GOP race heads to Nevada
That’s all for the liveblog today. Here are some highlights from the campaign trail on Sunday:
- Marco Rubio talked about slavery at a rally in Franklin, Tennessee.
- Donald Trump said reporters are “terrible, terrible human beings” in Georgia, prompting his supporters to scream “you’re a bitch!” at the media pen.
- The Guardian interviewed Hillary Clinton’s most loyal supporter under the age of five.
- Ben Carson is still running and told a gay voter in Reno that LGBT people do not make him “uncomfortable”.
- Ted Cruz discussed insects while campaigning in the Nevada desert.
Back in Reno, Nevada, Ben Carson supporters explained why they are still backing the retired surgeon and whether they think he will stay in the race – and win the GOP nomination.
Jeff Baclet, 46, owner of a computer store
“He’s a break from the system, and his foundation is based in the Bible, which has a lot of wisdom ... There’s also a real peaceful demeanor about him, and even though the media says he can’t be tough, in some of the toughest questions, he’s been able to give the toughest answers that are not politically correct ... I don’t think he’s going to drop out.”
Eunice Detton, 77, retired
“I like his values, and I’d like to see somebody who is honest and practices what he believes ... I’m not worried about him dropping out. It’s too early to tell.”
Mary Davis, 61, truck driver
“I think he’s the most honest candidate we have running and he loves Jesus. That’s always a plus in my book ... I was really impressed with him today. I’ve been sending pictures of him to my kids. They’re all Democrats, but I’m like ‘y’all are crazy. He’s awesome’ ... I hope he stays in the race. As long as we want him there, I don’t think he’ll drop out.”
Danette Gentry, 58, educator
“His policy on education is what appeals to me ... He has supported students in inner city schools ... and one of his goals is to make academics as appealing as sports ... He’ll stay in the race. He’s resolute.”
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Ted Cruz in Pahrump, Nevada
The Guardian’s Maria L La Ganga is in Pahrump, Nevada where Ted Cruz just campaigned:
Who’d have thought that Ted Cruz, the irascible senator from Texas who wants to be the leader of the free world, could do a respectable turn as a biology teacher?
Okay, a very Republican biology teacher.
Standing in the bed of a shiny black Ford F-150 pickup truck in a motel parking lot in the Nevada desert, Cruz rallied a couple of hundred supporters Sunday with his fiery, us-against-them world view.
“If you see a candidate Washington embraces,” he said, “run and hide!” And “on my very first day in office, I intend to to tell the department of justice to open an investigation into Planned Parenthood and prosecute any and all violations.”
And: “We need to defend the right to privacy. Please leave your cell phones on. I want Barack Obama to hear every word we’re saying.”
And then there were the invertebrates.
“I was in West Texas,” he told the cheering crowd, which was resplendent in cowboy hats and boots. “I asked ‘What’s the difference between insects and regulators? You can’t use pesticides on the regulators.’ And this old West Texas farmer leaned back and said, ‘Wanna bet?’”
Cruz even mixed a little etymology in with his entomology here in Pahrump, two days before the critical Republican caucus. With a population of around 37,000, this dusty town on state route 160 is what passes for urban in rural Nye County, about an hour west of Las Vegas.
“You can learn a lot about a word if you look at its history,” Professor Cruz told his alfresco class. “Poly means many. And tics means blood-sucking parasites.”
He added, “That’s a fairly accurate description of Washington, DC.”
We’re just two days from the caucuses & Nevadans are rising up to say we want America back! https://t.co/DhbE3cuI3P pic.twitter.com/vB3rbzED3m
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) February 21, 2016
Ben Carson just told a gay voter that he is not “uncomfortable” with gay people.
A voter told the candidate that he is religious person and also a “gay American”. The voter asked: “Why are you uncomfortable with me?”
Carson responded: “I’m not uncomfortable.”
The voter said he had read about Carson’s record on LGBT rights on the Human Rights Campaign’s website and that it seemed his views were anti-gay.
Carson said: “What I have said is our constitution protects everybody regardless of their sexual orientation. It gives everyone equal rights, but it doesn’t give anyone extra rights.”
The crowd in Reno applauded loudly.
Carson added: “I don’t have any problem at all with people are are gay and live together.”
Ben Carson told his Nevada supporters that he has no intention of dropping out anytime soon:
Right now, it is way too early in the game to give up. If you were supposed to select a nominee after just three contests, then why did w go through all of this? ... If you call the game after the first inning, you’re going to be wrong most of the time.
Now that there’s only five candidates on the Republican side, I’m hopeful that now we can actually talk about the real solutions ... and not just make it into a personality contest, and if that’s the case, I think we’ll start making some real progress.
During a question and answer session, one of his supporters in the back of the room offered his gratitude: “I want to thank you for staying the course on behalf of the United States.”
In one sign that he is moving forward with his campaign – one day after he received 7.6% of the votes in South Carolina, placing him at the bottom of the group – Carson said: “Coming out tomorrow, on bencarson.com, will be a policy paper on how to manage the federal budget ... I may be strange, but I actually think the policies and solutions are every bit as important as stomping and shouting and hollering.”
At a casino in Reno, Ben Carson delivered a confusing speech in which he joked about all that he would accomplish as president:
I would have everybody hating on each other – Democrats, Republicans ... I’d have a war on women, race wars ... war on anything imaginable ... One thing I would do is create division ... I’d be giving people free telephones. You can go to college for free. I’d just have everybody just expecting all these gifts from the government. And then I would destroy the military...
That’s what I would do if I was in charge and I was trying to destroy America. Doesn’t that kind of clue you in in terms of the danger that we are in right now?”
Ben Carson stops in Reno
Ben Carson is still running for president. Here’s proof:
He stopped in Reno, Nevada Sunday afternoon to speak to a crowd of roughly 200 people gathered in a relatively small conference room on the second floor of a casino resort.
The retired surgeon began his speech with remarks that briefly seemed to allude to the struggles of his campaign after securing few votes in the South Carolina primary on Saturday.
Carson said he often asks himself: “Is it really worth everything you have [to run for president], to go through people attacking you?”
“The answer is no,” he said, to laughs. After a pause, he clarified: “Not if you’re doing it for yourself. But if you’re doing it for others, the answer is a resounding yes.”
Updated
Ted Cruz is set to arrive soon in Parhump, Nevada for one of his final rallies before the Tuesday caucus. The Guardian’s Maria L La Ganga caught Idaho state representative Raul Labrador rallying the troops before the candidate’s arrival.
Updated
The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino has filed this dispatch from North Charleston, South Carolina where she met Tiny Hillary:
Tiny Hillary, whose real name is Sullivan, might be the former secretary of state’s most enthusiastic supporter under five.
