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Hillary Clinton: ‘This Is Painful And It Will Be For A Long Time’

Hillary Clinton: ‘This Is Painful And It Will Be For A Long Time’

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Democrat Hillary Clinton conceded the 2016 U.S. White House race to Republican Donald Trump on Wednesday and offered to work with the president-elect, who she hoped would be a successful leader for all Americans.

Clinton, appearing at midday after a bruising election loss to the New York real estate magnate, urged supporters to keep an open mind on Trump and give him a chance to lead.

“Last night I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans,” Clinton told hundreds of supporters and staff at a Manhattan hotel.

“This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for, and I’m sorry that we did not win this election for the values we shared and the vision we hold for our country,” she said to cheers.

Possibly facing her last opportunity for a presidential run, Clinton, 69, acknowledged Tuesday night’s results were painful and that she was disappointed.

She urged her assembled staff and supporters, deflated after recent national opinion polls indicated a good chance at victory, to continue to work for a better nation.

“This is painful and it will be for a long time,” Clinton said. “But I want you to remember this: Our campaign was never about one person or even one election. It was about the country we love and about building an America that’s hopeful, inclusive and big-hearted.”

The former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state said the election results showed the nation was deeply divided, but the voters had spoken.

“Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by)

IMAGE: Hillary Clinton addresses her staff and supporters about the results of the U.S. election as former U.S. President Bill Clinton applauds at a hotel in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Campaigning In Ohio, Clinton Promises To Hold Wells Fargo Accountable

Campaigning In Ohio, Clinton Promises To Hold Wells Fargo Accountable

 By Amanda Becker| TOLEDO, OHIO

Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday vowed to hold Wells Fargo accountable for “egregious corporate behavior” in a scandal over employees’ opening millions of accounts without customers’ knowledge.

“Really shocking isn’t it? One of the nations’ biggest banks bullying thousands of employees into committing fraud against unsuspecting customers,” Clinton told a crowd in Ohio, a crucial battleground in the Nov. 8 presidential election against Republican Donald Trump.

“To understand why this is so important, consider the recent examples we’ve seen of egregious corporate behavior,” she said, citing Wells Fargo.

Ahead of Clinton’s speech, her campaign released a plan to help consumers to sue corporations in court instead of being forced to take disputes to private arbitration. Mandatory arbitration clauses make class action suits difficult or impossible to bring.

Clinton said the Wells Fargo case shed light on how such agreements harm consumers.

“We are not going to let companies like Wells Fargo use these fine print gotchas to escape accountability,” Clinton added.

Consumer advocates say mandatory individual arbitration makes it prohibitively expensive to take legal action and does not set a legal precedent to help other affected individuals.

In Toledo, an area that has lost manufacturing jobs, Clinton said she wanted to “send a clear message to every boardroom and executive suite” that they companies will be held accountable if they “scam” customers, “exploit” employees and “rip off” tax payers.

 Wells Fargo has come under fire for using arbitration clauses after it came to light that the bank’s employees opened as many as 2 million checking, savings and credit card accounts without the customers’ permission in order to meet sales quotas.

Wells Fargo reached a $190 million settlement with federal regulators last month. Its customers have been unable to sue because their contracts said they would arbitrate disputes instead of suing Wells Fargo in court.

Wells Fargo Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf recently said he did not expect the bank to waive the clauses. Democratic lawmakers in Congress, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have called on Wells Fargo to allow customers to sue.

“They are forced into a closed-door arbitration process without the important protections you get in a court of law,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s plan calls on Congress to give agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission and Department of Labor the authority to restrict arbitration clauses in consumer, employment and antitrust agreements.

(Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Cynthia Osterman)

Clinton Expected To Hit Wells Fargo In Speech On ‘Bad Corporate Actors’

Clinton Expected To Hit Wells Fargo In Speech On ‘Bad Corporate Actors’

 

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (Reuters) – U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday will unveil a plan to make it easier for consumers to take legal action against “bad corporate actors,” citing Wells Fargo & Co and Mylan Pharmaceuticals, according to a campaign official.

