The Note: Obama Takes Aim at Trump on the Trail

ByABC News
September 14, 2016, 9:24 AM

— -- NOTABLES

--OBAMA SAYS REPUBLICANS ARE 'FANNING RESENTMENT' AND 'HATE': As he campaigned alone for the first time this election cycle, President Obama painted the Republican Party as a party promoting a "dark, pessimistic vision" during this presidential campaign. "In election season you will often hear crazy stuff," the president said as he campaigned solo for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia. "This year we’ve been hearing a little more crazy than usual." He continued: "What we’ve seen from the other side in this election, this isn't Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party. This isn't even the vision of freedom that Ronald Reagan talked about.” ABC’s JOHN PARKINSON and ARLETTE SAENZ have more: http://abcn.ws/2cGjgPV

--IVANKA TRUMP SLAMS CLINTON ON FAMILY LEAVE: Ivanka Trump took aim at Hillary Clinton today in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" for, in her view, taking no action on paid family leave to help parents during her decades-long political career. Discussing her father's recently unveiled proposals on child care and maternity leave, Ivanka Trump called it a "very comprehensive" plan that's "long overdue." "Respectfully, Hillary Clinton has been around for decades and there's no policy benefiting either mothers or fathers in terms of paid leave," she said this morning. "We have not been in public office for the last several decades and she has. So she could have instituted some of those policies in that role and has not done so." More from ABC’s MORGAN WINSOR: http://abcn.ws/2cqREhX

--TRUMP A ‘NATIONAL DISGRACE’ COLIN POWELL WROTE IN HACKED EMAILS. Newly revealed emails hacked from the private account of former Republican secretary of state Colin Powell show the retired four-star general repeatedly blasting Donald Trump, describing him as a "national disgrace" who engaged in a "racist" movement, ABC’s JUSTIN FISHEL reports. A spokesperson for Colin Powell told ABC Tuesday night that the emails revealed "are accurate," and declined any further comment. Much of the content of these emails was first reported by the website Buzzfeed, and ABC News has not independently obtained the emails. Buzzfeed quotes Powell in one email from June 17, 2016, to Emily Miller, a journalist and former aide of Powell. Powell writes that Trump “is in the process of destroying himself, no need for Dems to attack him." http://abcn.ws/2cUsiw6

HOW CLOSE IS THE RACE IN OHIO? ABC continued to have enlightening conversations with voters about the race in Ohio yesterday at our second county fair. During our 40-minute, live segment, 15 participants spun our wheel of questions. People talked about jobs, global warming, Hillary Clinton’s health and the potential role of Melania Trump in the White House. Our interviews demonstrated the closeness of the race here. Republicans and Democrats stepped up to our microphone almost back-to-back to advocate for their candidates and party. We spoke to several party volunteers and organizers who said they have been energized and working hard to win in November. More from ABC’s MARYALICE PARKS and GARY WESTPHALEN: http://abcn.ws/2c5dJ7y

YESTERDAY ON THE TRAIL with ABC’s VERONICA STRACQUALURSI and ADAM KELSEY

MIKE PENCE HUDDLES WITH REPUBLICANS ON CAPITOL HILL. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the GOP vice presidential nominee, met with House Republicans Tuesday morning in what he said was "an emotional return" to a group that he was once a member of for six terms in Congress, ABC’s BENJAMIN SIEGEL and JORDYN PHELPS note. "We're honored to have our friend and colleague today with us who we believe is going to be the next vice president of the United States, Mike Pence joined us today," House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters, emerging from the Capitol Hill meeting with Pence and Republican leadership at his side. "We feel the wind at our backs and getting this agenda and move it into law." http://abcn.ws/2csEmSM

NOTED: PENCE STILL REFUSES TO CALL DAVID DUKE 'DEPLORABLE.' Pence referred to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke as “that bad man” Tuesday, but continued to refuse to use the word "deplorable" to describe him. “I'm also not going to validate the language that Hillary Clinton used to describe the American people,” Pence told reporters, referring to Clinton’s comment over the weekend that half of Donald Trump supporters were a "basket of deplorable." “Hillary Clinton wasn't talking about that bad man,” Pence continued. “She was talking about people all across this country who are coming out in record numbers to stand by Donald Trump.” ABC’s JORDYN PHELPS has more: http://abcn.ws/2cBA3oV

