Today in #Campaign2016
Attack ads, conspiracy theories, multiple lawsuit threats - today’s campaign news was like Christmas at the Kennedy compound. As we wrap up today’s minute-by-minute coverage of the race for the White House, a recap of some of today’s biggest stories from the campaign trail:
- A Public Policy Polling survey showed Bernie Sanders gaining ground on Hillary clinton among African-American voters in South Carolina, who make up a solid majority of the state’s Democratic electorate, but she’s still up 40 with African-Americans. The same poll showed Trump leading the Republican field by 17 points - and showed that nearly one in three South Carolina Republican primary voters think gay people shouldn’t be allowed to enter the United States.
- In one of the less-expected moments in the campaign, Clinton barked like a dog at a rally in Nevada:
- Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump allowed that there might be something to conspiracy theories, ascendant in the fever swamps of the far right, that Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia did not meet his death Saturday from the natural causes announced by the family - although his theory was later disproved.
- Barack Obama took a detour from advocating for economic growth in Southeast Asia to address the vacancy on the Supreme Court, lambasting Republican presidential candidates who have declared that the seat previously occupied by late justice Antonin Scalia should remain vacant until a new president is elected and inaugurated. Obama ruled out installing a supreme court justice during a congressional recess, however. “We have more than enough time to go through regular order, regular processes,” he said. “I intend to nominate somebody, to present them to the American people, to present them to the senate. I expect them to hold hearings, and I expect them to hold a vote.”
- Marco Rubio was in the midst of discussing national security and Guantanamo Bay at a rally in North Myrtle Beach when a man in the audience shouted: “Waterboard Hillary!” Rubio responded with a laugh, while making a joking reference to the fact that the media was present in the room. “I don’t want to know what he said - please don’t, because then - whatever - the press is here,” he said.
That’s a lid on Tuesday’s biggest campaign stories - we’ll be back tomorrow, the next day, and every day through Election Day to bring you minute-by-minute coverage of the 2016 campaign.
Until then, the final countdown:
Donald Trump has one of the smallest and least organized ground campaigns in Nevada, according to Republican officials and operatives in the state, raising questions about the billionaire’s readiness for another caucus-based contest after his disappointing second-place finish in Iowa.
Texas senator Ted Cruz beat the brash real estate mogul in Iowa’s Republican contest with help from evangelical Christians and a superior network of volunteers; such workers are critical in states such as Nevada and Iowa, which choose their presidential nominees through a complicated caucus system.
Eight days after his bruising loss, Trump won the New Hampshire primary, declaring: “We learned a lot about ground game in a week.”
The big question is whether he has learned enough.
America’s climate envoy says that threats by Republican presidential candidates to withdraw from the global agreement would be “diplomatic black eye,” reports the Guardian’s Arthur Neslen in Brussels:
President Obama’s special envoy for climate change has warned Republican presidential hopefuls including Donald Trump and Ted Cruz that any attempt to scrap the Paris climate agreement would lead to a “diplomatic black eye” for the US.
Speaking to journalists in Brussels, Todd Stern also said that Republican candidates such as Trump or Cruz who query climate science on the presidential stump would in practice be “very loathe” to set off the storm that would follow any ditching of the Paris accord.
“Paris as an agreement has such broad acceptance and support around the world from countries of every stripe and region and Paris itself was seen as such a landmark - hard-fought, hard-won - deal that for the US to turn around and say ‘we are withdrawing from Paris’ would inevitably give the country a diplomatic black eye,” he said.
Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have been jockeying to eclipse Trump and Cruz in South Carolina, and a failure to win over conservatives there could see them pushed out completely, reports Sabrina Siddiqui from the Palmetto State:
While Marco Rubio took the stage inside a barn flanked by two South Carolina lawmakers who like him were once seen as the future of the Republican party, two hours south-east in North Charleston Jeb Bush focused on the past, with his brother George W Bush joining him for the first time on the campaign trail.
The candidates jockeying to emerge as an alternative to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have struggled to break through in a primary season that has thus far rewarded anger over optimism, and a failure to win over South Carolina’s conservative electorate might cause the race to winnow down to a two-man contest between deeply polarizing figures regarded as unpalatable by the party’s top ranks.
In searching for ways to seal the deal with those voters still willing to give them a look, Rubio and Bush arrived in the state attempting to create sharper contrasts to underscore what is at stake, focusing on their opponents’ lack of civility, dirty campaign tactics and, in Trump’s case, perceived lack of religious conviction.
