The speech in Cleveland was followed by Clinton's first interview with her traveling press corps on the same plane which she flies. During the interview on the place, she also repeatedly coughed and stopped her talk to get water from a staffer.
Clinton has been followed by conspiracies about her health throughout her campaign, and just last month former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said on Fox News that voters should search online for information about “Hillary Clinton illness.”
Her campaign has repeatedly denied these claims — including fake medical records that appeared on the internet. (Clinton’s doctor released a statement saying the records weren’t real.) Last year, the campaign released a letter from Clinton’s doctor detailing the candidate’s health, which the physician wrote was good.
DETROIT — Donald Trump told a black church on Saturday that the US needs a "new civil rights agenda for our time," which he said must prioritize the right to education, employment, and to "live in safety and in peace."
As he continues to seek to soften his image and reach out to minorities, the Republican nominee visited Great Faith Ministries on Saturday. Inside, he took his seat beside Dr. Ben Carson, his wife, and Omarosa Manigault, Trump’s director of black outreach, perhaps best known as a former Apprentice contestant.
Trump bobbed his head and clapped to the gospel music, as news cameras watched on, and later praised black churches as the "conscience of our country" for their role in the civil rights movement.
"I am here today to listen to your message and I hope my presence here will also help your voice to reach new audiences in our country — and many of these audiences desperately need your spirit and your thought," he told the congregation in prepared remarks.
"I believe we need a civil rights agenda for our time," he said. "One that ensures the rights to a great education — so important — and the right to live in safety and in peace, and to have a really, really great job, a good-paying job and one that you love to go to every morning. And that can happen."
As he spoke, a small group of protesters demonstrated outside the church, denouncing Trump as racist and out of touch with black voters.
“Trump is insulting, racist, and does not represent Detroit,” said Laura DePalma, a Detroit organizer. “He doesn't care about systemic issues affecting black voters and we’re not backwards.”
Trump has repeatedly come under fire for his brusque overtures to black voters, in which he's described them as politically destitute with nothing to lose by voting for him.
The Clinton campaign mocked Trump for now addressing his first predominately black audience "after a campaign spent courting white supremacists and playing into misleading stereotypes about people of color."
"While Trump can attempt to reach out to African Americans, he has proven to the community time and again that he is unfit to be president and he has no interest in working with the African American community," the Democratic nominee's campaign said in a statement.
Evan Vucci / AP
The church visit and tour were first mentioned last month, as part of efforts to reach black voters. Trump has declined to do traditional outreach — speaking at the NAACP, for instance — and his limited efforts have drawn the ire of black Republicans.
Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that there was a script for his interview with Trump.
For his part, Jackson, who presides over the church here, posted a video to the Impact Television Network’s Facebook page late Friday. With his prayer shawl clutching and a copy of the Jewish Heritage Study Bible, Jackson declared it was time to do the Lord’s business.
“You know, anybody who has a kingdom mind should be saying, ‘I’m going to pray with you, Bishop,’” said Jackson. “Because this can be a situation—an opportunity that God uses to touch not only Mr. Trump but many people who are going to be watching all over the world.”
“You should be saying this,” Jackson continued, “God save, God deliver and let your glory fall in that service.”
Having memorably fumbled the name of Second Corinthians during a January speech at a Christian university, Trump ended his remarks on Saturday with a reading from First John: "No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."
A prominent black pastor who spoke at the Republican National Convention in support of Donald Trump admitted Friday that he fabricated a number of his credentials listed on his church's website, after a CNN reporter confronted the religious leader.
Pastor Mark Burns of the Harvest Praise and Worship Center in Easley, South Carolina, falsely stated on the church’s website that he earned a bachelor’s degree, belonged to Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., and had served six years in the Army Reserve.
The page of site was live while he spoke at the Republican National Convention in July, but has since been taken down.
Confronted with the inaccuracies, Burns initially blamed hackers for the the biography, then attacked the media for investigating him, then ultimately admitted he had "overstated" elements of his biography.
In an interview with CNN’s Victor Blackwell on Friday, which aired in full on Saturday morning, Burns said that he attended North Greenville University in South Carolina.
When Blackwell asked if Burns graduated from the university, Burns responded, “No, I didn’t complete the degree at North Greenville University.”
The university told CNN that Burns had only been enrolled for one semester.
“Again, the bio that’s on your website claims that you earned a bachelor of science degree,” Blackwell said. “Did you make that claim?”
After pausing for several seconds, Burns claimed that he had only agreed to an off-the-record interview.
Blackwell countered that he had not agree to go off the record and continued to press the pastor.
“We’re still rolling, I’m still asking you questions on the record. Did you make that claim that you graduated from North Greenville University?” he asked.
Burns accused Blackwell of trying to discredit him.
“This is not what I agreed to,” the pastor said. “I thought we were doing a profile and all of a sudden you’re here to try to destroy my character.”
He also suggested that the website had been hacked or photoshopped in some way.
“In reference to my website, if there's inaccurate information on there that can easily be manipulated by other people and it can be manipulated by hackers,” he said.
Wix, the hosting company that supports the church’s website, told CNN in a statement that "there is no evidence of a hack.”
Blackwell also questioned Burns on another line in his bio that asserted he was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., a black organization.
“I did without question say that I had started the process of being a part of that organization, but that's the furthest I've gotten,” Burns said.
Blackwell also questioned him about his claim that he served six years in the Army Reserve.
Burns had served in the South Carolina National Guard from 2001-2005. He was completely discharged in 2008, but "has no active Army or Army Reserve service time," according to an Army statement sent to CNN.
Burns abruptly ended the interview and quickly drove away, according to Blackwell.
The pastor issued a statement before the CNN interview aired, admitting that he “overstated several details” of his biography because he was worried that he “wouldn’t be taken seriously as a new pastor.”
He also said that the media had targeted him for being a black Trump supporter.
“It’s a shame that the political insiders and the media chose to attack me because I’m not going to stay silent about Hillary Clinton’s pandering to our community," he said.
Burns came under fire Aug. 29 when he tweeted an image of Clinton in blackface. He deleted the tweet and issued an apology, but stood by the message in his tweet.
WASHINGTON — On Friday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of execution for Robert Jennings.
Jennings was scheduled to be executed on Sept. 14 for the 1988 murder of Elston Howard, a Houston police officer. He was sentenced to death after his trial in 1989.
The stay of execution means that this is the eighth consecutive scheduled execution date in Texas to have been withdrawn, stayed, or moved to a later date.
The unsigned opinion — from which four of the court's nine judges dissented — was a brief three pages, laying out the legal history of the case and Jennings' current request before the court. Among Jennings' arguments is that improper jury instructions prevented the jury from "properly considering and giving effect to" the mitigating evidence raised at his sentencing.
The only explanation given by the court for granting the stay was a single sentence: "After reviewing applicant’s pleadings, this Court has determined that applicant’s execution should be stayed pending further order of this Court."
This is the second Friday in a row in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals — the state's highest appellate court for criminal matters — issued a stay of execution with little explanation for its action. A week earlier, the court stayed the pending execution of Ronaldo Ruiz.
At this point, the next scheduled execution is the scheduled execution of Barney Fuller on October 5 — nearly six months since the most recent execution in the state, which took place April 6.
This long of a gap between executions in Texas is very rare. The last time a gap of more than five months happened it was between September 2007 and June 2008, when executions hit a standstill because the Supreme Court heard a case regarding the constitutionality of a lethal injection protocol.
Unlike then, however, the reasons given for withdrawing, staying, or moving the past eight execution dates in Texas have differed and have also at times, as with Friday's order, been less than transparent.