TheChat: Missouri GOP slowly lining up behind Donald Trump

Good morning.

▪ “We don’t need another Obama third term.’’ — Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt addressing the Missouri GOP last weekend in Branson.

Missouri Republican leaders, who had recently said they couldn’t back Donald Trump, now appear to be lining up behind the real estate king. The reason: fear of a Hillary Clinton presidency, as Blunt noted. The senator has endorsed Trump, but without much enthusiasm.

▪ “The people that we work with have a very low level of connectivity. A very low level. So people don’t have computers, they don’t have internet service, can’t afford the cable or what have you.” — Mike Oxford, director of the Topeka Independent Living Resource Center, on the problems some Kansans are having applying for Medicaid.

One option is to apply by filling out old-fashioned paper copies. But obtaining paper copies has become difficult.

▪ “I can hear the glass crunching on Kristallnacht in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vienna when I hear (Trump's plan), honest.” — former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld on Donald Trump’s vow to deport undocumented immigrants from the U.S. to Kristallnacht, an infamous incident during the Holocaust.

Weld, who is who is seeking to become the Libertarian Party's vice presidential candidate, was asked if his comments were too strong. Weld insisted they were not.

▪ “That’s what the American people are saying.” — Bernie Sanders when asked if he’d view a matchup between Trump and Clinton as the “lesser of two evils.”

Said Sanders: “If you look at the favorability ratings of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, both of them have very, very high unfavorables.”

This story was originally published May 24, 2016 at 6:21 AM.