The Note: The Candidates And Charleston: What The 2016 Hopefuls Are Saying
— -- NOTABLES
--HILLARY CLINTON: After campaigning in Charleston earlier this week, Hillary Clinton called for action in response to the church shooting there yesterday, ABC's CHRIS GOOD reports. "How many innocent people in our country, from little children to church members to movie theater attendees, how many people do we need to see cut down before we act?" Clinton asked during a speech in Las Vegas yesterday. While she said the nation will have to face "hard truths about race, violence, guns, and division," she did not explicitly call for gun control. "It just broke my heart," Clinton said of the shooting.
--NOTED: CLINTON SUGGESTS DONALD TRUMP-LIKE COMMENTS CAN 'TRIGGER' EVENTS LIKE CHARLESTON. Clinton didn't call The Donald out by name, but she suggested in an interview yesterday that comments like ones the real estate tycoon-turned-Republican presidential candidate made during his recent announcement speech could "trigger" events like the shooting in Charleston, ABC's LIZ KREUTZ reports: http://abcn.ws/1H36kiE
--LINDSEY GRAHAM: "To the families of the victims, please know that you are being prayed for and loved by so many in the community and across the nation. I pray that God will provide you healing in the coming days. There are bad people in this world who are motivated by hate. Every decent person has been victimized by the hateful, callous disregard for human life shown by the individual who perpetrated these horrible acts. Our sense of security and well-being has been robbed and shaken."
--JEB BUSH: "Columba and I mourn today with the Emanuel AME Church and the families of the victims of this terrible crime. Our hearts are broken at the senseless loss of life. Our prayers are for the community that has lost its pastor and a brave leader."
--MIKE HUCKABEE: "A church is called a sanctuary because it's a place of refuge and respite from the earthly and connects us to the heavenly. The Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. became a scene of unspeakable carnage because an evil person violated the sanctuary where earth and heaven meet and turned it into a place where earth and hell meet. No civilized person can react except with revulsion to such a senseless, cowardly, and despicable act."
--BOBBY JINDAL: "It's a shame that in his first statement to the nation, the President would inject gun control politics into this. Now is the time for the nation to wrap their arms around the families, the church, the city, and the state of South Carolina. I would hope that the President would focus exclusively on unifying the country at a time like this."
--RAND PAUL: "What kind of person goes in a church and shoots nine people? There's a sickness in our country, there's something terribly wrong, but it isn't going to be fixed by your government. It's people straying away, it's people not understanding where salvation comes from. And I think that if we understand that, we'll understand and we'll have better expectations of what we get from our government."
--RICK SANTORUM: "The tragic and senseless murders that occurred in the sanctuary of Emanuel AME Church were the acts of pure evil. To kill in a place of peace and in the House of the Lord is revolting and cowardly."
--TED CRUZ: "My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims of last night's shooting in Charleston, who were tragically taken from us as they gathered together in prayer inside their place of worship. While details are still emerging, I have faith in law enforcement that the perpetrator of this evil and senseless act will be brought to justice and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
--DONALD TRUMP: "The tragic events that occurred on Wednesday evening should be our nation's primary focus for the foreseeable future. This is a time for healing, not politics. I look forward to returning to South Carolina and continuing our discussion on how we can best move our country forward. Until that time our prayers and deepest condolences are with the people of Charleston and the families of those who have been torn apart by this senseless act of violence and hate."
--MARTIN O'MALLEY: "My heart goes out to the victims of this tragedy & their loved ones. Katie & I are keeping Charleston & the AME community in our prayers."
--BERNIE SANDERS: "The Charleston church killings are a tragic reminder of the ugly stain of racism that still taints our nation. This senseless violence fills me with outrage, disgust and a deep, deep sadness. The hateful killing of nine people praying inside a church is a horrific reminder that, while we have made significant progress in advancing civil rights in this country, we are far from eradicating racism."
ANALYSIS -- ABC's RICK KLEIN: We've been through enough mass-shooting events to play out the politics by rote. Tragedy, prayer, concern for victims, calls for gun control, talk about mental health ... then, generally speaking, nothing. In that context, it's still striking to see both President Obama and Hillary Clinton cite the need for further gun control in the hours after Charleston. It's striking because, as they'd be the first to admit, nothing will come of this in Congress. For Obama, entering the last 18 months of a presidency marked by almost that many roughly similar incidents, the inaction on guns is clearly among his biggest regrets, as a president and as a father. For Clinton, her reaction took on a tone colored by these Obama frustrations. He told Jon Ralston while campaigning in Nevada that action appears impossible at the national level, meaning that "on a local and state level we have to keep building toward" a balance on gun control. It's a tacit admission that the "national conversation" we're always supposed to start around guns is basically over. Starting that conversation over won't be the result of another shooting incident, or even a series of them.
READY FOR WARREN LOOKS READY FOR BERNIE. Is the Ready for Warren movement about to turn into a grassroots army for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders? A source close to the Ready for Warren campaign tells ABC's JORDYN PHELPS that a "pretty significant announcement" is coming today, involving the launch of a new initiative called "Ready to Fight." It appears the person they're now ready to fight for, since Warren has decided to sit out the 2016 race for the White House, is none other than Sanders. "58 percent of supporters have urged us to back Bernie Sanders as the candidate currently running for president who best embodies the values that Warren champions," reads an advance excerpt of an opinion piece that will publish to CNN.com at 10am and make the announcement official.
