Today in Campaign 2016
Here are some of the key takeaways from today in political news:
- In an appearance on the talk show The View, former candidate Ben Carson was confronted by co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who said that Donald Trump, whom Carson has endorsed, “is a racist.” “He’s a racist, and he’s not good for the country,” Goldberg said. “What’s the alternative?” Carson replied.
- Donald Trump’s doubling down on his criticism - okay, full-on insulting - of Ted Cruz’s wife is pushing the Texan senator to a place he rarely goes: unironic criticism of the billionaire frontrunner.
.@tedcruz says he doesn't get angry often: "Donald, you're a sniveling coward... Leave Heidi the hell alone." pic.twitter.com/iWX7GhjTpC
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) March 24, 2016
- (Although Cruz did immediately refuse to say that he would not support said “sniveling coward” if he won the Republican nomination.)
- A survey from Bloomberg Politics that showed Vermont senator Bernie Sanders edging out former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by a single point. Of course, America’s magnificently complicated primary process means that most national polls are barely worth the paper they’re printed on. But! These data are interesting beyond the notion that Sanders is favored by 49% of Democrats while Clinton is preferred by 48%.The reason they’re interesting? It’s all about the economy (stupid).
- In an interview with the Associated Press, Maryland governor Larry Hogan declared that if billionaire Republican frontrunner successfully wins his party’s nomination, he won’t know who to vote for.“I’m not a Trump fan,” Mr. Hogan told the Associated Press. “I don’t think he should be the nominee. At this point in time, I have no idea who the candidates are going to be or who I’m going to vote for.” Hogan is so disheartened by the state of the party that he “can’t even stand to watch the debates on TV.”
That’s it for today’s news in American campaign politics - tune in tomorrow, and the next day, and every day after that for up-to-the-minute news from the Guardian’s campaign correspondents around the country.
The US pro-gun lobby is entertaining its younger members with its own take on classic fairytales, but they have a unique twist: firearms.
The National Rifle Association’s nrafamily.com website is featuring the pro-firearms stories. The latest Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns), written by Amelia Hamilton and posted last week, is accompanied by a picture of the titular siblings lost in the forest, as is traditional, but rather than being petrified of the story’s witch they’re supplied with rifles.
The Charlotte Observer has castigated North Carolina governor Pat McCrory for signing a bill into law that stripped nondiscrimination protections from LGBT citizens, putting him in the company of “a dark list of Southern governors.”
“It was, in the end, about a 21st century governor who joined a short, tragic list of 20th century governors,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote. “You know at least some of these names, probably: Wallace, Faubus, Barnett. They were men who fed our worst impulses, men who rallied citizens against citizens, instead of leading their states forward.
“This is what Pat McCrory did Wednesday. In just 12 hours. It wasn’t the stand in the schoolhouse door. It was a sprint past the bathroom door and straight into the South’s dark, bigoted past.”
The bill, which also banned transgender North Carolinians from using public restrooms that comport with their gender identity, was passed in a special session and signed into law in less than 12 hours, over the protests of Democratic members of the state legislature and worries that the bill would put the state in violation of Title IX protections regarding gender.
Ted Cruz has dubbed Donald Trump a “sniveling coward” - but, as NBC News’ Hallie Jackson found out, that doesn’t mean he won’t support him if he wins the nomination.
.@tedcruz calls @realdonaldtrump "sniveling coward" - but won't say he won't back him as GOP nominee. Our exchange: pic.twitter.com/ACZMBvr4aS
— Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) March 24, 2016
Vice-president Joe Biden has admitted that the White House made a political calculation in nominating “moderate” Merrick Garland to a lifetime position on the supreme court, a choice that disappointed some liberal activists.
Biden told an audience of law students in Washington that the administration had a responsibility to be pragmatic at a time of divided government which, in an at times impassioned address, he warned has the makings of a “constitutional crisis”.
“It hasn’t been a closed process,” he said at Georgetown Law School. “We’ve reached out. Who do you want? Who do you think? What type of person should we nominate? We did our duty. The president did his duty. We sought advice and we ultimately chose the course of moderation.
“Because the government is divided, the president did not go on and find another [William] Brennan. Merrick Garland intellectually is capable as any justice, but he has a reputation for moderation. I think that’s a responsibility of an administration in a divided government. Some of my liberal friends don’t agree with me, but I do. It’s about the government functioning.”
