The Note: What Bernie Wants
— -- NOTABLES
--MEETING OF THE MINDS: After more than 12 months of competing against each other for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and on the very last day of the primary season -- Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will, for the first time all year, sit down with each other in person and talk. Sanders is headed back to Washington, DC this morning for a much-anticipated meeting, ABC’s MARYALICE PARKS reports. The sit-down is expected to take place this evening, after polls close in the District of Columbia, which is also holding the final primary in the Democratic Party’s nominating process. Prior to the face-to-face meeting, Sanders plan to speak to his colleagues in the Senate and then attend a picnic for members of Congress and their families at the White House.
--WHAT BERNIE WANTS: Sanders spent the weekend in his hometown of Burlington, Vermont with some his top advisers and supporters strategizing about his next steps. During interviews Sunday morning, Sanders said he was hoping to hear “a commitment” from the former Secretary of State during their meeting about changes to the party and its priorities going forward, ranging from Wall Street reform to party fundraising.
--WILL SANDERS SUSPEND? There is also ongoing debate about whether the senator will at some point need to -- or whether he should -- formally announce that he is endorsing Clinton or suspending his campaign, PARKS notes. Some of his staff and surrogates worry that a move a like that could undercut his ability to negotiate on policy ahead of the convention, while others think it could be necessary down the road. Over the weekend, the senator himself said only that he was taking his campaign to “transform the Democratic Party” to the convention.
--ANALYSIS -- ABC’s RICK KLEIN: History shall record that Donald Trump spent the final day before his 70th birthday being as Donald Trump as he knows how. All conventional wisdom about how a politician responds to a terrorist attack or a mass shooting had gone out the window with Trump’s first series of Tweets, where he accepted congratulations for being right and called on President Obama to resign from office. Before Trump started speaking in New Hampshire, he had suggested that the president secretly might want ISIS to succeed. By the time he was done, he had misled his audience about the Orlando shooter’s birth status, and expanded his proposed Muslim ban to include all immigration from parts of the world with established ties to terrorism. At some point, the talk about a new Donald Trump, or a reined in Donald Trump, or a “presidential” Donald Trump – all of it will fade away. What’s left is a man who has played to the anger and fears of the American people to astounding effect, and apparently won’t stop until he’s either elected, or not.
YESTERDAY ON THE TRAIL with ABC’s VERONICA STRACQUALURSI and PAOLA CHAVEZ
CLINTON: THOSE UNDER FBI SCRUTINY ‘SHOULDN’T BE ABLE TO JUST GO BUY A GUN.’ In her first rally since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton blasted regulations that allowed a lone gunman to purchase weapons that he used to kill 49 people in Orlando over the weekend -- a slaughter that represented the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. “We may have our disagreements about gun safety regulations, but we should all be able to agree on a few essential things,” Clinton said, speaking to a crowd gathered at the Cleveland Industrial Innovation Center. “If the FBI is watching you for a suspected terrorist links, you shouldn't be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked.” ABC’s PAOLA CHAVEZ, VERONICA STRACQUALURSI and JOSH HASKELL write, while she avoided mentioning Donald Trump by name, she slammed the presumptive Republican nominee’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. http://abcn.ws/1WLPUC4
TRUMP DOUBLES DOWN ON MUSLIM BAN. Donald Trump yesterday doubled down on his proposal to suspend immigration from the Middle East and said that it only should be lifted if a "perfect" screening process is in place. He condemned the attack and began the speech with a moment of silence, ABC’s CANDACE SMITH and JOHN SANTUCCI report. "The horror is beyond description. The families of these wonderful people are totally devastated and they will be forever," Trump said. "Likewise, our whole nation and, indeed, the whole world is devastated." The presumptive Republican nominee delivered his address in New Hampshire, the state of his first primary victory, at Saint Anselm’s College. He attacked what he says is a dysfunctional immigration system and falsely said that the shooter, Omar Mateen, was born in Afghanistan, when he was born in New York. http://abcn.ws/28zGs8N
ANALYSIS -- ABC’s RICK KLEIN: The worst mass shooting in U.S. history pit some of the most volatile forces in American politics against each other, with potentially explosive consequences. In the wake of Orlando, gun control and Islamic terrorism are part of the same debate. And with the shooter targeting a popular gay nightclub, the debate over protections for LGBT Americans becomes an unavoidable part of the discussion. Yet the attack in Orlando is not taking Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump off script. If anything, it has them reinforcing their messaging, despite the unpredictable nature of the reaction to homegrown terrorism that appears to have been committed in the name of ISIS. http://abcn.ws/24MNJO5
TRUMP ACCUSED OF IMPLYING AN OBAMA-ORLANDO SHOOTING LINK. In the aftermath of this weekend’s shooting, Trump made his routine rounds Monday on morning television. But buried within his remarks was a perceived suggestion that something more sinister was at play. Trump criticized President Obama, as he’s inclined to do, for not protecting the country. "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It's one or the other,” Trump said on “Fox and Friends” this morning. "And either one is unacceptable, number one. And number two, calling on another gun ban; I mean, this man has no clue.” ABC’s CANDACE SMITH has more. http://abcn.ws/1U9ya36
TRUMP REVOKES WASHINGTON POST’S CREDENTIALS. Trump on Monday revoked the credentials of one of the nation’s largest and most influential newspapers, the Washington Post, effectively barring its reporters from future campaign events. “Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post,” the presumptive Republican nominee wrote in a Facebook post. ABC’s NOAH FITZGEREL and PAOLA CHAVEZ have more. http://abcn.ws/1Uho4dF
WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ ASSOCIATION IS SAYING: A new statement this morning from Carol Lee, President of the White House Correspondents’ Association, regarding the Trump campaign’s decision to bar the Washington Post from its events, courtesy of ABC’s JORDYN PHELPS: "The White House Correspondents' Association stands with the Washington Post and numerous other news outlets that Donald Trump has arbitrarily banned from his campaign events. Any nominee for the highest office in the country must respect the role of a free and adversarial press, not disown the principles of the First Amendment just because he or she does not like the tone or content of their coverage."
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
ROMNEY LOYALISTS WEIGH TRUMP SUPPORT AFTER UTAH RETREAT. Mitt Romney loyalists who attended the former Republican nominee’s donor retreat over the weekend —many of whom spearheaded the “Never Trump” movement — are facing tough decisions about who to back this cycle. The roughly 300 business and GOP leaders who attended the annual three-day “Experts and Enthusiasts” summit in Park City, Utah were mostly anti-Trump, said one former Romney aide, with “60 to 70 percent of people here disgusted with the state of the race.” ABC’s INES DE LA CUETARA reports Summit attendees looking for guidance weren’t given any clear answers, but they did get the chance to hear from both anti-Trump Republicans, like Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, and party leaders who have endorsed Trump, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and party chairman Reince Priebus. http://abcn.ws/24Md4Yu
WHO’S TWEETING?
@ShorensteinCtr: New research on #media coverage of #Trump, #Clinton, #Sanders leading up to primaries: http://hvrd.me/1JJ9301dveP
@JDSalant: Is Tuesday's Washington, D.C. primary @BernieSanders' last stand? http://bit.ly/1UxjkxC
@DavidMDrucker :My rule on 2016: Make no assumptions be skeptical of everything.
@JDiamond1: Donald Trump turns 70 today. If elected, he would be the oldest president in US history. He talked about it Saturday
@HuffPostPol: Marco Rubio opens the door to a Senate run, but here's why he probably won't do it http://huff.to/1Ppli1o