We’re going to shift over to a new liveblog dedicated to covering the Democratic presidential debate in Durham, New Hampshire - head there to check out minute-by-minute coverage of the final debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders before their supporters head to the polls in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary on Tuesday.
Endorsement Alert: Talk show icon Montel Williams has endorsed John Kasich for the Republican presidential nomination, calling the Ohio governor “the only adult in the pack” on Greta Van Susteren’s show on Fox News.
After all, who better two judge the quality of someone’s adulthood than a man who once had Robin Givens scare some teens straight?
Bernie Sanders, Democratic presidential candidate and noted folk music singer, once enjoyed a short-lived career as an actor, briefly appearing in a couple of films towards the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The Vermont senator had more than two minutes on screen in the 1999 romantic comedy My X-Girlfriend’s Wedding Reception, playing a baseball-obsessed rabbi named Manny Shevitz who rambles extensively about the Brooklyn Dodgers during a wedding toast.
State Department: Former secretaries of state have received classified intel on personal email
Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice both received classified information through their personal email accounts while serving as secretary of state, according to a review conducted by the State Department inspector general.
The revelation that multiple former secretaries of state received classified emails over their personal accounts may give former secretary and currently embattled Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a shield against increasingly loud accusations that the presence of classified information on her own email servers lead to risks of national security.
Carly Fiorina has been officially excluded from Saturday's Republican debate
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO and struggling Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has officially been excluded from this Saturday’s Republican debate in Manchester, New Hampshire, ABC News has announced.
Fiorina has struggled to rise above her competitors for the party’s nomination in national and early-state polling, but that hasn’t stopped her from requesting that the Republican National Committee intervene on her behalf as networks attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff.
“Networks are making up these debate rules as they go along - not to be able to fit candidates on the stage - but arbitrarily to decide which candidates make for the best TV in their opinion,” Fiorina said in an open letter to the RNC. “Now it is time for the RNC to act in the best interest of the Party that it represents.”
With Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum having dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination earlier this week, ABC News has declared that it would not hold a so-called “undercard” debate on Saturday before the primetime debate featuring the top tier of candidates. To have qualified for that debate, Fiorina would have needed to rank among the top six candidates in national polling, the top six in New Hampshire polling or among the top free finishers in the Iowa caucuses.
New New Hampshire polls = Good news for Sanders
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders now boasts a whopping 20-point lead over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, according to a NBC News/Wall Street/Marist poll conducted after she narrowly won Monday’s Iowa caucuses.
Sanders is leading Clinton among likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, as well as among independents by a margin of 69% to 26%, according to the poll.
He also leads her by a small margin among women, a group that the former secretary of state can usually count on.
Caveat: Clinton was expected to lose the 2008 New Hampshire primary to then-senator Barack Obama. A poignant moment in a cafe changed that, and New Hampshire’s women came out in force. She pulled off a surprise victory there, which briefly revived her sputtering campaign.
Much has changed already since Bernie Sanders flew into New Hampshire early Tuesday morning after his dramatic and stronger-than-expected showing in Iowa.
Back before the caucus he was not just an underdog, but such a fringe proposition that he was barely mentioned at all by Republicans and much of the political media.
Now, in New Hampshire, at least, Sanders is the Democratic frontrunner – with all the attendant expectations and attention to manage, and a real risk of underperforming compared with sky-high opinion polling in the state.
One small symbol of the changing mood is the arrival of Secret Service security screening at his events. This was requested by the campaign and a sign of growing national prominence, but it slows down the arrival of supporters at already chaotic rallies and brings a different vibe from the free-form early days.
Not everyone is feeling the Bern in New Hampshire either. Outside his latest stop in the small town of Rochester, New Hampshire, one wag has been sticking a home-made flyer under the windscreen wipers of parked cars next to the venue.
“The are two things that do not exist in the world,” it says. “1. Unicorns. 2. The government giving anything away for FREE.”
Marco Rubio hit back on Thursday at what he said was “silly” criticism by his rival Chris Christie.
Addressing reporters after a town hall at a college here, Rubio was asked to respond to Christie’s claim that he was a “boy in a bubble.”
“When people are having a tough time in a campaign, especially near the end, you see some desperation set in and so people start saying things. But I’m not too worried about that,” Rubio said.
Christie, the New Jersey governor who is looking to derail Rubio’s momentum in New Hampshire, has repeatedly sought to portray the Florida senator as childlike and unfit for the presidency.
“This isn’t the student council election, everybody. This is an election for President of the United States,” Christie told reporters this week. “Let’s get the boy out of the bubble, and let’s see if he’s ready to play next week in New Hampshire, I’m ready to play.”
At a separate press conference, Christie issued a challenge to name any “significant accomplishment” achieved by Rubio in the US Senate.
Compounding matters further was a Thursday morning interview by Rick Santorum, who dropped out of the presidential race on Wednesday and endorsed Rubio. In the appearance, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Santorum was unable to identify an achievement of Rubio’s when pressed repeatedly by the show’s hosts.
