In a radio interview in Iowa on Friday, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum dredged up the conspiracy theory that Bill and Hillary Clinton were somehow responsible for the death of former deputy White House counsel Vince Foster in 1993.
When asked about the latest revelation that 22 emails from Hillary Clinton’s home server have been labeled top secret, the Republican presidential hopeful told WHO-AM’s Simon Conway that this was an example of Democrats “circling the wagon no matter what the case is.”
He went on to say: “That’s what the left believe. Nothing they can do, well, look at what the Clintons were accused of with certain folks like Vince Foster. I was going to say short of murder but there’s even allegations that they did that.”
Foster, a longtime friend of the Clintons who was under intense pressure from his White House job, committed suicide in July 1993. Fringe conservative groups in the 1990s long sought to push the discredited theory that Foster was murdered by Bill and Hillary Clinton and his death was subject to an elaborate coverup. This allegation has been disproven by multiple investigators, including special prosecutor Ken Starr, although it has continued to periodically resurface.
When asked for clarification about the remark, a Santorum spokesman told the Guardian that the presidential hopeful was “being facetious” in the statement and simply trying to make a joke about the extent to which Democrats rally around the former secretary of state.
The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
It was ladies’ hour at the juice shop just blocks from the New Hampshire state capitol building on Friday – and the woman of the hour was none other than feminists and author Gloria Steinem, reports Lauren Gambino in Concord, New Hampshire.
Introduced as the “mother of feminism” (to which she quickly interjected: “more like sister”), Steinem told the mostly white-haired crowd that it was time to elect a woman to the highest office and that this woman must be Hillary Clinton.
“I’m not here to speak against Bernie,” Steinem said at a Women for Hillary event on Friday. “We don’t have to be against someone to understand that someone is better for this moment.”
Steinem – who had a black eye she said was from falling into a pothole as she ran to catch a cab – told Clinton’s female supporters that every vote could make a difference, especially when it came to electing women to office.
“I want to give you a little ammunition here,” she began, recalling the 1982 US senate race in Missouri between Democrat Harriet Woods and Republican John Danforth.
Woods, an activist and politician, presented a strong challenge to her Republican opponent, running a campaign powered by grassroots activism and the slogan, “Give ‘em hell, Harriet.” When it came to voting day, Danforth defeated Woods by a margin of less than two percentage points, just a few thousand votes, Steinem said.
“If Danforth hadn’t been senator, Clarence Thomas wouldn’t have gone with him to Washington as a staff member,” Steinem said. Several women in the audience groaned and gasped. “If Thomas hadn’t been visible in Washington as a rare African American who opposed his community’s majority views, he wouldn’t have been appointed by the first President Bush to head and to disempower the equal employment opportunities commission and then to sit on the DC court of appeals.”
She went on to tell of Thomas’s supreme court appointment, and his vote in crucial 5-4 decisions, including the decision to halt a recount of the Florida ballots in the 2000 presidential election, which therefore ceded the presidency to George Bush. Steinem said that if a recount had been allowed to take place, the Democratic nominee, Al Gore, might have won the election. If he had, she said, climate change would have been at the forefront of the political agenda and the nation may have avoided intervening in Iraq.
“I could go on, but I just want to say, that is the lost nail of a couple thousands votes,” Steinem said. “And we are in a more crucial situation now.”
Steinem was introduced by US senator Jeanne Shaheen, who broke a glass ceiling of her own when she became the first female governor of the state in 1997.
Shaheen described a cartoon by the Concord Monitor after she was elected governor, that showed her standing in front of the state capitol with the remnants of the glass on the ground around her.
“It was great,” Shaheen said. “But it only works if we have broken that glass ceiling for every woman in the country; for every woman in the world.”
Updated
Hillary Clinton has a straightforward message in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, writes Sabrina Siddiqui in Dubuque, Iowa: I’m the candidate Republicans fear the most.
The Democratic frontrunner, who remains locked in a competitive race with Bernie Sanders both here and in New Hampshire, has repeatedly emphasized electability as part of her closing pitch to voters in both of the early states.
Clinton’s argument has largely centered on the distinction between what she says is Sanders’s idealism as opposed to her own pragmatism.
“I’d rather under-promise and over-deliver than vice versa,” Clinton told a crowd of roughly 450 in Dubuque on Friday.
At an earlier stop in Des Moines, she described Sanders’ plan for single-payer health care as “an idea that will never, ever come to pass”.