The four-year-old loves Hillary Clinton so much that she dressed as her for Halloween, wearing a tiny navy pantsuit with an American flag pin on the lapel and a string of pearls. She has seen Clinton speak on three occasions. When I ask if she’s met Hillary Clinton, Sullivan smiles sheepishly and nods. She holds up two fingers. “Twice,” she says with pride. Above her bed, she tells me, is a poster of the famous photo of Clinton wearing sunglasses on her blackberry.
Sullivan’s mother, Jennifer Jones Wood, says Sullivan’s obsession with Clinton probably started with her teenage sister, whose a big supporter as well. But she believes her daughter is actually taking some of what the candidate is talking about.
“She understands that Hillary is fighting for girls,” Jones Wood says. “She wants girls to make the same amount of money for the same jobs.”
She says her daughter begs her to take her to Clinton events whenever the former First Lady is in town. “We go to these things and we think that she’s not paying attention but she’s hearing everything and then on the way home we talk about.”
As proof, Jones Wood says she took Sullivan to a Donald Trump event. What did Sullivan think of The Donald?
“He’s mean and he’s orange,” she recalls.
She’s also met Bill Clinton, Bernie Sanders and even Martin O’Malley. But there’s no question who Sullivan would vote for if she only had 14 more years to her name.
“Hillary!!” Sullivan exclaims as she pops an “H” stickers onto her shirt.
Who says Clinton has a problem with the youth vote?
Updated
This is how Trump supporters in Georgia responded to the candidate’s mockery of the press, after he described the reporters as “terrible, terrible, terrible human beings”:
Trump trashes press. Crowd jeers. Guy by press 'pen' looks at us & screams "you're a bitch!" Other gentleman gives cameras the double bird.
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) February 21, 2016
Donald Trump in Georgia is offering his analysis on the state of the Democratic race: “I think it’s going to be Hillary.”
He said Bernie Sanders never should have given Clinton a break about her email controversy: “That was the end of his campaign right there. He gave it away.”
Trump said that Sanders’ rallies are the second-most energetic events in the race, behind his. “Bernie is second. But oh he’s fading. I have a feeling Bernie is going to start to fade. He had to win yesterday.”
Referring to US secretary of state John Kerry, Trump added: “He may be running. I’d love to run against him.”
A protester has interrupted Donald Trump’s rally in Georgia.
“You can get him out of here. Get him out, get him out!” Trump shouted to large cheers. “We’ve been doing this now for awhile. Thank you very much. Enjoy your stay. Look at those cameras, they turn like pretzels, they want to see it!”
The first protester emerges at Trump's rally, and he is quickly engulfed by crowdmembers chanting "Trump." "Enjoy your stay," he says.
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) February 21, 2016
Protester @realDonaldTrump event. Escorted out, Trump tells cameras to show the audience not the protester #gapol
— Lori Geary (@LoriGearyWSB) February 21, 2016
As the protester was escorted out, the crowd chanted “USA! USA! USA!”
Bernie Sanders has again far outpaced the other presidential candidates in small-donor fundraising for January, according to new numbers:
.@BernieSanders in January absolutely crushed every other presidential candidate (again) in small donor fundraising. pic.twitter.com/4mLtAOpCcM
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) February 21, 2016
Small $ leaders for the campaign:
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) February 21, 2016
1) @BernieSanders
2) @RealBenCarson
3) @tedcruz
4) @HillaryClinton
5) @marcorubio pic.twitter.com/DW4wU8xT9C
The Sanders campaign announced on Saturday, the day of the Nevada caucus, that it has to date received more than 4m contributions. Hillary Clinton now has more than 750,000 individual contributors, her campaign said this weekend. Donors who gave $200 or less contributed $4.2 million in January.
After the lights briefly went off at Trump’s rally, he started a bizarre chant saying he preferred the lights off: “Turn off the lights! Turn off the lights! Turn off the lights! ... Get those lights off!”
Trump, after getting the lights off at his rally, says: “That’s the way we have to negotiate for the country.” Make America Go Dark Again.
— Matt Viser (@mviser) February 21, 2016
Trump also went on a negative rant about the media, earning loud boos from the crowd. “I love tweeting. It’s like owning the New York Times without the losses,” Trump said. He also criticized the Wall Street Journal over a recent poll:
The failing @WSJ Wall Street Journal should fire both its pollster and its Editorial Board. Seldom has a paper been so wrong.Totally biased!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 21, 2016
“I guess that’s why papers don’t do too well nowadays,” he continued in his speech.
Trump further complained about the fact that the media never shows footage of his large crowds: “I do hope we have a few protesters so the cameras will turn.”
Directing his attention at the media, he added: “They are the world’s most dishonest people. They are terrible, terrible human beings. They are. They are terrible, terrible, terrible human beings. Some are smiling. Others are repulsed by that fact. You are terrible.”
Updated
We won with everything – tall people, short people, fat people, skinny people. It was a great day.
-Donald Trump is telling an energetic crowd in Georgia that he won every possible demographic in the South Carolina primary.
He continued: “We won with women - I love the women. We won with men, meh! I’d rather win with women, to be honest. We won with evangelicals. We won with the military ... We love our vets. We have illegal immigrants and they’re treated much better than our vets in some cases.”
Trump takes the stage here in Atlanta. Crowd shot: pic.twitter.com/UE1yoVZg4K
— Jose A. DelReal (@jdelreal) February 21, 2016
Donald Trump rallies in Georgia
A very confident Donald Trump, on the heels of a big win in the South Carolina primary, has taken the stage in Atlanta, Georgia. He keeps repeating the word “winning”:
They’re saying they’ve never seen anything like this before. We’re going to win. We’re going to win. We’re going to win ... You’re going to get so tired of winning. You’re going to say, ‘please please Mr. President, we can’t stand it anymore!’ ... I don’t care, I’m going to keep winning ... The victory last night was very, very decisive.
The morning after SC - waiting for Trump in Atlanta pic.twitter.com/hkEKuQxGW9
— John Santucci (@JTSantucci) February 21, 2016
Sign at Trump world here in Atlanta, first post-SC rally. pic.twitter.com/vrPo0Aafhx
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) February 21, 2016
A HUGE room for today's Trump rally in Atlanta pic.twitter.com/yujtbuBmIE
— Jill Colvin (@colvinj) February 21, 2016
How did the Bush political dynasty come to an end? The Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui and Adam Gabbatt, reporting from South Carolina, have published a deep dive into the “horror show campaign” of Jeb Bush and how the candidacies of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio led to his downfall:
Bush suspended his presidential campaign in the state he had hoped would resurrect his fortunes. On Saturday, voters in South Carolina instead overwhelmingly chose Donald Trump, the businessman who a week before had blamed George W Bush for the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and accused the former president of lying about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
There, in microcosm, lay the problem that plagued Bush from the off: a surname that earned a record $100m war chest before he had even declared his candidacy, and yet became one of his many disqualifications in the eyes of a primary electorate shaped less by conventional wisdom than anti-establishment fervor.
Read the whole analysis here:
John Kasich, the only governor left in the presidential race, spent part of his Sunday signing legislation that diverts funding away from Planned Parenthood in Ohio.