“I promise you, if you’re a parent, you are not going to have to put your hands over the ears of your children at any time today,” Congressman Trey Gowdy told a couple hundred people who had packed into a barn on a tree farm in Gilbert to see Rubio. The crowd, recognizing immediately the reference to Trump’s recent headline-grabbing use of profanity, hooted in agreement.
File under “Dad Jokes”:
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has taken to sporting a new look, ditching his frameless glasses for contacts and rocking a tight new haircut, and he wants to make sure everyone in the press bus knows about it.
“Ashley, how are you doing?” Bush said to ABC reporter Candace Smith at the beginning of a press conference earlier today, “mistaking” her for CNN reporter Ashley Killough. In the words of the New York Times pool reporter on the scene: “There were bemused smiles, but mostly silent stares.”
“I’m not wearing my contacts, so...,“ he said.
“I’m joking,” he then clarified.
Killough is white, while Smith is black.
“Yeah, I’m wearing them,” he said, when asked about his contacts, acquired yesterday after a visit to the optometrist. “I got home yesterday for the first time in three weeks, I think - two and a half weeks. And I went to the eye doctor and got a haircut. Big news in the Bush campaign.”
“Candace, you know I know you,” he said at the conclusion of the press conference, prompting slightly more laughter from the press.
Voter at Rubio rally: "Waterboard Hillary!"
Marco Rubio declined the opportunity on Tuesday to push back against a voter who suggested that Hillary Clinton should be waterboarded.
The Florida senator was in the midst of discussing national security and Guantanamo Bay at a rally in North Myrtle Beach when a man in the audience shouted: “Waterboard Hillary!”
Rubio responded with a laugh, while making a joking reference to the fact that the media was present in the room.
“I don’t want to know what he said - please don’t, because then - whatever - the press is here,” he said.
“I didn’t even hear what they said. I know it wasn’t a bad word, that’s all that matters,” Rubio added, before moving along with his stump speech.
It is not uncommon for voters to disrupt campaign events with outlandish statements, but candidates have often been criticized for failing to rebuke them.
Conservatives were up in arms, for example, when Clinton laughed at a man’s joke in November that he would like to “strangle” Carly Fiorina - who at the time was still in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
After being battered on national security in Iowa by Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz is taking no chances in the ultra-hawkish state of South Carolina, reports the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs from Columbia:
Proclaiming that he wants a military with “more tooth and less tail,” Cruz went on a statewide tour Tuesday to tout his national security credentials. Starting with a speech abroad the U.S.S. Yorktown, a decommissioned World War II-era aircraft carrier, the Texas senator laid out an approach that relied on beefing up the U.S. armed forces with occasional doses of red meat for social conservative voters.
In a campaign stop in Columbia, Cruz pledged to increase the US army’s enlistment by 75,000 troops as well as add more ships to the navy and more planes to the air force. However, he made clear that these additional soldiers would be mostly men, casting scorn upon those Republican rivals who want to “draft our daughters into combat.”
He said that when the subject of women in combat was brought up at a recent debate, he felt like he had “entered the Twilight Zone.” Cruz asked the audience: “Have we lost our facilities? Is political correctness so all consuming that we’re not willing to say that that’s just nuts?”
The senator went on to state that if he is elected to the White House “the time of the military being treated as a cauldron for social experiments is over.” Cruz went to express scorn for “clutch bottomed bureaucrats” and insist “no longer is the focus going to be on gluten free MREs.”
Cruz also veered into World War II analogies, pledging to restore a bust of Winston Churchill to the White House and comparing Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain. To him, the Iran deal was similar to the Munich agreement of 1938 with Obama promising “peace for our time.” Cruz, an ardent critic of the deal, then went on to compare Iran to Nazi Germany, “when you allow psychotic maniacs to assemble the tools of murder and warfare it does not work out well for the free world.”
He also tried to contrast his fitness to be commander in chief to that of his closest rival, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Cruz poked at Trump’s active presence on social media, saying “when radical terrorists declare jihad on us the answer is not to tweet insults. The answer is to unleash the holy wrath of the United States.”
Cruz though is still running behind Trump in South Carolina. Recent polls have the real estate mogul with a 15-20 point lead over the Texas senator in the crucial first in the south primary. However, Cruz did come from behind to beat Trump in the Iowa Caucuses earlier in February and his campaign is hoping that his push on national security in a state with significant military presence can help accomplish that feat again.