Clinton’s campaign has argued that Sanders’s proposal would dismantle Obamacare, the president’s popular health care law, and require a significant tax hike on most Americans.
She also urged voters not to be swayed by Republican efforts to promote Sanders - Clinton and her campaign have seized on reports that the opposing party is trying to help boost the Vermont senator as a way of preemptively defeating her.
Republicans are “jumping all over” trying to influence the outcome of the Democratic Party, Clinton said.
“The last thing they want is to face me in a general election.”
Hillary Clinton rallying with supporters in Dubuque pic.twitter.com/1xo4525ezJ
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) January 29, 2016
Updated
Today in Campaign 2016
If it’s possible to be hungover from politics, we’re feeling it. With two debates, a town hall forum, a veteran-focused “special event,” email releases and more polls than there are actual Des Moines residents, this week has been the campaign equivalent of a frat party the weekend before pledge week: exciting while it happens, but a disaster once you have to wake up and deal with the aftermath.
Here’s a recap of today’s top stories:
- The Trump-less Fox News debate had a rating of 8.4%, or roughly 11 to 13 million viewers – the second-lowest rating of the election so far.That figure is far lower than Fox News’ first Republican debate back in August, when a record 24 million people tuned in.
- Trump called Ted Cruz is an anchor baby - in Canada. “I think that’s one of the reasons he’s a nervous wreck,” Trump said. “Now they’re saying, I think, his career is over, right? … how about this, he’s a citizen of Canada and he’s a senator from Texas and he’s a citizen of Canada joint with the US.”
- The Obama administration is withholding seven email chains found on former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home email server because they contain “top secret” information, according to the Associated Press. The emails include messages related to “special access programs,” which have the potential to help identify confidential sources or clandestine government surveillance networks or programs. The state department will also partially censor 15 additional emails that contain top secret material. Three days before the Iowa caucuses, it’s not good news for Clinton.
There are only three days before Iowans decide the first state of the 2016 election. Stayed tuned here for the Guardian’s up-to-the-minute coverage of everything from Trump to Cruz, from Clinton to Carson, from Iowan sandwiches to New Hampshire bathroom graffiti.
Porn icon Ron Jeremy has endorsed Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the White House, in one of the weirder headlines we’ll type today.
Jeremy, nicknamed “The Hedgehog” in the industry, told Buzzfeed that he couched his support of Clinton in his positive feelings towards her husband’s administration. “I got to shake hands with her husband,” Jeremy said. “When he was in office, she gave him a lot of advice. When she’s in office, he’ll give her a lot of advice.”
The actor was more skeptical of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s chief rival in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. “America has spanned decades and decades with capitalism and democracy, we’re gonna give it all up because of one schmuck?” he said. “One Jewish schmuck - I can say that because I’m Jewish - one Jewish schmuck wants to become a leader and bring us all into socialism?”
The billionaire Koch brothers are set to convene one of their famed retreats this weekend for several hundred of their fellow super-rich conservatives in Palm Springs, California, as observers forecast a record year for secret donations, dubbed dark money, to Koch-backed groups and other outfits from the NRA to the League of Conservation Voters, reports the Guardian’s Peter Stone:
“Given the trends we’re seeing, we wouldn’t be surprised if dark money spent on direct advocacy [in the US 2016 election] hit half a billion dollars,” said Viveca Novak, the editorial director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. “Spending by these groups in the 2016 cycle is way ahead of previous cycles, and [dark money groups] are more integrated into campaigns than we’ve seen in the past.”
In 2012, the center has reported, dark money groups spent over $300m, of which more than 80% came from Republican-leaning outfits.
Dark money is the name for cash given to nonprofit organizations that can receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals and unions without disclosing their donors. Under IRS regulations these tax-exempt groups are supposed to be promoting “social welfare” and are not allowed to have politics as their primary purpose – so generally they have to spend less than half their funds directly promoting candidates. Other so-called “issue ads” paid for by these groups often look like thinly veiled campaign ads.
The boom in dark money spending in recent elections came in the wake of thesupreme court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which held that the first amendment allowed unlimited political spending by corporations and unions. That decision and other court rulings opened the floodgates to individuals, corporations and unions writing unlimited checks to outside groups, both Super Pacs and dark money outfits, which can directly promote federal candidates. Dark money spending rose from just under $6m in 2006 to $131m in 2010 following the decision.
Disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and his mother, real estate demi-billionaire Anne Spitzer, have donated $100,000 to a super PAC supporting former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley’s struggling presidential campaign, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday.
The super PAC in question, Generation Forward PAC, raised a mere $514,000 in the second half of last year, which makes the Spitzers’ donation even weightier. The super PAC spent roughly $10,000 of that money on negative advertising targeting Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.
Spitzer, the scion of a real estate empire who became the state’s attorney general, resigned from office in 2009 after reports that he had been the client of a high-end sex worker came to light. Spitzer has been vocally critical of fellow New Yorker Clinton, calling her immigration stance “a metaphor for her vacillation.”
At the time of the donation, Spitzer was in a relationship with Lis Smith, O’Malley’s deputy campaign manager.
As Americans prepare to cast the first votes of the 2016 election race, the Guardian’s Dan Roberts determines what is at stake for the three Democratic and 11 Republican hopefuls:
Hillary Clinton
Lost the state in 2008 to an outsider called Barack Obama. Needs to stop the same happening again with Sanders to reassure nervous Democratic leaders.
Bernie Sanders
If the revolution starts anywhere, it needs to start here. A win could snowball, a heavy loss would be a buzzkill for the democratic socialist from Vermont.
Martin O’Malley
The former Maryland governor is likely to struggle to reach the 15% threshold in many Democratic precincts. Wipeout may spell lights out.
Donald Trump
New York’s bombastic billionaire is looking less confident after a no-show debate drama. Needs to win here to maintain an aura of impregnability.
Ted Cruz
Tarnished by failing to unequivocally back Iowa’s corn ethanol industry and by Canada “birther” distractions. A win or close second would banish doubts for the maverick from Texas and put him back on track to catch Trump.
Marco Rubio
Iowa is alien territory to the establishment’s best hope, but the Florida senator’s new evangelical-tailored message is gaining traction and should deliver him third place.
Ben Carson
The retired neurosurgeon is currently crashing from a brief polling high last November. He could disappear for good in Iowa but is likely to soldier on in hope of recapturing that brief momentum.
Rand Paul
A one-time darling of the libertarian right, the Kentucky senator is staging a late recovery in Iowa. Fourth place could save his campaign (for now).
Jeb Bush
The former frontrunner is banking on New Hampshire to salvage what is left of his campaign. Iowa threatens to be a disaster, but expectations are at least suitably low.
Chris Christie
Likewise, the New Jersey governor is more at home on the east coast, but even a handful of Iowan votes will be helpful when it comes to staging the establishment fightback in New Hampshire.
Jeb(!) Bush’s campaign may be withering on the vine, but his Vine presence is blooming.
Remember Lyndon LaRouche? Political activist, eight-time presidential candidate, economist, brainwasher, conspiracy theorist and convicted tax evader?
Well, his Super PAC has endorsed former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley for president, a voice of support that the bottom-tier Democratic candidate could really use right now.
In a moderately confusing post on LaRouchePAC’s website, the longtime political activist declared that “we want active support, from us, to boost O’Malley’s campaign, because it’s necessary that his campaign be boosted.”
We’re going to boost this intervention, with LaRouche’s name on it - especially from and through Manhattan and nearby points. That’s our strongest point ... And what we’re saying to O’Malley is: we’re suggesting strongly that you focus yourself on your own policy directly. We support your making this the issue, and we recognize our responsibility to make a contribution to that effect. We recommend O’Malley follow the indicated policy, and we’ll commit ourselves to support that policy; we make ourselves answerable to support that program in the election. “I’ll personally support his option if he wants to follow that option,” LaRouche said.
The release continues:
The US requires a human option as opposed to Hillary and Bernie Sanders. O’Malley has the option, if he wants to narrow the issues, of presenting something which will outflank these guys.
I strongly recommend that the O’Malley campaign team do this: get rid of the dubious things, and go for a straightforward address to what the problem is, because Hillary is a fraud - her record is that of a fraud, since she capitulated to Obama. She’s totally a stooge for Obama. A vote for Hillary is a vote for Obama, and we’re not voting for Obama. Sanders is the same kind of thing: he’s an opportunist who tries to patch something together to fool people.
We don’t see any clear option coming from him or her. You don’t want a “line,”-- you want to solve the problems of the United States.
So O’Malley’s got that going for him...