Rubio defended himself on Thursday, telling reporters Santorum had until the day before been running his own campaign and was likely not familiar with the details of his record. The senator said he had a number of accomplishments, such as legislation he co-sponsored cracking down on human trafficking and a bill that put in place new sanctions against Hezbollah.
“Bottom line is, I’m proud of my service and public record. We have real achievements, not just in the Senate but in my time as speaker of the Florida House and as a state legislator,” Rubio said.
He also pointed to his efforts to repeal a key provision of the health care law, known as the ‘Obamacare bailout,’ although fact-checks have disputed the extent of his role in that fight. Asked to clarify, Rubio maintained he “led the effort” to deliver the rare blow to Barack Obama’s health care law.
“I was the first one to bring it up. I was the one who pushed for it for two and a half years,” Rubio said. “Did I type it on my own computer? No. But did I actually get it done? Absolutely.”
New poll!
Donald Trump’s lead in New Hampshire continues unabated among likely New Hampshire primary voters, according to a new CNN/WMUR poll released less than a week before the primary, but the race for second place is getting even narrower.
The billionaire real estate mogul leads the pack with the support of 29% of likely Granite State Republicans, with Florida senator Marco Rubio at second place with 18%, a seven-point jump from his previous place in the poll. Texas senator Ted Cruz, at 13%, is a single percentage point ahead of John Kasich in a near-tie for third place. Jeb Bush is at a relatively distant fifth place at 10%, with Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina tied for sixth at 4% each.
The poll was conducted entirely after the Iowa caucuses.
What’s at stake in New Hampshire: a two-minute crash course
New Hampshire. It’s home to America’s first astronaut, America’s first potato, and its first-in-the-nation primary could determine the fate of this year’s slew of presidential candidates. Watch the Guardian’s quick explainer on the New Hampshire primary, where we look at what’s at stake in the Granite State.
Donald Trump isn’t going around kissing babies yet. He is taking selfies with policemen, though.
Trump gets a police badge pic.twitter.com/Zt2AKaJKfO
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 4, 2016
The real estate mogul showed up at a shift change at the Manchester Police Department to address the assembled officers - and pose for pictures with them. The event represented a rare retail stop for Trump, who has often just held big rallies in gymnasiums and arenas as opposed to the type of one-on-one politicking, which is normal in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The photo-op was hastily scheduled and represented the third of five different events that Trump had on his calendar on Thursday, a new record for candidate often only makes one or two appearances daily. The room resembled a minor circus. There were a dozen television cameras and officers were forced to move around to find space. One muttered “this is stupid” to himself as he forced to move over for a cameraman. Eventually, Trump appeared. And, after being introduced by the police commissioner, the current frontrunner in New Hampshire gave brief remarks to the assembled officers who were gathering in a larger training room instead of their usual meeting place.
Trump told the officers that police “had not been recognized properly” but pledged “you will be recognized properly if I win.” He added, with the spate of scrutiny on police brutality in the United States in recent years, “Remember that, we know what you’re going through. You speak a little bit rough to somebody and end up fighting for your job. Not going to happen any more.” Trump also dwelled his “absolutely incredible” relationship with the police and thanked one officer, Aaron Brown, who had broken his leg in the line of duty in a car accident. After these remarks, which lasted three minutes, he then went to take pictures with the assembled group of about 65 officers.
They cycled through, first in groups, but then as things dragged one by one as police officers wanted selfies as well as group pictures with the Republican candidate. Trump would shake hands, pose with a thumbs up and give a big smile. Afterwards, he would say “thank you, thank you” in a low, almost guttural, whisper. Occasionally, he stopped to joke, telling one officer “you’re not going to give me a traffic ticket” but instead diligently performed the duties of a politician.
Eventually, after being presented with a Manchester police badge, Trump was whisked away off to his next stop in the press cavern as the room emptied as cops had to go start their shifts. After the real estate mogul left, one officer walked around the room with a fistful of Trump bumper stickers and handed them out to fellow officers. He jokingly refused to give one to a coworker - “I know you’re for Hillary.” The cop said, “It’s fine. I’ll put it on my toilet.”
Later, when asked why a Hillary supporter like himself would show up to see Trump. The officer shrugged. No presidential candidate had ever come to the police headquarters before, and Trump was famous.
Ted Cruz mocks Donald Trump over loss in Iowa
Ted Cruz criticized his fellow Republican presidential candidates for making “personal attacks” while campaigning in New Hampshire today, stating: “I can’t control what they do, but I can control how I respond.”
Cruz took particular aim at Donald Trump, who he says got “very angry” when he failed to win in Iowa on Monday. “He said, ‘how stupid could the people of Iowa be?’” Cruz said. “I assume the next question he’s gonna ask is ‘how stupid can the people of New Hampshire be?’”
Cruz unexpectedly beat Trump in the state by less than 3% of the overall vote.
Of all the presidents we expected to cut a political advertisement this primary season, we did not expect the first one to be George W. Bush.
Bush - who we will call “Dubya” for purposes of clarity - has filmed an ad on behalf of his younger brother, John Ellis Bush, better known as Jeb, Politico reports.