THE BUZZ
PRESIDENT OBAMA EXPRESSES 'DEEP SORROW' OVER CHARLESTON CHURCH SHOOTING. President Obama expressed "deep sorrow" yesterday over the deadly shooting at a historic predominantly black church in Charleston, ABC's ARLETTE SAENZ reports. "Any death of this sort is a tragedy. Any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy," the president said at the White House. "There is something particularly heart breaking about a death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship." The president acknowledged the frustration he feels over the frequency in which mass shootings occur in the United States. The president said he and First Lady Michelle Obama personally knew Rev. Clementa Pinckney, one of the nine people killed in the church massacre. http://abcn.ws/1L2ZsRY
NOTED: THE 'MANY TIMES' OBAMA HAS RESPONDED TO A MASS SHOOTING. "I've had to make statements like this too many times," President Obama said yesterday. According to an unofficial White House record-keeper, CBS's Mark Knoller, the president's statement at the White House on Thursday marked at least the 14th time Obama has had to respond to a mass shooting during his presidency. "There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole in your heart," Obama said at a memorial service for the victims of a shooting in Tucson, Arizona in 2011, ABC's ERIN DOOLEY notes. Obama's words in the wake of tragedy all seem to touch on similar themes: The pain of incalculable loss, bravery in the face of evil and a desperate resolve to make each act of violence the last. Here's a look back: http://abcn.ws/1N6OxpB
LINDSEY GRAHAM SAYS S.C. CHURCH SHOOTING SUSPECT DYLANN ROOF WAS HIS NIECE'S CLASSMATE. The niece of South Carolina Senator and Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham attended grade school with the 21-year-old suspected South Carolina church shooter and described him as "one of these Newtown-type guys," according to the lawmaker. Graham, who knew the pastor who was killed in the tragedy, said his niece went to 8th grade and high school with suspect Dylann Roof, ABC's ALI DUKAKIS notes. According to the senator, his sister Darline told him about his niece Emily going to school with roof. "Emily said that in school he was just a quiet, strange kid," Graham said on ABC's "The View" Wednesday morning. "Seems like one of these Newtown type guys," referring to the Connecticut massacre. http://abcn.ws/1flDKg4
WHAT WE'RE WATCHING
WHY JESSICA ALBA IS SO WORRIED ABOUT TOXIC CHEMICALS. Jessica Alba is worried about chemicals. So much so that the actress created her own business, The Honest Company, which provides what they say are safe, non-toxic products for children, above and beyond any safety regulations. But her now billion-dollar company can only serve so many customers, so yesterday she was up on Capitol Hill, knocking on senators' doors just like anyone else lobbying a lawmaker, seeking even more change. "It's a human health issue," Alba said in an interview with ABC's ALI WEINBERG between Senate meetings. "I don't want to raise my children in a world where I have to be concerned about their safety and their health. I don't want them to be guinea pigs any more, with certain chemicals being used on them, and we'll just see if they get sick." http://abcn.ws/1J7O0W3
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
JEB BUSH SAYS HE SPEAKS 'MORE SPANISH THAN ENGLISH AT HOME.' Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush -- a fluent Spanish speaker -- told ABC's DAVID MUIR in Spanish Wednesday that he and his wife, Columba, speak "more Spanish than English at home." "Our grandkids, almost all of them speak Spanish, two of them also speak a little Arabic," the former Florida governor added in Spanish. Columba Bush, Florida's former first lady, was born and raised in Mexico. The pair fell in love when Jeb, then 17, studied abroad in Leon, Mexico, ABC's ERIN DOOLEY and CHRISTINE ROMO report. Here's a translation of Muir and Bush's conversation en Espanol -- which also touched on immigration reform: http://abcn.ws/1J63PML
NOTED: JEB BUSH GIVES A SELFIE LESSON OUT ON THE TOWN IN IOWA. When former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush wasn't sitting down with ABC's DAVID MUIR, he took on a new, unlikely role: selfie teacher, ABC's CANDACE SMITH notes. WATCH: http://abcn.ws/1K0TQqG
WHO'S TWEETING?
@tackettdc: Breaking. Gov. Nikki Haley calls for death penalty in Charleston church shootings http://nyti.ms/1H313Yb
@JohnLAllenJr: Pope's environmental manifesto looks like a game-changer in the United States: http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/06/19/popes-environmental-manifesto-looks-like-a-game-changer-in-the-us/ ...
@ThePlumLineGS: Here goes: Koch bros' group puts 2016 Rs on notice against backing extension of Ocare subsidies: http://wapo.st/1L5PlMn
@HenryJGomez: Of all the 2016ers, few have talked about police issues more than Rand Paul. Few talk about them at all, actually. http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2015/06/police-community_tensions_a_pr.html#incart_2box_open_index.ssf ...
@JebBush: The limits people may have pale in comparison to the joy they can give. Thanks Lorraine Butler for sharing your story http://jeb.cm/1L5JSoW