The Daily Trail: Trump to Russia: Send Clinton's emails ASAP [with Comment bh PHB]
Elise Viebeck and Karoun Demirjian are filling in today for Rebecca on the Daily Trail beat.
Welcome to Day 3 of the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.
WHAT'S COMING UP?
It's national security day at the convention, with speeches from President Obama, Vice President Biden and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine will also speak.
Watch the convention livestream here and follow The Post's liveblog here.
THE BIG QUESTION:
What happened this morning?
Talk about impeccable timing.
Donald Trump managed to throw gasoline on stories about his campaign's ties to Russia and Russian hackers' alleged interference with the presidential election just in time for Democrats' program about national security policy on Wednesday evening.
In a press conference that left observers aghast, Trump invited Russia to find and release tens of thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails.
"Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,” Trump said during a Florida news conference.
"I’d like to have them released," Trump continued when asked if his comments were appropriate. “If Russia or China or any other country has those emails, I mean, to be honest with you, I’d love to see them.”
At the same time, Trump sought to distance himself from allegations that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee and released embarrassing emails in order to boost his presidential chances. He has repeatedly said he has "nothing to do with" Russia or the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"It is so farfetched. It’s so ridiculous. Honestly, I wish I had that power. I’d love to have that power, but Russia has no respect for our country,” Trump said Wednesday. [That statement, my friends, is Trump's greatest lie yet! ---PHB ]
Check out The Post's annotation of the news conference here and watch his comments below:
It's hard to overstate the severity of the reaction against what Trump said. Lawmakers, journalists and commentators from across the political spectrum were flabbergasted. Here's a sample of their reaction on Twitter.
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