Good evening from New York City, where we’re wrapping up the second installment of the Guardian’s 2016 campaign liveblog. For the next 237 days, we’ll keep bringing you minute-by-minute coverage of the campaign trail, from the cornfields of Iowa to the convention halls of Cleveland and every Trump rally in between.
President Barack Obama addressed the “terrible tragedy” of the Flint water crisis while in Detroit, and expressed his anger as a father at the contamination emergency that has left thousands of children sick with lead poisoning.
“If I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself that my kids’ health could be at risk,” Obama said. “And that’s why over the weekend I declared a federal emergency in Flint to send more resources on top of what we’ve already put on the ground.”
Former secretary of state and currently exasperated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told National Public Radio’s Ari Shapiro - once described in the pages of GQ as “rather annoyingly accomplished and perfect” - declared that the latest revelations regarding her private email server are nothing more than a “continuation of an interagency dispute that has been going on now for some months.”
The Republican National Committee immediately ceased all references to Clinton’s emails, sent the Democratic candidate a fruit basket in apology, and returned to the business of deciding whether to let the campaign play out or simply to crown Donald Trump as the party’s nominee now.
Okay, maybe not, but given the real estate tycoon’s huge (yuge?) 20-point lead in New Hampshire, it might not be outside the real of possibility.
Speaking of Trump... newly minted Trumpkin Sarah Palin broke the land speed record in becoming an unwelcome distraction for the campaign when she blamed her son’s arrest for drunken domestic battery on - you guessed it - Barack Obama.
My son, like so many others, they come back a bit different, they come back hardened. They come back wondering if there is that respect for what it is that their fellow soldiers and airman and every other member of the military so sacrificially have given to this country. And that starts from the top. That comes from our own president, where they have to look at him and wonder, ‘Do you know what we go through? Do you know what we’re trying to do to secure America?’”
Jeb Lund’s verdict on the former half-term governor of Alaska blaming an act of alleged domestic violence on the president of the United States: “Fairly gross.”
In less depressing news, the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs reported from the corn-choked ethanol fields of Iowa that Trump has taken to paying tribute to the recently deceased Eagles guitarist Glenn Frey by playing the stadium rock group’s classic “Already Gone” at his rallies. For anyone who has sat through “The Music of the Night” while reporting on the Donald, this is a welcome addition to the Spotify playlist.
Of *course* Trump's favorite Broadway show is "Phantom" and favorite aria is "Nessun Dorma" https://t.co/pK2XcRqvb6 pic.twitter.com/kAU4vsEobv
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) January 21, 2016
That’s it for fear and laughing on the campaign trail today - tune in tomorrow, the day after, and the 236 days after that as our team of reporters file from around the country, trailing the clown car so you don’t have to.
President Barack Obama may be about to pull a Beyoncé - that is, he may be on the verge of dropping a hot executive action without even a hint of warning.
After issuing executive orders that expanded access to mental-health treatment and improved background checks for Americans seeking to purchase a firearm, Obama is reportedly considering an order aimed at pulling back the curtain on campaign finance.
According to the New York Times, Obama’s newest order would require federal contractors - that is, any private corporation that does business with the US government - to publicly disclose any and all campaign donations they make. Discussion over the potential executive order, apparently more than a year in the making, has “intensified in recent weeks” as he heads into his final year in office:
The idea behind the order is to expose the political activity of many of the country’s largest companies, an attempt to narrow the floodgates of corporate contributions that opened with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010, which allowed companies and labor unions to give unlimited sums.”
The ruling would apply to blue-chip corporations like Apple, ExxonMobil, General Electric and General Motors, all of which have federal contracts.
Obama may have previewed the order during last week’s State of the Union address, when the president declared that “we have to reduce the influence of money in our politics so that a handful of families and hidden interests can’t bankroll our elections.”
Any such executive order would likely earn the ire and indignation of the president’s would-be successors, who were none too pleased regarding Obama’s use of executive orders to expand background checks for gun purchases.
“President Obama is trying to distract Americans from his failure to address the true threat of radical Islamic terrorism, and instead going after the rights of law-abiding American citizens — it is complete lunacy,” announced a Ted Cruz spokesperson following that order. “If Ted Cruz is elected president, the lawlessness will end on Day One, and Americans’ personal liberties will be restored and protected.”
Despite the likely umbrage, Obama has not necessarily been a huge fan of executive orders - at least, compared to his predecessors. The president has averaged the fewest number of executive orders per year of any president since Grover Cleveland’s first term.
Kentucky senator Rand Paul is really pushing the Trump-as-six-hundred-year-old-dessicated-hobbit-monster:
CNN’s latest poll may have him in a three-way tie for fourth place among likely New Hampshire primary voters, but campaign watchers say that Ohio governor John Kasich may be the dark horse candidate in the Granite State.
The gruff governor, whose national name recognition is the lowest of any presidential candidate not named “Jim Gilmore,” is the subject of a Politico piece that contends he may be on the verge of a well-timed upswing in support, much of it rooted in exasperation with the Republican party’s current frontrunners.
Kasich - pronounced “Kay-sick,” for those still wondering - is banking on New Hampshire’s peculiar primary rules, which allow independents to vote in the Republican primary. His moderation is on full display during a week-long tour across bluer parts of the state - Kasich is stumping primarily in counties that Barack Obama won during the last presidential election. With 44% of the Granite State’s voters registered as independents, Kasich has a huge (yuge?) opportunity with non-traditional GOP voters.
And about that CNN poll... Trump’s commanding lead hasn’t been questioned by any mainstream poll - a fact of which he has made sure we are all aware - but Kasich’s lower-tier standing is a bit of an anomaly. Most contemporary polls have the Ohio governor polling in second place in New Hampshire, and he’s been more than pleased to emphasize that point.
A just-released poll by @OANN & @GravisMarketing has @JohnKasich in 2nd in NH again! https://t.co/VWC57FdOXB pic.twitter.com/0Fq1TwjsR3
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) January 20, 2016
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs, reporting from the frozen tundras of the heartland, has some insight on Donald Trump’s Spotify playlist:
The music set list at Donald Trump’s campaign events has often drawn notice. Comprised primarily of classic rock tunes with a sprinkling of opera, Adele and selections from the Phantom of Opera (Ed.: UGH), it plays for hours before events as the crowd waits for Trump. But while it often consists of the same selections like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Elton John, there’s been a new edition this week, the Eagles.
Since the death of Eagles guitarist Glenn Frey earlier this week, the song Already Gone has been added to the set list. It first appeared at his rally in Ameson Tuesday when Trump received the endorsement of former GOP vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin.