“The first job of the president is to protect America,” Dubya says in ad. “The next president must be prepared to lead. I know Jeb. I know his good heart and his strong backbone.”
“Jeb will unite our country,” Dubya continues. “He knows how to bring the world together against terror. He knows when tough measures must be taken. Experience and judgment count in the Oval Office. Jeb Bush is a leader who will keep our country safe.”
Meanwhile, fellow Texan and Iowa caucus victor Ted Cruz has released an ad running off of a statement made by former president Jimmy Carter, a Democrat who told the House of Lords on Wednesday that he’d choose Trump over Cruz if he had to. The Texas senator, for obvious reasons, is playing that up. You can watch Cruz’s attack ad on Trump - which is mostly just Carter talking - on the senator’s campaign website.
Allies of Cruz have released an ad about taking back “our counrty” – or, at least, so spelt the super PAC Courageous Conservatives. They quickly deleted the ad (via Gawker).
And Marco Rubio is running hard with the unfortunate portmanteau “Marcomentum”, tweeting out an ad about how cable TV pundits – who he’s derided in the past – think he’s the scariest opponent Democrats could face.
My opponents know it. The mainstream media knows it.
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 4, 2016
I'm the conservative who Democrats fear most.https://t.co/hsM0V4XwNb
Is anti-Muslim discrimination a major issue of the 2016 election, as Marco Rubio suggested it was not on Wednesday? Data editor Mona Chalabi looks for answers in the numbers and the words.
Here’s what Rubio said to New Hampshire voters about Barack Obama’s speech at a mosque:
Look at today – he gave a speech at a mosque. Oh, you know, basically implying that America is discriminating against Muslims. Of course there’s going to be discrimination in America of every kind. But the bigger issue is radical Islam.
Rubio’s comments about the scale of discrimination against Muslims will also resonate well with some groups. White evangelicals and Republicans were also the Americans least likely to agree with the statement in Pew’s study that “US Muslims face ‘a lot’ of discrimination”. Overall, 35% of all US respondents agreed that anti-Muslim sentiment is not a big deal. Are they right?
In 2014, Pew asked over 3,000 US respondents to rate members of religious groups using a “feeling thermometer” that ranged from 0 to 100: zero indicated the coldest, most negative possible rating and 100 the warmest, most positive rating. Muslims scored just 40.
Pew’s study this week also found that those who were most likely to say that they don’t know a single Muslim were those that finished college, white evangelicals and Republicans (especially conservative Republicans).
As is so often the case, though the data shows correlations clearly, causation is much harder to understand. Does anti-Muslim rhetoric from Republican candidates legitimize existing views, allowing more people to express themselves honestly or does the rhetoric actually encourage more people to adopt those views?
What is less questionable is that Republican rhetoric – whether it’s Trump’s endorsement of a database on Muslims, his calls for Muslims to be banned from entering the country or Ben Carson’s belief that no Muslim should ever be a US president – directly contradicts Rubio’s suggestion that discrimination against Muslims isn’t all that bad.
Highlights from Wednesday night’s Democratic town hall in New Hampshire, where Hillary Clinton was asked questions about her Wall Street speaking fees and Bernie Sanders pressed on his plan for middle-class tax hikes.Sanders also confessed to being Larry David.
NB: I’m now handing off blog duties to my colleague Scott Bixby.
Updated
A new poll! The University of Massachusetts has good news for the Donald, and for Marco Rubio.
Rubio moves to 2nd in New Hampshire poll from U Mass
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) February 4, 2016
Trump 36
Rubio 15
Cruz 14
Kasich 7
Bush 8,
Christie 5
Fiorina 3
Carson 4,
Trump is doing his usual mugging for the camera, after telling police in Manchester, New Hampshire, that Americans will respect them more once he’s in the Oval Office.
“So what happens if I get a traffic ticket? Am I OK?” (That’s via the DC Examiner’s Gabby Morrongiello, though the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs is in the room.)
Trump gets a police badge pic.twitter.com/Zt2AKaJKfO
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 4, 2016
My colleague Ben Jacobs is in Manchester, New Hampshire, where the billionaire Donald Trump has arrived.
Per Ben: “Trump takes off his overcoat and then touches his flag pin and says ‘I have to make sure this flag is on nice and straight.’”
Donald Trump enters police department shift change pic.twitter.com/qraerWwf1V
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 4, 2016
Updated
In case you missed it, Bernie Sanders ran to the aid of a man who collapsed in Concord, New Hampshire, during a campaign event there on Wednesday. The man recovered and left the room with help, and Sanders eventually carried on taking questions
Ted Cruz is not a popular man. His college roommate said he would “rather pick somebody from the phone book” to be president. His coworkers have compared him to a child who never went to kindergarten and to death by poison. He carries himself as though he learned about being human from a book.
Even his native Canada, the land where he held dual-citizenship until recently, has declared that Texas can keep him. Omar Mouallem reports from Calgary.
“I’m a bit shocked and disappointed in the people of Iowa,” says Mary Eggermont-Molenaar – who was shocked herself to learn last year that for the past 30 years she’s lived in the Republican frontrunner’s childhood home. “It was a sombre night in Casa Cruz.”