While campaigning in Ohio, the Democratic nominee will explain how she would, if elected on Nov. 8, curb the prevalence of contractual clauses that require consumers, employees and other individuals to resolve legal disputes in private arbitration proceedings instead of in courts, her campaign said. Mandatory arbitration clauses sometimes require that claims be pursued on an individual basis instead of on behalf of a class of similarly situated individuals. Consumer advocates say this makes it prohibitively expensive to take legal action.

Clinton will call on the U.S. Congress to give agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Labor the authority to restrict the use of arbitration clauses in consumer, employment and antitrust agreements, according to a preliminary plan reviewed by Reuters.

Clinton will also discuss how she believes that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other agencies already have the authority to curb the use of such clauses under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The planning document said she would urge the Securities and Exchange Commission to exercise its authority to make related rules authorized by the financial reform law. Wells Fargo is expected to be in the crosshairs when Clinton discusses how she would curb mandatory arbitration clauses.

For years, the bank’s employees opened as many as 2 million checking, savings and credit card accounts without the customers’ permission in order to meet sales quotas. Wells Fargo reached a $190 million settlement with federal regulators earlier this month.

When Wells Fargo chief John Stumpf testified before Congress recently about the unauthorized accounts, he said he did not expect the bank to waive a clause signed by its customers in order to open their authorized accounts. The clause said they would arbitrate disputes instead of suing Wells Fargo in court.

Democratic lawmakers in Congress, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have called on Wells Fargo to toss out the mandatory arbitration clause and allow customers to sue.

Clinton is also expected to criticize Mylan for sharply raising without justification the price of EpiPens, which deliver life-saving drugs to those with allergies. The criticism will be part of a larger push to curb excessive market concentration and encourage competition that benefits consumers, her campaign said.

(Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

IMAGE: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton boards her campaign plane in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States October 2, 2016.  REUTERS/Brian Snyder
If Elected, Clinton Under Pressure To Appoint Tough Wall Street Sheriffs

If Elected, Clinton Under Pressure To Appoint Tough Wall Street Sheriffs

By Amanda Becker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic Party progressives intent on reining in Wall Street are pushing Hillary Clinton to choose people to head the Treasury, SEC and other agencies who will crack down on big banks if she wins the White House on Nov. 8.

“Do they have a proven track record of challenging corporate power?” asked Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a grassroots group aligned with U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the party’s liberal firebrand.

In meetings with Clinton’s team, progressive groups are urging that she break sharply with the centrist, pro-business bent of some of the economic leaders who served her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and President Barack Obama.

Big U.S. banks are voicing concern about both Clinton and Donald Trump, her Republican rival who has accused corporate America of buying influence in Washington.

Among Democratic progressives, a favorite for Treasury secretary is Sarah Bloom Raskin, now deputy Treasury secretary and a backer of strict enforcement of the Volcker Rule that prohibits banks from making some types of speculative investments.

“I view proprietary trading as an activity of low or no real economic value that should not be part of any banking model that has an implicit government backstop,” Raskin, then a Federal Reserve governor, said in a 2012 speech.

Democratic activists, who believe Obama did not go far enough at the height of the 2007-2009 financial crisis to punish bankers and tighten regulation, want to make sure Clinton keeps her campaign promises to defend the 2010 Dodd-Frank reforms and build on them to curb Wall Street’s excesses.

Progressive priorities include ensuring the U.S. Justice Department pursues criminal cases against bankers, not just institutions.

Some Democratic activists are wary of two potential Treasury candidates – Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, and Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard – because of links to the Bill Clinton and Obama administrations.

Sandberg was chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in Bill Clinton’s administration and Brainard was a top lieutenant to Timothy Geithner, Obama’s first Treasury secretary.

Locked in a tight race with Trump, Clinton has said little about any future appointments. Her spokesman, Brian Fallon, said any speculation about personnel is “entirely premature” as Clinton is focusing on winning the election.

She has no obligation to heed the advice of progressives like Warren or Bernie Sanders, who challenged Clinton for the Democratic nomination. But Clinton risks a damaging intraparty rift early in her White House tenure if she ignores them.