Donald Trump is having trouble distinguishing between Barack Obama and Dr. Ben Carson, for some reason.
At a campaign stop in South Carolina today, the billionaire Republican frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination repeatedly referred to fellow Republican candidate Carson as “Obama,” according to Politico.
“What Ted Cruz did to Obama, where he said that Obama had quit the race and take our votes,” Trump said. (The audience then corrected him.)
“Right? Is that right?” Trump shrugged.
“I’m sorry. Carson. Carson. He said that – Obama. Obama should’ve quit the race,” Trump said, catching himself.
Trump attempted to extricate himself with a joke about the president’s resignation. “Wouldn’t that have been nice?” Trump asked, to scattered applause.
Hillary Clinton pledged that it would be her mission as president to end the injustices disproportionately facing communities of color.
During a passionate speech in Harlem on Tuesday, Clinton quoted Langston Hughes, asked white Americans to check their privilege and vowed to continue speaking out about the racial injustice of the Flint water crisis, which exposed residents to toxic levels of lead.
“Just ask yourself,” Clinton said, “Would this have ever occurred in a wealthy white suburb of Detroit? Absolutely not.”
Ahead of her speech, Clinton also unveiled a new plan aimed at breaking the “school-to-prison pipeline”. The proposal includes a $2bn investment in schools with high suspension and in-school arrest rates that will be used to reform what she has called “overly punitive disciplinary policies”. She also called on states to reform school disturbance laws, and encouraging states to use federal education funding to implement social and emotional support interventions.
“This is not just an education issue,” Clinton said. “This is a civil rights issue, and we cannot ignore it any longer. The bottom line is this: We need to be sending our kids to college. We need a cradle-to-college pipeline, not sending them into court and into prison.”
In her speech, Clinton also called on white Americans to be better advocates and allies for communities of color.
“White americans needs to do a better job listening when African Americans talk about the seen & unseen barriers that you face every day,” Clinton said to loud applause.
“We need to recognize our privilege and practice humility rather than assuming our experiences are everyone’s experiences.”
Clinton also drew clear distinctions between herself and her rival, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who was in South Carolina courting black voters while she spoke in Harlem.
“We aren’t a single-issue country,” Clinton said, swiping Sanders who has described racism as a consequence of economic inequality.
Clinton said issues of racial inequality are not just politics to her, they are part of her “north star”.
“We can’t just show up at election time and say the right things and think that’s enough,” she said, taking a veiled swipe at her challenger, who is seen as having less of a relationship with the African American community. “We can’t just start building relationships a few weeks before a vote.”
Clinton was introduced by Congressman Charles Rangel of New York. Mayor Bill De Blasio, New York governor Andrew Cuomo and former attorney general Eric Holder were also in attendance for Clinton’s speech.
Updated
Barack Obama rules out recess appointment for Supreme Court replacement
At a news conference at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Rancho Mirage, California, Barack Obama took a detour from advocating for economic growth and increased law enforcement cooperation in Southeast Asia to address the vacancy on the Supreme Court, and his plans to nominate a replacement for the late justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away this past weekend.
After reiterating his “heartfelt condolences” for the Scalia family, Obama declared that “the constitution is pretty clear about what is supposed to happen now: When there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the president is to nominate someone, the senate is to consider that nominee, and either they disapprove of that nominee or that nominee is elected to the Supreme Court. Historically, this has not been viewed as a question.”
Addressing promises by senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to prevent a vote taking place for any Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, the president dismissed the notion that vacancies to the highest court in the land cannot be filled during an election year.
“There’s no unwritten law that says that it can only be done on off years,” Obama said. “That’s not in the constitutional text. I’m amused when I hear people who claim to be strict interpreters of the constitution” - a veiled swipe at senator Ted Cruz, a presidential candidate who has declared that Scalia’s seat should remain vacant until a new president is elected - “seem to be reading into it a whole series of provisions that are not there.”
As for an actual nominee, Obama was vague on the details of a potential candidate. “We’re gonna find somebody who’s an outstanding legal mind, somebody who cares about our democracy and cares about he rule of law.,” he said. “I’m going to present somebody who indisputably is qualified for the seat and any fair-minded person... would say would serve with honor and integrity on the court.”