The bill targets roughly $1.3m in health department funds that Planned Parenthood uses for HIV testing initiatives, breast and cervical cancer screenings and violence against women prevention efforts, according to the AP.
The legislation blocks funds from going to entities that “perform or promote” abortions. Kasich has sometimes earned the “moderate” label in the context of the presidential race, but Democrats in Ohio say he is much more of a staunch conservative. He has repeatedly championed abortion restrictions in his state.
Marco Rubio in Tennessee
Marco Rubio just took the stage in Franklin, Tennessee.
30 minutes before Rubio rally in Tennessee and already our biggest crowd of the campaign! #Marcomentum pic.twitter.com/hJDfIECldM
— Alex Conant (@AlexConant) February 21, 2016
His speech was focused on his faith and family, with the senator presenting himself as the best candidate to unite the Republican party and beat the Democrats.
“If we stay on the road we are on right now ... the American dream will die,” he said. “We will still be a rich country ... but we will lose the American dream ... America is still a great people, we just have a bad president.” He continued:
If you vote for me, I will unite this party. If you vote for me, I will grow this party ... the Democrats do not want to run against me, but I cannot wait to run against them ... If you elect me, I will be a president for all Americans – even the Americans that don’t agree with me ... even the Americans that say nasty things about me on Twitter. I will cut their taxes, too.
Rubio in Tenn.: "America is the descendants of slaves who overcame that horrifying institution to claim their stake to the American dream."
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) February 21, 2016
Marco!! Rubio!! #TeamMarco pic.twitter.com/NdvU4IzuNr
— Jennie (@frjennie7) February 21, 2016
Updated
Glenn Beck is fasting for Ted Cruz. The conservative talk show host, who is rallying with Cruz in Henderson, Nevada Sunday night, has posted on his Facebook page:
I would like to ask you to join me and my family Monday in a fast for Ted Cruz, our country and the Nevada caucus.
Beck later expressed outrage that the internet was apparently mocking him for his Cruz fast. He wrote: “Since when has a fast and prayer been crazy? ... Have we really become a nation that mocks those who pray and fast? The sad answer is yes.”
In a second post, he added: “I am not running from this. I own my comments and actions and encourage others to do the same. Prayer, fasting and asking for a humbling of ourselves and nation. I pray and fast not for Ted Cruz to win, but for His will to be done and that our will and wants will align with His.”
Beck’s fast comes days after he made comments suggesting that God took Justice Antonin Scalia’s life in order to encourage voters to support Cruz.
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Ending months of speculation with an announcement that is sure to be a significant game changer in the GOP race, actor and New Kids on the Block singer Donnie Wahlberg has endorsed Marco Rubio and will be joining the candidate at his rally in Las Vegas Sunday night.
The Blue Bloods star and brother of actor Mark Wahlberg had previously supported Carly Fiorina. Donnie said in a statement Sunday morning:
Even though we do not see eye to eye on every issue, I know that Marco is a man of principle who can be trusted to keep us safe and give each and every one of us a shot at the American Dream.
Here are some other celebrities who have expressed support for GOP candidates this season:
- Kid Rock recently said he’s “very interested” in Ben Carson.
- Dennis Rodman called Donald Trump a “great friend” and the businessman America needs in the White House.
- Tim Allen likes John Kasich.
- Reality star Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame is supporting Ted Cruz.
Updated
Nevada senator endorses Rubio
Nevada Republican senator Dean Heller, a former supporter of Jeb Bush, has endorsed Marco Rubio days before the GOP caucus.
Heller, who had endorsed Bush last summer, said in a statement Sunday, less than a day after Bush announced his campaign suspension in South Carolina, that he has “become convinced” Rubio is the best choice for the White House:
Marco Rubio is the next generation of conservative leadership in this country. I’ve become convinced that he’s the candidate capable of uniting conservatives, growing our party, and beating the Democrats in November. He understands what it takes to get our economy back on track and he understands how to keep us safe. And Marco understands Nevada, he grew up here. I am proud to offer my full support and look forward to campaigning with him in Nevada today.
It remains to be seen which GOP candidate stands to benefit the most from Bush’s departure, though Ohio governor John Kasich claimed today that he now has “some Bush people that have come our way”.
Updated
Ben Carson is out of the news, but still in the race. As the leading GOP candidates made the rounds on the Sunday morning talk shows, the retired surgeon remained missing in action.
Although he finished behind Jeb Bush in South Carolina, Carson’s campaign says he’s still running and “would beat Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head race”. On Sunday, he will be hosting a “We the People Town Hall” in Reno, Nevada ahead of the Tuesday GOP caucus.
Here are the other Nevada campaign stops planned for the day:
- Ted Cruz has a rally with Nevada attorney general Adam Laxalt in Pahrump, near Las Vegas, at 2pm.
- Marco Rubio has an evening rally at a ballroom in north Las Vegas at 7.30pm. Rubio first will stop in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Summary
The candidates have run their Sunday morning marathon through the talk shows. Here’s what’s new.
- Donald Trump questions everything. Fresh off his sweeping victory in South Carolina, the billionaire said he didn’t know whether he would keep winning against the “very talented people” he’s competing with. He also asked why rush the release of his “massive” tax returns, and suggested Marco Rubio could be as ineligible as Ted Cruz for the presidency, because Twitter is interesting. Asked about his support for the Iraq war, stated in 2002, he said: “that was a long time ago, and who knows what was in my head?”
- Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, who finished a close second and third in South Carolina, bickered about which one of them could scare Trump and Democrats the most. Cruz said he’s the only conservative left who could beat Trump. Rubio said he’s the only one who can unite the party. Neither actually said which state they think they can win over Trump, and instead hemmed and hawed, at sometimes excruciating length.
- But he hasn’t managed to win over 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, according to the Florida senator, who said he spoke with Romney and could confidently rebut a report of an imminent endorsement. Pressed to criticize Trump, Rubio said that the billionaire changes his mind too much to be relied on.
- Cruz responded to accusations that he’s a liar by saying he will not insult other candidates, after which he suggested Rubio is a coward for not facing up to Trump, and that the billionaire’s record on key issues resembles Hillary Clinton’s.
- Republicans are ready for a brokered convention if necessary, said National Committee chair Reince Priebus. The party panjandrum said he didn’t think it would come down to that, though, and expected even unhappy Republicans will fall in line. “Winning is the antidote to a lot of things.”
- Hillary Clinton conceded that many Americans don’t whether they can trust her, but said she can convince them that her loyalties lie with them. After praising her team for its clear, if close, victory in Nevada, she also tested a new campaign line against her rival, Bernie Sanders, implying that he’s running a “single-issue” campaign in contrast to her broader message.
- Sanders insisted that the close loss still shows his campaign’s momentum, arguing that young people, workers and Hispanic Americans could’ve lifted him to victory had turnout been higher. As for Team Clinton line that he only cares about inequality and Wall Street, Sanders said: “We are talking about dozens of issues, so I’m not quite sure what secretary Clinton is talking about.”