STATE DEPARTMENT COMPUTER EXPERT A NO-SHOW FOR CLINTON EMAIL HEARING. Bryan Pagliano, the former State Department computer expert who set up Hillary Clinton’s private email server, failed to appear at a congressional hearing Tuesday despite being subpoenaed. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called the hearing to examine the preservation of State Department records in its on-going efforts to investigate the former Secretary’s use of a private server. Pagliano had previously pleaded the Fifth Amendment in September 2015 when he was called before the congressional committee investigating the attack in Benghazi, notes ABC’s ELY BROWN. http://abcn.ws/2ccI3f1

WHAT VOTERS THINK ABOUT CLINTON’S HEALTH. Politicians on all sides have weighed in on Hillary Clinton’s health incident over the weekend and now both she and Donald Trump have said that they will release more information about their health in the coming days and weeks. Democrats supporting their nominee seem to believe that more is being made of the situation than it deserves, while Republicans seem to be calling for greater scrutiny and raising questions over the apparent secrecy of the Clinton campaign, reports ABC’s MEGHAN KENEALLY. http://abcn.ws/2cpmLd9

THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL OUTSIDERS AS PRESIDENTS. Donald Trump has touted his standing as a political outsider, and even Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, secretary of state and senator, has said that she is an "outsider" because of her gender. The concept and attraction of being a political outsider is not new, and there have been several men who had the label before being elected president. That was the case when it came to Zachary Taylor, Andrew Jackson and Dwight D. Eisenhower, though they all had military experience before being elected, writes ABC’s MEGHAN KENEALLY. http://abcn.ws/2cX0wxA

DEMOCRATS PRESS FOR FEDERAL INVESTIGATION INTO TRUMP UNIVERSITY. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to the Department of Justice yesterday asking Attorney General Loretta Lynch to look into the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s $25,000 donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. The letter follows an extensive Washington Post report on Trump's eponymous charitable organization. Trump aides told the newspaper that the foundation mistakenly donated $25,000 to a group backing Bondi in 2013, while her office was considering an investigation into Trump University. ABC’s BENJAMIN SIEGEL has more. http://abcn.ws/2cW1Myp

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

WHAT’S BEHIND HILLARY CLINTON’S ‘BASKET OF DEPLORABLES’ LINE. When Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told her audience at a fundraiser in New York City last week that “you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” defenders of Donald Trump immediately pounced, comparing the moment to Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” remarks in 2012. But in the aftermath of the comments, attention is being paid to the uniqueness of Clinton’s word choice, ABC’s ADAM KELSEY notes. Ben Zimmer, a linguist and lexicographer writing for Language Log, a blog hosted by the Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania, compared the phrase to “parade of horribles,” an expression that evolved from events in which early New Englanders dressed in garish costumes and sardonically marched through local towns. In this case, the line appears to be an original creation of Clinton and her team, though the New York fundraiser was not the first time she used it. http://abcn.ws/2cLtA80

WHO’S TWEETING?

@meganmurp: In our new Ohio poll that shows Trump +5, this is also a bit worrying for @HillaryClinton http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-09-14/ohio-poll …

@ryanstruyk: FWIW party breakdown in new Bloomberg poll is 29D-33R-34I but 2012 electorate was 38D-31R-31I. It's also 83% white but was 79% white in '12.

@danmericaCNN: Steph Curry backs Clinton for president, will stand for anthem but supports protest http://cnn.it/2c8oT6x via @DavidWright_CNN

@gregmcrc: Trump proposals on maternity leave, middle income wages not just about appealing to female voters, also aimed at #Catholic vote. #gop

@IsaacDovere: White House and Brooklyn in talks to get Obama & Clinton on trail together, so he can give her some juice http://politi.co/2cXPxUG