The president lambasted the senate, where partisan refusal to confirm other judicial nominees has left 14 candidates for federal judgeships in limbo after unanimous approval by the senate judiciary committee. “We’ve almost gotten accustomed to how obstructionist the senate has become when it comes to nominations,” Obama said. “The basic function of government requires that the president in his or her duties has a team of people - cabinet secretaries, assistant secretaries - that can carry out the basic functions of government.”
“The fact that it’s that hard, that we’re even discussing this, is I think a measure of how unfortunately the venom and rancor in Washington has prevented us from getting basic work done,” he said. “This is the supreme court - the highest court in the land. It’s the one court where we would expect elected officials to rise above day-to-day politics. Your job doesn’t stop until you’re voted out, or until your term expires.”
Obama ruled out installing a supreme court justice during a congressional recess, at least in the near term. “We have more than enough time to go through regular order, regular processes,” he said. “I intend to nominate somebody, to present them to the American people, to present them to the senate. I expect them to hold hearings, and I expect them to hold a vote.”
Updated
Well, that’s one way to win votes in South Carolina...
America. pic.twitter.com/TeduJkwQF3
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) February 16, 2016
Bush’s gun appears to be an FN Five-seven pistol, manufactured by Fabrique Nationale d’Armes, a Belgian company.
Updated
The tech industry sees former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, as one of its own, writes the Guardian’s Nellie Bowles - the candidate who might be the hero to Donald Trump’s “bad billionaire”:
Bloomberg may feel that his recent hints at a 2016 run for the White House have barely registered in a presidential year dominated by big characters and unexpected twists.
After the initial stir caused by news the former New York mayor was considering entering the 2016 race as a centrist, independent candidate, he has quickly receded to the shadows, barely discussed by either Democratic or Republican candidates.
Yet there is one corner of the US still holding out for a Bloomberg candidacy: Silicon Valley. The tech industry sees the billionaire entrepreneur, who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, as one of its own.
“Bloomberg is good billionaire to Trump’s bad billionaire,” former Google executive and current startup founder Mike Dudas said. Or as Twitter’s chief financial officer Anthony Noto recently put it: “Wow!! Please Please @MikeBloomberg”.
Onetime Republican frontrunner and current Republican also-ran Ben Carson said earlier today that Muslims who believe that tenets of the faith are compatible with American democracy are “schizophrenic.”
In an interview with Stephen K. Bannon on Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Daily, the retired pediatric neurosurgeon was asked whether “Muslims that are Sharia-adherent can actually be part of a society, be integrated into a society where you have the rule of law and you are a democratic republic and you believe in the rule of law and separation of church and state no matter what your religious beliefs are?”
Carson’s response: “Only if they’re schizophrenic.”
“I don’t see how they’re going to do it otherwise,” he continued. “You have two different philosophies warring which are in constant distinction from each other. So, no – that would be very difficult.”
It’s not the first time Carson has been skeptical of the patriotism of American Muslims. In September, he told NBC that no Muslim should be president of the United States. “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” Carson told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. “I absolutely would not agree with that.”
The candidate was accused of ignorance and bigotry by Islamic advocacy organizations in the United States after that remark, who accused Carson of contributing to “a climate of hostility” in the wake of terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California.
Perhaps predicting similar criticism for this morning’s remarks, Carson told Bannon that his belief that adherent Muslims can’t be loyal to the United States isn’t rooted in bigotry.
“When I say things like that, some people say, ‘Oh, you’re Islamophobic,’” he said. “It’s not Islamophobic at all. I grew up in Detroit and had playmates, schoolmates who were Muslims. There’s a difference between Muslims who accept America and accept our constitution and accept our ways and those who want to continue a different method of living. If we’re not sophisticated enough to understand that, then we will lose that war.”
Carson then doubled down on his belief that Islam isn’t a religion, but a system of government.
“If you accept all the components of Islam, including Sharia, then it is not a religion of peace, it is a religion of domination.”
Updated
Trump is rallying in North Augusta, South Carolina – here’s a live video stream:
Late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia will lie in repose at the Supreme Court on Friday, the court has announced:
The funeral will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., according to sources close to the Scalia family.
In a tradition that dates back to 1873, Scalia’s Supreme Court chair and bench were draped with black wool crepe today. The court has also placed a black drapery over the courtroom doors.
The last high court justice to lie in repose at the Supreme Court was Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 2005.
Traditionally, the other justices stand on the steps of the high court as a casket is carried into the Great Hall.