Assuming it’s a tribute to Frey, it’s far more subtle than one made by one of Trump’s rivals earlier this week. Ben Carson tweeted a pun laden tribute to Frey featuring the titles of several hit songs by the Eagles.
Take It Easy, Glenn Frey, it's your turn for that Peaceful Easy Feeling. For the rest of us it's gonna be a Heartache Tonight #TheEagles
— Dr. Ben Carson (@RealBenCarson) January 19, 2016
Were you as hypnotized by Sarah Palin’s cardigan-slash-cape-slash-cave-formation as we were yesterday?
The aspiring beat poet - “teachers and teamsters / and cops and cooks / you rockin’ rollers / and holy rollers” may be the sickest political rhyme not currently featured in the hit Broadway musical Hamilton - drew huge crowds and national attention when she endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign yesterday, but on a stage occupied by two of the most fascinating people in American politics, the cardigan stole the show.
According to enterprising fashion reporters at Mashable, the jacket is the product of the ateliers at Milly, a high-end fashion label based in New York - or, as Palin may deem it, Not Real America. Although the bolero originally retailed at Saks Fifth Avenue for $695, you may procure one on Ebay for as little as $199.
Failing that, you could also mug Tina Turner.
Oh, come on, now...
Screenshot from latest @r2rusa mailer in NH targeting @ChrisChristie's "massive" Obamacare expansion. pic.twitter.com/lQsY7DDVz5
— Ed O'Keefe (@edatpost) January 21, 2016
In a wide-ranging interview with National Public Radio’s Ari Shapiro, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton dismissed a Fox News report that emails sent on her private email server contained a higher number of classified materials than previously reported.
Calling the reports a “continuation of an interagency dispute that has been going on now for some months,” Clinton told NPR that “the best we can determine” is that the emails in question were a forward of a New York Times article on a classified drone program that had likely been retroactively classified.
“How a New York Times public article that goes around the world could be in any way viewed as classified, or the fact that it would be sent to other people off of the New York Times site, I think, is one of the difficulties that people have in understanding what this is about,” Clinton said.
The drone program, classified at the time, was being written about publicly, which Clinton said “strikes me as somewhat strange that there would be a - an effort by those who are leaking this - and obviously that’s what’s happening - to try to raise concerns and doubts about information in the public sector.”
“But even if they have retroactive concerns and doubts, that doesn’t change the fact that these were not marked classified at the time they were sent or received,” Clinton added.
Listen to the whole interview here:
Updated
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Alberta) has never been the darling of the so-called “party fathers,” who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards and talk about “What’s to be done with this Ted Cruz?” But a lion of the party has made the Republican establishment’s disdain for the Texan senator crystal-clear in an interview with the New York Times.
Bob Dole, a former Kansas senator and Republican presidential candidate, told the Times’ Maggie Haberman that the Republican party would suffer “cataclysmic,” “wholesale losses” if Cruz were to win the party’s nomination. Perhaps most devastatingly of all, the retired five-term senator declared that billionaire gadfly Donald Trump would be a preferable choice.
“If he’s the nominee, we’re going to have wholesale losses in Congress and state offices and governors and legislatures,” said Dole, a two-time winner of the Iowa caucuses, who accused Cruz of illegitimately “convinc[ing] the Iowa voters that he’s kind of a mainstream conservative.”
“I question his allegiance to the party,” Dole told the Times. “I don’t know how often you’ve heard him say the word ‘Republican’ - not very often.” Dole declared that the “extremist” Cruz’s fractious history with leadership in the US senate spelled a potentially disastrous working relationship between the legislative and executive branches.
“I don’t know how he’s going to deal with Congress,” he said. “Nobody likes him.”
At least Trump could “probably work with Congress,” according to Dole, “because he’s, you know, he’s got the right personality and he’s kind of a deal-maker.”
UPDATE: Donald Trump really, really enjoyed Haberman’s interview.
Bob Dole Warns of ‘Cataclysmic’ Losses With Ted Cruz, and Says Donald Trump Would Do Better via New York Times: https://t.co/txEaLrZ4uY
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2016
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The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs, reporting from Iowa’s amber waves of grain, has Hillary Clinton going all-in on the Hawkeye State:
Hillary Clinton is bringing out the heavy artillery this weekend in Iowa. With her lead in the first-of-the-nation caucuses slipping and one poll in New Hampshire showing her once formidable lead getting blown to hell, Clinton is saturating the Hawkeye State with surrogates. Three different US senators - Cory Booker of New Jersey, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York - will be campaigning for Clinton in Iowa over the weekend. They will be joined as well by actor Tony Goldwyn (Ed.: SWOON) as well as Stephanie Schriock, the head of Emily’s List. In addition to these surrogates, Clinton will be spending the entire weekend in the state as well.
All three senators are considered rising stars in the Democratic party. Kaine is widely considered to be the favorite among pundits to be Clinton’s potential running mate if she wins the nomination, Gillibrand was tipped as a potential presidential candidate this cycle if Clinton chose not to run and Booker has been a national celebrity since his first campaign to be mayor of Newark, New Jersey. With less than two weeks to the caucuses, the saturation of the state shows how intensely that the Clinton campaign is worried about the threat posed by Sanders - and the stakes building for Democrats on caucus night.
Trump holds 20-point lead in New Hampshire primary
More good news for Donald Trump/terrible news for the rest of the Republican field.
Less than three weeks before the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire, the Donald’s huge (yuge?) lead in the Granite State has expanded to a yawning 20% over Texas senator Ted Cruz, his nearest rival. According to a new CNN/WMUR poll of likely Republican voters, Trump is now backed by 34% of those likely to vote in New Hampshire’s February 9 primary, more than double Cruz’s support, which drifts at a distant 14% - although that represents a six-point jump in support from the last CNN/WMUR poll conducted in December.
The rest of the field remains relatively crowded: Former Florida governor Jeb Bush is tied for third place with fellow Floridian Marco Rubio, with 10% each. There’s a three-way tie for fourth place, with Chris Christie, John Kasich and Rand Paul each pulling in the support of 6% of likely Republican primary voters. The rest of the field falls below the poll’s 4.8% margin of error for support.
There’s still room for positivity among the lower ranks, however. A mere 31% of Republicans surveyed told CNN that they have definitively made up their minds about who they’re voting for, and Cruz remains the most popular second-choice candidate, with 20% of primary voters saying that the Texan senator of Canadian extraction would be their runner-up.