Updated
State Department will censor 22 "top secret" emails from Clinton's home server
The Obama administration will withhold seven email chains found on former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home email server because they contain “top secret” information, according to the Associated Press.
The seven emails, which total up to 37 pages, include messages related to “special access programs,” which have the potential to help identify confidential sources or clandestine government surveillance networks or programs. Additionally, the state department will partially censor 15 additional emails that contain top secret material, and will not include them in the newest batch of emails set to be released later today.
State department officials would not indicate whether the content of the emails was classified as top secret at the time of their transmission - Clinton has previously defended the existence of classified materials found on her home server as being related to classified programs that had been discovered by the press - but told the Associated Press that diplomatic security has begun investigating.
“The documents are being upgraded at the request of the intelligence community because they contain a category of top secret information,” state department spokesman John Kirby told the Associated Press.
Clinton, who is only three days away from the Iowa caucuses, has continued to insist that she neither sent nor received any classified materials that was designated as such at the time on her private email account.
One of the unique culinary innovations of Iowa is the loose meat sandwich, popularized by local fast food chain Maid Rite.
It’s a cross between a sloppy joe and a hamburger, with the patty replaced by loose meat but without the sauce that accompanies a sloppy joe. The sandwich is served with a spoon to scoop the meat which didn’t stay on the bun. It comes with the option to add ketchup, mustard, onions and pickles to the sandwich.
I stopped at one of the chain’s newest franchises in Oskaloosa, Iowa, for lunch.
Updated
From our inbox :
Subject: Clint Eastwood’s thoughts on Ben Carson
Clint Eastwood, in his own words, explaining why he likes Dr. Ben Carson might be our favorite candidate video since someone found Bernie Sanders’ 404 message on his campaign website.
According to the video’s caption, “Trump doesn’t want you to watch this. Neither does Cruz, or the establishment. Watch it anyway. Maybe you’ll feel lucky.”
Well? Do ya?
Do ya, punk?
Fresh off loaning his voice to an anti-Marco Rubio ad currently being aired by Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has some thoughts on last night’s Republican presidential debate:
- “I was almost right” on Donald Trump attending the debate after all, Limbaugh said, but once Trump threw out his $5m demand at Fox News in exchange for his attendance, “I knew he wasn’t gonna do it.”
- As for Trump’s event, “it was unlike any Trump event that has taken place,” primarily because “Trump was barely in it!” Instead, the billionaire frontrunner turned over his spot at the lectern to veterans, acolytes, donors, other presidential candidates and Adele - at least, by audio.
- Due to Trump’s absence from the debate stage three miles away, “Cruz became the frontrunner by default” - which, according to Limbaugh, wasn’t nearly the place of honor that it might have been. “Without Trump to take any incoming,” Limbaugh said, “all the incoming could be focused on Cruz.” The dynamic “automatically made Cruz the target.”
- As for the debate’s victor? “There was one winner last night, and it wasn’t even close, and it was Marco Rubio.”
Ted Cruz is going negative - on Marco Rubio
Three days before the Iowa caucuses, Texas senator Ted Cruz is shifting nearly every dollar his campaign has allocated for negative advertising from focusing on billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump to fellow freshman senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the New York Times reports.
Although Cruz and Trump have been locked in a virtual tie in polls of likely caucus-goers for weeks, Cruz is redirecting the full force of his campaign’s communications team towards Rubio, whose support has been steadily increasing in the waning days of the Iowa campaign.
The change in priorities comes less than a week after Cruz’s campaign began airing negative advertisement of any kind - the first anti-Trump spot, “New York Values,” aired only three days ago.
The first anti-Rubio ad, “Trust,” was launched on Thursday afternoon and focuses on Rubio’s record on immigration. “Rubio betrayed our trust,” the advertisement says, as a voiceover from an episode of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show calls the Florida senator “part of a ‘gang of eight’ that tried to secure amnesty” for undocumented immigrants.
According to the Times, Cruz’s campaign will continue to air a duo of positive spots about the Texas senator, but the rise of Rubio as a potential spoiler in the caucus has Cruz’s advisers worried enough to shift focus away from Trump, who currently bests Rubio in nearly every public poll available.
Updated
Spotted in a restroom in Iowa:
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs was not immediately available for comment.
Three days before the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton is pulling out the big guns - and handing over control of her Snapchat account to husband and former president Bill Clinton.