“I’m horrified that he’s even associated with Canada,” says Dan St Pierre, a politically active conservative in the capital, Edmonton. “To be perfectly blunt I think Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are batshit crazy.”
Democratic politics is, inescapably, a bit of a popularity contest. Cruz’s strategy may be to do what George W Bush did in 2000 (with Cruz on his team): win without the popular vote, and join the elite semi-defeated club of John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes and Benjamin Harris.
As for the thoughts of Cruz’s former boss, the former president who relied on Cruz and other lawyers to fight for his presidency, well, he was typically terse. “I just don’t like the guy.”
Updated
Sanders out-fundraises Clinton
Hillary Clinton has announced a $15m fundraising total for January, and for the first time since their campaigns began the democratic socialist from Vermont has raised more money in a month than the former secretary of state.
Earlier this week the Sanders campaign declared $20m in fundraising and broke a record for individual contributions from small donors.
“We invested early in organizing and that investment has already paid off with a Hillary Clinton victory in Iowa,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement.
“Now, thanks to the support of more than 670,000 people across the country, we have the resources we need to take the fight to to New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and beyond. We are also continuing to work on the important goal of strengthening the Democratic Party to help elect Democrats up and down the ballot in November.”
Mook acknowledged Sanders’ fundraising success at a breakfast hosted by Bloomberg on Thursday, telling reporters: “I believe he will have the resources to push this campaign well into the spring and we recognize this.”
Clinton’s war-chest remains the most formidable in the race, however, and her campaign has announced a major fundraiser at Williamsburg’s Brooklyn Bowl on 17 February and more than two dozen others toward the end of the month. In total she has raised over $130m, and allied Super Pacs have raised an additional $40m. Sanders has raised $105m since the race began.
Updated
Iowa leaders: 'something smells' about caucuses
There’s something rotten in the state of Iowa, according to the Des Moines Register, the influential newspaper whose polls rightly predicted a narrow victory for Hillary Clinton and incorrectly gave Donald Trump more support than Ted Cruz.
But it’s the Democratic party that’s earned the newspaper’s wrath. In blunt editorial titled “something smells editorial in the Democratic party”, the newspaper’s editorial board bashes Democrats for refusing to release the raw vote data from its caucuses.
“The refusal to undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy,” the board wrote.
First of all, the results were too close not to do a complete audit of results. Two-tenths of 1% separated Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. A caucus should not be confused with an election, but it’s worth noting that much larger margins trigger automatic recounts in other states.
The board also hits the party for what they’ve heard about the caucuses: inconsistent vote counts, “untrained and overwhelmed volunteers, confused voters, cramped precinct locations” and a lack of registration forms. The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs had an inkling of Democratic chaos back in November.
Sanders has called for the Democratic party to release the raw vote counts, and to double-check counts in every precinct. The Register agrees, urging the party and Clinton’s campaign to “work with all the campaigns to audit results.”
Break silly party tradition and release the raw vote totals. Provide a list of each precinct coin flip and its outcome, as well as other information sought by the Register. Be transparent.
Republicans are angry about Iowa, too. Governor Terry Branstad refused to endorse anyone but eagerly gave Ted Cruz the best anti-endorsement he could manage. On Thursday he went on Iowa Radio to denounce Cruz’s campaign tactics as “unethical and unfair”.
“I think there’ll be repercussions to that,” he said. “Distributing information that was not true about a candidate right at the time people are voting in the Caucuses is an inappropriate thing.”
Cruz’s campaign has apologized for wrongly telling voters that Ben Carson, another evangelical candidate, had quit the campaign just ahead of the caucuses. But it hasn’t apologized for sending “voter violation” flyers to Iowans as a means of shaming people to the polls – even though they seemingly created false voter histories on the mailers.
Updated
A ghost of Republican moderate candidates past emerges to put in a good word for a fellow former executive.
Hey @ABC: put @CarlyFiorina on the debate stage! She got more Iowa votes than John and Chris. Don't exclude only woman.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 4, 2016
Fiorina has been excluded from the ABC debate scheduled for Saturday because she did not finish in the top three in Iowa, is not in the top six in an average of New Hampshire polls, and is not polling in the top six in an average of national polls.
Fiorina finished sixth in Iowa, beating John Kasich only by 11 votes.
The former Hewlett Packard boss wrote a letter to the Republican National Committee on Wednesday pleading with the party, which is co-sponsoring the debate, to give her a shot.
“Networks are making up these debate rules as they go along – not to be able to fit candidates on the stage – but arbitrarily to decide which candidates make for the best TV in their opinion.
“Now,” she wrote, “it is time for the RNC to act in the best interest of the party that it represents.”
The Democratic debate is slowly turning personal, national reporter Lauren Gambino reports from the trail, where the negative ads are going meta in order to attack-without-attacking.
Hillary Clinton has released a new ad in New Hampshire, accusing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders of misleading voters. Clinton is trailing Sanders in the state by a wide margin, with the primary less than a week away.