Kara Stein, a commissioner on the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and co-author of a book warning of the dangers posed by big financial institutions, are progressive favorites for SEC chair.

Progressives also favor Gary Gensler, an adviser to Hillary Clinton, for a senior administration role because of his reputation as a tough regulator when he headed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the Obama administration.

Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said progressives have a “broad feeling of regret” that they did not exert more pressure on Obama to name officials committed to bold financial regulatory reforms.

“It wasn’t so much that progressives lost, it’s that they didn’t understand the stakes at the time and didn’t get into the game until it was too late,” Hauser said.

Warren, who would have a big microphone in any potential fight over U.S. Senate confirmation of nominees, in a speech last week at the Center for American Progress, warned Clinton against choosing people who work at big investment banks.

“When we talk about personnel, we don’t mean advisers who just pay lip service to Hillary’s bold agenda, coupled with a sigh, a knowing glance, and a twiddling of thumbs until it’s time for the next swing through the revolving door, serving government then going back to the very same industries they regulate,” she said.

The New York-based Roosevelt Institute think tank is seeking lesser-known candidates, some outside Washington, for at least 120 administration jobs. Their potential candidates include state attorneys general who have taken on for-profit colleges and handled large mortgage settlements.

(Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Caren Bohan and Howard Goller)

IMAGE: Hillary Clinton stands along side Senator Elizabeth Warren at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio. REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk

Clinton Returns To Campaign Trail After Pneumonia Bout

Clinton Returns To Campaign Trail After Pneumonia Bout

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (Reuters) – Hillary Clinton is set to resume campaigning on Thursday after a bout with pneumonia compelled the U.S. Democratic presidential nominee to take an unforeseen break as she and Republican rival Donald Trump entered the critical two-month final stretch before the election.

Clinton will attend a rally in North Carolina and speak at a dinner in Washington after resting at her home in Chappaqua, New York, for three days following a pneumonia diagnosis and falling ill at a Sept. 11 memorial ceremony on Sunday.

The detour forced Clinton to cancel a two-day swing through California and send her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to a Las Vegas campaign rally in her stead. It also interrupted a series of speeches in which she had planned to refocus her campaign on what she would do for the country after a period when she attacked Trump as a dangerous, unprepared candidate.

Top Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri said on Thursday that “one upside” of the unplanned break was the chance to “sharpen the final argument she will present to voters in these closing weeks.”

“Our campaign readily admits that running against a candidate as controversial as Donald Trump means it is harder to be heard on what you aspire for the country’s future, and it is incumbent on us to work harder,” Palmieri said in a statement.

Clinton‘s speech in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Thursday will focus on how she plans to make sure “every child has the chance to live up to their God-given potential,” Palmieri said.

She will deliver speeches in the coming days on the economy and national service, her campaign said. Last week, she discussed her religious faith in Kansas City, Missouri.

Clinton‘s pneumonia diagnosis came at inopportune time for the former secretary of state, who spent the bulk of August fundraising in wealthy U.S. enclaves such as the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard, with only intermittent campaign events.

Her strong lead over Trump in most opinion polls after the party-nominating conventions in July narrowed throughout August. A New York Times/CBS News poll released on Thursday showed Clinton had the support of 46 percent of likely voters nationwide, with 44 percent backing Trump.

Battleground states such as Ohio and Florida are no longer considered likely wins for the Democratic nominee, according to the Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project released on Saturday.

Clinton on Wednesday released a letter from her physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack, to dispel rumors about her health. The letter detailed her pneumonia diagnosis and declared her fit for the presidency.

Trump discussed his health in a segment of the “Dr. Oz Show” that will air on Thursday.

(Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Photo: U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton holds a news conference on the airport tarmac in front of her campaign plane in White Plains, New York, United States September 8, 2016.  REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Suffering From Pneumonia, Clinton Falls Ill At 9/11 Memorial, Cancels California Trip

Suffering From Pneumonia, Clinton Falls Ill At 9/11 Memorial, Cancels California Trip

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Hillary Clinton is suffering from pneumonia, the Democratic presidential candidate’s personal doctor said on Sunday after she fell ill at a Sept. 11 memorial, an episode that renewed focus on her health less than two months before the election.