On the issues, the real estate tycoon continues to dominate with voters. Trump is named the number-one most-trusted candidate to handle both Isis and the economy by likely voters, with 32% and 48% of those surveyed saying that he’s best suited to tackle them, respectively.
Trump continues to be divisive among New Hampshire voters, however, with nearly one in three telling CNN that they would not vote for the billionaire frontrunner “under any circumstance.” Bush, whose staffers are presumably tearing at their scalps with nail-bitten fingers upon reading this statistic, is the only other candidate to crack the double digits on unpopularity, with 18% of New Hampshire voters saying that they would rather vote for any other presidential candidate than him.
File under ¯\_(ツ)_/¯: Rick Santorum, who pulls in zero percent support in New Hampshire, is technically the least-objectionable candidate, with only 1% of likely primary voters saying that they would never vote for him.
Updated
And now a few words from Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund on Sarah Palin’s apparent decision to pin her son’s arrest for domestic violence on – you guessed it – President Barack Obama:
Writing about candidate’s kids is usually pretty cheap. If they’re adults, they can make their own decisions - often, like so many of us, against what their parents taught them. If they’re kids, you’re just pushing pawns around a board. But, if the candidate goes there, you can go there. Maybe you even should. Sarah Palin went there.
The domestic assault arrest of Sarah Palin’s son Track shouldn’t be cause for much discussion, under normal circumstances, apart from re-deploying old jokes, like, “Why couldn’t she name him Bort?” Sarah Palin has never run on a Domestic Violence Is Good plank, so mainly this is about a tragedy befalling one woman, perhaps one couple. But if the Mama Grizzly wants to dine out on it, let’s humor her.
Today, in Iowa, Palin laid this domestic incident right at the feet of the person most responsible: President Obama. She said:
My son, like so many others, they come back a bit different, they come back hardened. They come back wondering if there is that respect for what it is that their fellow soldiers and airman and every other member of the military so sacrificially have given to this country. And that starts from the top. That comes from our own president, where they have to look at him and wonder, ‘Do you know what we go through? Do you know what we’re trying to do to secure America?’”
This is a fairly gross train of thought, for a couple reasons.
Blaming Track Palin’s problems on Obama’s policy is just trading in the old Stabbed In The Back myth, repurposed from Weimar Germany by way of Vietnam, to synonymize an antipathy for the policy and strategy for which troops died with an antipathy for the troops themselves. (Let’s also not forget that neglecting the VA has been a bipartisan sin.) And whatever insufficiency of warmongering Obama has manifested over the years has never been paired with anything short of voluble, frequent praise for service members.
Even if Palin’s assertions were true, that’s a weird way for PTSD to manifest, so furious at a policy that it leads someone to lash out in the home as opposed to expressing anything at the source of the anger. Is it related to all troop withdrawals and just to Obama? What about other policy makers? And why didn’t this come up earlier? Was Track Palin drunk and shirtless at the Palin’s 2014 pier-six brawl because of Obama too?
It may be possible. Veterans suffer from PTSD in myriad ways. But that’s just another reason why Palin’s statements are ugly. Reducing veterans to some dehumanized force of violence, and only violence, cheapens their suffering. It might make for a good affirmative defense for Palin’s son, but it should never be mistaken for a universal condition.
Many veterans with PTSD endure a quiet depression and anxiety, unsure if they’re ever going to properly function as everyday citizens again. It is a hollowing, not a lashing, out. Worse, if that despair ever manifests as violence, it often does so only against themselves, where people hardened by death and with training and access to guns direct that violence inward one final time
Palin unintentionally echoed that last concern, unaware, last night, rhymin’ and redefinin’ it, when she dipped into her bag of bumper stickers and came up with, “Right wingin’, bitter clingin’, proud clingers of our guns.” She didn’t mean it that way, of course.
Updated
Obama addresses Flint water crisis - "I would be beside myself"
President Obama’s speech in Detroit today was intended to be triumphant, a celebration of the renaissance of an automobile industry once on the brink of collapse. But Obama’s successful bailout of American carmakers and the subsequent revival of Michigan’s most important industry has been eclipsed by a nearby civic emergency: a water crisis in Flint that threatens the health of tens of thousands of people.
Sixty-eight miles north by road, residents of the long-neglected industrial town have been poisoned by lead-contaminated water, the consequence of tightfisted city authorities who switched the source of the city’s drinking water from Detroit to the Flint River. The river water corroded the city’s water system, leaching insanely high amounts of lead into Flint’s drinking water and poisoning more than 25,000 of the city’s children.
It was this risk to children that Obama brought up as he mentioned the crisis.
“If I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself that my kids’ health could be at risk,” Obama said. “And that’s why over the weekend I declared a federal emergency in Flint to send more resources on top of what we’ve already put on the ground.”
“I met with Mayor Weaver in the White House, in the Oval Office,” Obama continued, “and told her that we are gonna have her back, and all the people of Flint’s back as they work their way through this terrible tragedy.”
Unlike his potential replacements in the White House, Obama cited Flint’s water crisis as an example of why the government’s role in public safety is so crucial. “It is a reminder of why you can’t shortchange basic services that we provide to our people and that we, together, provide as a government” to assure the health and safety of the American public is preserved, Obama said.
At Obama’s urging, the Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to review what went wrong in Michigan’s response to the crisis.
Updated
The Guardian’s David Smith in Manchester, New Hampshire, reports that former half-term governor Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump has one-time frontrunner Jeb Bush nearly apoplectic with frustration:
Visiting an American Legion hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, Republican candidate Jeb Bush argued that Sarah Palin had backed the wrong horse by endorsing Donald Trump.
“I admire her but Donald Trump’s not a conservative,” he told the Guardian. “He can get endorsements but man, he’s been all over the map on positions and he’s not a conservative. We need a conservative to win the conservative party’s nomination.”
Refreshingly in the era of TV and social media, the retail politics of New Hampshire still requires candidates to turn up and make their case in intimate settings like this cosy wood-panelled bar with formica tables, trophy cabinets, pool tables, Budweiser-branded mirrors and photos of military veterans.
Guests were outnumbered by journalists until a late surge heralded the arrival of Bush, accompanied by senator Lindsey Graham, who threw in his lot with the former Florida governor after dropping out of the race. The pair mingled with two dozen veterans, shaking hands, chatting and joking. Asked his age, Bush replied: “I’m 32. Sixty-two is the new 32.”
But as so often, Trump haunted the feast like Banquo’s ghost. Bush told the gathering: “We need to work with our Arab allies, not to push them aside with grandiose, really stupid talk of banning all Muslims that sends a signal that we’re not serious in building partnerships with our allies.”