(h/t: @dmataconis)
The success thus far of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential nominating contest “shows that much of America is tired of rising inequality and these so-called political changes, and intends to revive both a progressive agenda and the American tradition of egalitarianism,” writes Thomas Piketty, the French economist of wealth inequality, in Le Monde:
How can we interpret the incredible success of the “socialist” candidate Bernie Sanders in the US primaries? The Vermont senator is now ahead of Hillary Clinton among Democratic-leaning voters below the age of 50, and it’s only thanks to the older generation that Clinton has managed to stay ahead in the polls.
Because he is facing the Clinton machine, as well as the conservatism of mainstream media, Sanders might not win the race. But it has now been demonstrated that another Sanders – possibly younger and less white – could one day soon win the US presidential elections and change the face of the country. In many respects, we are witnessing the end of the politico-ideological cycle opened by the victory of Ronald Reagan at the 1980 elections.
Read the full piece here:
And here is a take on the Sanders campaign from a Guardian letter-writer:
Updated
Summary
It’s been an eventful day so far in the national politics, with the Republican candidates duking it out in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton making a pilgrimage to New York to meet with Al Sharpton and Bernie Sanders drawing big crowds in the Palmetto state (more on that to come).
This afternoon looks action-packed, with three big events for Sanders, Clinton and Trump. Sanders holds a town hall meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, beginning at 3pm – our Adam Gabbatt will be there.
Also at 3pm, Clinton is scheduled to give a speech in Harlem on “systemic racism.” Just before that event, Trump is scheduled to appear at a campaign rally in North Augusta, South Carolina.
Clinton on Sharpton: 'my lips are sealed'
Will the Rev. Al Sharpton endorse Hillary Clinton? That’s the question the political organizer and activist seems intent on dodging, at least for the moment, reports the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino:
Sharpton met with Clinton in downtown Manhattan on Tuesday morning, just a week after he had breakfast in Harlem with her rival, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.
“I have not decided who I will support personally but I’m committed to making sure our agenda remains front and center,” Sharpton said at a brief press conference outside the National Urban League headquarters.
But moments before, Sharpton gave a slightly different response.
“She’s trying to ask whether I’m endorsing,” Sharpton said to Clinton, referring to Politico reporter Annie Karni, who was a part of the small pool of reporters covering the exchange inside.
“My lips are sealed!” Clinton said with a smile.
Clinton met privately with the heads of leading civil rights organizations, including NAACP president Cornell Brooks and National Bar Association president, Benjamin Crump, who is expected to formally endorse Hillary Clinton. Afterward, Clinton met with 30 “emerging leaders” in the civil rights movement.
Clinton was scheduled to give a speech on “systemic racism” in Harlem on Tuesday afternoon.
Sharpton called the meeting with Clinton “very candid” and thanked Clinton for speaking with the movement’s leaders. He said he was looking forward to her remarks later.
“With the first black family leaving the White House in American history – at the end of the year – concerns of our community cannot be marginalized and ignored,” Sharpton said at the press conference. “And for her to spend this morning hearing from the leading organization heads as well as the emerging youth leaders of our organization was important.”
Updated
Ranch owner: Scalia had pillow 'over his head, not over his face'
We may have detected a flaw in the Scalia-was-murdered-with-a-pillow theory that has gained so much traction on the right in the last 24 hours that radio host Michael Savage had Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump agreeing that the circumstances of Scalia’s death were “pretty unusual.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper passes on further comment by the ranch owner whose account of Scalia being found “in bed, a pillow over his head” set off the whole thing.
The pillow was “over his head, not his face,” the owner, John Poindexter, clarified.
owner of the Cibolo Creek Ranch explains Scalia "had a pillow over his head, not over his face.... against the headboard and over his head"
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 16, 2016
It appears that the paranoic right – including the Republican presidential frontrunner – has, in this case, recklessly latched onto a tantalizingly dramatic but cockamamie idea and drawn wildly inappropriate and far-reaching conclusions it then insists everyone share.
It’s the kind of thinking that could Make America great again! In fantasyland.
FYI, you live in a world where this guy is the GOP front-runner to be presidenthttps://t.co/krOPpFPExc pic.twitter.com/PLgYF984nj
— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) February 16, 2016
Updated
From the comments / Clinton barks
We asked and you answered: What dog breed was Clinton imitating at that Nevada rally?
Hang on – actually you have not answered. Nowhere among us was there one to venture a guess as to what breed of dog Clinton sounded like. Perhaps that owed to the vapidity of the question, for which we sincerely apologize.
But you did reply on the topic all the same and we herewith pin these comments with gratitude for all your participation below the line:
If she wants a dog that'll bark when the republicans lie, well... doesn't she just need a dog that barks a lot? It just has to yap anytime they open their mouths, and it'll have, what, 90% accuracy?
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton barked like a dog at a rally in Nevada Monday.
Unleashing the dogs of war?..
The Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui has taken in a Marco Rubio rally in Summerville, South Carolina. Rubio has reason to think that he may perform better on Saturday in the Palmetto state than the polling averages – which show him 20 points behind Trump and a couple points behind Cruz – would have it.
That PPP poll of South Carolina voters we’ve been talking so much about today shows Rubio with the second-highest favorability rating in the state of any Republican candidate, behind Ben Carson.
And of voters who say they are either undecided or “support one of the also rans- Bush, Carson, Kasich- 37% say they would move to Rubio compared to 19% for Trump and 13% for Cruz if they had to choose one of the top three,” PPP reports.
Sabrina gets in a couple questions for Rubio in Summerville:
Asked when he’ll release his tax returns, Rubio says “momentarily,” adding: “You won’t be very impressed, I can promise you.”
I asked Rubio if he regrets role in Gang of 8. "No ... I tried to make a difference," he said, pointing to constraints of Dem-led Senate.
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) February 16, 2016
Rubio in SC: “Building a hotel overseas is not foreign policy experience.” cc: @realDonaldTrump
"You'll never hear me attack anyone personally," Rubio says, turning immediately to Ted Cruz's record on national security.
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) February 16, 2016
Another boost for Rubio – popular South Carolina representative Trey Gowdy, who chairs the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, Libya, has cut a new ad on behalf of his congressional colleague, endorsing Rubio directly to camera:
Rubio has been barnstorming South Carolina, telling supporters in Rock Hill on Monday that his conservative voting record was substantial – in tacit contrast perhaps with Trump. Urging the audience to help him campaign in the state, Rubio warned against giving up on conservative principles, saying, “We don’t have to do that”:
Updated
Mourning late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia inside the court itself:
Justice Scalia's Supreme Court chair: https://t.co/7npVsC7XLC pic.twitter.com/67PLK9M6ZB
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) February 16, 2016
Trump counter-programs rivals' town hall event
Donald Trump will participate in a campaign event Wednesday moderated by the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, the network has announced.
NEWS: Joe & Mika will moderate a town hall with Donald Trump airing in prime time tomorrow at 8pmET @MSNBC
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) February 16, 2016
Coincidentally (?), the event is scheduled to take place just as three of Trump’s rivals – retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Texas senator Ted Cruz and Florida senator Marco Rubio – participate in an event hosted by CNN in Greenville, South Carolina.
Last month Trump ducked out of a debate hosted by Fox News and held a competing event, a fundraiser for veterans, instead. The fundraiser was televised during the Fox debate.
CNN is to host a second event Thursday featuring Trump, Ohio governor John Kasich and former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
Updated
Here’s a live video stream of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s remarks upon meeting today with Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton in New York:
Our Lauren Gambino will be filing her report from the scene shortly. Many African American voters will weigh in on the Democratic race in primary contests in South Carolina this month and across the South on 1 March. Sharpton met with Clinton rival Bernie Sanders last week.
Updated
Trump hops on 'Scalia-was-murdered' LOCO-motive
In an interview Monday with conservative talk-radio giant Michael Savage, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump allowed that there might be something to conspiracy theories, ascendant in the fever swamps of the far right, that Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia did not meet his death Saturday from the natural causes announced by the family.
Update: Scalia had pillow ‘over his head, not over his face’
Savage asked Trump about the conjecture that Scalia, who led the court’s conservative bloc, was murdered.
“It’s a horrible topic,” said Trump, “but they say they found the pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow. I can’t give you an answer... I literally just heard it a little while ago. It’s just starting to come out now, as you know, Michael.”
“We need the equivalent of the Warren Commission and an autopsy,” Savage says.
Scalia was found dead Saturday morning in his room at Cibolo Creek Ranch, a 30,000-acre luxury ranch outside Marfa, Texas, where the justice had been quail hunting.
In an interview with the San Antonio Express-News Monday, ranch owner John Poindexter said Scalia was found with a pillow on over his head.
“He was seated near me and I had a chance to observe him,” Poindexter said of dinner the night before. “He was very entertaining. But about 9 p.m. he said, ‘it’s been a long day and a long week, I want to get some sleep.’
We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bed clothes were unwrinkled. He was lying very restfully. It looked like he had not quite awakened from a nap.”
The influential Drudge Report had elevated the line of “thought” with a splash headline Monday:
Oh this needs to be not a thing pic.twitter.com/ThNzSM2aeg
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) February 15, 2016
Scalia did 9/11.
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) February 16, 2016
Update: Scalia had pillow ‘over his head, not over his face’
(h/t: @jaketapper)
Updated
Clinton unveils barking dog impression
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton barked like a dog at a rally in Nevada Monday.
Clinton was talking about how Republican candidates tell lies. Then she lapsed into a reminiscence about one of her “favorite political ads of all time,” an old radio spot in Arkansas that mused, as she recollected:
Wouldn’t it be great if somebody running for office said something, we could have an immediate reaction as to whether it was true or not? Well, we’ve trained this dog. And the dog, if it’s not true, he’s gonna bark! ”
And then the dog was barking on the radio. And so people were barking at each other for days after that.
I tried to figure out how we could do that with the Republicans.”
The crowd laughs and laughs.
Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!
What do you got on that, Sanders?
The question is, what kind of dog is that? Sounds like a terrier, right? Somebody here voted for cocker spaniel but then professed incomplete knowledge of dog breeds. But someone out there must know – tell us in the comments and we’ll carry the information to the readership at large!
Via text: An alert reader notes that the annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show at Madison Square Garden in New York City is now under way. And guess which candidate took a break from the campaign trail today to hold a meeting with political organizer and operative Al Sharpton?
Will Clinton pop up at WKC? We’re going to keep this live video stream in an open tab JIC.
Wally the Greater Swiss Mountain Dog is all smiles! #WKCDogShow pic.twitter.com/joAjx1dGcv
— Westminster Dog Show (@WKCDOGS) February 16, 2016
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Rubio ad mistakes Vancouver for US city
A new Marco Rubio video ad spot recasting Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” to attack Barack Obama begins with a panning shot of Vancouver, Canada – instead of a city located in the United States and inhabited by US voters.
Is Rubio trying to say that Obama has been so bad for the USA that the good cities aren’t even located here anymore?
Is he subtly pointing out that Canada is part of America, too, in the sense that it is part of the North American continent?
Or did one of his video producers simply mess up?
The Rubio ad, which tracks a classic 1984 Reagan re-election ad shot-for-shot, subverts the sunny message of the original to argue that Obama has failed to restore economic promise and optimism in the country.
The ad lumps Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton in with the president, and concludes with the question, “Why would we ever want four more years, again, of that?”
On Sunday, the Vancouver Sun recognized the skyline as Vancouver. “It’s unmistakably Vancouver,” correspondent Scott Brown wrote. “The tugboat also appears to be flying a Canadian flag.”
Judge for yourselves:
The Reagan ad concluded on the question: “Why would ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?”
Here’s the classic, which boasts of “interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980” and that “this afternoon, 6,500 young men and women will be married.” (The prime lending rate hit the historical record high of 21.50% in December 1980 and indeed halved by late 1984.)
Between Rubio’s ads and Ted Cruz’s birth, Canada is all over this year’s US election.
Updated
The fine print and “crosstabs” of that PPP South Carolina survey – “crosstab” refers to the crosstabulation of two variables, such as 1/candidate and 2/BBQ sauce preference – are rich and tangy with just a hint of sweetness.
Joking aside, the poll, which is by a reputable pollster (PPP earns a B- in FiveThirtyEight’s pollster ratings), represents but one entry in the shifting universe of data we currently inhabit – and yet it points to some discomfiting qualities of the South Carolina Republican base.