Another day, another Republican official signs the #NeverTrump pact.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Maryland governor Larry Hogan declared that if billionaire Republican frontrunner successfully wins his party’s nomination, he won’t know who to vote for.
“I’m not a Trump fan,” Mr. Hogan told the Associated Press. “I don’t think he should be the nominee. At this point in time, I have no idea who the candidates are going to be or who I’m going to vote for.”
Hogan is so disheartened by the state of the party that he “can’t even stand to watch the debates on TV.”
“I don’t even want to be involved,” he said. “It’s a mess. I hate the whole thing. I don’t think we have the best candidates in either party that are being put up. I don’t like the dialogue. I don’t like the things that are going on, and I’m sick of talking about it, because it’s not anything I have anything to do with.”
Why is Donald Trump popular? Travelling around America’s south for his most recent book Deep South, the writer Paul Theroux got some ideas. “It’s the gun show guys,” he says, sitting in his Hawaii home. “Virtually everything Donald Trump says, you can find on a gun show bumper sticker. Anti-Obama stuff, anti-Muslim stuff, anti-Mexican stuff, anti-immigrant stuff.”
The 74-year-old warms to his theme. “Gun shows are about hating and distrusting the government … people who have been oppressed by a bad economy, by outsourcing. They have a lot of legitimate grievances and a lot of imagined grievances. There is this paranoid notion that Washington is trying to take their guns away, take their manhood away, take this symbol of independence away. They feel defeated. They hate the Republican party, too. They feel very isolated.”
Theroux reflects on Trumpmania dominating the Republican primaries and caucuses. “It’s a whole undercurrent of feeling that runs all the way through the United States. The mood I saw in southern gun shows seems to resonate even with educated, white-collar, Massachusetts Republican voters. Because Trump won my state of Massachusetts, he won a fairly sizable majority.”
Updated
He’s got us there.
Wow, just released that $67 million in negative ads was spent on me. How am I still number one - by a lot?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016
Podcast: Barack Obama in Cuba, Ted Cruz's Muslim surveillance and more
The Guardian’s Tom McCarthy is best known for anchoring this liveblog, but he’s also anchoring a new politics podcast pilot we’re testing out for the Guardian!
McCarthy spoke with the Guardian’s campaign correspondents on Barack Obama’s historic trip to Cuba, Ted Cruz’s “patrol and secure” comments regarding surveillance of Muslim communities in the United States and much more - check out the first installment here:
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Muslims are the new Mexicans in US politics. References to Muslims by politicians have become interchangeable with references to refugees, immigrants andterrorists in much the same way that Mexicans have long been synonymous with drug dealers, criminals and rapists.
And this week, following the attacks in Brussels, a number of presidential candidates had things to say. As the target of so much attention, it’s worth fact-checking some of those claims made recently about Muslims...
Ben Carson, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race earlier this month, is grilled on ABC’s The View for endorsing Donald Trump. Whoopi Goldberg, one of the show’s co-hosts, asked Carson how he can endorse someone who many believe to hold sexist and racist viewpoints. Carson says “there is no perfect person”, and that he is “looking at the big picture.”
New York congressman Chris Collins told a New York radio host on Wednesday that billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is much more popular with rank-and-file members of Congress than has been let on.
“Many members are supporting Trump quietly,” Collins told WHM’s Bob Lonsberry, as first reported by Buzzfeed. “They don’t like Ted Cruz at all, and for various reasons unique to their particular congressional districts they’re not formally endorsing Mr. Trump.”
“I’ve had absolutely no negative feedback” for being the first member of Congress to endorse Trump’s candidacy, Collins said. “On the House floor, people know he will be our nominee. With very few exceptions - four or five individuals - everyone’s saying they will support the nominee ... And if it’s Donald Trump, they’re gonna support him, as we all need to do to defeat Hillary Clinton and the progressive liberal campaign.”
It's important that we have civility during times of disagreement.
— Dr. Ben Carson (@RealBenCarson) March 24, 2016
...says the man who has endorsed the candidate who once compared him to a child molester.