The Kurds have been America’s staunchest ally fighting Islamic State in Iraq, he added, only to hear talk of a ban on Muslims entering America. “It’s insulting... It weakens our posture, it weakens our position.”
When one attendee asked about the “carnival entertainer” riding high in the polls, Graham earned laughter by wisecracking: “Well, enough about Bernie.”
More seriously, Bush, wearing shirt, tie and trousers with jacket off, replied: “I try to avoid in these meetings to have a Trump therapy session. So, here’s what I know to be true. The president of the United States need to have a steady hand, needs to have leadership skills, needs to have a backbone and a heart and brain, and needs to stick with things. The world’s a dangerous place and the way you bring order to the world is the word of the president is meaningful.
“... The better way is to speak quietly but carry a big stick and that means you have to be consistent in your views because your friends need to know that you have their back and your enemies need to fear, they need to twitch a little bit... That does not require the unpredictability of the leading candidate. That would be chaotic. No one would know where we stand on anything because he doesn’t know where we stand.”
Bush earned applause by promising to shake up bureaucracy at the Department of Veterans Affairs and boost veterans’ healthcare, describing current lack of access for many as “shameful”.
And asked if America should reintroduce the military draft, he almost ruled it out, but not quite. “If we can field a volunteer force that is well equipped, well trained, well supported, then I would continue to support it. If we lose that and it’s in our national security interest to consider another option, which I don’t think is the case, then certainly we would consider it.”
Trump’s done. More Eye of the Tiger.
Ben Jacobs catches a Palin slip:
Palin misquotes Reagan again and says "power through strength." Reagan's phrase was "peace through strength."
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) January 20, 2016
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
Trump: drop Bergdahl to Isis
Trump is now riffing on the case of Bowe Bergdahl, who was freed from captivity by the Taliban in Afghanistan in a prisoner swap two years ago. Bergdahl was captured after walking away from his base.
Trump calls Bergdahl a “dirty traitor” and says he should be dropped to Isis fighters right before they’re bombed:
We take him, we fly him over a thick heavy area, and before we bomb the hell out of Isis, we drop Bergdahl.
Trump also repeated the misinformation that five US servicemembers had died in the hunt for Bergdahl. Early reports upon Bergdahl’s release suggesting that was the case have been debunked, including by former defense secretary Chuck Hagel, who has said he was aware of no deaths tied to the search.
Updated
Trump: Obama 'stupid'
Trump basically calls the president a big doody-head poopooface:
There’s no better word to describe our leader and our administration than ‘stupid.’ These are stupid people. Stupid.
Updated
This is from yesterday but it was the same scene today, except Palin was wearing a green leather jacket and Trump wasn’t standing right next to her as she spoke.
(h/t: @lizwfb)
This is from today:
Can you spot the differences? Drop ’em in the comments.
IMPORTANT TRANSLATION GUIDE from my colleague Amber Jamieson is ready for you here:
Updated
The crowd breaks out in chants: Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!
“So nice, thank you,” the candidate says.
“We have by far the most people,” Trump says. “By the way like today, you had 20,000, they had to send 7,000 people away. Meaning I’m coming back to Oklahoma.. I feel guilty.”
More chants for him, and more love from him: “I love you! I love you!”
Then Trump turns on Clinton, and Sanders, repeating his line about Sanders being a “whackjob”:
He’s beating Hillary Clinton, can you believe this? This guy, he’s a whacko, he’s a whackjob, can you believe this?
Trump begins to explain how “I think I probably helped him a lot, recently,” but he’s interrupted by a protester. Trump taunts the protester from stage as the protester is escorted out:
Get ‘’em out of here, go ahead. Alright, get out of here, kid. What’s more fun than a Trump rally, huh? Get him out of here, out, out! He’s not going to mess around with that guard. See, he wants to be politically correct.
Boos.
Palin is still going. She seems to be doing great, judging by the crowd’s enthusiasm. Is it interesting anymore to say that Sarah Palin (often) knows exactly what she’s doing? Do you think she does?
If Palin’s speech seemed unrehearsed last night, her repeating many of the lines today should dispel that...
— Tal Kopan (@TalKopan) January 20, 2016
Palin ends with a scene of fantasy, about the departure of Barack Obama from the White House.
“He’s going to be packing up the selfie sticks and packing up the TelePrompter and the Greek columns and all that hopey-changey stuff. And he’s going to move back to Chicago and look for some community to organize,” Palin says.
“But when he looks up, he’s going to see that big shiny Trump Tower, because yes, Barack, Trump built that.”
It doesn’t make sense but that literally doesn’t matter. The crowd is jazzed. She’s out. He’s coming back.
Updated
A lot of this speech is the same as yesterday in Iowa. “No, we won’t chill. In fact it’s time to drill, baby, drill down.”
Of course, having taken the trouble to write that kind of line, it would be a shame only to use it once.
If Palin’s speech seemed unrehearsed last night, her repeating many of the lines today should dispel that...
— Tal Kopan (@TalKopan) January 20, 2016
Updated
Palin: Trump 'ballsy'
Palin says that most candidates won’t talk about “real conservative issues” – she mentions “a nation without borders” and “political correctness” [read: Muslim ban].
But: “Our candidate is ballsy enough to get out there and put those issue on the table.”
Updated
Palin to crowd: GOP is 'attacking you'
Palin is back to the cheer lines. “Like I said last night in Iowa, no more pussyfootin’ around!” Yay.
She’s covering serious ground now and it’s hard to keep up. Crony capitalism, porous borders, offshore jobs, perks in DC, media ratings...
The upshot is that a group of establishment Republicans in Washington are parasites on voters. They don’t care who wins elections as long as they keep their jobs, perks, and fortunes.
It’s pure Us vs Them: “Even today, the GOP machine, they’re attacking their own frontrunner, and his diverse... supporters. They’re attacking you,” Palin says.
Her pitch for Trump is that he’s the candidate who has the power “to bust that up”: “I’ve seen how those who Go Rogue, like Mr Trump does, in order to do the right thing.”
“That’s the beauty of Trump’s candidacy. The way that he goes rogue. We can trust that, when he’s elected president, things will be different.”
Palin ties son's arrest on abuse charges to military service
Palin now refers to the arrest of her son, Track, 26, earlier this week on domestic abuse charges. She ties the arrest to his military service, and then flips to a criticism of the president for not, she says, supporting veterans.
She’s this close to saying that Track’s arrest was Barack Obama’s fault.