- Republican John Kasich appeared on television, saying he was excited about big crowds in Vermont, Massachusetts and Virginia, all three of which were won by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Ben Carson was nowhere to be found.
Updated
John Kasich is standing by for CBS. So there’s something new.
The only governor left in the race is on in the TV equivalent of “under the fold” – when some CBS stations have left Face the Nation. That’s pretty telling, although as everyone has said, Kasich pretty much abandoned South Carolina to focus on states more friendly to him, such as Michigan.
Should “moderates” stick with him, not switch to Rubio?
“I’m starting to get known in the country,” Kasich says. “We’re getting big crowds everywhere we go – Vermont, Massachusetts, Virginia.” He also says he exceeded expectations in South Carolina, particularly with late deciders.
“Everybody just hang on, things are going to settle down,” he says.
Where does he have to win to have a shot? Vermont, Massachusetts, Virginia, Mississippi… “the midwest whether it’s Illinois or Michigan.”
Kasich plans to hang on in there and get momentum, he says, because – and he cites Bernie Sanders – it’s a proportional race.
“We’re the engine that can,” he says, before adding: “We now have some Bush people that have come our way both from a political view and a fundraising view.”
He’ll also beat Hillary Clinton, he says, and he still thinks a proposed ban on Muslim immigration is not a good thing, despite exit polls in early voting states which suggest many Republican voters think it is.
And that’s that.
Updated
Speaking of Texas, here’s one of the state’s senators, Ted Cruz, who finished a close third in South Carolina yesterday.
How does it feel to be called a liar by everybody, Chuck Todd asks Cruz.
“I will not respond in kind, I do not intend to insult the other candidates,” Cruz says. It’ll only be substance and the issues. Then he criticizes Donald Trump and Marco Rubio as candidates who can’t handle criticism.
“There’s a reason that they scream liar, when you point out their own voting records, their own words, their voting records are inconsistent,” he says. He notes that Trump threatened a defamation suit over an ad that included clips of Trump himself talking.
Todd calls Cruz out on this, noting that the senator once held a 30-minute press conference to criticize Rubio and Trump. Cruz says nope, he’s as much “a happy warrior” as ever. The senator says he’s mostly just blissful about what an incredible evening he had in South Carolina, where he placed third.
The NBC host is clearly tired of candidates describing their defeats as victories, and asks how Cruz can possibly see this as good news.
“Our path to victory from the beginning was always do well in the first four states and then have a strong, strong night on Super Tuesday on March 1.”
Todd is muttering through all of this. “Yup. All right. OK. Yup. Yeah.” He’s just audible over Cruz’s spiel.
The host finally cuts in: “Are you going to beat Donald Trump in Texas on March 1?”
Cruz says he hops so. Todd escapes to commercial.
Updated
Chuck Todd shows Sanders a clip of Clinton railing against the power of Wall Street and the yawning inequality of modern America. Familiar, ain’t it, Todd says.
“We’re looking into the copyright issues here,” Sanders cracks. “Those are our words!”
He says that Clinton recognizes “The American people are extremely angry about the power of Wall Street.”
The NBC host then asks about Sanders’ strategy as the Super Tuesday primary elections (14 states on one day) approaches.
“Well, we’re studying that issue very closely, obviously, as to where we allocate our resources and my time,” Sanders says.
“I think we have a good shot in Colorado, a good shot in Minnesota, a good shot in Massachusetts, looking pretty good in Oklahoma. I think we got a shot to win there. I think we will surprise people in some other states as well.”
What about the math? Don’t you need to win large states such as Texas?
Sanders: “At the end of the day what your’e saying is true, you need delegates. As you know these are state by state proportional [delegates handed out].
“We think we have a pretty good shot in parts of Texas,” he finishes. “We are in this race to the convention, I think we’ve got some states coming down the pipe that we’re going to do very, very well on.”
Updated
Bernie Sanders hits the NBC carousel of talk show candidates. How does he feel about the loss in Nevada?
Sanders weaves a little stump speech into the answer. “Our message of a rigged economy” and a corrupt campaign finance system, he says, “those are the issues that are resonating.”
“I wish we had had a larger voter turnout,” the senator concedes. But he adds “we did phenomenally well with younger voters” and well with working class voters.
“She knew Nevada a lot better than we did. I’m proud of the campaign that we ran,” he says. “At the end of the day I think she gets 19 delegates, we get 15 delegates, we move on to the next states.”
Bernie Sanders follows the Republican cavalcade, on to CBS. Not sure where he is, statewise, but he has a nice lamp behind him.
Rebuttal of the Clinton single-issue attack line first: “This is not a message campaign,” he says, “we’re here to win.”
John Dickerson asks about his chances with African American voters in South Carolina, voters who favour Clinton heavily over him. Sanders says he is making inroads but there is a lot of work to do.
“I think as people become familiar with my ideas, we’re going to do better and better.”
…and it’s Ted Cruz now on CBS, from South Carolina. Rubio is in Tennessee, Trump in Florida.
All is well despite not winning in New Hampshire and South Carolina, after winning in Iowa. This we knew Cruz would say.
“We won young people in South Carolina,” Cruz says, trumpeting similar successes in Iowa and New Hampshire and among “Reagan Democrats” – working class voters. He trumpets past evidence that you have to win an early state to take the nomination, which he has done, and he says: “You can’t beat Donald with a candidate that has supported amnesty.” That’s Rubio, that’s immigration. Cruz is the man to beat Trump, he says.
The questioning-Cruz’s-Christianity issue comes up again. “Both Donald and Marco got very personal and very nasty … they scream ‘liar, liar, liar’, they attack your character. I’m not going to do that. I will happily praise Donald Trump and Marco Rubio.”
Butter wouldn’t melt, and etc. And Rubio and Trump are soft on immigration, he adds.
Marco Rubio is on the show now, with his name emblazoned at an empty hall somewhere in South Carolina.
Todd asks him about Trump’s many statements that would have been thought apostasy among Republicans a few years ago– eg “neutrality” in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, his criticism of the Iraq war.
Rubio says that Trump will say whatever springs to mind, and that there’s no way of knowing what he actually believes or would do. He says that with his campaign, in contrast, “you know what you’re getting, so there’s some level of accountability here.”
“That’s a big difference in this campaign between Mr Trump’s and mine.”
Todd then asks him if he actually intends to win a state, rather than finish second and third and spin those defeats as wins.
“I’m not going to reveal to you today our campaign playbook,” Rubio says, “but obviously I’m going to be in a lot of different places today.”
He doesn’t say which states he plans to invest in. “We have a national campaign, and I feel great about it especially after last night.”
Updated
Trump on Iraq: 'who knows what was in my head?'