Clinton canceled a trip she was scheduled to take to California on Monday for fundraising and other campaign events, an aide said, declining to provide further details about her schedule for the week.

Clinton, 68, was diagnosed on Friday but her condition only came to light several hours after a video on social media appeared to show her swaying and her knees buckling before being helped into a motorcade as she left the memorial early Sunday.

Clinton had a medical examination when she got back to her home in Chappaqua, New York, according to a campaign aide. Her doctor, Lisa Bardack, said in a statement that she has been experiencing a cough related to allergies and that an examination on Friday showed it was pneumonia.

“She was put on antibiotics and advised to rest and modify her schedule. While at this morning’s event, she became overheated and dehydrated. I have just examined her and she is now re-hydrated and recovering nicely,” Bardack said.

Clinton‘s pneumonia diagnosis comes at a crucial time in the White House race against Republican rival Donald Trump, who refrained from commenting on her health on Sunday.

The first of three presidential debates is on Sept. 26 and the election is on Nov. 8.

Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile said she was encouraged that Clinton“already is feeling better” and looked “forward to seeing her back out on the campaign trail and continuing on the path to victory.”

Several Clinton allies said the incident underscored the candidate’s resilience.

“After being diagnosed with pneumonia, Hillary Clinton ran a two-hour national security meeting, gave a press conference, and spent an hour and a half in the heat at a September 11 event,” said Peter Daou, who worked for Clinton in the past and now has a communications firm.

“It was an impressive feat of physical strength that undermined weeks of health conspiracies.”

‘LESS SPECULATION’

Clinton abruptly departed the high-profile, televised event at Ground Zero and was taken to her daughter Chelsea’s home in Manhattan. She emerged around two hours later on a warm and muggy morning, wearing sunglasses and telling reporters that she was “feeling great.”

The video that showed her swaying and buckling with aides holding her up came from an unverified Twitter account under the name Zdenek Gazda, who did not respond to a request for comment. The Clinton campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the authenticity of the video.

Political strategists said the campaign should confront the health issue head-on to tamp down any concerns, particularly as Republican rival Donald Trump and some of his high-profile supporters have repeatedly argued that she lacked the “stamina” to battle adversaries abroad.

Bud Jackson, a Virginia-based Democratic strategist, said the statement from the doctor was a good start. He said the incident should encourage more transparency from the campaign about her health. “I think they did the right thing. They had her examined and put out a statement. It means less speculation,” he said.

As the solemn ceremony began at the site of the World Trade Center that was attacked by two hijacked airliners 15 years ago, there was patchy sunlight, with temperatures at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.6 Celsius). But the high humidity early into the ceremony caused it to feel much hotter in the crowd at times.

Clinton wore a high-collared shirt and a dark pant suit and donned sunglasses for the morning event.

Clinton‘s pneumonia diagnosis follows a wave of conservative conspiracy theories that circulated in recent weeks suggesting that Clinton‘s coughing was a sign of deeper problems.

Clinton‘s speech at a campaign rally earlier this month in Cleveland was interrupted by a coughing spell. During the speech, she quipped, “Every time I think about Trump I get allergic.” She then resumed her speech.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert and senior associate at the UPMC Center for Health Security in Pittsburgh who is not treating Clinton, said coughing is a cardinal symptom of pneumonia.

Recovery from pneumonia, the 8th leading cause of death in the United States, can be variable, he said, adding it takes a week for most patients to get better. Adults above the age of 65 are at heightened risk.

PRESIDENTIAL PRECEDENTS

Past presidential candidates have released much more detailed information about their health than either Trump, 70, or Clinton.

For example, John McCain, the failed 2008 Republican presidential nominee, allowed reporters to see 1,173 pages of medical records after concerns were raised about a cancer scare.

Clinton has been in the news before for serious health issues.