Hillary is handing over her Snapchat account to @billclinton today! Don’t miss it: https://t.co/upx5tZdvKe pic.twitter.com/qOHp1meLsC
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 29, 2016
Don’t worry - we’ll be sure to screencap.
In 2008, political guru Mark Penn dismissed then-senator Barack Obama’s massive following among Iowa college students by telling Hillary Clinton that his campaign rallies “look like Facebook.” The massive youth turnout at the caucuses helped blow Clinton’s expected win in Iowa out of the water, and helped ignite a movement that sent Obama to the White House.
Eight years later, the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs reports, that same population of young, ultra-liberal students is on the verge of repeating history:
On a college campus of 1,600 students, 1,280 people flocked to a gleaming new gymnasium to hear Sanders speak on a snowy afternoon that marked the first day of classes after winter break.
The idealistic young students who flocked to him seemed unconcerned about his prospects in a general election. They were not concerned about the self-proclaimed socialist’s perceived unelectability. “If I have to vote for someone just because I think they are more electable that’s messed up,” said Thomas Grabinski, a recent college graduate.
Others were confident about Sanders’ prospects in a general election. “I think a lot of people in this country are liberal enough to vote that way,” said Charlotte Love, a student originally from near Asheville, North Carolina.
The Sanders campaign’s effort on campus is dominated by what one unaffiliated student described as“Bernie Bros”, the strident, earnest and ardently liberal men who view Clinton with a certain contempt. They protest against other candidates and try to plant questions about capitalism to throw rivals off guard. “I almost feel like they are not as respectful of other people’s opinions,” said John Lof, a high school student who volunteered for the campaign, guardedly. “I don’t thing that’s Bernie in general but more people who side with the further left liberal part of the spectrum,” he added. “It’s not every single Bernie supporter, but a fair amount.”
Updated
One of the great mysteries of the 2016 primary so far is turnout: will the crowds who feel the Bern or revel in Trumpian glory actually show up to vote on Monday?
DC bureau chief Dan Roberts is in Iowa with the campaigns, and has tried to parse out an answer.
Iowans are made of sterner stuff than the Washington DC residents still paralysed by the blizzard of a week ago, but roads here are as endless as they are treacherous. A traffic accident recently claimed the life of a young campaign worker for former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and a smaller snow storm last Monday left ditches across the state littered with cars that had skidded off into the fields like some strange new crop variety.
The vicissitudes of caucus season are a source of private frustration for candidates, many of whom believe this state of corn and hogs and evangelical Christians has undue influence because of its privileged spot at the outset of the lengthy primary process – and can skew selection toward candidates who are unrepresentative of the national mood.
Despite being accredited and arriving on-time to check in, my colleague Lauren Gambino and a handful of journalists were barred from Trump’s event at the Raddison hotel Nashua, New Hampshire.
Initially, the press coordinator said there wasn’t a problem. But then she sent her assistant to break the news.
“I’m sorry. Check in closed 40 minutes ago,” he said.
That’s not what the email said. I showed him the email that said badges would be given to the press until 9.30am. He promised to come back with an explanation.
After some minutes, the press coordinator once again appeared from behind a curtain. She approached us carefully, and stopped before crossing the security line – as if we journalists would suddenly turn the tables after months of being ridiculed and belittled by her boss.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feigning remorse. “The Fire Marshall said we are at capacity.” A moment ago the excuse was that we were late. Now we were on time but the event was at capacity – even though we had been approved and had reserved spots.
After some bickering, she said simply: “Try coming earlier next time.” She then turned on her heels and disappeared behind the blue curtain.
All was not lost, though. Lauren still got to interview the Trump faithful waiting outside the hotel – many of whom were also denied entry.
Maria Rawlings of Nashua came to see Donald trump for the fourth time on Friday morning, but as had happened to her once before, she didn’t make the cut.
Rawlings says she’s an independent but thinks Trump offers the best vision for the country. She said he could work on his delivery, and maybe tone down his rhetoric, but at heart she believed he was a good person who had the business acumen to restore the country’s sagging middle class.
Rawlings said she intended to watch the Trump-less debate but fell asleep watching the earlier one. She called Trump’s stunt not to appear in the debate last night “strategic” but worried how it might affect his campaign.
“I’m worried that decision will hurt him but I hope it doesn’t,” she said.
As this reporter set out on the long hike back to the car, she passed Rawlings and her two friends standing outside the back entrance to the hotel.
“Do you think Donald will come this way” She asked. She smiled. “We’d really like to see him.”
Some protesters outside the Trump event in Nashua pic.twitter.com/jsdjpp8yAO
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) January 29, 2016
Updated
Elsewhere on the campaign trail: racial politics get some attention, though not on stage or in front of the cameras.
Santorum getting into debate with African American woman about black arrest rates. He blames fatherhood absence. She does not look amused.
— Chris Moody (@moody) January 29, 2016
Jeb Bush declares victory, Rubio’s campaign is lowering expectations (via Politico) …
We won last night’s debate. Celebrate this win with everything 10% off storewide! https://t.co/tWKeNvF6bx
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) January 29, 2016
… and Rand Paul finds an extremely tacky car.
Check out the car we found in Iowa! pic.twitter.com/CtWywgE0H7
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 29, 2016
Trump finishes off his speech with his complaints about the economy, tailored for his New England audience. He says he would just tell companies like Ford andApple to bring jobs and factories back to the US.
“I would tell the guys at Ford build it in Michigan … maybe New Hampshire.”
Build it in this country, who the hell cares. We’re gonna get you plenty. By the way New Hampshire, New England, you guys got screwed. You lost so many businesses … You need jobs, not service stuff, you need jobs … We’re gonna take it back … I mean you were decimated, almost I would say more than anywhere else.”
He says he’ll “bring jobs back from China, from Japan, from Mexico … China is the greatest theft in the history of the world to this country.”
“I’m so glad I made this ridiculous trip … Go out and vote February 9th!”
Trump: 'Cruz is an anchor baby in Canada'
Also a problem is Ted Cruz, Trump says. “Ted Cruz may not be a US citizen … He’s an anchor baby … Ted Cruz is an anchor baby in Canada, but Canada doesn’t accept anchor babies, they just waited a long time.”
I think that’s one of the reasons he’s a nervous wreck … Now they’re saying, I think, his career is over, right? … how about this, he’s a citizen of Canada and he’s a senator from Texas and he’s a citizen of Canada joint with the US.
The billionaire says that his campaign is self-funded, a claim disproven repeatedly. He uses the line to mock Cruz for his loans to major Wall Street banks, including a loan from Goldman Sachs that the senator did not report as campaign rules require.
He didn’t know about Goldman Sachs loaning him money, and he didn’t know about Citibank loaning him money. Other than that he’s got a great memory.
He waxes exasperated: “Oh, these politicians, what’re we gonna do with them? … Remember that loan you got, Ted? … I’m having fun.”
Updated
Trump ralies in New Hampshire
Trump is holding a rally in Nashua, New Hampshire, at the Radisson Hotel. “We have a right to be angry, folks, we have a right.”
The billionaire’s in a generous mood this morning: he’s mixed his usual dire proclamations – trillions in debt, wounded veterans, immigration – with a dose of hope. “We’re gonna put our country back on track.”
He says that with “great guys to run your agencies” he can sort out the US no problem.
But you need the right people. The problem with the agencies, with everything, we have political hacks. … Guys who gave political contributions to the Jebs of the world, to Ted Cruz, who’s totally controlled by the oil industry.
Fear not, Trump goes on. He will prove a great negotiator on the world stage. “I get along great with China and the Chinese people.”
I sell condos to the Chinese. With Mexico I have a great relationship, and I employ thousands and thousands of Hispanics, and they’re fantastic … The problem is their leaders … The leaders are too smart for our leaders, and they’re too cunning.
Updated
Highlights of the Trump variety hour:
-
An imitation of Jeb Bush as a lost and frightened child: “He’s probably looking for me … Has anyone seen Trump? Where is Trump? Where is he?”
- An imitation of Fox News executives begging him to come back to their debate: “Fox has been extremely nice the last number of hours actually. And they wanted me there and said, ‘How about now?’”
- One-upping the Oscars: “This is the Academy Awards. We are actually told that we have more cameras than they do by quite a bit.”
- “You know what, I don’t know. Is it for me personally is it a good thing, a bad thing? Will I get more votes, will I get less votes? Nobody knows. Who the hell knows.”
- Someone more courageous than Trump (veteran John Wayne Walder), followed by cash courage: “I’m financially courageous, about the other stuff I don’t know.”
- Rick Santorum jokes: “I am supporting another candidate for president.”
- And comments for Trump’s pregnant daughter: “We have a hospital all lined up, we’re doing great … But I love the people of Iowa. I said Ivanka, it would be so great if you had your baby in Iowa. It would be so great. I would win.”
