The Latest: Trump says critics didn’t understand speech

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. presidential election (all times EDT):

9 p.m.

Donald Trump says “a lot of people didn’t quite understand” part of his immigration speech because of the enthusiastic crowd.

Trump’s speech Wednesday night fired up his base but disappointed many Hispanic supporters who were hoping he’d tone down his divisive rhetoric on immigration.

He was asked Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” what exactly he would do with the millions of people living in the country illegally who haven’t committed other crimes.

He says that after he strengthens the border and gets rid of all the “bad players,” like gang members and drug dealers, “we’re going to make a decision at that time.”

He says he wants “to see, before we do anything further … how it shapes up when we have strong, impenetrable borders.”

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8:00 p.m.

Donald Trump has tapped Citizens United President David Bossie to serve as his deputy campaign manager.

Campaign manager Kellyanne Conway confirmed the hire to The Associared Press Thursday evening.

Bossie has know Trump for years, and has advised him informally.

The GOP nominee told the Washington Post that Bossie is: “Solid. Smart. Loves politics, knows how to win.”

Trump recently re-shuffled his campaign leadership team, promoting Conway to campaign manager and bringing in former Breitbart News head Steve Bannon as CEO.

Citizens United is best known for bringing the Supreme Court case that dramatically scaled back regulations on unions and corporations regarding political spending independent of campaigns for Congress and president.

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6:55 p.m.

Melania Trump has filed a lawsuit against a British news website and a Maryland blogger, saying the two published false statements about her alleged involvement with an escort agency.

The wife of the Republican presidential nominee filed the suit Thursday in state court in Montgomery County, Maryland. That’s the home of Webster Tarpley, who publishes the Tarpley.net blog. The Daily Mail Online also is named as a defendant.

The suit seeks a minimum of $75,000 from each defendant.

The suit says the Daily Mail Online published an article about Trump that referred to Trump’s “very racy past.” The suit also says Tarpley.net published a post referring to Trump’s time as a “high-end escort.”

Trump lawyer Charles Harder represented Hulk Hogan in his defamation suit against the now-defunct website Gawker.

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6:30 p.m.

Vice President Joe Biden is declining to give a direct answer to a reporter’s question asking whether he thinks the Clinton Foundation had been “100 percent ethical.”

Biden took questions from a reporter for MSNBC after the vice president campaigned for Hillary Clinton at a union hall outside Youngstown, Ohio. Biden said the foundation established by Bill Clinton after he left the White House is like other foundations that find they need to make changes in how they operate because “of how complicated it has become.”

Biden said he expects the foundation to stop taking foreign contributions. The Clintons have said they will no longer accept such contributions if Clinton is elected president.

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5:00 p.m.

Some Hispanic leaders who have been advising Donald Trump say they feel betrayed after Trump’s big immigration speech.

They used words like “crushed,” ”disappointed” and “confused” after Trump on Wednesday definitively ruled out a pathway to legal status for people living in the U.S. illegally.

Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles president Alfonso Aguilar had prominently endorsed Trump after initially opposing his candidacy. He said Trump had signaled a willingness to moderate some of his plans.

But Agular said Thursday: “I’m withdrawing my support. I was expecting something very different last night.”

Aguilar said the speech does not bode well for Trump’s campaign. Aguilar said he now thinks Trump is “definitely going to lose.”

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4:00 p.m.

Bad weather in Florida has forced Tim Kaine to scrap plans in one closely fought state and campaign in another.

The Democratic vice presidential candidate is stopping by two popular New Hampshire locales Thursday for some retail campaigning on his last-minute trip to the state.

Kaine was accompanied by wife Anne Holton as he picked apples at Carter Hill Orchard in Concord and chatted with voters at the Puritan Backroom restaurant in Manchester.

His original plans to campaign in Florida were cancelled due to weather.

Kaine joked to one couple visiting from Florida that he didn’t care where they lived as long as it was a battleground state.

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3:40 p.m.

Hillary Clinton hauled in a combined $143 million in August for her presidential bid, her best month yet in a fundraising push that lays the groundwork for her fall campaign.

The Democratic nominee brought in $62 million for her campaign last month and another $81 million for the Democratic National Committee and state parties.

Clinton begins September with more than $68 million in the bank to use against rival Donald Trump.

Clinton raised a combined $90 million in July.