Former first daughter and campaign surrogate Chelsea Clinton appears simultaneously pleased with and disgusted by the current war-of-wives being waged by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
“Well I wouldn’t defend anything that Sen. Cruz and Mr. Trump says or believes in or stands for,” Clinton said while stumping for her mother, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. “I think that the level of vitriol goes beyond anything that we certainly have seen in contemporary times in this election, and I think that anyone who is involved in politics.”
“Thankfully, from President Obama to my mom to Senator Sanders on, the Democratic side continues to both stand up against that type of vitriol and hate speech and the personal attacks as well as continue to stand for the types of substantive debates that they and certainly Democrats believe we need to be having in this country,” Clinton said.
Rights groups are considering legal action against North Carolina after the government adopted a law that critics say effectively sanctions the discrimination of LGBT people.
“It flies in the face of democracy” said Mike Meno, a spokesperson for the ACLU of North Carolina, which is actively looking into a legal challenge against the state with a coalition of rights groups.
“They essentially said it’s okay to discriminate against LGBT people, to turn them away from businesses, to fire them because of who they are or who they love – and that is not a North Carolina that a lot of people recognize or want to live in,” said Meno. “This is something that was done by extremists in the legislature who are out of step with many communities across our state.“
Poll: Bernie Sanders pulls one point ahead of Hillary Clinton nationally
Another day, another clatch of polls - this time, a survey from Bloomberg Politics that shows Vermont senator Bernie Sanders edging out former secretary of state Hillary Clinton by a single point.
Of course, America’s magnificently complicated primary process means that most national polls are barely worth the paper they’re printed on. But! These data are interesting beyond the notion that Sanders is favored by 49% of Democrats while Clinton is preferred by 48%.
The reason they’re interesting? It’s all about the economy (stupid).
Democratic voters feel that Sanders is the more reliable candidate to work for the middle class and do the most to fight Wall Street influence over government by a massive margin: 62% say he’d “fight hardest for the middle class,” and 64% say he’d do the most to “rein in Wall Street.”
While Clinton scores better in areas like temperament, foreign policy and experience, the plurality of voters say that income inequality and unemployment are the most important issues facing the country right now - which gives Sanders the edge.
Donald Trump’s doubling down on his criticism - okay, full-on insulting - of Ted Cruz’s wife is pushing the Texan senator to a place he rarely goes: unironic criticism of the billionaire frontrunner.
.@tedcruz says he doesn't get angry often: "Donald, you're a sniveling coward... Leave Heidi the hell alone." pic.twitter.com/iWX7GhjTpC
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) March 24, 2016
Carson defends Trump: 'what's the alternative?'
In an appearance on the talk show The View, former candidate Ben Carson was confronted by co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who said that Donald Trump, whom Carson has endorsed, “is a racist.”
“He’s a racist, and he’s not good for the country,” Goldberg said.
“What’s the alternative?” Carson replied.
“You’re Ben Carson, you’re so much better than this,” Goldberg said.
“I look at the big picture,” Carson said.
Fellow co-host Joy Behar then called Trump a liar and Carson said, “Tell me a politician that doesn’t tell lies.”
Here’s the exchange:
Goldberg: You have aligned yourself with a man who has bashed women, made countless racist statements, and you’re Ben Carson, why would you align yourself with that?”
Carson: You have to look at the good and the bad. There is no perfect person. [Carson went on to say that in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump broke barriers on admitting “Jews and blacks” in social clubs.]
Carson: I have met a lot of his employees, including African Americans, and they have nothing but good things to say. Carson said. [He adds that Trump has well-raised, respectful children.]
Goldberg: He’s a racist, and he’s not good for the country.
Carson: What’s the alternative?
Updated
Biden: There is no 'Biden rule'
Since Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, Republicans in the senate have argued that it would be inappropriate to take up such a nomination in the heat of an election year – and their Exhibit A is a speech that vice president Joe Biden made on the senate floor in 1992.
In the speech, which is posted below, Biden did argue against considering a Supreme Court nomination during a presidential election season. But today, in an address at Georgetown University, Biden argued that he had been quoted selectively.
Because he was, as chairman of the judiciary committee at the time, willing in principle to hold hearings on a nominee, he said. He never considered, Biden said today, the possibility of not holding hearings on such a nominee.
Guardian Washington correspondent David Smith watched the speech. He’s live tweeted much of it, as prelude to a news story on the way. Here’s David:
Biden: In 1992 I took to the senate floor to talk about the supreme court. Mitch McConnell has been quoting "selectively" from my remarks.
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) March 24, 2016
Biden: Let me set the record straight. I made it absolutely clear that I would go ahead if the nominee were selected with advice of senate.
Biden: We should proceed with the advice and consent of the senate, as the constitution states.
Biden: On committee I was responsible for nine nominees for the supreme court, more than anyone alive.
Biden: “Every nominee, including Justice Kennedy—in an election year—got an up or down vote by the senate.”
Biden: “Not much of the time. Not most of the time. Every single time!”
Biden: There is no "Biden rule". It's ridiculous.
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) March 24, 2016
Biden: Saying nothing, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. Deciding to turn your back is not an option the constitution leaves open.
Biden: It’s an abdication of responsibility “that has never happened before in our history”.
Biden: Congress has become “almost entirely dysfunctional”.
Biden: When the senate refuses to even consider a nominee, it prevents the court from discharging its constitutional “solemn duty”.
The 1992 speech on the Senate floor in which Biden argued against considering a Supreme Court nomination in a presidential election season:
Updated
Donald Trump has collected footage of three former presidential candidates who have endorsed Ted Cruz – Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and Lindsey Graham – speaking ill of Ted Cruz.
Tagline: “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”
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Here’s a live stream of vice president Joe Biden’s imminent address on the topic of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland:
Wisconsin votes on Tuesday, 5 April, in an open primary. On the Republican side, there are 42 delegates at stake, awarded on a winner-take-all basis per congressional district and statewide. (If you win the vote in a congressional district, you receive all delegates allotted to that district; if you win statewide, you win additional delegates reserved for the statewide winner.)
Donald Trump has scheduled a rally Tuesday for Wisconsin in Janesville. You might know it as the hometown of House speaker Paul Ryan, who gave a speech yesterday deploring the vulgar tone of the current political discourse. Ryan did not name names.
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Artist makes Donald Trump portrait out of pig snout and sheep eyes - video
The issue Republicans and Democrats agree on
What do you know, we agree on something: Americans of both major political parties are united in their dislike of free trade, a Bloomberg poll finds. 44% say the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) has been bad for the US economy and 29% say it’s been a positive development, according to the survey.
Pollsters also found that most Americans say they would be willing to pay a little bit more for goods made in the United States, and that they would rather a US-owned factory employing 1,000 opened in their community than a Chinese-owned factory employing twice that many.
Virtually every question of policy has a Republican-Democrat split,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey. “On trade, there is unity.”
Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have tapped the vein of protectionism, with Sanders advertising “the real cost of Hillary Clinton’s free trade policies” and Trump as much as promising a trade war. Clinton supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership as secretary of state, although she now opposes it; her husband signed Nafta.
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Here’s a fun interview with Republican strategist Rick Wilson on the Trump phenomenon:
Oh. Hey. I'm in the @nytimes magazine. "Rick Wilson Would Take Clinton Over Trump" https://t.co/qc43R6Lpk0 Thanks, @anamariecox! :)
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) March 24, 2016
First question, first answer:
You’ve gained lots of fans on the left thanks to your vicious descriptions of Trump and his supporters. Once, on MSNBC, you called his base ‘‘childless single men who masturbate to anime.’’ That was in reference to the alt-right part of his base. I wish I could take credit for it being a broader smear. If one is going to insult a group of people who think that Trump is their own private postmodern Hitler, one ought to be specific.
Here’s a selection of photos from outside a Bernie Sanders rally yesterday evening in Los Angeles:
Trump: “Illegal immigration, take the oil, build the wall, Muslims, NATO!”
You know what he means. Trump has won 19 state Republican presidential nominating contests. Plus the Northern Marianas. He has 274 more pledged delegates than his closest rival. Three new polls Wednesday night showed him ahead with GOP voters by an average of 8 points. He hasn’t held a public event for three days.
.@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/BG2weoIxAy
— Adam Mordecai (@advodude) March 24, 2016
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Clinton hits Trump over 'Nato is obsolete' stance
“N.A.T.O. is obsolete and must be changed to additionally focus on terrorism as well as some of the things it is currently focused on!” Donald Trump tweeted Thursday.