In December 2012, she suffered a concussion and shortly afterward developed a blood clot.

In a letter released by her doctor in July 2015, Clinton was described as being in “excellent health” and “fit to serve” in the White House. It noted that her current medical conditions include hyperthyroidism and seasonal pollen allergies.

The diagnosis and illness on Sunday come after some tough days for Clinton, as national polls showed her lead over Trump diminishing. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of likely voters showed an 8-point lead for Clinton had vanished by the last week of August.

On Saturday, Clinton came under fire from Republicans and on social media for saying Friday night that “half” of Trump’s supporters belonged in a “basket of deplorables.” She later said she regretted using the word “half.”

Trump has also been under pressure to release detailed information on his health and medical history.

Instead, in December, Trump’s doctor wrote in a short letter that was made public that his blood pressure and laboratory results “were astonishingly excellent” and that he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York,; Alana Wise, Emily Stephenson, Jeff Mason and Sarah Lynch in Washington; Writing by Richard Cowan; Editing by Ross Colvin and Mary Milliken)

Photo: U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton leaves her daughter Chelsea’s home in New York, New York, United States September 11, 2016, after Clinton left ceremonies commemorating the 15th anniversary of the September 11 attacks feeling “overheated.”  REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Clinton Announces Plan To Address Price Hikes On Life-Saving Drugs

Clinton Announces Plan To Address Price Hikes On Life-Saving Drugs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hillary Clinton said on Friday that if elected to the White House, she would create an oversight panel to protect U.S. consumers from price hikes on life-saving drugs and import alternative treatments if necessary.

Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, will seek to give the panel an “aggressive new set of enforcement tools,” including the ability to levy fines and impose penalties on manufacturers when there has been an “unjustified, outlier price increase” on a long-available drug, her campaign said.

“Over the past year, we’ve seen far too many examples of drug companies raising prices excessively for long-standing, life-saving treatments with little or no new innovation or R&D,” Clinton said in a statement.

If Clinton defeats Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 election, she will need the support of the U.S. Congress to implement key measures she has proposed, such as levying fines on manufacturers responsible for unjustified price hikes.

Lawmakers have in the past resisted efforts to introduce controls on pharmaceutical prices.

But Clinton’s campaign cited Turing Pharmaceuticals LLC raising the price of the AIDS drug pyrimethamine and Mylan’s recent move to increase the cost of EpiPen for severe allergy sufferers as “troubling” examples of price hikes that have attracted scrutiny from Republican lawmakers as well as Democrats.

Drugmakers have insisted that lowering or limiting drug prices will hamper their ability to invest in research and lead to fewer new therapies.

Dr. Peter Bach, the director of a nonpartisan health policy research group at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering, said Clinton’s announcement was a “flag” for drug manufacturers that her administration would notice and respond to steep price hikes.

“It’s a response to the broader industry phenomenon of generating added profits by raising the price of drugs for which there is no competition,” Bach said, saying the campaign was focusing on a “sub category” of manufacturers that had not invested heavily in developing the drug.

Bach said he was contacted by the Clinton campaign about his work on drug pricing but had not advised the campaign in a formal capacity.

‘BOLD IDEA’

The oversight panel would be made up of representatives from existing public health and consumer protection agencies who convene to examine the scope of a drug increase, the manufacturer’s production cost and the treatment’s relative value to patients and public health, Clinton’s campaign said.

In cases where a determined unjustified price hike is accompanied by insufficient market competition, Clinton’s administration would intervene to purchase alternative drugs from comparably regulated markets or assist manufacturers in bringing the product to market in the United States.

Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, called it a “bold idea” to get the federal government “involved in helping stabilizing some of these generic drug markets.”

Until recently, there was a lengthy wait for generic drug approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Although the time line has shortened, there is often not enough consistent demand for manufacturers to enter the U.S. market, Kesselheim said.

“Having the government get involved as a long-term purchaser of these products creates a stockpile to stabilize the market,” Kesselheim said.

Kesselheim has testified before Congress about high-cost generic and long-available drugs and spoke to Clinton’s campaign about his research as it developed its proposals.

(Reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Photo: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton addresses the National Convention of the American Legion in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S., August 31, 2016. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

Clinton Knocks Trump For Cheering Housing Bubble Burst

Clinton Knocks Trump For Cheering Housing Bubble Burst

Democrat Hillary Clinton, seeking to dampen Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s growing appeal with working-class voters, on Tuesday accused him of having cheered on the 2008 housing market crash.

Clinton’s campaign released an ad with audio that the presumptive Republican nominee recorded in 2006 for his now-defunct Trump University venture. Trump, a billionaire real estate developer, in remarks on a “bubble burst,” said: “I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy” property and “make a lot of money.”

Clinton’s campaign and her surrogates used the recording to argue that she would take better care of the U.S. economy. Clinton is seeking to blunt the inroads that Trump has been making with voters in crucial states such as Florida and Ohio.

Trump defended his comments on Tuesday evening at a rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, saying buying when the housing market was down showed smart dealmaking skills that he would bring to the White House.

“I’m a businessman, that’s what I’m supposed to do,” Trump said. “I feel badly for everybody. What am I going to do? I’m in business.”

The New Yorker also impersonated Clinton on the campaign trail, who he said “screams,” and said other big names in business did similar deals as he did before the housing crisis.

Trump has never held elected office and often touts his history as a businessman in response to accusations that he is unprepared to assume the presidency.

Anti-Trump protestors and police clashed outside the Albuquerque convention center on Tuesday when protestors tried to storm the center, calling for an end to the Trump rally.

Albuquerque police said on Twitter that protestors threw rocks and bottles and a door to the facility appeared to have been hit with something. Police said the only arrests so far had been inside the rally, where Trump was interrupted multiple times by protestors.

Opinion polls in key states show Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, and Trump in a tight race ahead of the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. Nationally, Trump has been rising in polls to pull roughly even with Clinton.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who is a favorite of financial reformers, bashed Trump in prepared remarks released ahead of a speech in Washington on Tuesday. Trump’s 2006 comments, she said, amounted to rooting for “people to get thrown out on the street.”

“The rest of us were horrified by the 2008 financial crisis,” Warren said in the comments. “But Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown – because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap.”

Warren also criticized Trump for saying in a Reuters interview last week that the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law, enacted in response to the crisis, made it hard for bankers to operate.

“Let me find the world’s smallest violin to play a sad, sad song,” Warren said. “Can Donald Trump even name three things that Dodd-Frank does? Seriously, someone ask him.”

Trump did not directly respond to Warren’s comments on Tuesday, but he called her a “total failure” as a U.S. senator during the rally.

Clinton surrogates from Ohio and Florida held a conference call with reporters about Trump’s housing statements. Her campaign hosted related events in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada, which will all be battlegrounds in November’s general election.

“How could Trump possibly champion the collapse of the housing market and our economy?” U.S. Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio said on the call.

Clinton is still fighting on two fronts as she seeks to wrap up her primary battle with Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont.

Clinton and Sanders both campaigned on Tuesday in California, which is among six states holding Democratic nominating contests on June 7. California, the most populous U.S. state, has more Democratic delegates than any other state, and Sanders has invested heavily there.

Clinton needs a solid win in California for a strong finish heading into her party’s national convention in July and to dispel questions about whether she can unite the party after a drawn-out, increasingly bitter primary race.

Clinton on Monday turned down an invitation by Fox News to debate Sanders in California despite having agreed previously to a May debate. Her campaign said Clinton’s time would be better spent meeting directly with California voters. Sanders said her refusal was an insult to California voters.

Sanders on Tuesday requested that the state of Kentucky review his loss there last week to Clinton by fewer than 2,000 votes. Kentucky’s secretary of state, Alison Grimes, said in a statement that the state will recanvas the results at all 120 county boards of election.
Additional reporting by Alana Wise and Doina Chiacu in Washington and Emily Stephenson in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Leslie Adler and Michael Perry

Photo: U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the IBEW union hall in Commerce, California, U.S., May 24, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson