We’re winding up the live blog for today – console yourself with Lauren Gambino’s report from the Fox News voter summit and the knowledge that we’ll be back tomorrow with more. Thanks for reading:
Once again, Donald Trump stole the show without actually appearing on the show.
During Fox News’ two-hour voter summit on Wednesday night, the four Republican hopefuls working frantically to keep pace with Trump took turns pitching themselves as the best alternative to the billionaire frontrunner.
Texas senator Ted Cruz positioned himself as the best general election candidate, citing polling that showed he would beat former secretary of state Hillary Clinton should she capture the Democratic nomination.
“Donald consistently loses to Hillary. I consistently beat Hillary,” Cruz told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly during the live interview in Houston.
“And so the question right now is how do we prevent nominating a candidate who loses the general election – or, for that matter, if Donald wins the general election, who the heck knows what he’d do as president?”
The final question of the night, asked by a student at the University of Texas, focuses on economic policy. “How, specifically, you would explain to college students how conservative economic policies are much better for their futures?”
Socialism is “a utopian dream”, Carson says.
On the issue of releasing his taxes, Carson says:
I’d be happy to! I have nothing to hide.
Updated
“I did a one-hour foreign policy town hall,” Ben Carson says of his foreign policy knowledge. “I just say, to any reporter who asks me that, I say, ask me a foreign policy question.”
“I can go into great depth about Islam, where it came from...”
Megyn Kelly interrupts, asking Carson the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam.
“One is much more fundamental, and one is much more secular,” Carson says, inaccurately. “The Sunnis are much more fundamental, the Shias are much more secular.”
Ben Carson just described Iran as "much more Sunni" as evidence of his foreign policy knowledge.
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) February 25, 2016
Ben Carson tells an African American voter - and director of black outreach for the Texas Republican party - that to secure African American voters, he won’t change his message.
“I don’t change my message because I’m in front of one group or another group,” Carson says, to applause. “Our faith and our families are the two strong pillars that got us through slavery and Jim Crow and segregation and racism.”
“Seventy-three percent of African American babies are born out of wedlock... that’s very problematic,” Carson says. Breaking the cycle of poverty, he says, is the most important way to help fight that statistic.
A voter asks about the social liberalism of young voters, and whether they can fit in the Republican Party.
“There should be room for them,” Ben Carson says. “Young people need to recognize that... we’re looking at people who are gonna be looking for ways to ameliorate that financial deterioration.”
“That’s hogwash,” Ben Carson says of Barack Obama living a black experience. “I said that his experience in growing up is vastly different from most African Americans, and I don’t know who could deny that.”
“It’s basically the media doing what they always do - they take a simple statement that I make... and on and on they go with their just ridiculous analysis, which is only for one purpose, and that’s to ridicule me,” Carson says.
Quoting a piece from National Review in which being a Christian candidate means being “humble and self-aware enough to admit when your vanity is hurting the country.”
“My thoughts are that the political establishments, the pundits, like to think that they are in control, and truly, we the people should be in control,” Carson says. “I believe that there is still a possibility that we can break the spell that they have over the people.”
“Why do I stay here? It’s sort of like losing a child,” Carson says, before somewhat bafflingly comparing this campaign to a marionette. “We’re gonna continue to go down the same road, and we’re not gonna support that.”
Ben Carson joins Megyn Kelly's voter summer
In reality, as opposed to via satellite! The way Fox News marketed this thing, every candidate except Donald Trump was going to be in-studio for a question-intensive grilling by the voting public. It’s turning out to be 15-minute Skype sessions featuring three or four questions from locals and one or two follow-ups from host Megyn Kelly.
“Everybody wants to call the game after the first inning - I think we have a ways to go yet,” Ben Carson says.
The final question, again, on tax returns.
“We were planning today, tomorrow, in the next few days,” Rubio says. “I’ll release ‘em - they’re not very complicated... they’re not very exotic.”
“Gitmo is not just a prison for radical terrorists - it’s an important naval facility, and we’re keeping it,” Marco Rubio says of closing the Guantanamo Bay facility wherein terrorism suspects have been kept for years without charge. “If we capture any of these terrorists alive, they are going to Guantanamo.”
“I never talk about interrogation techniques, because it gives the terrorists the opportunity to train to evade them,” Rubio says, when Kelly asks him about so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. “You can’t always use the exact same tactics [as a trial].”
A voter asks: “Do you think the rhetoric of this campaign season - particularly the anti-Muslim rhetoric - has increased” Islamophobia?
“No one should be discriminated against in American for their religion or their faith,” Rubio says.
On whether this campaign’s rhetoric has increased Islamophobia, Rubio hedges. “When you’re president of the united states, you have an enormous megaphone... we should not be pitting and dividing Americans against each other.”
I don’t require those exceptions in order to support a law, but I have supported laws with those exceptions.
– Marco Rubio, on abortion laws without exceptions for victims of rape or incest.
Sara, a science professor, asks about stem-cell research: “What are your posititons on stem-cell research?”
“I don’t view it as that kind of choice,” Marco Rubio says. “What I don’t support is anything leading to the creation of an industry in which embryos are being harvested.”
“It’s not a political issue for me - it’s a human-rights issue,” he continues. “I feel passionately and deeply about it... and I certainly believe that we can make advances on stem-cell research without an industry wherein embryos are being harvested.”
Jake, a Baylor University student, on prison reform: “What would you do to solve this issue?”
“It’s largely misunderstood,” Marco Rubio says about prison reform. “The growth in incarceration has been largely about mandatory minimums for violent reoffenders... so that’s where the bulk of the majority of people being incarcerated are.”
“I am open to saying, let’s divert people out of the system if they’re first-time offenders,” Rubio continues. “But when it comes to violent and dangerous criminals and drug dealers, I support mandatory minimum sentences because it has reduced crime rates over the past twenty years.”
Updated
A small-business owner is concerned about taxes, excess regulation and health insurance. “What are you, as president, going to do to fix the broken health system?”
“We are gonna repeal Obamacare, we’re gonna replace it,” Rubio says. “Part of it is allowing everyone to control their own health care spending,” he continues.
Marco Rubio joins Megyn Kelly's voter summit
Well, by satellite.
“You have yet to win a single race - with the understanding that past is prologue, what are you going to change to get a different result?”
“Our tactics are not gonna dramatically change,” Rubio says. When “the choices begin to narrow,” he’ll be able to show off that he’s “as conservative as anyone running in this race - but I can win. I can win this party, I can unify this party, I can grow this party.”
He was a hugger! So you two have that in common.
– Megyn Kelly, about John Kasich’s connection to George Washington.
Former Rand Paul voter Rusty asks John Kasich “yhy should liberty Republicans vote for you?”
“We outta Uber-ize the federal government, and I have an absolute plan to do that,” Kasich says. “In the battle between Apple and the government itself, the president should get people together... and say the government needs some information in regard to this one particular situation... but it is critical that business work with our folks in the intelligence community.”
“At the end of the day, while we have to make sure that we get the information to stop these terrorist attacks, at the same time we have to safeguard the privacy of law-abiding Americans,” Kasich says.
#RealTalk: John Kasich’s knockdown over the legitimacy of his candidacy with Megyn Kelly was the first time we’ve seen his well-documented temper flare up on a national broadcast. Kelly’s aggressive line of questioning - “whether you are stealing votes from people who can actually win” - seems to have gotten under Kasich’s skin, and his refusal to curb his talking points to speak to the voters who had assembled at the summit made him look more interested in protecting his reputation than in hearing from the people of Texas.
All in all, not a great look for the governor of Ohio who has staked his claim on being the most moderate person in the Republican field.
Updated
“But you have so many people to get through to get to her - I’m not trying to give you trouble about your candidacy,” Megyn Kelly says to John Kasich, “but their question is whether you are stealing votes from people who can actually win.”
“People counted me out, they said, you know, he’ll never get to New Hampshire... and we went to New Hampshire, and we finished second,” Kasich says. “I expect for the next couple weeks, we’re probably gonna see Donald Trump continue to win, but it’s a matter of accumulating delegates, and it’s a matter of putting one foot in front of the other.”
“You just hang on, because you know what a lot of people say? If I get out, Donald Trump wins Ohio and then we’re over,” Kasich says. “I’m not stopping, I’m not giving up.”
John Kasich joins the voter summit
Appearing on what may be a Skype call from a hotel bedroom, Ohio governor John Kasich tells Megyn Kelly that even though he declared that he wasn’t sure that being president was his “purpose” earlier this week, he’s ready for the Oval Office.
“My purpose is to be president, that’s why I put one foot in front of the other,” Kasich says. “We always have to pursue what we have to do... I intend to go all the way, I intend to be the nominee, and I intend to beat Hillary Clinton by more than eleven points.”
Updated
“I don’t think it’s that you pander, I don’t think it’s that you embrace amnesty and open borders,” Ted Cruz says, about winning over Latino voters. “Faith, family, patriotism, love of God” are key to winning over those voters, Ted Cruz says in response to the final audience question.
“Absolutely - I’ll release the remainder of what we have this week,” Cruz said, of releasing his tax returns, prompted by Megyn Kelly. “Fortunately, I haven’t made enough money to make them that interesting.”
According to his 2011 and 2012 tax returns, Cruz made $1.57 million and $1.02 million, respectively, as a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, a prominent Texas law firm.
Rosanne Rodriguez, a veteran, asks about women in combat. “I would like to know why you think young women are less capable or owe less of a debt to this country than our young men are or do.”
“I fully agree with you that women are capable of doing incredible things,” Ted Cruz says. “But I also thinks when it comes to the milityaty that we shouldn’t be governed by political correctness.”
“I don’t think we out to be forcibly drafting women, particularly where we’re putting them in combat,” Cruz continues. “It doesn’t make sense to be drafting women in combat.”
“It risks putting women in an unsafe situation. If you’re dealing with a 200-pound jihadist, the idea that we will forcibly take our women and put them into close combat... decreases military effectiveness,” Cruz says, when Megyn Kelly follows up, saying that the military should not be a laboratory for “social experiments.”
Wanda, a Texas Republican choosing between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, says that while she admires Ted Cruz’s strong beliefs, she worries that he’s too “polarizing and uncompromising” to break gridlock on Washington. “Are you willing to compromise and reach across the aisle to get things done?”
“We’ve got huge challenges in this country, and we’ve gotta fix ‘em,” says Cruz. After declaring that he’s not willing to compromise on “core principles” or beliefs, he’s still willing to meet people halfway.
“I’m willing to compromise with Martians!” Cruz says. But to agree to meet Harry Reid and Barack Obama halfway, Cruz says, would be to defraud his supporters. “I think that would be both unfaithful and dishonest to the men and women who elected me.”
First question from a Texan gentleman worried about the unconstitutionality of the current administration: “What would you do in order to restore faith in the high court’s ability to uphold our constitutional rights?”
“Justice Scalia’s passing, I think, really underscored the stakes of this election,” Cruz says. “We are one liberal justice away from seeing just about every one of our fundamental rights in jeopardy,” he continues, repeating a line frequently heard on the campaign trail. “We’re one liberal justice away from the court essentially erasing the second amendment from the constitution.”
“I believe that Justice Scalia’s passing has really emphasized to the voters that we’re not deciding on one branch of government, but two.”
Beating up Rubio = “not going after the right guy.”
“The right guy to be focused on, i think, are the American people,” Cruz says, somewhat un-grammatically. “There’s an old Pace Picante ad,” Cruz says, wherein cowboys find out that the salsa comes from Manhattan.
“‘New York City? New York City? Get a rope!’ Well, Texans feel the same way about income taxes,” Cruz says.
No, it didn’t make sense to us either.
“Is history or guide here, or isn’t it?” Megyn Kelly asks, pointing out that no candidate who has won two of the first three primary states has ever lost the Republican nomination - which would spell victory for Donald Trump.
“There has never been a candidate like Donald Trump, in a whole lotta ways,” Cruz says, to giggles from the audience. “But what I think those results show is that the only campaign that can beat Donald and the only campaign that has beaten Donald is my campaign.”
A majority of Republicans don’t think he’s the right nominee, and when you look nationally, in head-to-head polls, Donald routinely loses to Hillary. I routinely beat Hillary.”
Fox News' "voter summit" begins
Megyn Kelly welcomes Ted Cruz to the stage, after pointing out that billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump will not be able to attend due to a “conflicting campaign event.”
The audience snickered.
“HE DOES!” Kelly insisted, to more laughter.
Less than half an hour before he squares off with Megyn Kelly and an audience of Texas primary voters in Houston, Ted Cruz is getting some uncomfortable news.
The Texas senator and billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump are now tied in the Lone Star State, according to a new public opinion poll of more than 1,500 registered Texas voters.
Both of the candidates are tied with 32% support, with a 3.9% margin of error, the first time that Cruz has been shown to not lead in his home state. Marco Rubio is in third place with 17% while John Kasich and Ben Carson are in single digits.
Updated
Bill Clinton hit the campaign trail in Virginia, a state which Hillary Clinton lost heavily to Barack Obama in 2008, and stressed the Clintons’ willingness to take on the gun lobby, reports the Guardian’s David Smith in Alexandria, Virginia:
Riffing without notes for nearly an hour in Alexandria, Clinton recalled visiting a school there the day after the mass shooting at Columbine, Colorado, to provide reassurance. He said he will never forget “looking into the eyes of those kids, and Lord only knows how many of them wondered: ‘Do I need to be scared when I come to school tomorrow?’ It is wrong. It is not necessary. And the kids that died at Sandy Hook. The people in that church in Charleston, South Carolina.”
Clinton did not directly criticize Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who has been accused of a soft approach to gun control. But he recalled his own achievements in introducing measures such as backgrounds checks and assault weapons ban. “It’s the only time in modern history when the NRA actually lost a major battle in Congress... I think it was hard for them to convince rank and file gun owners that I was going to take their guns away because I was governor of Arkansas.”
He added to applause: “The last time we had universal background checks we had a 33-year low in the murder rate and, when I left office, listen to this, we had a 46-year low in deaths by illegal gun violence. We can do this again... Hillary believes the next president should give America the gift of taking deaths by gun violence to another 46-year low.”
The ex-commander in chief also backed Obama in saying he should name a supreme court nominee despite Senate Republicans’ determination to block him. “It’s kind of a strange election, isn’t it?” he mused. “When I hear Republican debates, I wonder if they’re talking about the same country.”
In a thinly veiled attack on Donald Trump, he said he was “appalled by all this anti-Muslim rhetoric coming out of the Republican side” and remarked: “America never stopped being great. What we need to do is make America whole again.”
What to expect at tonight's Republican "voter summit"
Four of the five remaining Republican presidential hopefuls will take the stage in Houston, Texas, tonight in the party’s latest nationally televised debate town hall event “voter summit”. Before the voter summit begins, here’s a rundown on the critical whos, whats, wheres, whys and hows (when applicable) of tonight’s cable news festivities:
Who’s voter summit-ing? Four out of five Republican presidential candidates agree: tonight’s voter summit is an event not to be missed! Unfortunately for viewers at home, that fifth candidate is the current Republican frontrunner. Texas senator Ted Cruz, Florida senator Marco Rubio, Ohio governor John Kasich and retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson will all be in attendance. Billionaire Donald Trump, for reasons that will become very clear, will not.
What channel is it on? Fox News, which is billing the town hall as a “two-hour edition of The Kelly File,” hosted by Megyn Kelly. Since Trump has made an oath to never share a screen with Kelly again after a line of aggressive questioning led him to imply that she was menstruating, it’s not hugely (yugely?) surprising that the candidate turned down attending the summit, although at least this time his campaign cited “previous engagements”.
When is this thing again? Nine o’clock Eastern. Kelly runs a tight ship, and with only two hours to get through four candidates, it’s unlikely that she’ll pull a CNN-style “let’s put up a countdown clock for three days preceding the event, then when the countdown clock hits zero we pretend that it never existed and just go on about whatever for 47 minutes until everyone watching at home starts Googling ‘is Gossip Girl streaming on Netflix’?”
Where are the questions coming from? I know, that was a tricky one. But they’ll be largely posed by the audience, composed of Texas Republicans (possibly redundant), as well as Kelly herself.
Why are we doing this? Because, that’s why.
No, really - it’s because Texas is the most delegate-heavy state in the so-called “Super Tuesday” primary next week, and it’s increasingly looking like it’s up for grabs. Although Cruz has a hometown advantage as the Lone Star State’s junior senator, Trump’s thumping in the South Carolina and Nevada primary and caucus - both states demographic particularities that make comparison to Texas reasonable - plus a narrowing polling gap between him and Cruz may put the state in play.
Updated
The Republican frontrunner has bragged about picking up support in nearly every demographic – and he’s not far off base. Now Trump supporters could reshape the country’s political map, report the Guardian’s Paul Lewis and Chris McGreal in Las Vegas, Maria La Ganga in Henderson and Nicky Woolf in Reno:
“Actually, I won everything,” Donald Trump said this week, after his victory in South Carolina and before his rout in Nevada. “I won short people, tall people. I won fat people, skinny people. I won highly educated, okay educated, and practically not educated at all. I won the evangelicals big and I won the military.”
The Republican presidential frontrunner was, broadly speaking, correct. After his third consecutive victory, one that puts him on course to win the Republican nomination for the White House, it is less useful to ask who is voting for him than who isn’t.
The only state he didn’t win was Iowa, where he came second.
In New Hampshire; South Carolina; and, on Tuesday, Nevada, Trump did not just win resoundingly by leveraging one or two types of conservative voter. Entrance polls reveal he triumphed by drawing on a pool of voters as wide as it was deep.
Who are Trump supporters? Insofar as the Republican electorate goes, the answer, for the moment at least, seems to be everyone. But that statement masks a more nuanced analysis of Trump voters, their motivation, and their potential to reshape the broader American political map.
Donald Trump has fired back at Mitt Romney for calling on the billionaire Republican frontrunner to release his tax returns:
Mitt Romney,who totally blew an election that should have been won and whose tax returns made him look like a fool, is now playing tough guy
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2016
Trump’s victories aren’t mysterious if you understand why people are angry, writes the Guardian’s Jeb Lund:
Donald Trump’s victory in the Nevada Republican caucus wasn’t even a close one; he reportedly led in practically every demographic (and listed them in his victory speech). Evangelicals, young, old, Hispanics, the highly educated and “the poorly educated” they all loved him on Tuesday night.
Hispanics? Yes, even Hispanics, even after that line about “drugs and rapists”.
And though establishment toffs like to issue signifying snorts about Trump voters being predominantly “poorly educated”, in the minutes after the caucus even CNN started to come around to the most elusive explanation: Trump’s popularity isn’t about his supporters’ education, their religion or the policies they’d like to see enacted. Trump is popular because of his supporters’ anger.
Updated
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump participated in a question-and-answer session at Regent University in Virginia Beach earlier today, and discussed his hopes for a potential running mate, saying he wanted someone who could “help me with government”.
Trump acknowledged that he does not have a background in “legislation”, and said he had five names he was now considering as possible running mates.
Endorsement news!
Improbably named Idaho governor Butch Otter has endorsed Ohio governor John Kasich for the Republican party’s nomination, potentially giving his fellow chief executive a jumpstart ahead of Idaho’s presidential primary on March 8.
“There’s simply no substitute for executive experience,” Otter said in a statement, adding that Kasich “has proven himself to be a leader who can effectively balance a budget, open the door to job creation and bring people together to find solutions. His record of results is unmatched by any other candidate, and it is time for Republicans to coalesce around his vision for our nation.”
Otter’s endorsement, heavy in references to Kasich’s executive experience, could underscore his difference from the less-experienced Marco Rubio in the estimation of moderate and establishment Republican voters who are still holding out for a hero who can defeat frontrunner Donald Trump. In Idaho, where candidates need to earn at least 20% of the vote in order to receive delegates, the endorsement is even more important for a candidate seeking to shore up support ahead of the winner-take-all primary in his home state on March 15.
Two-time Republican presidential candidate and one-time Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has made some not-so-veiled jabs at billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump for not yet releasing his tax returns.
“Frankly, I think we have a good reason to believe that there’s a bombshell in Donald Trump’s taxes,” the former Massachusetts governor and management consulting kingpin told Fox News host Neil Cavuto today. “I think there’s something there. Either he’s not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is or he hasn’t been paying the kind of taxes we would expect him to pay, or perhaps he hasn’t been giving money to the vets or to the disabled like he’s been telling us he’s doing.”
Romney would know - during the 2012 campaign for the White House, the Obama campaign doggedly pursued Romney’s tax history to highlight the candidate’s estimated quarter-billion-dollar personal fortune. Then-senate majority leader Harry Reid even publicly declared that an anonymous source had told him that Romney hadn’t paid taxes in a decade. (Romney eventually released returns that showed he paid an effective rate of less than 15% on an income of more than $21m.)
Still burning from the national focus on his own finances, Romney has called on every presidential candidate to release their return. Trump’s hesitance to do so appears to have drawn Romney’s ire.
“The reason I think there’s a bombshell in there is that every time he’s asked about his taxes, he dodges or and delays and says, ‘Well, we’re working on it,’” Romney said.
On Monday, Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he would release his tax returns “at some point, probably,” and expressed displeasure with the suggestion that his tax returns might indicate that his billion-dollar personal wealth isn’t quite as vast as he has suggested.
“We’ll be working on it,” Trump told Hewitt. “Everything is very much, you know, I gave my financials ahead of schedule, much ahead of schedule. I had a long time to give them, and I gave them immediately. And they were very complex, also, and very big, and they turned out to be extremely good, much better, actually, than people thought.”
Video: The Guardian asked Bernie Sanders if officer-involved killings should be collected in a national database by the US government. Sanders agreed:
“When individuals die under police apprehension or custody, should that be mandatory? Yes.”
Sanders also said that he would also support legislation for mandatory reporting on officer-involved killings.
John Kasich’s campaign is mocking fellow Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio after one of the Florida senator’s campaign surrogates failed to name one of Rubio’s accomplishments in Congress.
Kasich’s campaign Twitter account posted a clip of an interview between MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts and representative Cresent Hardy, who has endorsed Rubio:
Rubio endorsee Rep. Hardy was asked about Sen. Rubio's accomplishments this AM. The answer was what you'd expect. pic.twitter.com/yxKKzLQuNt
— Team Kasich (@TeamJohnKasich) February 24, 2016
When Roberts asked Hardy to name something that Rubio accomplished on the Hill, Hardy first discussed the candidate’s policy platform. After Roberts doubled down on the question, Hardy folded like a cheap deck chair.
“On the Hill, I have not seen that,” Hardy said. “He’s been running for a presidential race most of this year,” admitting that Rubio’s record had been “a little frustrating for an individual like myself at times.”
It’s not the first time that a self-described supporter of Rubio’s has failed to live up to the #RubioMentum. Perennial candidate Rick Santorum, who endorsed Rubio after suspending his own campaign following a brutal 11th-place finish in the Iowa caucus, had a similar brain freeze when asked to name one of Rubio’s accomplishments in the senate.
Are you a closeted Donald Trump voter?
You wouldn’t bring it up in the office. You might not tell your friends (or even your partner). You might claim to #FeelTheBern or support #RubioMentum.
But secretly, you’re hoping Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination and then goes all the way to the White House.
We know you’re out there - and we want to chat with you (anonymously!) for a story we’re working on. We’re particularly interested in why you support Trump – is it because of something he’s done or said? Is it because of other candidates? What appeals most about him? Was there a particular moment when you become a Trump supporter? Who have you voted for previously?
Email your thoughts to amber.jamieson@theguardian.com (and we might reach out with some follow-up questions).
No identifying information will be published without permission.
Hillary Clinton implored Democrats to “make the Supreme Court a voting issue” this election, reports the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino from West Columbia, South Carolina:
During remarks at a statewide luncheon for Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nation’s first black sorority, on Wednesday afternoon, Clinton pointed to the 2013 supreme court decision that struck down the heart of the voting rights act, freeing nine states, including South Carolina, to change their voting rules without federal approval.
“The supreme court has made a series of wrongheaded decision – one of the worst was voting rights,” Clinton told the women in attendance at the luncheon. Many women nodded their heads in agreement.
Clinton said the court’s future hangs in the balance this election, with the next president of the United States likely to appoint at least one and possibly as many as four justices.
“I hope those of you who live in South Carolina will vote … We need to demonstrate unequivocally that we are not going to let voting rights be undermined and suppressed,” Clinton said. “Who would have guessed we’d have to still be protecting voting rights?”
Ohio governor John Kasich, who came in second in New Hampshire before stumbling in South Carolina and finishing dead last in Nevada, warns that if he drops out Trump wins:
Kasich to reporters in Mississippi: "If I get out, which I’m not going to do, Trump is absolutely going to be the nominee. End of story."
— Thomas Kaplan (@thomaskaplan) February 24, 2016
Kasich is looking ahead to upcoming March contests in midwestern states including his home state, though the latest polling from Quinnipiac shows Trump beating him even there.
(h/t: @bencjacobs)
Updated
News from Texas, part 2: a Texas court of appeals has dismissed an indictment accusing longtime Republican governor Rick Perry of abuse of power.
The case began when Perry threatened to veto funding for the office of a local prosecutor unless she resigned after she pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated.
Perry hung up the spurs on his nonstarter 2016 presidential bid before 2016 even started.
P.S.: the judge in the case quoted Omar from The Wire.
How a judge on Texas' highest criminal court begins his concurring opinion tossing out Rick Perry's indictment pic.twitter.com/p6MadjoDsk
— Aman Batheja (@amanbatheja) February 24, 2016
News from Texas, part 1: Governor Greg Abbott endorses home state senator Ted Cruz, his former protégé. It’s Cruz’s biggest endorsement get yet (unless you count Glenn Beck) and another step toward a big slice of Texas’ whopping 155 Republican delegates on 1 March.
Unless voters don’t care about endorsements and don’t feel enough local loyalty to back Cruz over Trump.
What does it say about @TexasGOP if Cruz only beats Trump by a few points next week under these conditions? pic.twitter.com/diG1WAR2yq
— Aman Batheja (@amanbatheja) February 24, 2016
Update:
It's an honor to earn Governor @GregAbbott_TX's endorsement today in Houston! pic.twitter.com/rMjCpdr8uB
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) February 24, 2016
Updated
Submitted without comment.
It kinda feels like people woke up today and said, 'Huh, you know, I think there may be something to this Donald Trump thing, you guys.'
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) February 24, 2016
White House vetting Republican for Supreme Court – Washington Post
It appears the White House plans to ignore Senate Republicans’ warning that they would not even agree to meet with anyone Barack Obama nominates to replace the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.
Nevada governor Brian Sandoval, a former judge on the US district court for the Nevada circuit, is being vetted for the position, the Washington Post reports.
Sandoval is a Republican.
Brian Sandoval, Republican governor of Nevada, is being vetted for Supreme Court vacancy https://t.co/TZp66GFUno pic.twitter.com/EwqZGlSLkg
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 24, 2016
WATCH: @POTUS: Founders didn’t intend for presidents to only do their job for three years https://t.co/bSnmy5vPeChttps://t.co/bFgmGrPkdr
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 24, 2016
UPDATE:
Whatever is happening on the White House end – the Post report cites “two people familiar with the process” – team Sandoval denies any contact with the Obama administration:
Sandoval spox: "Neither Governor Sandoval nor his staff have been contacted by or talked to the Obama Administration..." on SCOTUS vacancy.
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) February 24, 2016
Updated
Reid endorses Clinton
Senate minority leader Harry Reid has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, according to CNN.
In an exclusive interview with the cable network, the powerful Democrat, who helped to engineer Clinton’s victory in his home state of Nevada last Saturday, said “I think the middle class would be better served by Hillary.”
I think that my work with her over the years has been something that I have looked upon with awe. She was the first lady. She started the trend toward looking to do something about health care. She understood the issue well, she was the front on the health care during that administration.
Reid is the highest-ranking elected official to get behind Clinton yet.
“I also think she’s the woman to be the first president of the United states that’s a female,” he said.
Updated
Romney explains 2016 race: 'We're just mad as hell and won't take it anymore'
In an appearance at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, last night, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney offered his audience an explanation for the unlikely rise of outsider presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
“We’re just mad as hell and won’t take it anymore,” Romney said of the American people.
“Certainly part of what is behind the energy and the passion for Donald Trump on the Republican side and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side is the frustration and anger people feel in this country,” the former governor added, in remarks reported in the Washington Post.
Romney traced the public’s frustration to “the failure of current political leaders to actually tackle major challenges, or to try at least, or to go out with proposals.”
Here’s the original – Peter Finch in Network:
Thanks to Haigin88 for flagging an earlier error in this post:
Also thanks to JoeN:
Updated
Donald Trump’s victory in the Nevada Republican caucus wasn’t even a close one; he reportedly led in practically every demographic (and listed them in his victory speech), writes Guardian columnist Jeb Lund:
Evangelicals, young, old, Hispanics, the highly educated and “the poorly educated” they all loved him on Tuesday night.
Hispanics? Yes, even Hispanics, even after that line about “drugs and rapists”.
And though establishment toffs like to issue signifying snorts about Trump voters being predominantly “poorly educated”, in the minutes after the caucus even CNN started to come around to the most elusive explanation: Trump’s popularity isn’t about his supporters’ education, their religion or the policies they’d like to see enacted. Trump is popular because of his supporters’ anger.
Updated
Some people have noticed that Florida senator Marco Rubio has yet to win a state, and that fact could represent a flaw in his plan to seize the Republican presidential nomination.
Rubio’s camp was working hard this morning to spin that idea right out of everyone’s head, reports Sabrina Siddiqui:
Rubio on NBC this a.m.: “The overwhelming majority of Republicans do not want Donald Trump to be our nominee.”
On CBS, Marco Rubio says the nomination is "not based on how many states you win, it's based on how many delegates you picked up."
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) February 24, 2016
Rubio tells CBS he will win in Florida, despite trailing Trump there. Says he expects to pick up Jeb’s supporters in the state.
Rubio campaign manager Terry Sullivan in post-Nevada fundraising email: "The race looks even more like a two-man race."
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) February 24, 2016
Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith reports on the general election campaign that Hillary Clinton insiders and knowledgable others expect her to run, should she succeed in fending off Bernie Sanders / the justice department:
“It will be her versus a fucking asshole in almost any scenario,” mused one prominent Obama loyalist. “It’s going to be a lot of fear, but she’s going to have a lot of room to run, and she’s not going to have to destroy the other person, because the other person is going to be so eminently destroyable.”
[Clinton PAC adviser Paul] Begala, who will be manning the wrecking ball in the summer and fall, said that if Rubio, seen as the hardest of the Republican targets, is the nominee, one issue presents itself clearly: “He will be the first major party in American history who believes that a woman should be forced by law to bring a rapist’s baby to term,” he said.
In any event, he said, the broad theme of those attacks will be that “the Republican Party has gone insane.”
Read the full piece here.
I have not yet begun to fight.
.@USATODAY Poll and @QuinnipiacPoll say that I beat both Hillary and Bernie, and I havn't even started on them yet!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2016
It’s too early for general election polling to mean much, but it’s interesting to see what the candidates take it to mean. For what it’s worth, in Real Clear Politics polling averages, Hillary Clinton leads Trump by 2.8 points and Bernie Sanders leads Trump by 6.
Also interestingly, in these meaning-poor averages, most any Republican but Trump – Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz or John Kasich (with apologies to Ben Carson) – edges Clinton, while Sanders handily wins every matchup.
What matters of course is who wins when the voting happens – and so far on the Republican side that’s Trump Trump Trump.
Updated
Trump wins first congressional endorsements
On the heels of his third consecutive state victory, Donald Trump has netted his first endorsement from a member of Congress – he’s got two, in fact.
First up was representative Chris Collins, Republican from western New York state. In a statement released to the Buffalo News, Collins explained his endorsement, which reads a lot like a Donald Trump speech:
Donald Trump has clearly demonstrated that he has both the guts and the fortitude to return our nation’s jobs stolen by China, take on our enemies like ISIS, Iran, North Korea and Russia, and most importantly, reestablish the opportunity for our children and grandchildren to attain the American Dream.
That is why I am proud to endorse him as the next President of the United States.
As my colleague @bencjacobs points out, Collins used to be a Jeb Bush-backer. His switch to Trump gives the lie to the notion that former Bush supporters will naturally gravitate to Marco Rubio, seen also as a safe establishment pick.
Update:
Remember we spent all that time discussing whether fighting the Pope would hurt Trump? The first congressman to endorse Trump is Catholic
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 24, 2016
Up next to endorse Trump was representative Duncan Hunter, a Republican from San Diego, who’s best known, probably, as “vape guy,” after he vaped at a congressional hearing earlier this month.
“We don’t need a policy wonk as president. We need a leader as president,” Hunter told Politico.
Is he saying Trump isn’t a policy wonk? Anyway here’s Hunter vaping in Congress:
It’s not an avalanche of endorsements for Trump yet...
Anyone would be silly to deny that these endorsements mean something, but Fiorina had 3 endorsements from members of congress...
— Harry Enten (@ForecasterEnten) February 24, 2016
...but in Trump’s view, he don’t need no stinkin’ endorsements:
Trump on endorsements: "It's not something I want to look for, because it's a waste of time." @gma
— Rick Klein (@rickklein) February 24, 2016
The aforementioned Rubio is the runaway winner in the race for endorsements from elected officials this cycle. And last night in Nevada he attracted barely half the support Trump did.
Updated
Via Nevada journalism dean Jon Ralston, Trump appears to have generated the kind of excitement in the Silver State that you just can’t bottle and sell:
Trump received more votes than the total GOP turnout in 2012! There's something happening here, and what it is is starting to become clear.
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) February 24, 2016
By contrast, the Bernie "political revolution" has happened with lower overall turnout in every state so far. https://t.co/Tu8IzzDEnZ
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 24, 2016
What the
Trump, 1987, promised by 1997 Atlantic City would be "beautiful" with new housing for poor https://t.co/xFgAA5Ifrr pic.twitter.com/YV4jxiSZLP
— Matt Katz (@mattkatz00) February 24, 2016
Women who have lost children to gun violence and policing incidents made a powerful pitch in Columbia, South Carolina, on Tuesday for the woman they’re already calling Madam President, reports the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino from the scene:
Sitting alongside the mothers at a church in Columbia, Hillary Clinton pleaded for gun control legislation and touched on other issues facing African Americans in the state.
“Something is very wrong when we have these incidents where kids can get arrested for petty crimes and lose their lives,” Clinton said, speaking at a church in Columbia. “Something is wrong when African Americans are three times more likely to be denied a mortgage as white people are, when the median wealth of black families is just a fraction of the median wealth for white families.”
The “mothers of the movement” included Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, who was killed by a neighborhood watchman in Florida in 2012; Geneva Reed-Veal, the mother of Sandra Bland, who was found hanged in her jail cell after being pulled over for a minor traffic violation in Houston in 2015; Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who died after being placed in a police chokehold in New York in 2014; Maria Hamilton, the mother of Dontre Hamilton, who was fatally shot by police in Wisconsin in 2015; and Lucy McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis, who was fatally shot by a man upset over the loud music coming from his car in Florida in 2012.
After introducing each mother, Clinton said: “That’s too many deaths, too many young lives cut short, too many questions still unanswered.”
Carr said she was initially leery when Clinton’s campaign reached out, but decided early on that there was “no catch”.
“I think the right candidate is secretary Clinton,” Gwen Carr said. “I endorse her because she endorsed us first.”
Clinton was also joined by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark. Giffords was gravely wounded in a mass shooting in Tucson in 2011 that left six people dead. Since the shooting, the Giffords have become prominent advocates for more effective gun control. They recently endorsed Clinton and have attended campaign events on her behalf.
“Hillary is tough,” said Gabby Giffords. “She is courageous. She will fight to make our families safer. In the White House she will stand up to the gun lobby.”
Giffords added: “Speaking is difficult for me, but come January I want to say these two words: Madam President.”
Updated
Graham: Obama's Guantánamo plan 'a joke', 'gibberish', 'Chinese menu'
Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte have held a news conference about the plan Barack Obama announced yesterday to close the US prison at Guantánamo Bay.
Standing in the Roosevelt room on Tuesday between vice president Joe Biden and defense secretary Ash Carter, who drafted the plan, Obama said he was submitting to Congress a proposal for transferring some of the remaining 91 Guantánamo inmates abroad and moving dozens of others to an unspecified super-max prison facility in the mainland United States.
The trio of senators dismissed the president’s plan outright, calling it unserious. “This is not a plan to close Guantánamo Bay. This is a political exercise,” said Graham.
Graham said that at the president’s request in 2010, he personally drafted a statute that would have provided for the closure of Guantánamo by allowing inmates transferred to the United States to be held indefinitely under “law of war” provisions. But the inmates would have had “adequate due process,” Graham said. But the White House never got back to him about his plan and the window of opportunity closed, he said.
“There was a time when senator McCain and myself would have stood with the president” and supported the move to close Guantánamo, Graham said. “That time period has passed. It is unfortunate. The president couldn’t pull the trigger. Because the left doesn’t like indefinite detention.”
“Now we find ourselves months before an election with a proposal that is a joke,” Graham continued. “I want to take this proposal and have a hearing about it, because it’s gibberish.”
He added that the proposal is a “Chinese menu.”
Ayotte said the biggest hole in Obama’s plan was, “When we capture terrorists tomorrow, where are we gonna put ’em? Where’re we gonna interrogate ’em?”
McCain said, “I also find it as an interesting aside that the president can visit Cuba but can’t go ten blocks to justice Scalia’s funeral – shows his priorities.”
Updated
Sanders: police should be required to report officer-involved deaths to federal government
Here’s Lucia Graves’ report from Columbia, South Carolina, where Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders has just spoken about his vision for lifting South Carolinians out of poverty. He held a news conference at a DoubleTree with state representatives Joe Neal and Justin Bamberg:
In opening remarks Neal praised the senator as someone who’s “been on the forefront of the issue,” while Bamberg focused his remarks more on poverty.
“For those of you who may not know, I want to let you know that poverty sucks,” Bamberg began, reminding members of the media that “as we sit in here protected from the weather” the rain falling outside “also falls in many classrooms in the United States.”
Bamberg is a particularly important advocate for Sanders, who’s struggled to win over voters of color in the Palmetto state, and his remarks Wednesday served to underscore the value of his allegiance to the senator. Best known as the lawyer who defended police shooting victim Walter Scott, Bamberg has gone on to be a vocal advocate for Sanders; and one that’s sorely needed in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s press event in Columbia Tuesday with mothers of several police shooting victims.
Race is an area where Sanders has been beefing up his rhetoric, and when asked by the Guardian at Wednesday’s event whether he thinks police departments should be mandated to report officer-involved deaths to the federal government, he responded in the affirmative, adding that he would also support legislation to that end.
Sanders on police killings
Guardian: “Senator Sanders, you’ve said that investigations of police killings should be handed over to the Justice Department, and they’ve begun a pilot program where they can track officer-involved deaths, something previously only being done by media outlets like the Guardian. But such information remains voluntary. Do you think police departments should be mandated–”
Sanders [interrupts]: “Yes!”
Guardian: “–to report to the federal government when they kill Americans and would you support pending legislation to force them to do so?”
Sanders: “Yes. Let’s rephrase it. You made a judgment: ‘they kill.’ When individuals die under police apprehension or police custody should that be mandatory? Yes.”
In response to other questions from the media, Sanders defended himself from the accusation that he’s “blowing off South Carolina,” noting there are almost a dozen states with Democratic contests coming up on March 1. He also fielded questions about what it means that his campaign isn’t doing as well as Barack Obama’s was at this time in 2008.
“It’s a sign that Obama ran an unprecedented and brilliant campaign in 2008,” Sanders said, adding,“maybe we can’t run as extraordinary a campaign but we’re doing very well.”
But for the most part Sanders focused on poverty, repeatedly drawing questioners back to that topic and underscoring that the United States, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, has nearly the highest poverty rate, with almost 15% of the population, and 26% of the African American community, living in poverty.
In particular, Sanders took on Hillary Clinton for her vote on what he referred to as the “so-called welfare reform bill” of 1996, saying that he had a very different opinion from her on the bill, which he viewed as an inadequate tool for combatting poverty. Since that legislation was signed into law, Sanders noted, the number of those living in poverty has doubled, and the number of poor children, in particular, has skyrocketed.