Asked about the Iraq war, Trump lambasts George W Bush’s decision to invade, saying “we get nothing” from the trillions spent, thousands of lives lost and “carnage” wrought upon the country.
So what about his old comments back in 2002, when he told a radio host that he supported the war: “Yeah, I guess so. You know, I wish it was – I wish the first time it was done correctly.”
Trump in February 2016: “Well, what I mean by that is it almost shouldn’t have been done, and, you know, I really don’t even know what I mean, because that was a long time ago, and who knows what was in my head?”
“I think that it wasn’t done correctly. In retrospect it shouldn’t have been done at all,” he added. “It was sort of, you know, it was just done, it was just – we dropped bombs.”
Another foreign affairs question: explain what you mean by “neutral” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Trump is asked.
“I was head of the Israeli Day Parade a couple of years ago,” Trump says. To further show off his pro-Israel bona fides, he says he once did a commercial for Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
But the Palestinian conflict, “that probably is the hardest deal your’e going to make,” Trump says. “People are born with hatred, they’re taught hatred, and I gotta say it’s motsly on the one side than the other.”
“I will try the hardest I can,” he says, “to try and solve that puzzle. You’re not going to solve it if your’e on one side or the other. If I’m going to solve that problem, you’ve got to go in with a clean slate.”
Updated
…and Rubio, again. Similar tactics from me here – will he say anything new?
He still says it’s a smaller race, down to three people “practically speaking” – change from Fox, where he said it was “literally” down to three. He also praises Kasich and Carson. Subtle recalibration there.
He also wants actual policy from Trump, from here on: “On everything, on healthcare. We all agree we’re going to repeal Obamacare but how would you replace it?”
Rubio wants policy from Trump on “almost every issue facing this country that is in the purview of the federal government”, because if he doesn’t have it “the Democrats are going to eat our lunch”.
Finally, is he in danger of being everyone’s second choice? Nope. “We’re in real good shape, we’ve got to keep working hard.”
And now we’re back to Donald Trump on NBC’s Meet the Press. Host Chuck Todd asks whether Trump believes what he’s telling voters, for instance regarding healthcare.
“We’re gonna repeal and replace Obamacare, it’s a complete disaster, it’ll be gone,” Trump says. “You can call it whatever you want, people are not going to die in the middle of the street, people are not going to die on the sidewalks, if I’m president.”
He says he’s not going to call it “a mandate”, but that he prefers “common sense”. I’m really talking about people that can’t afford it. We’re not going to let people die in squalor because we are Republicans.”
Trump says that Republicans got into this mess alongside Democrats.
“That’s part of the problem with Republicans is somehow they got fed into this horrible position. They’re gonna have great plans,” he says, vaguely as usual. “They’re gonna be private, they are going to be lots of different options.”
He adds his own take on Planned Parenthood – which is, somehow, a hair more nuanced than his rivals’. Cruz and Rubio have said they will defund the program without conditions.
“Planned Parenthood does a really good job in a lot of different areas, but not in abortion,” Trump says, “but I would defund as long as they’re doing abortions.”
Updated
…and now The Donald is on The CBS. It’s all a bit like that bit in Sherlock when Moriarty turned up on every screen in Christendom and says: “Did you miss me?”
Let’s see if Trump says anything new. It’s not terribly likely, I know.
He won’t say the nomination is his. Check. “I was always against the war in Iraq.” Check. “They didn’t knock down the World Trade Center. It was other people.” Uh… check. Familiar ground if a bit odd. “Someday they should open the report and take a look.” Um…
The pope spat and whether Trump gets to question people’s faith. “I never questioned Ted’s… anything having to do with his religion.”
Also: “The pope was very nice by the way, and I appreciated it.”
Priebus: ready for brokered convention
And now it’s Reince Priebus, the cthulhulically named chairman of the Republican National Committee.
He says that Trump’s victories are a sign that voters are “sick and tired of politics in general, sick and tired of Washington DC. I think it’s just a general feeling out there that’s real, I wouldn’t deny it.”
So is he worried about schisms in the party should Trump win the nomination?
“Winning is the antidote to a lot of things,” Priebus says. “So the name of the game is winning in November. If we win in November a lot of those armchair quarterbacks will fall in line.”
Are you ready for a brokered convention, if no candidate can win enough delegates to secure the nomination – or if the party truly revolts against the voters’ choice?
“We’re going to support whomever that is” that wins the nomination, Priebus says, adding that he’s reading for “anything”, brokered convention or not. “We will be prepared if that happens but I don’t think that’s going to be the case.”
Updated
And now, Rubio. Does he have to win a state to win the nomination?
“We do and we have to win more than one,” he says. “It’s been difficult because up to now we’ve had so many people in the race.”
Rubio thinks the non-Trump 70%, previously split between Bush-Kasich-Cruz-Rubio-Carson-Fiorina-and-presumably-the-one-guy-in-Nashua-who-liked-Jim-Gilmore will start to coalesce behind him. The race is down to “literally three people”, so I guess he doesn’t think John Kasich and Ben Carson count anymore. Is he calling for them to drop out?
“I’m no one to tell anyone to drop out,” says Rubio, refusing to say if their exits would be better for the party.
His first line against Cruz is that the Texas senator is weak on national security. He also says “he’s literally every day making up things”. Then back to national security weakness, which Rubio says cost Cruz in South Carolina.
About that Photoshopped pro-Cruz ad showing “Rubio” shaking hands with “Barack Obama”. Does Cruz have the integrity to be president?
Rubio says … no. Basically. Those robocalls come up again. Some of them in Spanish to English-speaking households in South Carolina. “He did robocalls on the Confederate flag in South Carolina,” says Rubio.
There’s a robocalls/robo-Rubio joke here but that New Hampshire debate was a long time ago so let’s all move on.
Rubio also has to defend his former mortgage arrangements and his Senate attendance record, both familiar issues raised against him in this campaign cycle. So he does.
Last: Governor Haley as a Rubio VP pick? Rubio says he has become friends with Nikki Haley “over the last three days”, since her endorsement of him for president. He also says that Haley’s support and that of Tim Scott, South Carolina’s African American senator shows the GOP is a diverse GOP.
But is she a running mate? “She will certainly be at the top of any list.”
So she’s on his shortlist?
“She’s someone that people are going to be paying attention to.”
So she is, then.
Ted Cruz is now on the show. He’s competing with Marco Rubio for being the person who Donald Trump attacked most. This is a strategy that did not go well for Jeb Bush.
But Cruz says Rubio’s being a coward about Trump. “For whatever reason he’s afraid to take on Donald Trump,” he says. “If you want to beat Donald Trump you’ve got to go with the only campaign that has shown it can [beat] him.
The Texas senator then repeats what he said on CNN earlier this morning: that Donald Trump has a record of supporting Democrats and non-Republican causes, such as abortion rights and the Wall Street bailouts (he omits that those were initiated by a Republican president). Stephanopoulos takes it to commercial.
