OFF TO THE RACES: Majority of Republicans prefer someone else
A new FOX News poll shows that 51 percent of Republicans say they'd prefer "someone else" over Donald Trump. The same poll shows Clinton leading Trump by six points nationally, 44% to 38%.
CLINTON: Aide Huma Abedin, in a deposition, said that Clinton and her aides got frustrated with the private email system Clinton used, saying it interfered with her work at times.
More from the AP: "Longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin said in a legal proceeding that Clinton did not want the private emails that she mixed in with State Department emails on her private computer server to be accessible to "anybody," according to transcripts released Wednesday."
Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch met privately at an airport in Phoenix, but Lynch says they did not discuss the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email use.
Her campaign is targeting swing state North Carolina, notes the Wall Street Journal.
POLITICO writes that Tim Kaine reported more than $160,000 in gifts between 2001 and 2009, according to public disclosures. While legal under Virginia’s laws, the gifts – like clothes and a vacation - could become fodder for attack ads.
From the Associated Press: Hillary Clinton is raising huge sums at very small fundraisers.
Despite Hillary Clinton’s hints that she thinks Texas could go blue, the Texas Tribune’s Abby Livingston finds that there’s little sign that Democrats will actually make any significant play there.
SANDERS: He's back on the Hill, "looking vaguely glum, receiving good wishes like a warrior returned to civilization, injured but intact," the New York Times writes.
Stu Rothenberg writes in the Washington Post that Sanders missed his moment.
TRUMP: "Without naming specific politicians, Trump called those 2016 candidates who have yet to endorse him in accordance with the RNC pledge "sore losers" who "should never be allowed to run for public office again." Among those names yet to officially and explicitly endorse Trump are Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker."
Super PACs backing Trump are struggling to get support and have fallen well short of their fundraising goals, NBC's Leigh Ann Caldwell writes.
He insisted that he's not "flip-flopping" in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "I don’t flip flop. I do what’s right,” he said. “Sometimes there’s something I think I have to adjust, but I don’t do it for votes, I do it because I think it’s right."
The New York Times on Trump's tough trade talk: "[S]uch declarations are at odds with Mr. Trump’s long history as a businessman, in which he has been heavily — and proudly — reliant on foreign labor in the name of putting profits, rather than America, first. From cheap neckties to television sets, Mr. Trump has benefited from some of the trade practices he now scorns."
And another Trump story in the Times: "Trump Institute Offered Get-Rich Schemes With Plagiarized Lessons." MORE: "Extensive portions of the materials that students received after paying their seminar fees, supposedly containing Mr. Trump’s special wisdom, had been plagiarized from an obscure real estate manual published a decade earlier."
At a rally in Maine, Trump backer Howie Carr made a "war whoop" when poking fun at Elizabeth Warren.
He's sending fundraising pitches to foreign lawmakers -- who are both barred from giving him money and annoyed at the barrage.
Mike Lee is not a big Trump fan, and he unloaded on the presumptive nominee during an interview with NewsMax.
CONGRESS: Puerto Rico legislation heads to Obama’s desk
"Rescue legislation aimed at helping Puerto Rico address its mounting fiscal crisis cleared Congress Wednesday, two days before the U.S. territory is set to default on roughly $2 billion in debt payments," writes the Washington Post. "The bill passed by the Senate on a 68-to-30 vote opens a path for an orderly restructuring of the island’s $72 billion in bond debt while creating a new federally appointed fiscal oversight board. It passed the House earlier this month, and President Obama has said he will sign it."
More from The Hill: “The Senate-passed bill would halt any potential litigation between the island and creditors, and allow outside officials to step in and try to steer towards a more organized resolution. The bill’s passage marks a rare achievement for the White House and the leadership from both parties in both chambers. The top Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate threw their support behind the measure, and urged their colleagues to back the measure.”