Not only do SCGOP voters support Trump’s ban on Muslims entering the country – a sizable minority would keep gay people out, too, and for good measure wish that the South had won the Civil War, the poll finds:
Trump voters in SC support his Muslim ban 80/9. 31% also support ban on gays entering the country: https://t.co/SG853baqb9
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) February 16, 2016
This cross-tab on South Carolina Republicans is terrifying https://t.co/kagSYyCzTn pic.twitter.com/c35ZF0C3EZ
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 16, 2016
70% of Trump voters think Confederate flag should still be flying, 20% don't. Wish South had won Civil War, 38/24: https://t.co/SG853baqb9
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) February 16, 2016
By far the best crosstab from this morning's @ppppolls South Carolina poll https://t.co/n3Ko4XE2U2 pic.twitter.com/El8dN5NY69
— John Lovett (@jlove1982) February 16, 2016
Still some signs that Trump has a lowish ceiling. Only 50% favorability in this SC poll, tied with Rubio 1-on-1. https://t.co/lSoyv5TF5H
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) February 16, 2016
In separate polling, an increasing share of the Republican party appears to expect Trump to be the nominee:
Thank you! #MakeAmericaGreatAgain pic.twitter.com/tIBB3BMUvp
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 16, 2016
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That packed house for Jeb Bush in Charleston last night may have been filled with supporters of... other people.
Of 41 people @byronyork talked to at day's George/Jeb rally, just 4 were sure of voting Jeb. https://t.co/FpMiv5V26c pic.twitter.com/6vpCb15dJE
— Taniel (@Taniel) February 16, 2016
What I heard over and over at W rally: Love the Bushes, leaning Trump anyway. https://t.co/kNlsGDAcM4 pic.twitter.com/YrzcfcUxZm
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) February 16, 2016
Updated
Clinton holds 40-point margin with African Americans in South Carolina – poll
A Public Policy Polling survey released Monday showed Bernie Sanders gaining ground on Hillary clinton among African-American voters in South Carolina, who make up a solid majority of the state’s Democratic electorate.
But she’s still up 40 with African-Americans, by PPP’s lights:
SC Poll: 63% of African-American voters back @HillaryClinton pic.twitter.com/PEVf5vx5VA
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 16, 2016
The same poll, which was conducted on Sunday and Monday – after the debate Saturday night in which Donald Trump skewered supposed Republican pieties such as George W Bush’s having “kept us safe” and Planned Parenthood being a tool of Satan – showed Trump leading the Republican field by 17 points, which is slightly narrower than the polling averages would have it:
New SC poll: @realDonaldTrump with 17-point lead pic.twitter.com/uqImhtHKqf
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 16, 2016
Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Here’s what’s happening:
In a packed and excited rally in Charleston, South Carolina, last night, former president George W Bush introduced “a man I am proud to call my big little brother: Jeb Bush”.
“There seems to be a lot of name-calling going on, but I want to remind you what our good dad told me one time: labels are for soup cans,” W said, to general hilarity.
So much laughter ... Behind him Jeb, Senator Lindsey Graham and Laura Bush turned to each other and chuckled like he’s Andy Kaufman.
You forget how very Texan W’s accent is, compared with his brother’s. What a different persona he inhabits.
Building on the electrifying energy of W’s return to the political spotlight after eight years in cold storage, Jeb went on TV and threw down a gauntlet in South Carolina – declaring he’d come in “better than fifth”.
"I think we'll do better than 5th here... I'm in it for the long haul" @JebBush on #SouthCarolina @CBSThisMorning pic.twitter.com/JotnFtWcWN
— Norah O'Donnell (@NorahODonnell) February 16, 2016
We have a passel of correspondents on the ground in South Carolina to bring you news from the scene ahead of Saturday’s Republican primary there: Adam Gabbatt is with Bernie Sanders in Columbia; Sabrina Siddiqui is trailing Marco Rubio; and Ben Jacobs has Ted Cruz on the menu, with a side of Rick Perry.
Lauren Gambino, meanwhile, is attending an event in New York with Hillary Clinton and Al Sharpton, and in Nevada our West Coast bureau chief Paul Lewis and senior reporter Maria La Ganga are covering the run-up to the Democratic caucuses on Saturday.
(After Saturday the parties switch states, with the GOP Nevada caucuses next Tuesday and the Democratic South Carolina primary on Saturday 27 February. Here’s a calendar.)
Postscript: in another universe, one without prostitutes or bridges, these two politicians might have been running against each other for president, and one of them might have won:
Christie returns to N.J. for budget speech: What lawmakers want him to say https://t.co/G8E49K62ca pic.twitter.com/hq9kmmUNjK
— NJ.com (@njdotcom) February 16, 2016
Spitzer accuser a young, jobless ex-hooker who lives a life of luxury – New York Post
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I thought the barking was kinda funny. Still doesn't qualify her as POTUS. Same as George bush being a jolly old guy didn't qualify him