Clinton’s campaign has indicated (and reassured top donors) that the team expects to do well in the upcoming primary in South Carolina and the caucuses in Nevada, where they are counting on support from minority voters in the states.
Clinton was largely expected to simply go through the motions in New Hampshire, take her loss and move on to more friendly states but after narrowly squeaking out a victory in Iowa her team is working hard to close the gap and exceed expectations here.
Here’s the Clinton ad:
And the Sanders ad in question:
Elsewhere in New Hampshire, Marco Rubio is criticizing a particular governor who says he has no real experience. “No one running has more experience or better judgment on foreign policy than I do,” he says.
"Being a governor is nothing like being a president," Rubio tells an undecided voter here in Manchester.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 4, 2016
And Jeb Bush campaigns in his quiet way, one hug at a time.
This is hilarious and yet so very painful h/t @Mike_hugs pic.twitter.com/7cvfWJzPD3
— Roqayah Chamseddine (@roqchams) February 4, 2016
A woman with a thick New England accent asks what is Trump going to do about her husband’s sickness, and describes a city health crisis – it’s hard to hear where exactly.
“I’ll take a look at that,” Trump sys. “I’ve heard it from other people.:
He asks for another question. “Give me a good one,” he says in a gleeful snarl.
This guy looks great, he looks like a great guy. It’s like Elton John, you always want to finish with a strong song. If it’s a lousy question I’ll take another one.
The question is about “sanctuary” cities that deliberately do not prosecute illegal immigration and are relatively safe havens for undocumented people.
“Sanctuaries cities are over,” Trump cuts him off. “If I get in, you don’t have to worry about defunding.”
Somehow he segues into talk about Barack Obama’s speech at a mosque on Wednesday, his first in the US since he became president.
Our president goes and speaks in a mosque. I think it’s wonderful, but there’s a problem here. There’s a deep seated hatred.
He doesn’t much explain that hatred, but harks back to his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the US, invoking the December terrorist attack in San Bernardino by an American man and his Pakistani wife. “We can’t allow these people to come here because we don’t know who the hell they are. We have no idea who they are.”
Finally Trump closes with the heart of his stump speech: I can make a deal. “We’re gonna do smart deals. We’re gonna do great deals. And we’re gonna make America great again.”
“We need unpredictability in our government,” Trump says, “in terms of outside agents.” He’s answering a question about US military response to jihadi terror groups in the Middle East.
“We have a problem, and it’s a tremendous problem. Obama gets up and says we are going to send 50 young men to Iraq or Syria,” Trump says. Now their lives are in danger.
Trump says his plans are so good that he doesn’t want to tell us about them.
Why do we have to announce it? I have plans that are so good but you know what the day I announce it, they’re gonna prepare for it, it’s worthless.
He asks the audience to imagine whether generals Douglas MacArthur or George Patton would tell their enemies – with whom the US was at congressionally declared wars, unlike current conflicts – their plans. The crowd laughs.
Trump starts raging about fraud at the Department of Veterans Affairs and in politics in general.
“No politician’s gonna solve it. These people, I’d like to use really foul language,” he says.
“I was going to say ‘they’re full of shit,’ but I won’t say it. It’s true. But I won’t say it,” he says, after having said what he said he wouldn’t say. “They are. But I won’t say it because it’s too controversial.”
To his point: “We are the stupidly run country. We have leaders that are incompetent.”
But although he insists he’ll be tough on politicians and a true fiscal conservative, he says America needs to lead “with a big, beautiful heart. You know it’s not running a business entirely. … But we have to stop with the political correctness.”
On that note, he lists the many things under siege by political correctness: “Christianity is under siege. The second amendment is under siege. So many things are under siege.”
He bemoans the lack of “Merry Christmas” signs on front lawns and stores. “We’re gonna have Merry Christmas in our stores again.”
Trump takes questions from the crowd, the first from a woman from California. “What are you a liberal Democrat?” Trump asks.
Her question is inaudbile over the live stream, but about immigration. Someone else says that undocumented people are “the backbone” of the US economy.
Trump: “I don’t think so, darling. I don’t think so.”
You know what the backbone of our country? People who came here, and they came here legally, and they worked their ass off, and that’s what made the country great.”
Trump rallies in Exeter
Donald Trump is in Exeter, New Hampshire, giving a speech to a packed house in the city’s town hall. Fox News couldn’t get into the Republican candidate’s event, at least at first, which is apt enough for the state of this
Trump is talking about a hotel. About a beautiful building that he doesn’t even know how they built it, “how they could’ve lifted these stone” is a mystery, “they’d used hoists and they used genius”. He might be talking about the pyramids but he’s not, it’s a hotel he somehow got over Hyatt and the Waldof-Astoria. He rambles.
Then he gets to his stump speech, saying the US is getting beat up all over the place. “We’re being beaten in trade, we’re beaten horribly in military.”
But the applause doesn’t ring out till he gets to the promised wall with Mexico.
We’re gonna build a wall, believe me, we’re gonna build a wall. We’re gonna build a wall, and who’s gonna pay for the wall, folks?