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2:50 p.m.

Donald Trump’s aggressive rhetoric on illegal immigration has obscured a potentially historic policy shift.

The Republican presidential nominee is the first major party candidate in modern memory to propose limiting legal immigration.

In his speech on immigration late Wednesday, Trump capped a list of steps to combat illegal immigration, with a final pledge to completely revamp the country’s legal immigration system in order to lessen the number of people allowed into the United States.

Trump talked about limiting immigration to its historic norms. By making the case in a nationally televised address that immigration overall has to be limited, Trump has embraced the ideals of a small group of activists who, for decades, have sought to sharply reduce all forms of migration to the United States.

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12:45 p.m.

Vice President Joe Biden says Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is irresponsible and shouldn’t be given access to the United States’ nuclear codes.

Biden was speaking to about 250 people at a United Auto Workers union hall near Youngstown in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley, an area of this bellwether state where Trump showed considerable strength during the Republican primary.

It’s the second time Biden has campaigned for Clinton.

While Biden repeated throughout the speech that Clinton “gets it” when it comes to the middle class, he largely concentrated on the role of unions in revitalizing the American auto industry. He also talked about his family’s struggles growing up and Trump’s inability to connect with working-class Americans.

Biden is scheduled to appear at a UAW union hall later Thursday outside of Cleveland.

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12:25 p.m.

A day after delivering a hard-line speech on immigration, Donald Trump is continuing to stress his America-first approach.

Speaking at a rally in Wilmington, Ohio, Trump says that, as president, he would “treat everyone with dignity, respect and compassion.”

But the Republican presidential nominee says, “our greatest compassion will be for the American citizen.”

Trump on Wednesday night said that he would immediately force out immigrants living in the country illegally who’ve committed crimes, as well as expel people who’ve overstayed visas.

Trump says that he expects to win the crucial battleground state of Ohio in November.

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11:55 a.m.

Tim Kaine says Donald Trump “caved” and “choked” by failing to discuss his demands that Mexico pay for a border wall during his meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Kaine, campaigning in New Hampshire, is casting Trump as gutless. He says Trump should’ve looked Peña Nieto in the eye and honestly discussed the wall.

Trump says discussions about the border wall did not come up during the meeting, but he’s still insists that Mexico will pay for it. Peña Nieto says he made clear to Trump that Mexico will not pay for the wall.

Kaine says Trump “choked, he caved, he lost his confidence, he lost his will.”

Kaine also says Trump’s casting of Mexican immigrants as criminals is similar to past discrimination against Irish and Jewish people.

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9:45 a.m.

Donald Trump says that that, if he’s elected president, he’ll work on “promoting American pride and patriotism in America’s schools.”

Trump, speaking at the American Legion’s annual convention in Cincinnati, says he wants to work with the group to ensure that the children learn about America’s common values.

He says, “we will stop apologizing for America. And we will start celebrating America.”

Trump is also vowing to invest more money in the military to make sure soldiers have the best equipment and medical care.

He’s telling veterans, “I will never let you down.”

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7:40 a.m.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine says Donald Trump “choked” by not demanding to Mexico’s president that his country pay for a border wall.

The Republican presidential nominee has made the wall — and Mexico paying for it — a core element in his campaign. Trump said it didn’t come up in his meeting Wednesday with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. But Pena Nieto tweeted that he had told Trump that Mexico wouldn’t pay for the wall.

Kaine said Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” that even if Trump’s account is accurate, it showed he “folded under pressure” and “didn’t have the backbone” to discuss the issue with the Mexican president.

Kaine said: “When he’s looking the leader of Mexico in the eye, he can’t bring himself to say it.”

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3:10 a.m.

Donald Trump’s back-to-back immigration-focused events in Mexico and Arizona were an astounding display of political whiplash.

During a surprise visit with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Trump lavished praise on America’s southern neighbor and pointedly avoided publicly insisting that Mexico pay for the wall he’s pledged to build along the U.S.-Mexico border.

But in a lengthy and fiery address on immigration in Phoenix hours later, the Republican nominee asserted in no uncertain terms that Mexico would indeed pay for a border wall.

He lambasted millions of immigrants as violent criminals and a drain on the U.S. government. And he vowed that no person living in the United States illegally would have a path to legal status without first leaving the country.