Serious stuff, this, in any case. Palin says:
My own family, my son, a combat vet having served in the Stryker brigade... my son like so many others, they come back a bit different, they come back hardened, they come back wondering if there is that respect... and that starts right at the top.
“When my own son is going through what he goes through, coming back, I can certainly appreciate other families,” Palin says. She mentions PTSD.
She says “it’s now or never” for the military to have a commander in chief who will respect and honor them. Palin says the country needs a president who “will treat vets better than illegal immigrants.” Huge cheers for the line.
If the crowd was put off by the wait, they sound very pleased now.
Update:
If you or someone you love suffers from PTSD or is suicidal, you can contact @800273TALK, or via anonymous chat https://t.co/wfSU20pmaC
— Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) January 20, 2016
Updated
Palin: Kick Isis Ass
Palin reuses some lines from yesterday – she describes a kind of transitive property of awesome culminating with the KICK ISIS ASS line.
“We need to elect a commander in chief who will respect our troops,” Palin says. Cheers.
“A commander in chief who understands that we, as Americans, you here in Oklahoma especially, we love our freedom. And when you love your freedom, you respect the vets.
“And when you respect the vets...you let them do their job and go KiCk ISIS ASS.”
This, of course, is rejoined by chants of USA! USA! USA!
Updated
“Are you all ready to work to make America great again!” Palin says.
“You hard-working Americans, you patriots, you know that” -- she says, and the video feed cuts out.
Trump and Palin take stage
The music kicks from Elton John to Eye of the Tiger. Trump takes the lectern to wild applause. “Unbelievable,” he says. “I love you.”
No Palin yet . There she is.
Updated
From the comments / Clinton emails
Pretty sharp criticism below the line of Clinton over her use of a personal email server to handle reportedly classified information – and her campaign’s insinuation that a conspiracy is afoot:
Hillary needs to suspend her campaign until this is resolved. She's on Double Secret Probation.
We disagree with this characterization of our journalistic enterprise...
It only took Guardian about 24 hours to report it. I'm surprised it's here at all.
Now, keep telling me how electable she is, and how she's the only one that won't implode in a general.
... but this rings true!
There’s lots of politics news out there, and we’ll be bringing it to you every day, all day until the election. Thanks for reading and for commenting!
Whoops. They misspelled Tulsa. Varmints.
Tulsa’s an old oil town of about 400,000 people, or a million counting environs. The name comes from Tallasi, meaning “old town” in the Creek language, the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains advises.
Trump credentials for his rally in TULSA, OK have the name of the city misspelled: pic.twitter.com/6CKoOoMx11
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorpNBC) January 20, 2016
Oh hey now it’s Hey Jude again.
Updated
While we wait for Palin and Trump – the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui flags a new Marco Rubio TV ad, which hits Clinton over her not-shrinking emails scandal and, for old time’s sake, over Benghazi:
Someone who does not handle intelligence information appropriately cannot be commander-in-chief, and someone who lies to the families of those four victims in Benghazi can never be president of the United States,” he says.
New Marco Rubio ad draws on last debate: "Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander-in-chief." https://t.co/uQtZyyw2j0
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) January 20, 2016
Speaking of Rubio ads, do you think recent “Millennials” one works? Too cheeseball? Implausible to have millennials self-referring as millennials?
(thx @jessicaglenza)
The apparently extremely patient crowd of Tulsans waiting for Trump-Palin is currently halfway or so through Elton John’s greatest hits. Not a bad place to be.
They’re probably not letting them take the stage because they know the crowd would riot if they cut off Tiny Dancer halfway through.
Updated
Sarah Palin writes on Facebook that her campaign appearances alongside Republican juggernaut Donald Trump are proceeding as planned.
The media, including this media, speculated that the partnership might not be going as planned since the Trump campaign had announced that Palin would be at his Iowa event this morning tickets for which advertised a “special guest” but then she was not there and neither was any other guest. So what was up with that?
Palin writes:
Trading in the beautiful snow of Iowa for the red dirt of Oklahoma as planned, despite what the media is trying to spin up! Thank you Iowa - get out and caucus on February 1st!
We’re waiting for Trump and Palin to take the stage in Tulsa.
The Trump-Palin event in Tulsa has yet to begin. But here’s a live video stream in case you want to watch expectant Oklahomans milling to Adele / The Rolling Stones / Phantom of the Opera:
Carly Fiorina’s second stop of the day was at a right-to-life event in Des Moines’ botanical garden, reports the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt:
About 60 people attended. There was a lot of grey hair.
Fiorina shepherded in about 15 children, all about 3 years old. There was applause. She guided the children to the front of the room, in front of the audience. She stood behind them in front of a 9ft x 9ft banner bearing a picture of a foetus. On a wall to the right a television was playing a video showing the week-by-week development of a foetus.
I'm at the Iowa Right to Life forum. Carly Fiorina has.. err.. brought a load of children pic.twitter.com/jconuXeen9
— Adam Gabbatt (@adamgabbatt) January 20, 2016
Fiorina was introduced by a pro-life activist, who told the crowd that the former Hewlett-Packard CEO was firmly anti-abortion.
“What you read about her is true,” the activist said. “Well, the good stuff.”
Fiorina became opposed to abortion after accompanying a friend to undergo the procedure, she said. She also said she had met “almost as many world leaders as Hillary Clinton”, but that she “didn’t do photo ops with them”.
At the end of the event a woman walked over to Fiorina with a little plastic model of a foetus.
Oh wow a model foetus has been produced at Carly Fiorina's right to life rally. "This is the face of abortion" pic.twitter.com/blu2HMCkCC
— Adam Gabbatt (@adamgabbatt) January 20, 2016
“This is the face of abortion,” the woman said, holding the model high in the air. It was sucking its thumb.
“This is who we’re defending when we say we need to end late abortion,” she continued.
Fiorina looked on solemnly. She would end abortion, she said.
At the end of her speech people walked over to talk to her. It was an older crowd. There weren’t many selfies.
The plastic foetus was placed on a table by the exit. An organiser told the crowd that they were welcome to examine it.
White House vows aid in Flint water crisis
In a press gaggle on the president’s flight to Detroit, Michigan, this morning, White House spokesman Eric Schultz touted the administration’s efforts to assist with the drinking-water-slash-governmental-neglect crisis in Flint, Michigan.
“The president … met with the mayor yesterday and he wants to make sure we are marshaling all the resources of the federal government,” Schultz said, according to a traveling press pool report.
Schultz declined to comment on whether Michigan governor Rick Snyder, who accepted responsibility for the crisis Tuesday night, should resign.
“There can be no excuse,” Snyder said in a state of the state address. “When Michiganders turn on the tap, they expect and they deserve clean, safe water. It is that simple.”
“Our view is right now everybody should be focused on the actual problem,” Schultz said. “Clearly, primary responsibility lies with local and state officials,” but that fact won’t stop the federal government from helping out, he said.
The president is expected to address the crisis in a speech this afternoon in Detroit. Schultz said Obama was “disappointed something like this could happen in the greatest country on Earth.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose 2015 Between the World and Me won a National Book Award, has sharply criticized Vermont senator Bernie Sanders over the candidate’s opposition to reparations for slavery, writes the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino:
Asked during Fusion’s Black and Brown forum last week if he would be in favor reparations, Sanders replied: “No, I don’t think so. First of all, its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil. Second of all, I think it would be very divisive.”
Coates, whose 2014 Atlantic magazine cover story The Case for Reparations stoked a broad discussion about race and justice in America, writes in a new Atlantic piece that Sanders’s opposition to reparations was ironic, given the improbability of Sanders’s own candidacy:
“The spectacle of a socialist candidate opposing reparations as “divisive” (there are few political labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivaled by the implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist” Coates writes.
Sanders’s “radicalism” when it comes to taking on the billionaire class and Wall Street, Coates adds, had “failed in the ancient fight against white supremacy”.
Read the full piece here.
UPDATE: The hip-hop artist Killer Mike, a Sanders supporter, weighs in on Twitter:
A school teacher friend said Mike we shud get Free Schooling for reparations. I disagreed Big time. Land is my end game if ever possible
— Killer Mike (@KillerMike) January 20, 2016
I only say that to say if blacks R gonna make a push for Reparations let’s be about the biz of figuring out what we demand and how to use it
I say land in the south because there is a lot of it and it’s cheap!
We can focus of food growth, factory building by larger companies thus providing jobs and smaller ones employee owned
Alabama, Mississippi , Louisiana, Georgia, Florida the Carolinas & other southern states cud be perfect to relocate too for many blacks
I'm pointing this out because I have actually thought about this. A lot! I think as a community we figure out what we want 1st then act!
— Killer Mike (@KillerMike) January 20, 2016
UPDATE 2: A debate breaks out?
So @KillerMike let me get this straight: it's wrong to expect the dude campaigning on inequality to be forward-thinking on reparations?
— jelani cobb (@jelani9) January 20, 2016
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Electing Gollum should not be our objective” – Kentucky senator Rand Paul, on Donald Trump
This Rand Paul statement doesn’t really make sense but maybe it has the merit of being memorable:
This race should not be about who can grasp the ring. Electing Gollum should not be our objective. This race should be about which candidate will best protect you from an overbearing government.
Republican candidates Marco Rubio and John Kasich have been pitching to the New Hampshire House of Representatives, who earn just $100 a year, the Guardian’s David Smith reports from Concord, New Hampshire:
Rubio, the Florida senator, recalled how financial hardship 15 years ago led him to kneel in church to pray for guidance and taught him lessons about public service. The main thrust of his speech was to contrast the nobility of local politics with the government industrial complex of Washington.
“Before me sits the largest state legislature in the country, meaning you each represent, on average, just a few thousand people — many of whom you know not from campaigning, but from childhood, from the checkout line at the grocery store, from church or school board meetings,” he said, speaking under a portrait of George Washington in the oldest chamber in the US still in continuous legislative use.
“One truth I know is that independence runs in your veins. ‘Live free or die.’ That call to action inspires and echoes through the generations. If Washington encroaches on our states, we will forfeit much of what makes us different, and special, and unique from all the nations on the earth.”
Apart from a swipe at Barack Obama, whom he accused of trying to control the economy, healthcare and “even the weather”, Rubio steered clear of the darker tone he has adopted of late but, trailing conservative Ted Cruz, he was careful to reference God and the power of prayer more than once. “Despite everything going wrong in our country today, I believe with all my heart that God is not done with America yet.”
Ohio governor Kasich, reportedly enjoying a surge in the New Hampshire polls, gave a less polished account of his life in politics but also appealed to anti-Washington sentiment, telling the House: “I believe in running our country from the bottom up.”
He called for an overhaul of education policy and for bipartisan cooperation on issues such as combating drug addiction. “Our children are dying, our people are at risk... When we work together to solve problems, we leave a legacy, a legacy our children and grandchildren will remember.”
Afterwards a local Rubio campaign staffer was upbeat, claiming that his “sincerity” is winning appeal wherever he goes. A Kasich operative shrugged off the polls, noting they have a habit of going up and down, and said Donald Trump is a “phenomenon” who will be in good shape if his success translates into votes.
Updated
Donald Trump this morning launched his most strident attack so far on Ted Cruz, but all the talk in Norwalk, Iowa, was about what didn’t happen at the Republican frontrunner’s campaign event, reports the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs, from the scene:
Despite promises of a special guest, which was featured on tickets and in emails to supporters, Sarah Palin didn’t appear less than one day after she endorsed Trump in a rambling disjointed speech at a rally in Ames, Iowa.
The Trump campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment about Palin’s absence.
However, Trump tweeted that the former Republican vice presidential nominee would appear at his event later in the afternoon in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Without Palin present, Trump accused Ted Cruz of being “worse than Hillary” over loans he received from his wife’s employer, Goldman Sachs, and called the Texas senator “two-faced.”
Trump asked attendees, “what’s he going to do be rough on Goldman Sachs when he’s got a personal guarantee for a million dollars?” He attacked Cruz’s Canadian birth as well.
Trump was clearly in high spirits, even go so far as to briefly praise the press before eventually referring to them as “disgusting.” He said of Tuesday, when he enjoyed both the endorsement by Palin as well as Iowa’s six-term Republican governor, Terry Branstad, attacking Ted Cruz, that it was “a good day for Trump.”
The event also marked the first time Trump spent the night in Iowa since announcing his candidacy. He told attendees of his first overnight stay in the Hawkeye State: “I had good steak last night.”
With several hundred people packed into an empty office space in suburban Des Moines early in the morning, the crowd was more subdued and less boisterous than at typical Trump events.
Updated
The Guardian’s David Smith is still in New Hampshire, but he’s switched candidates. Earlier he was with Ohio governor John Kasich; now he’s on to Florida senator Marco Rubio.
“We know Barack Obama is not a bad person, but it is my belief that he misunderstands our country,” Rubio says.
David catches further lines (read more here):
Rubio: Obama compels “certain outcomes that he deems ‘fair’ or ‘just’ – to control our economy, our health care decisions, even the weather”
Rubio: “I will recognise that no one, myself included, knows the needs of New Hampshire better than the people of New Hampshire.”
Rubio: "Back in 2001, I went through a difficult time." My salary could barely cover our basic expenses.
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 20, 2016
Rubio on church: “I walked in, down to the front pew, opened the kneeler and began to pray. I asked God what He wanted me to do.”
Rubio: “I see those and other periods of struggle not as distractions from my service, but as part of my service.”
Rubio: “Despite everything going wrong in our country today, I believe with all my heart that God is not done with America yet.”
Updated
Trump: Cruz 'worse than Hillary'
Trump really let Texas senator Ted Cruz, his closest competitor in Iowa, have it in a campaign appearance in the state this morning.
Trump hit Cruz for not reporting a loan Cruz took from Goldman Sachs for his Senate campaign (“they own him”), and for “being a Canadian citizen” (Cruz dropped his Canadian citizenship last year).
Here’s Trump:
He said with the being a Canadian citizen, he said ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ How did he not know that? Then he said, with the loans, ‘Oh! I didn’t know that.’ Smart guy– he doesn’t know that?
That’s worse than Hillary, when you think about it.
(h/t: @bencjacobs)
Updated
The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt is following Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, around today as she hosts five events across Iowa.
“She has just been meeting people at a coffee shop in Guthrie Center, a town of 1,500 people which is located 40 miles west of Des Moines,” Adam reports:
There were around 15 people in attendance. Not all were committed supporters. She’s going to need to convince a lot more than that because she is averaging 1.5% in the polls.
Fiorina seems very pleasant. She shook hands with everyone. Including me. I told her I was a journalist.
“Well I can still say hi,” she said. “You’re not the enemy. Well, sometimes you are.”
She then knocked over a glass of water, which could happen to anyone, I suppose, before beginning her speech. Fiorina talked about the need to take our country back. She said this a lot. There was also a sign behind her which said “take our country back”.
Carly Fiorina's bus in Guthrie Center, Iowa. "We need to take our country back," she told the crowd. Over and over. pic.twitter.com/7uHYLEVIxO
— Adam Gabbatt (@adamgabbatt) January 20, 2016
After her speech she took questions. A gray-haired man put his hand up.
“When are we going to start doing big things again?” he asked. He said the country did big things when he was a boy. (I don’t know what “big things” are.)
“We have to take our country back. We have to take our country back,” Fiorina responded. (I don’t know what “taking our country back” means.)
You know why we’re not doing big things? Because we have a government that is sucking the life out of this nation,” she continued. “We can do big things again but we’ve got to take our country back.”
She continued: “Of course we can do big things, we must do big things. Because this is a nation that in history has said yes, we’re going to do things better, when other nations have said no.”
I still don’t know what big things are. Or what taking our country back means. Maybe I’ll find out later on.
Coda: I spoke to six people at the event. One said he would caucus for Carly. Five were undecided.
Update on SpecialGuestGhazi, the scandal in which a “special guest” advertised on tickets for Trump’s event this morning failed to materialize.
Trump tweets that Sarah Palin is with him now. So apparently she has not been fired.
Great rally in Iowa! Such wonderful people. Traveling now with @SarahPalinUSA to Tulsa- massive crowd expected! pic.twitter.com/gaK4KEbHOh
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2016
Clinton and Sanders go negative
The kind of lazy exchange of attack and counter-attack between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders that has developed in the last two weeks may be about to get more vigorous, it appears.
After midnight last night on Twitter – always a promising way to start a sentence – Clinton went after Sanders for Sanders’ discounting an endorsement earlier Tuesday of Clinton by Human Rights Campaign, the flagship LGBT advocacy group:
Really Senator Sanders? How can you say that groups like @PPact and @HRC are part of the "establishment" you're taking on? -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) January 20, 2016
But the attack has kind of a half-hearted feel to it? The swipe came as Clinton’s numbers appeared truly to have tanked in New Hampshire, and as Sanders has been showing disturbing, for Clinton, strength in Iowa. A recent gold-standard Des Moines Register poll had her at only two points up in the state.
So what if she wins every SEC/ super-duper Tuesday primary on 1 March? Lose-lose is not a good look for Clinton, and no way to kick off a presidential run.
Sanders has been hitting back, criticizing Clinton – although not by name – for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, and for voting in favor of the Iraq war. When Clinton’s camp released a letter Tuesday calling Sanders’ foreign policy views “troubling” and “puzzling,” Sanders responded forcefully:
“On the crucial foreign policy issue of our time, it turns out that Secretary Clinton – with all of her experience – was wrong and I was right,” Sanders said.
David Brock, a pro-Clinton partisan mercenary, also reportedly told New York magazine that Sanders was “a socialist ... not a Democrat ... He has a 30-year history of associating with some wackadoodle [eccentric, fanatical] ideas.”
Will we have the pleasure of hearing Hillary Clinton go after Bernie Sanders for being a socialist? Stay tuned.
Updated
Matt Drudge, the conservative lodestar, has Lena Dunham, the Girls impresario, on his mind:
More Dunham, please. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/2ZeSJrWn9d
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) January 20, 2016
Update: Here’s why, via the New York Times:
[Dunham] told the guests, at the Park Avenue apartment of Richard Plepler, the chief executive of HBO, that she was disturbed by how, in the 1990s, the Clintons and their allies discredited women who said they had had sexual encounters with or been sexually assaulted by former President Bill Clinton.
Updated
The Guardian’s David Smith is in New Hampshire with John Kasich, whose campaign is taking encouragement from a poll Tuesday showing him in second place in the state, and gaining on frontrunner Trump.
At New Hampshire House Of Representatives in Concord. John Kasich: "Better to get along than fight. Better solve your problems."
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 20, 2016
Further from David:
Kasich: “I believe in running our country from the bottom up.” Tax cuts are an issue of putting power in people’s pockets.
Kasich: “We have an education system that has trained people for jobs not tasks.” We need a dramatic change in the way education works.
Kasich on drug addiction: Our children are dying, our people are at risk. Come together as mums and dads to solve the problem.
Kasich: “When we work together to solve problems, we leave a legacy, a legacy our children and grandchildren will remember.”
Kasich: “If I’m president, I’m coming back here.”
What happened to Palin? The Trump campaign had said she would be at the candidate’s event this morning in Norwalk, Iowa, but she never appeared.
Will she show up in Tulsa in a few hours, as advertised? Or has she been... love this joke... fired?