“MEX-I-CO,” the crowd cheers.
Somebody shouts out of the crowd. “What!?” Trump says. Then he laughs.
“Do we want a wall between Canada? That’s a lo-o-ong way. Although I’ll tell you what, it’s a lot shorter than the Great Wall of China.
But still, he suggests the US ought to be able to make a pretty great wall. China’s was built, after all, “before we had Caterpillar tractors”.
Updated
DC bureau chief Dan Roberts sums up an intriguing wrinkle of Hillary Clinton’s campaign: her solid support from Wall Street despite her insistence that she’s has always been tough on them, and will take them on again.
Per the Post, donors from the financial industry (banks, hedge funds, etc) gave her at least $21.4m, about 14% of her campaign and allies’ piggy bank. Two men have given especially huge sums: billionaire George Soros and hedge-funder Donald Sussman.
Interesting number crunching in the Post: Clinton blasts Wall Street, but still draws millions in contributions https://t.co/6htFZbWKAh
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) February 4, 2016
You can also hear Dan talk Trump’s loss in Iowa and the election writ large on the Guardian’s weekly podcast, through the link below. Zip ahead to 16 minutes in to hear his take on the election.
Updated
We’ll have more from a Donald Trump rally at the town hall of Exeter, New Hampshire shortly – where even the bigwigs of Fox News can’t get in.
Mad scene in Exeter, NH for Trump. Fire marshal just turned a perplexed Chris Wallace & @FoxNews away pic.twitter.com/ew3vjN2977
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) February 4, 2016
Here’s the last we heard from the New Hampshire frontrunner and Iowa loser himself. “Very nice!”
Taking a helicopter to New Hampshire, boarding now. Amazing activity planned. New UMASS poll, very nice! pic.twitter.com/xFvGE0dRlA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2016
Bernie Sanders has yet to win a primary election but his war with Wall Street is picking up. His campaign just released a statement responding to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, who said yesterday that 2016 represents a “dangerous moment” in history.
Sanders doesn’t care much for his tone: “His arrogance has no end.”
I have to say, I find it a little beyond comprehension that Lloyd Blankfein would lecture our campaign about “dangerous moments” after Wall Street received huge bailouts from the working families of this country, when their greed and recklessness caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, livelihoods, and homes just a few years ago. His arrogance has no end.
A more complete version of Blankfein’s comments, made to CNBC late Wednesday:
It has the potential to personalize it, it has the potential to be a dangerous moment. Not just for Wall Street not just for the people who are particularly targeted but for anybody who is a little bit out of line …
It’s a liability to say I’m going to compromise I’m going to get one millimeter off the extreme position I have and if you do you have to back track and swear to people that you’ll never compromise. It’s just incredible. It’s a moment in history.”
Sanders has made political hay out of his rival’s history with Wall Street, in particular her speaking fees from banks such as Goldman, received after she left the Obama administration in 2012. In the town hall Wednesday night Clinton struggled to defend the payments, saying she didn’t know why she took $675,000 from the massive bank.
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s what they offered.”
More from round the trail, with a Trump rally forthcoming in Exeter, New Hampshire.
Yes, that is @JebBush in firefighter gear. pic.twitter.com/KGPF5aAPOD
— Ed O'Keefe (@edatpost) February 4, 2016
Announcement before Trump event: "If a protester starts demonstrating, please do not harm the protester...Start chanting Trump Trump Trump"
— Matt Viser (@mviser) February 4, 2016
In Portsmouth, Ted Cruz gets applause for saying “the US should abolish the federal Department of Education”.
“Education is too important to have it decided by unelected bureaucrats in Washington, it needs to be at the state level or even better the local level. And it ought to be parents with direct influence over what’s being taught to your kids.”
Cruz himself did rely on a private education. He went to a private school in Houston that sits on the campus of a megachurch, and then to the decidedly private Princeton University and Harvard Law School.
Earlier Thursdy he went after his biggest rival in the polls, Trump, and said that as president the Donald would nuke Denmark if he felt like it.
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Out on the road with Republicans … Ted Cruz irritates New Hampshirites. He showed up about 45 minutes late to an event at a Portsmouth Toyota Dealership, by which point voters started to leave. The Post’s Katie Zezima reads the crowd.
Cruz takes the stage about 45 mins passed scheduled start time. "Everyone's pissed," attendee told me. "He's not that important."
— Katie Zezima (@katiezez) February 4, 2016
He finally makes the spotlight, and the Times’ Matt Flegenheimer tweets some of the speech. Keep that Iowa energy alive, Rafael.
Cruz describes Obama gun efforts. "Booooo!" man shouts. "Boo indeed," Cruz says calmly.
— Matt Flegenheimer (@mattfleg) February 4, 2016
CNBC’s John Harwood tweeting with John Ellis Bush, aka Jeb!, who’s visiting a manufacturing firm in New Hampshire. Bush is bashing Marco Rubio, especially his dismal attendance and voting record at his job, the US Senate.
Bush says “non-work needs to be challenged” and frames Rubio as a coward. “We need a leader who will run to the fire, not back away and blame somebody else.”