So how come you can’t seem to get any unity, if you’re the candidate of unity, Rubio is asked.
“We had seven to eight people” running, Rubio says, although there were six candidates in yesterday’s primary. “You can only take on so many people at one time. And this is not about taking on Donald Trump, I know people are obsessed about that.”
Rubio says that Trump is “the frontrunner when you have seven to eight people running and he’s dividing the vote.” The senator does not mention that had he won all of the votes that went to former governor Jeb Bush, who finished fourth, he would not have beaten Trump for first.
Stephanopoulos asks would Rubio support a nominated Trump.
“I’m going to support the Republican nominee,” Rubio says, “but I don’t believe he’s exhibited and understanding of foreign policy. And just to say I’m going to surround my self with really smart people, that’s not enough … You have to make judgments. …
“Vladimir Putin’s not going to have a six-month honeymoon period, the world’s not going to wait until you can catch up.”
He finishes with his usual stump speech argument that he’ll bring the party together, though he won’t create “unanimity” he could still be “someone who will seek to unite Americans and not pit us against each other”.
Rubio: Romney is not endorsing
Marco Rubio is up next on the ABC program, and he says Donald Trump’s tactics of saying ridiculous things to get free airtime have played out.
“It’s not going to work anymore,” the senator says. “I’m going to spend zero time with his interpretation of the constitution with regard to eligibility.”
“The consequences are extraordinary if we get this election wrong,” he adds, before again saying that youv’e got to get out there and see his website at his name dot com.
Stephanopoulos asks whether it’s true that 2012 nominee Mitt Romney intends to endorse Rubio. The senator says he’s spoken to Romney and the report is nonsense, though he’d like the endorsement if it were to ever arrive. “If he were we wouldn’t be announcing on the Huffington Post.”
Updated
And here’s Donald, live – is he? He’s on ABC too. This is confusing – from Palm Beach.
Can he be stopped for the nomination? “I guess you can always be stopped, I have very good competitors,” he says, mentioning among the governors and senators against him Dr Ben Carson. Yes, him.
Ted Cruz is “very sharp”, says Trump, before returning to his complaints about the Texas senator’s campaign tactics and robocalls.
Marco Rubio? “Well he’s a talented guy, a good guy, I like him, I start off liking everybody and all of a sudden they become mortal enemies.”
Well, quite. And then Trump says he probably needs to tone down his tactics and be “more presidential”, which he will be “at the appropriate time”, although the one president he won’t be a better president than is, apparently, Abraham Lincoln. So now you know.
Now Chris Wallace asks him about his rowing back on whether George W Bush lied to get the US into Iraq, and whether he supports the individual mandate in Obamacare or not.
“First of all I don’t want mandates for anything,” he says, and says the confusion arose over the fact he and CNN’s Anderson Cooper were talking over each other at the time he made the remark in question. He then skates over Wallace’s insistence on the remark in question to talk about the “heart” he has, because he isn’t going to have people dying on the street when he’s president and when he says that at rallies people stand to applaud.
“The war in Iraq was a disaster,” he says – and adds that even though he may have praised the military operation at the time that doesn’t mean anything. He avoids the follow up about whether George W Bush lied, too. Of course he does.
“I have nothing against Bush,” he says. He means W. Not Jeb.
Now we’re on to tax returns – an issue which haunted Mitt Romney, another billionaire, four years ago. Will they be released? “We’re having them made, it’s extremely complicated, it will take a while … we’re having them done and they will be released at the appropriate time.”
Voters deserve a look at his finances, Trump says, before trumpeting his previous financial disclosures. Which wasn’t what he was asked about.
He then denies he is engaged in a hostile takeover of the Republican party, but also gives the party establishment a good drubbing. “They’re from a different world,” he says.
“Every time I go to a debate I walk in and it’s like death,” he says. “Every time the other candidates speak they get standing ovations.” The GOP is “stacking” the audiences, he says, and it’s very unfair.
Digested read: Trump is brilliant, everyone else is unfair to Trump, who is brilliant. And the tax returns will be along… at some point.
Updated
Stephanopoulos: You’ve been promising to release your tax returns for months, will you put them out before 1 March?
Trump: “No, I won’t, we’re working on them, they’re massive.”
As for the Wall Street Journal, which called for those tax returns, Trump says: “They have taken me on so much, they’re ridiculous, every day editorials.”
“They should fire their pollster, and they should fire their editorial staff”
Stephanopoulos: But what about the tax returns?
Trump: “Why is there such a rush? Am I supposed to rush like crazy? I released my financial statements and everybody was amazed by how … great the company is … That’s the kind of thinking the United States needs now because our country is in financial trouble and military trouble.”
Updated
On to ABC’s This Week with host George Stephanopoulos, who says that Republicans are now facing the previously “unimaginable” prospect of nominee Donald Trump.
That red-faced nominee then appears via live feed to answer questions. Are you certain you’re going to win, Stephanopoulos asks.
Trump: “No, not at all. I mean look I’m dealing with very talented people, very smart people. … I never take it for granted.”
Stephanopoulos: You retweeted somebody who questioned whether Marco Rubio is eligible for president – do you really believe he could be ineligible, as you’ve suggested Cruz might be because of his Canadian birth to and American mother? (Rubio was born in the US.)
Trump: “I’m not really that familiar with Marco’s circumstances.”
Stephanopoulos: So why retweet!?
Trump: “Because I’m not sure. Let people do their own determination.”
He says that Cruz is “being sued by somebody, it has nothing to do with me.” With regard to Rubio, he insists, “I’ve never looked at it, George, honestly I’ve never looked at it.”
As for why he retweets, Trump is insouciant: “I have 14 million people following me between Twitter and Facebook. We start dialogue and it’s very interesting.”
Good morning, and welcome to another edition of the never-popular show, I’m Watching Fox News Sunday So You Don’t Have To…
Will Fox News Sunday break with this morning’s rather depressing precedent and mention the Kalamazoo multiple shooting and any issues arising on gun control? I’m guessing… not.
They seem keener on discussing whether Trump is now “Teflon Don”, given that even a squabble with the pope can’t sink him – where does he go next? Jesus? God Himself? The Emperor Ming? – and whether Marco Rubio can win the nomination without winning any primaries or caucuses. Of course they do.
Further Trumperama imminent, anyway…
What about Clinton’s new stump speech suggestion that Sanders is a “single-issue” candidate (ie all he talks about is inequality, she’s implying)?
“I haven’t the vaguest idea what she’s talking about,” Sanders says.
We’re the only major country on earth that doesn’t have a national healthcare program … We need to have free tuition in public colleges and universities … We need to have the wealthiest and biggest corporations to pay their fair share in taxes … We’re working very hard to transform our energy system so we can combat climate change.
“We are talking about dozens of issues,” he concludes, “so I’m not quite sure what secretary Clinton is talking about.”
He throws in a glancing jab at Clinton, saying the US has to address “this crisis of a corrupt campaign finance system in which billionaires and Super Pacs” are influencing politicians with donations. He then points out that Clinton has Super Pacs supporting her with millions of dollars.
Finally, Tapper asks about a photo and article unearthed from the Chicago Tribune archives showing Sanders being arrested by police in 1963, over his participation in civil rights protests.
“I remember it pretty well,” Sanders says. “This had to do with opposition to segregated schools.”
“I remember being arrested, being driven in a police wagon to the police station. It was an interesting day.”
Updated
Finally, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders appears – in real time – on the CNN show.
He starts off with the same argument Saturday-night Cruz used, saying that Nevada shows how far his campaign has come. Clinton’s huge lead was diminished to six points, he says.
What about the wide margin in black voters in Nevada, who turned out for Clinton?
Sanders insists he’s going to keep winning over those voters as they learn about his campaign. “I think the more the African American community hears our message on a broken criminal justice system,” he says, “when they hear our message about the need for an economy that represents all of us, not just the 1%, I think you’ll see us making progress there as well.”
Tapper asks about Hispanic voters, and the Clinton campaign’s contention that early polls are wrong when the suggest Sanders won more of the demographic.
“Nationally it is clear that we are doing better and better with Latino voters,” he says, “for a campaign that started off as a fringe campaign at 3% in the polls, we have enormous momentum.”
Updated
“As the field narrows we’re seeing more and more people coming to us because we’re looking for a strong, proven, constitutional conservative,” Cruz goes on.
He then seems to suggest that Donald Trump has the similar record on issues – abortion, healthcare, immigration, Wall Street bailouts – as Hillary Clinton.
I don’t think that’s a path to victory. I think the way we win is to follow Reagan’s admonition ‘we paint in bold colors, not in pastels.’
Tapper asks Cruz how he’s going to win if he can’t muster up a victory in the +70% evangelical South Carolina. Cruz uses the same argument that Sanders did about his loss in Nevada, saying of Trump’s huge lead, “much of it disappeared in this last week.”
In fact, Cruz says, Marco Rubio’s the guy who should’ve won. “Marco had the popular governor support, he had the popular senator Tim Scott supporting,” he says. “All the political establishment of South Carolina came out behind him.”
So Rubio’s second-place loss – which Saturday-night Cruz refuses to concede is also his third-place loss – is “particularly striking”. He thinks it comes down to him and Trump in the next few weeks.
“It’s going be particularly clear that it’s a two-man race, and that I beat Donald head-to-head.”
Jake Tapper does a smash-cut to a pre-recorded interview with Ted Cruz, from Saturday night.
“I think we had a terrific night tonight,” Ted Cruz says. He’s wearing huge, white earphones of some kind.
Cruz says he’s totally happy with not winning South Carolina, because it “puts us in a position of having won a strong victory in Iowa, a strong second-place victory in New Hampshire, and now a strong second- or third-place.”
“The only campaign that can beat Donald Trump and has beat Donald Trump is our campaign.” He says that Trump is disliked by many Republicans, and that polls suggest “head to head Donald loses to Hillary. And head to head I beat Hillary.”
Updated
No Republican has won New Hampshire and South Carolina and then lost the nominee, Tapper tells Rubio. Are you fighting a losing battle against Trump?
“We never had a race where 15 credible candidates began,” Rubio says. “We’ve never had a race like this.”
He says history is no guide to 2016. “I think last night was truly the beginning of the real Republican race for president. … Here’s where it really begins at this point now.”
So would he prefer a brokered convention, if it came down to it?
“I don’t think it’s likely,” he says. “I most certainly don’t want party insiders deciding this.”
How do you feel about Jeb Bush dropping out, Tapper asks.
Rubio says his departure, and John Kasich’s very narrow strategy “gives us an opportunity now to coalesce, and bring together Republicans”.
He makes an electability argument, saying it comes down, “ultimately, [to] who can win. Who do the Democrats fear most? Democrats now acknowledge that that’s me. That’s why they spend so much time attacking me.”
Rubio says that he thinks the smaller field of rivals “accrues to our benefit”.
He says twice that Americans should check out Marco Rubio dot com.
Updated
Next up is Florida senator Marco Rubio. Tapper asks: What would an endorsement from 2012 nominee Mitt Romney mean?
“That report is false. I have no reason to believe he’s about endorse,” Rubio says.
We’d love to have his endorsement, we’d love to have the support of everyone … We’re not going to defeat Hillary CLinton or Bernie Sanders in November if we don’t unite the Republican party.
“We’d love to have his endorsement,” but there’s no reason to believe those reports are true, Rubio says.
Tapper asks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Donald Trump said he would be a “neutral” in. Clinton says he missed the mark.
First of all Israel is our partner, our ally, we have longstanding and important ties with Israelis going back to the formation of the state of Israel. I will defend and do everything I can to defend Israel.
I also believe the Palestinians deserve to have a state of their own. That’s what I support and that’s what I worked on. … Three very intense conversations between the prime minister of Israel and the president of the Palestinian authority. I happen to think that moving toward a two-state solution, trying to provide more support for the ]Palestinian people] is in the long-term interests of Israel.
Are you worried about Donald Trump in the general election, secretary Clinton?
Clinton: “I don’t know Jake, I’m not thinking that far ahead. They have to finish their nomination process, we have to finish ours.”
She flips into stump-speech mode: “We can do better together. We can build those ladders of opportunity again. We can have rising prosperity, and break down those barriers that are holding people back.
“That great recession was such a terrible blow to so many people, and the repercussions are still working its way through the economy and the political system … I want to find common ground wherever I can.”
Tapper asks about whether Clinton believes that Hispanic voters were more won over by Sanders than her campaign, as polling data suggests.
“That’s just not what our analysis shows,” she says. “We don’t believe that the so-called entry polls are that accurate.”
“There’s a lot of evidence that we did very, very well with every type of voter,” she goes on, adding that her campaign “held our own up in Reno, so it was a broad base of voter turnout, and we dominated of course in Clark County, which is where Las Vegas is. … We always have to work hard for every single voter, and we do that in every place.”
Clinton acknowledges to Tapper that there’s a question of trust in a lot of independent voters’ minds. She says she knows voters wonder whether she’s in the race for them or for herself, and she insists she’s in it for them.
I know that I have to make my case … I have to really make clear that we want to make progress in our country, we want to make a real difference in their lives, and that’s what I’ve always been about.
Updated
Hillary Clinton is now on the CNN program, where Tapper asks her what went right in Nevada.
I think it was a lot of things. First of all we’ve been on the ground there for months, so we’re building an organziation, developing relationships … so as we build that we were able to udnerstand more of what was on people’s minds, how best to connet with them, to make my case to them. We have as I said thousands of people who were engaged from Las Vegas to the smallest rural town.
She thanks the people working on her campaign, who “did not get in any way knocked off course”.