Trump highlights from across town:
- Ironical Ted Cruz doing an impression of Trump: “Let me say, I’m a maniac. And everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly.”
- Jeb Bush: “I kind of miss Donald Trump … I wish he were here.”
- Sardonic Marco Rubio: “He’s an entertaining guy. He’s the greatest show on earth.”
Iowans appreciate all the attention showered on them by candidates, but are they any good at choosing the eventual nominee?
Not exactly. Courtesy Nadja Popovich of the Guardian’s interactive team.
Democrats fare better after winning Iowa, history suggests.
Updated
Trump won without showing up. Or Rubio or Bush or Paul did, because they showed up. Or Ben Carson lost. Or nobody can make up their minds, what with no actual votes cast or caucuses caucused on Thursday night.
But one metric should at least give somebody bragging rates: ratings. Total viewership numbers should be released on Friday afternoon, but Nielsen data can provide some clue. The Trump-less Fox News debate had a rating of 8.4%, or roughly 11 to 13 million viewers – the second lowest rating of the election so far.
That figure is far lower than Fox News’ first Republican debate back in August, when a record 24 million people (a 15.9% rating) tuned in. Viewership for Thursday’s debate is more comparable to the Fox Business Network debate from December, which had a 7.4 rating and drew about 11 million viewers. (Far fewer Americans get Fox Business Network in cable packages than Fox News.)
MSNBC and CNN aired Trump’s competing event and had about a quarter of the viewers as Fox did for its debate. Both Trump and Fox live streamed their competing events for free; neither have released viewership numbers.
Democratic debates have drawn fewer viewers than their Republican counterparts, in part because the party has scheduled several on weekends, before holidays and at the same time as high-profile sporting and entertainment events. The highest rated Democratic debate was held by CNN in October, with almost 16 million viewers.
Debate reviews are in. Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media tycoon and owner of Fox News, liked what he saw.
No Trump allowed several to shine. Especially Bush, Rubio, Rand Paul. Polls will be interesting, but Donald's figures near unassailable.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) January 29, 2016
So did Trump. But this is not a poll …
Great Twitter poll- and I wasn't even there. Thank you! #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/yLJGkoOeBg
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2016
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the groggy day after the final Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses.
Last night, frontrunner Donald Trump declined to show, instead hosting a charity event supposedly for veterans … though its organizers declined to say which groups would receive donations.
The other leading Republican candidates bickered – over substance! – on a stage in Des Moines. Marco Rubio sniped at Ted Cruz, the closest to Trump in the Iowa polls, and both faced awkward questions over their inconsistent histories on immigration.
“This is the lie that Ted’s campaign is built on,” Rubio said of his fellow senator. Rand Paul similarly attacked what he called Cruz’s “falseness”.
Nearly all the candidates had to do some damage control over their immigration positions. When Rubio accused former Florida governor Jeb Bush of changing his policy about eventual citizenship for undocumented people, Bush retorted: “So did you, Marco.”
Trump’s shadow loomed over the debate, even from off stage.
“I’m a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly,” Cruz said, mocking the billionaire, who led a surreal variety show across town in protest of one of Fox News’ moderators.
Two minor candidates, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee – both kept out of the main debate because of their subterranean poll numbers – appeared at the event with Trump.
An hour east of Des Moines, the Democratic primary race took on familiar overtones. At Grinnell College, where Hillary Clinton’s supporters failed to muster a caucus for her eight years ago, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders wooed idealistic students.
Clinton leads Sanders by double digits in averages of national polls, but the poll averages also show the senator nearly tied to the former secretary of state in Iowa, and leading her by 15 points in the second state of the primary, New Hampshire. Clinton has worked hard to pitch voters on her long experience as a senator and the country’s top diplomat – and on the notion that only she can defeat a Republican in the general election.
There are only three days before Iowans decide the first state of the 2016 election. For a few candidates, the race to shake hands and kiss the heads of babies is getting literal. The Trump-Cruz-Clinton-Sanders-Rubio-Bush battle to become the most powerful politician in the world has a lot more chaos to come.
We’ll have all the updates here, with word from the trail from: DC bureau chief Dan Roberts, west coast bureau chief Paul Lewis, national reporter Lauren Gambino, political reporters Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui … and Adam Gabbatt, who says he’s a plumber.
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