Campaign Press release advertised she'd be here but no Palin. See below: pic.twitter.com/AEh8KHYgPj
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) January 20, 2016
UPDATE: I demand a refund!
Trump supporter holds ticket autographed by Trump promising special guest at event today. No special guest appeared. pic.twitter.com/d2kAtd7oNW
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) January 20, 2016
Updated
A 25-year-old volunteer for the Ben Carson campaign, Braden Joplin, died from injuries sustained on Tuesday when a van carrying him and other volunteers skidded on ice and flipped.
“I had the privilege of knowing Braden Joplin personally, and am filled with a deep and profound sadness at his passing,” said Carson, who temporarily suspended campaign activities, in a statement. He continued:
The outpouring of support for Braden and his family from fellow candidates, as well as their staffs and volunteers, demonstrates that life will always transcend politics, and I thank them for their kind words. Please continue to keep Braden’s family and friends in your prayers as they struggle through this difficult time.
Even after more than 30 years experience counseling parents and family members in the most difficult of times, it never gets easier. But I find solace in the knowledge of God’s redeeming grace, and I pray that Braden’s family finds comfort in the mercy of the Lord. Across America today, I ask everyone to take a moment to reflect on the preciousness of life and remember and honor the memory of Braden Joplin.
Rest In Peace Braden Joplin. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. pic.twitter.com/p87TCnD44p
— Dr. Ben Carson (@RealBenCarson) January 20, 2016
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs is sampling Trumpian wisdom at an event in Norwalk, Iowa this morning. The candidate, not usually one to confuse an idiom, has said “holding candy for a baby” instead of “taking candy from a baby.” He seems a little off?
Did that Dada-Gaga Palin speech last night scramble Trump’s brain?
Trump: A gunfree zone is like holding candy for a baby
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) January 20, 2016
Trump: I'm very good when it comes to the law. I've been lots of the law."
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) January 20, 2016
Trump had better beware: he’s scheduled to appear again with Palin at a noon event [Trump’s schedule says noon, Reuters says 1pm-Ed.] in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Updated
Hillary Clinton does not need to win New Hampshire on 9 February to cinch the Democratic presidential nomination.
And her campaign can file that fact under “fortunately,” because in a poll released late Tuesday, Clinton rival Bernie Sanders appeared to be totally obliterating her in the Granite State.
27 points! Even if Clinton does not “need” New Hampshire, a loss that big (and the poll could be an outlier; the averages have him up by “only” 11) would raise questions about just how excited Democrats are to nominate her.
In perhaps related news, the drift of the Clinton-Sanders race into negative territory in recent weeks has deepened – we’ll bring you the details in a second. Update: here are the details.
Updated
Clinton emails said to include top secret documents
Meanwhile, yonder where the FBI is investigating the candidate with perhaps the best shot at becoming the next president – well, that investigation appears to be doing the opposite of going away.
NBC News reports that it has gained access to a letter to lawmakers in which an internal intelligence watchdog says that “some of Clinton’s emails contained information classified Top Secret/Special Access Program, a secrecy designation that includes some of the most closely held U.S. intelligence matters.”
It had not previously been reported that Clinton’s server may have handled information classified at such high levels. It’s a big deal because, as you may recall, Clinton was using a personal email account to handle that allegedly Top Secret material, and a personal server, and the whole setup appears to have been seriously sketchy as far as operational security goes.
Did Hillary Clinton recklessly expose big government secrets by using an email setup meant to shield her work from public scrutiny? That’s what Republicans are saying.
Read the full NBC report here.
It's starting to sound like Hillary should have used a much more abrasive cloth when she wiped that server.
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) January 20, 2016
UPDATE: And the Clinton camp descries – surprise! – a conspiracy:
Clinton camp on @cnn accusing ICIG of explicitly coordinating w/ GOP members of Congress to leak revelations about highly classified emails
— Ali Weinberg (@AliABCNews) January 20, 2016
Clinton Spox @brianefallon accuses the Intelligence Community Inspector General of coordinating w Republicans to damage Hillary. Wow. @CNN
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) January 20, 2016
Updated
Welcome
Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 presidential election, which historians will remember as “kooky”.
Kooky for the unusual strength of multiple outsider candidates; kooky for the inversion of the supposed rules of political speech; kooky for the failure (so far) of the Republican party to assert its will; kooky for the proliferation of kooky moments such as Ben Carson saying the pyramids are grain bins and Donald Trump impugning entire religions and nationalities – and then winning serious major-party support for it.
What country does he think this is? Apparently he knows it pretty well.
Only a fool would declare, so early in such a political season, that a high-water mark for garish splendor, or anything else, had been reached. So we will resist the temptation to say that about what went down in Ames, Iowa, last night.
It was just kind of ... kooky. Sarah Palin endorsed Donald Trump for president. Why not? “Heads are spinnin’! Media heads are spinnin’!” she said. Guilty!
Don't ever change @NYDailyNews. Don't ever change. pic.twitter.com/HKLfcjznzZ
— Doug Mataconis (@dmataconis) January 20, 2016
Is the Palin endorsement a Game Change? Will she break the Trump-Ted Cruz tie in the Hawkeye State?
Will he give her a cabinet position in the future Trump administration? “Certainly, she could play a position if she wanted to,” he told NBC, adding to Fox News: “It would be something I certainly would think about.”
Who are we to say? We just work here.
You can read more about Palin and Trump here, should you care to. She’ll be on the campaign trail with him throughout the day.
In other news today, Barack Obama will travel to Detroit for the North American International Auto Show, to highlight the creation of hundreds of thousands of new auto industry jobs. Will Joe “’67 Corvette” Biden accompany the president to the auto show? Or would showing up with the prez wreck Joe’s cool?
Of greater import: the president met yesterday with the mayor of nearby Flint, where government neglect on the state level has been blamed for the poisoning of the local drinking water. Obama is expected to address the situation while on the ground in Detroit today.
Let’s dig in for some politics! Here’s how some of the Guardian political team is deployed on this wonderful Wednesday:
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David Smith is in Manchester, New Hampshire with the GOP trifecta of Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie.
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Ben Jacobs and Lucia Graves are in Iowa with Donald Trump.
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Adam Gabbatt is also in Iowa, with Republican Carly Fiorina.
We’re also following Ted Cruz in New Hampshire this morning.
Read on ...
I am greatly honored to receive Sarah Palin's endorsement tonight. Video: https://t.co/4P7AMKI4iq pic.twitter.com/bjTPvwM4nW
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2016
Updated
I can't believe she called Barack's intelligence IG a leaker.
She's completely lost it.