Tapper asks whether Bernie Sanders was gracious in his call to concede the primary. Clinton doesn’t really say: “He did call me before I made my speech and I did appreciate that very much.”
She then says that she isn’t a fighting to lead a “single-issue country”, which may be her new line of attack on Sanders’ unshakeable insistence that inequality and Wall Street are the central problems of the day.
I want to knock down all the barriers that are holding people back. … Of course a lot of it is economic, and a lot of that needs to be addressed … Mroe good paying jobs with rising incomes again, you know, once and for all making sure women get equal pay … clean energy, especially in a state like Nevada that should be the solar capital of the west.
“We’re going to talk about the issues that are on the minds of Americans and that’s a broad number.”
Tapper: What’s up with all those retweets of white supremacists…?
Trump: “I know nothing about these groups that are supporting me.”
But don’t you worry about whether you can get elected against a Democrat? I don’t worry, Trump says.
As a candidate I will bring over many, many Dems … We’re going to bring over the Reagan Democrats … the independents … tremendous youth … They say that it will be the largest voter turnout in the history of the United States elections. …
If it’s Hillary against me, it’s going to be a tremendous turnout. I’m going to win, I’m going to win places like Michigan that Republicans won’t even think about it.
Trump says he’s going to have a chance at winning New York, which hasn’t been one by a Republican since Calvin Coolidge in 1924. “If I win New York I win.”
“I’ll win states that Republicans don’t even think of … Upstate New York I’m like the most popular person that’s ever lived, essentially.”
The billionaire doesn’t back down when asked about his commitment to healthcare reform – he just says it’ll be a repeal of the Affordable Care Act and then some other, different healthcare reform: “People are not going to die in the middle of the street when I’m president. They’re just not.”
Finally Tapper asks about Trump’s wife, Melania, who made rare public comments at Trump’s victory celebration on Saturday night. “She’s a very, very brilliant woman. I know her academic background,” Trump says. “She’s also a very private woman … She has some interesting causes that are going to be fantastic for the country. I really just surprised her when I said that.
Updated
Did calling Jeb Bush “low-energy” and mocking him writ large lead to the governor’s collapse?
Trump: “I can tell you I like him, he’s a good person, he’s a good man, but he really hit me with a lot of commercials.”
Not as tough as Ted Cruz’s “tough, tough tough” robocalls, he adds. “I’ll tell you, this is a tough business. I think real estate in Manhattan is a lot easier.”
Was the rejection of Bush a “referendum” on the family’s legacy in the White House?
Trump: “I hope not, because it shouldn’t be, it wasn’t meant to be … Jeb fought hard, it just wasn’t his time.”
It was really just not his time. You know, four years ago, I think he would’ve won. Although with Mitt, you know, it would’ve been a good contest.
We’re on to CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper. He says the state of the union is “frontrunning”, whatever that means.
Donald Trump is on first, which was probably a condition of his appearance. Can he be stopped?
“Well, certainly you can be stopped. I’m dealing with very talented people, they’re senators, do we have any governors left? I don’t know … Certainly nobody’s unstoppable.”
Tapper asks why he’s doing so well. “Well, I’m an outsider.”
I was a member of the establishment, totally … I was a very big donor to the Republicans, I used to be a donor to everybody because as a businessman that was a good thing to do. On the day I decided to run, June 16, I became an outsider. … I don’t need donor money, special interest money, and that bothers them.
Trump goes on: “I’m going to be fair to everybody but I’m going to do what’s right.” Politicians are bought and controlled, he says, even though the “Very talented” Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio could still beat him. That said, “I don’t think we’re going to have a convention, a brokered convention.”
Donald Trump is on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, a show he calls more than maybe any other. The billionaire says he’s feeling pretty good.
Host Joe Scarborough asks about Trump’s spat with Pope Francis earlier this week, in which the pontiff suggested Trump is “not Christian” if he’s so committed to building a wall to keep immigrants out.
“I don’t think it helped me or hurt me. I think it was neutral,” Trump says.
Trump says at first he was surprised the pope said anything at all, and described his reaction to the pope’s remarks as: “I said this is bad, this is not good.”
But he was glad the way it turned out, in the end, with both sides stepping back from their initial statements. Trump says he was “very honored” to be talked about by the pope.
“I’ve never seen a pope talk about anybody before,” he says. “They usually talk more important things than Donald Trump.”
The hosts ask about Trump’s victory in South Carolina last night, and the billionaire brags about winning all seven congressional districts. “What I thought was going to hurt me were those robocalls ,” he says, talking about automated phone calls to voters, “and they were put out by Ted.”
Finally Trump waxes generous toward the primary voters so far, and mocks the way Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are describing their second- and third-place finishes as “historic”.
“The person who came in third was like a superstar,” he says, describing the Rubio campaign (and the media’s) excitement after Iowa.
The hosts also ask Trump about a tweet in which he appears to suggest Barack Obama is Muslim, which he is not. Trump says it was a joke. They don’t ask Trump about how last week he said: “No leader, especially a religious leader, has the right to question another man’s religion or faith.”
I wonder if President Obama would have attended the funeral of Justice Scalia if it were held in a Mosque? Very sad that he did not go!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2016
Updated
Hello and welcome to our coverage of the celebration, despair and soap opera spite of the 2016 election, the day after Donald Trump, the maroon menace of the Republican party, swept South Carolina, and Hillary Clinton, breaker of ceilings, fended off Bernie Sanders’ success with Hispanic voters in Nevada.
It’s still high drama the morning after. Republicans Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz finished in a virtual tie, with 22.5% and 22.3% of the vote respectively in South Carolina, and both of them are spinning those results – they both lost, after all – so hard that one might well fall over on a talk show this morning.
The tribulations of Jeb Bush finally came to an end last night, when the former governor of Florida conceded that Americans don’t like him lingering at their parties, Republican or otherwise. John Kasich and Ben Carson remain in the race: the Ohio governor gave up in South Carolina long ago to focus on Michigan and other states; the retired neurosurgeon hasn’t been seen for a while, and may have fallen asleep.
Trump lorded over his victory and his opponents.
“It’s tough, it’s nasty, it’s mean, it’s vicious,” he said, before departing the state for Nevada, where Republicans will caucus on Tuesday. “When you win, it’s beautiful.”
In Nevada, Clinton finally put space between her and Sanders’ rising campaign, which de facto tied her in Iowa and defeated her soundly in New Hampshire. The former secretary of state won by 52.7% to 47.2%, with a huge margin of support from African American voters in urban areas.
“Some may have doubted us but we never doubted each other,” she told supporters in Las Vegas. “The fight is on – the future that we want is within our grasp.”
But because Nevada’s caucus system is not a winner-take-all system, and because Sanders’ had more success winning over Hispanic voters than predicted, the senator’s campaign will undoubtedly spin its loss as just another step toward “political revolution”.
With reporters on the trail and candidates going groggily back to work, we’ll distill the insults, bickering, half-truths and everything else for you this morning so you don’t have to.