Marco Rubio: "a great speaker. Been in politics all his life - I think he was first elected when he was 26"
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) February 4, 2016
“They are a bunch of dishonest cookies, I wanna tell you. That’s one of the reasons I’m doing this.”
Donald Trump in action, on the tactics of the man who beat him in Iowa – Ted Cruz. “I said, ‘man, that’s like a fraud…’”
Endorsements and not-quite endorsements are flying in fast this Thursday morning, with former president (and Democrat) Jimmy Carter saying he would pick Donald Trump over Ted Cruz, if it came down to it.
“I think I would choose Trump, which may surprise some of you,” Carter told Britain’s House of Lords on Wednesday afternoon. “Trump has proven already he’s completely malleable,” he said, per Politico. “I don’t think he has any fixed [positions] he’d go the White House and fight for. On the other hand, Ted Cruz is not malleable. He has far-right wing policies he’d pursue if he became president.”
Marco Rubio, meanwhile, has raked in another actual endorsement. The senator has more than anyone else in the Republican field, and on Thursday Arizona representative Matt Salmon added his weight to Rubio’s campaign. Salmon is a stalwart conservative, and one of the few bridges between the old guard (he was in the House in the 90s) and the Tea Party (he returned in 2013).
And according to CNN, former NAACP head Ben Jealous will endorse Bernie Sanders, who has struggled to persuade African Americans to join his “revolution” over Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Sanders counts at least two other prominent black leaders in his camp already: professor Cornel West and representative Keith Ellison.
Iowa has special place in American politics, but Iowans don’t always pick a winner. (Donald Trump is probably repeating that to himself, over and over, with “tremendous” and “horrible” sprinkled in.)
In the last two elections the state chose never presidents Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, on the Republican side. Iowa did better with Democrats, correctly predicting Gore, Kerry and Obama.
So how about this next state, New Hampshire?
Since 2000 the state has gone two for three in picking winners. In 2008 the state was Hillary Clinton’s big comeback, and her victory there sent the race spiraling into a close, sometimes acrimonious contest with the eventual winner, Barack Obama.
The Republicans have no better track record there, though the state does love John McCain. New Hampshire voters chose Mitt Romney in 2012 and McCain in 2008; both eventually won the nomination.
The state also delivered McCain his own comeback victory in 2000, when the Arizona senator was an underdog to George W Bush. McCain eventually lost that election, but not before David Foster Wallace chronicled life on the road with the campaign.
Wallace’s Rolling Stone essay had a lot to say about the appeal of a “straight-talking” candidate who wants to take the fight to Washington, and Americans’ growing impatience with and anger about politics as usual – all of which might seem a little familiar if you’ve read a headline in the last eight months.
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Back on the trail, the evangelical retired neurosurgeon who believes the Egyptian pyramids were used for grain may need to pray to keep his campaign alive.
Republican Ben Carson will lay off dozens of staff workers on Thursday and give up his use of private jets, the Washington Post reports. The Carson campaign has been spending wildly in the last four months or so, even as his poll numbers have collapsed since a brief stay near the top last summer. He won three delegates in Iowa; 9.31% of the vote gave him fourth place.
In his fourth quarter FEC filing, Carson revealed that he spent $119.96 on a debate party, $1,386.47 at the burger chain Fuddruckers, almost $3m on postage and more than $31,000 on wrist bands. In all he spent $27.3m – even though he raised only $22.6m that quarter.
He spent the bulk of it on marketing for his own campaign. Carson has raised about $64m since his campaign began, and spent about 74% in all. Right after Iowa he flew back to Florida for a “fresh set of clothes”, and he was just at the National Prayer Breakfast in DC, where he once made his name by comparing the president’s healthcare reforms to slavery.
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Obama’s still talking about fear – an speech-sized subtweet, as it were, to the Republican party. He says faith gives you the strength to: “stand up for what’s right even when it’s not popular. To stand up not just to our enemies but sometimes to stand up to our friends.”
The courage to admit our failings and our sins, while pledging to learn from our mistakes and try to do better. Certainly during the course of this enormous privilege to have served as the president of the United States.
He segues into some more mundane fears, familiar to plenty of Americans.
The main one I’m feeling right now is that our children grow up too fast. They’re leaving. That’s a tough deal. And so as a parent you’re worrying about will some harm befall them … Did you miss some central moment in their lives? Will they call? Or text? Each day we become fearful that God’s purpose becomes elusive, or cloudy … These are universal fears that we have. And my faith helps me to manage those. …
The God I see in you makes me, inevitably, feel good about our future.
He concludes by saying “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love …
Not just during this wonderful gathering and fellowship, not just in the public piety that we profess, but in those smaller moments, when it’s difficult. When we’re challenged, when we’re angry. When we’re confronted with someone who doesn’t agree with us. When no one is watching.
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Obama says “we live in extraordinary times”.
Obama is talking about fear, appropriately. “The gap between want and plenty gives us vertigo. … Fear can do funny things. Fear can lead us to lash out at those who are different.”
