proposed a surtax on the highest-earning Americans, while Trump has proposed a tax reduction that he acknowledges would add substantially to the debt.
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12:35 p.m.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine says voting is a “sacred act.”
Kaine is in New Orleans addressing the Progressive National Baptist Convention, a group of African-American Baptist churches born out of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
He’s talking about his religious upbringing, including the year he spent in Honduras. He says when he came back from Honduras — at that time a dictatorship — he had a new attitude about the importance of voting.
Kaine says he meets people every day who say their vote doesn’t matter. But he stressed how important it is.
His comments come as many in the African-American community are worried about the effects of a Supreme Court decision that invalidated a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
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12:15 a.m.
Donald Trump is showing something he rarely reveals on the campaign trail: his sentimental side.
Trump, speaking to home builders Thursday in Florida, reminisced about watching his father, Fred, a New York City developer, conduct business.
The Republican nominee recalled moments in his youth when he’d play with blocks near his father’s desk while the elder Trump brokered deals. And he remembered Fred Trump’s forays into homebuilding.
Trump recalled that his “father would go and he’d pick up the saw dust and he’d pick up the nails.”
Trump also said that his father, a major influence on his life whom he rarely mentions on the campaign trail, “would be very proud to see that we’re running for the presidency.”
He was addressing the National Association of Homebuilders in Miami Beach, Florida.
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9:50 a.m.
Hillary Clinton will soon release her 2015 tax returns.
A source close to the Democratic presidential nominee says she will release them in “the coming days.” Her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine and his wife, Anne Houlton, will also release the last 10 years of their returns. The source spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday to discuss the plans in advance.
Clinton has hit Republican nominee Donald Trump for not releasing his returns. Trump has said he won’t release them until after an IRS audit is complete.
The Clinton campaign has put out eight years of Clinton’s returns, from 2007 to 2014. Combined with releases during her previous campaigns and her husband’s time in office, the Clintons have made their tax returns public since 1977.
—By Catherine Lucey in Detroit
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9:05 a.m.
Republican Donald Trump says the U.S. government should take on more debt to strengthen the military and rebuild infrastructure.
Trump’s comments Thursday in a CNBC interview go against the traditional Republican aversion to government borrowing.
Trump said, “I like to reduce debt too, as much as anybody.” But he added that the military has been depleted and America’s infrastructure is in horrible condition.
He said interest rates are low now and will eventually go up, making it too expensive to borrow.
Trump said: “You’d be paying so little interest right now. This is the time to borrow.”
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8:50 a.m.
Donald Trump is defending his decision to label President Barack Obama the “founder” of the Islamic State group.
Asked in an interview with CNBC Thursday whether it was appropriate for him to call the sitting president of the United States the founder of a terrorist organization that wants to kill Americans, Trump doubled down on his accusation.
“He was the founder of ISIS, absolutely,” says Trump, blaming the president for his decision to withdraw troops, which some argue created a power vacuum in which extremist groups like IS thrive.
Trump says the U.S. “should have never gotten in” the war, but also shouldn’t “have got out the way he got out.”
Trump now claims that he was opposed to the Iraq War from the beginning, despite evidence to the contrary.
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7 a.m.
Hillary Clinton is set to go after Donald Trump’s economic agenda — aiming to portray her rival’s approach as offering handouts for the rich.
That’s her goal in a speech scheduled for Thursday afternoon at a manufacturing company in Warren, Michigan.
Her campaign says she’ll try to make the case that the Republican presidential nominee’s plans would benefit him and his wealthy friends — and amount to an update of “trickle-down economics.”
Also look for Clinton to argue that Trump’s drive to cut taxes on certain business income would in fact benefit many of his companies.
The Democratic nominee isn’t expected to use her speech to come out with any major new policies.