He signed off with a plea to the media not to read too much into any one contest – a telling message ahead of Saturday, when he’s expected to run a distant second. “What I would ask of the media is not to look at it state by state,” he said. “We’re going to have good days and we’re going to have bad days.”
Updated
Here’s the final count of the Republican candidates’ Nevada delegate haul, via the Associated Press.
Note perhaps again that it takes Rubio + Cruz + Carson to = Trump:
1,784 of 1,784 precincts - 100 percent reporting:
x-Donald Trump 14
Marco Rubio 7
Ted Cruz 6
Ben Carson 1
John Kasich 1
Melania Trump defends Trump's immigration proposals
In an interview with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, Melania Trump, wife to Donald, dismissed the suggestion that her husband’s characterization of migrants from Mexico as rapists and criminals was insulting to Mexicans.
Q: Many felt he had insulted Mexicans?
A: I don’t feel he insulted the Mexicans. He, he said ‘illegal immigrants’. He didn’t talk about everybody. He talked about illegal immigrants...
Mika to Melania Trump: You're an immigrant. Do you ever think he's gone too far? Melania: I follow the law https://t.co/wa5JTSSMo6
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 24, 2016
Q: But you’re an immigrant. Do you ever think he’s gone too far?
A: I follow the law. I follow a law the way it is supposed to be. I never thought to stay here without papers. I had visa, I travel every few months back to the country, to Slovenia, to extend the visa...
Melania Trump became a naturalized US citizen in 2006.
Brzezinski also asked Trump about the sense that her husband is a misogynist (our word, not Brzezinski’s).
.@morningmika: In the Trump org., how are women treated compared to men? Melania Trump: They are treated equal. https://t.co/4GTnJw2r2U
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 24, 2016
Q: In the Trump organization, how are women treated compared to men?
A: They’re treated equal. I see him in life, he treats women the same as men. He will tell you what is in his heart, what he thinks, he will not hold it back if you’re a woman. You’re a human. You’re human. You’re not – it’s a woman or a man, it’s no different. You are human.
Bernie Sanders is giving remarks in South Carolina on something “media doesn’t talk about”: the poor. Our Lucia Graves is in the room, with a press conference to follow ...
Sanders speaks in Columbia SC on poverty. pic.twitter.com/b2zJxp4mGc
— Lucia Graves (@lucia_graves) February 24, 2016
... and you can watch it live right here.
Updated
As part of her pledge to be a “small business president”, Hillary Clinton on Wednesday is expected to call for a greater investment entrepreneurs and business owners from underserved population.
During remarks at the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority luncheon here in Columbia, Clinton will emphasize how her plans make it easier for African American women to get financing to grow and expand their businesses.
African American women are opening businesses at a faster rate than any other demographic group in the country yet face higher barriers than their white counterparts when it comes to accessing capital and gaining the skills to expand their ventures.
With just days to go before South Carolina goes to the polls, Clinton is making a final push to consolidate support among African American voters. The luncheon is part of a series of campaign events focused on issues that disproportionately affect the African American community.
Clinton has pledged to invest $25bn to support entrepreneurship and small business growth in underserved communities. Part of this plan will include a proposal to increase training and mentoring for 50,000 entrepreneurs and business owners in poor and minority communities as well as expanding certain tax credits and initiatives.
The campaign estimates that Clinton’s proposals for small businesses will provide support for nearly 400,000 small business owners in South Carolina.
Updated
Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House. Did you follow Nevada last night? From the chaos of packed, poorly organized and seemingly somewhat partisan caucus sites, Donald Trump emerged the decisive victor, 45.9% to 23.9% (Marco Rubio) and 21.4% (Ted Cruz). See county-by-county results here. You might notice that if you add up Rubio and Cruz, you still fall 0.6 points short of Trump.
In his victory speech, Trump predicted his ascension to the White House, to the happy cheers of his supporters. “Now we’re winning, winning, winning the country,” he said. “It’s going to be an amazing two months ... We might not even need the two months to be honest ... We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated ... You’re going to be proud of your president and you’re going to be even prouder of your country.”
So when does the Rubio rocket launch? Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson came in a distant fourth and Ohio governor John Kasich came last.
For months, we have heard how Rubio had this strategy to finally finish first somewhere. Supposed to be here, right?
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) February 24, 2016
Borrowing a move from Rubio in Iowa, Cruz declared victory after coming in third. “Tonight we are one step closer to victory,” he said. Then he promised real, actual victory in Texas, which votes on 1 March and where a big pile of delegates are up for grabs.
As decisive as the Nevada result was, Trump foes will exert themselves to place an asterisk on it because of the scenes of utter chaos that played out at caucus sites, with polling workers wearing Trump attire, reports of double voting and crowds and dogs and cabaret and gambling, probably.
GOP official on caucus insanity, reports of double voting. pic.twitter.com/CY6ACvLssM
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) February 24, 2016
What did supporters of Trump have on their minds, according to exit polls? His biggest draw was the sense that he “tells it like it is” – because if there’s one defining feature of reality, it’s that Mexico is about to pay for a border wall. Or that Syrian refugees are secretly Isis. Or that the 10-year growth in strength of the Chinese currency versus the dollar didn’t happen. America is going to be so great again. Hard-nosed realists, this bunch.
Key groups for @realDonaldTrump in the #nvcaucus pic.twitter.com/R6qgKrapoX
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 24, 2016
Melania Trump, Trump’s wife, is going to be on MSNBC this morning.
Here, this might help with everything:
Start your day off right with this amazing double rainbow over Maui, Hawaii. (Photo by contributor @zenophotog) pic.twitter.com/kwgsLtLVNz
— Your Take (@yourtake) February 24, 2016
You've made a mistake. William Holden is in 'Network' but Peter Finch is the actor in question.