It is a primal emotion, fear, one that we all experience, and it can be contagious, spreading through societies, through nations. And if we let it consume us, the consequences of that fear can be worse than any outward threat.
Faith is the great cure for fear. Jesus is a good cure for fear. God gives believers the power, and the love, and the sound mind required to conquer any fear. And what more important for that faith than right now? What better time than these changing, tumultuous times than to have Jesus standing beside us?
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In a surreal juxtaposition of American politics, Trump’s former boss/partner, the producer of The Apprentice, speaks at the White House national prayer breakfast.
Mark Burnett and his wife Roma Downey, the evangelical multi-millionaires behind Survivor, Shark Tank and and a mini-series of some of the Bible, are cracking jokes about how successful their career has been.
Downey says she loved going up against The Walking Dead and getting more ratings. “God beats zombies,” she recalls fondly. She says she “sent an email” to request that “prayers help clear the way” for their shooting of a crucifixion scene.
Burnett says he loves how young, religious Americans are out on Twitter, with earrings and tattoos and skateboards, and that they’re very cool.
Burnett-Downey didn’t say who they’d endorse.
"We have become Hollywood's noisiest Christians" Burnett/Downey #nationalprayerbreakfast remarks lasted 28 minutes pic.twitter.com/n9FkEC0FXx
— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) February 4, 2016
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Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who’s just accused Marco Rubio of being “the boy in a bubble”, has refused to release emails and documents from the “Bridgegate” scandal, my colleague Jon Swaine.
The case is going to court on the even of the New Hampshire primary, where Christie has staked the hopes of his presidential campaign.
Attorneys for a former Christie appointee who is battling criminal charges over the incident said in a court filing on Wednesday that they had “newly discovered” that the governor’s office had withheld “critical documents” originating from the days around the lane closures in September 2013 that gridlocked the town of Fort Lee.
Claims made by Christie’s lawyers for why these documents should be kept secret do not “pass the red face test”, according to the filing.
Christie has been allowed to hand over emails only from his personal account, the filing said, despite it being “near impossible to conclude that there are no emails from the governor’s work email address related to the lane closures”.
A spokesman for Christie did not respond to a request for comment. Two of his former staffers face charges of conspiracy, fraud and civil rights crimes for their alleged roles in shutting down lanes of the George Washington Bridge.
You can read Jon’s full report through the link below.
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the 2016 elections, with one state’s decision in the bank – for Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Hillary Clinton (but sort of Bernie Sanders, too) – and less than a week before New Hampshire could upend the race. There’s another Democratic debate tonight, too.
Donald Trump, now a famous loser despite his gilded reputation, is already trying to flip the race back in his favor. The billionaire threw a temper tantrum on Wednesday in which he accused Cruz, who beat him in Iowa, of stealing the election by fraud.
Cruz, meanwhile, is trying to make friends – any friends – in New Hampshire, where Marco Rubio is making inroads with voters. And although two Republican candidates dropped out of the race on Wednesday, the remaining field – Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Carly Fiorina and even Jim Gilmore – have turned their fire on Rubio, presumably before he nudges them out entirely.
One candidate who quit this week, Rick Santorum, endorsed Rubio. But on Thursday Santorum couldn’t really say what Rubio had achieved … ever. After question after question on MSNBC’s Morning Joe – for example: “Jeb Bush ran Florida, Donald Trump built a company. Marco Rubio – finish the sentence” – eventually, the former Pennsylvania senator gave up. Rand Paul, who also dropped out of the race, did not endorse a candidate but said he would endorse his party’s eventual nominee.
“The bottom line is there isn’t a lot of accomplishments,” he said. “I mean, you tell me what happened during that four years that was accomplishment for anybody?”
Christie didn’t disagree. The New Jersey governor told MSNBC on Thursday morning that Rubio was “the boy in a bubble” who needed to stop following the crowd.
Tempers flared on the Democratic side too, at least among supporters for Clinton and Sanders. In a town hall in New Hampshire, Sanders accused Clinton of being a fairweather progressive, only committed to reform “some days”.
“Except when she announces that she is a proud moderate, and then I guess she is not a progressive,” he said.
Clinton defended her record – and also the speaking fees paid her by Wall Street bank, a link Sanders has repeatedly criticized. Sanders leads in New Hampshire by as much as 30 points, according to the latest poll, but faces a tough road in the primaries coming up after that. He’s got to face Clinton’s popularity in the south, her enormous fundraising powers and her foreign policy acumen, which was on full display on Wednesday night.
It’s as open a race as ever. Trump wants revenge, Cruz wants the religious to come out and vote and Rubio wants to let them beat each other out of the race. Clinton wants to shake off the ghosts of her past and Sanders wants a revolution. As usual we’ve got a team out in the field to see how all that works out for them …
- Ben Jacobs will be watching Donald Trump at a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, tonight.
- Sabrina Siddiqui will be on the trail with Marco Rubio in the Granite State.
- Adam Gabbatt will be checking in with Jim Gilmore.
- Tonight Dan Roberts will be in Goffstown, New Hampshire, for the Democratic debate.
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