The statement was in keeping with Trump’s critique of the costs of maintaining a US military presence in Japan, the Persian Gulf, Europe and elsewhere. In Trump’s view, the US is spending too much to cover other countries’ security costs. Might the US be paying in part to address US security interests in those places? He doesn’t get into it. The US makes bad deals because the leadership’s stupid, is his take.
In a speech Wednesday at Stanford University, Hillary Clinton called the view “dangerous.”
“If Mr Trump gets his way it will be like Christmas in the Kremlin,” Clinton said. “Turning our back on our alliances or turning our alliance into a protection racket would reverse decades of bipartisan American leadership and would send a dangerous signal to friend and foe alike.”
Read further coverage here:
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[deep breath]
Donald Trump posted an unflattering picture of Ted Cruz’s wife on Twitter, after the magnate threatened to “spill the beans” on Heidi Cruz in retaliation for an anti-Trump ad produced last week by a third party featuring a picture of Melania Trump nude.
[deep breath]
Here’s Trump’s RT:
"@Don_Vito_08: "A picture is worth a thousand words" @realDonaldTrump #LyingTed #NeverCruz @MELANIATRUMP pic.twitter.com/5bvVEwMVF8"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016
[deep breath]
Here’s Cruz’s valiant reply:
Donald, real men don't attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life. https://t.co/pprXhIMzUT
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 24, 2016
[deep breath]
And here’s a sample of the indignant backlash, from an advisor to the anti-Trump group Our Principles Pac:
As disgusting as Donald's hair, skin, and fat physique are, he is a far more disgusting person. This is sick. https://t.co/yJQj9Cv6Rl
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) March 24, 2016
[exhales]
Here’s the tweet Trump RT’d before the one with the photo split:
"@Kj11100Me: @realDonaldTrump Donald Trump will be greater president than Ragan. Trump will set the button for morality,Christianity.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016
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Fact check: what the candidates said about Muslims after Brussels
Guardian US data editor Mona Chalabi has a look at claims the US presidential candidates have made about Muslims this week. Here, for example, from the Texas senator:
Ted Cruz
“If you look here in the city of New York, New York had a proactive policing program that Mayor Michael Bloomberg championed to work cooperatively with the Muslim community to prevent radicalization.”
- Speaking at a news conference in New York, 22 March 2016
Cruz made the comment hours after the attacks in Brussels on Tuesday, in a speech outlining a proposal to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods”. His description of NYPD’s “proactive policing program” could make it hard to figure out which scheme Cruz is referring to – because the NYPD Muslim monitoring scheme is generally referred to as their surveillance program.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) certainly doesn’t describe the NYPD scheme, which has been in place since at least 2002, as “proactive” – their site explains:
The NYPD’s surveillance program is based on a false and unconstitutional premise: that Muslim religious belief and practices are a basis for law enforcement scrutiny.
New York’s federal courts would seem to agree. In January, the NYPD lost two civil rights lawsuits that accused the force of unfairly monitoring Muslims. Cruz’s claim that the program worked “cooperatively” with New York’s Muslims is also a very generous reading of practices such as tracking individuals and using so-called “mosque crawlers”.
Assessment: A convenient reinterpretation of the facts.
Read the full piece here:
President Obama dances the tango in Argentina – video
Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House.
Donald Trump not only maintains his polling lead among Republicans in three new surveys – most Republican voters agree with him that if he wins the most delegates before the national convention, even if it’s not an outright majority, he should be the nominee.
A Bloomberg poll found 63% of Republicans who have voted or plan to vote in the primary process think Trump should be nominated if he leads the delegates race in July.
One problem, for Republicans, is that the same poll found that Trump was viewed unfavorably by 68% of Americans. That’s a lot – even more than the fairly unpopular Hillary Clinton, whose disapproval rating was measured at 53%.
In other news, Joe Biden is scheduled to speak today on the nomination of DC circuit court judge Merrick Garland to the supreme court. That’s drudgery compared to what the Obamas, who spent last night in Argentina, are up to:
Hello, Buenos Aires: The Obamas do the tango https://t.co/s1dZaznlng by @joshledermanAP pic.twitter.com/NHZsGDhoKX
— Charles Dharapak (@Dharapak) March 24, 2016
Trump predicts a Brexit:
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