“When I was in junior high, if we had a new girl that came to our school — and maybe it was like this at your school — every boy in the seventh grade immediately wanted to be her friend.”

View Video ›

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says GOP primary voters have a bit of "new girl in school" syndrome, saying his opponents are exciting and new to voters but lack his executive experience.

"I've learned a lot from having done this before, and I told people the advantage that I have had is that I have done this before," Huckabee told a crowd at the Palladian View Forum in South Carolina this week.

"The disadvantage is that I have done this before. I think one of things that I'll have to go against is there is a certain element of what I call the 'the new girl in school syndrome," Huckabee said, comparing the current crop of GOP presidential contenders to a new girl showing up at a middle school and every boy wanting to be her friend.

"When I was in junior high, if we had a new girl that came to our school — and maybe it was like this at your school — every boy in the seventh grade immediately wanted to be her friend," he said. "Now, a year later we might not think she looked any better than the girls we already had, but when she showed up, she was the best looking girl in the school. And I do think now that there is a sense at which right now, in the early stages a lot of the people running are the new girl in school."

Several of Huckabee's younger primary opponents, such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky have no executive experience, which Huckabee pointed to as one of his strengths. He compared his past experience to flying through a storm with a veteran airline pilot:

"But here is what I suggest: If you get on an airplane and you're about to fly through thunderstorms and bad weather and you look into the cockpit and sitting in the left seat there's a guy who turns around who say, with lots of gray hair, 'I've been flying 20,000 hours through hundreds of thunderstorms, don't worry we are going to be fine,' you go, 'okay.' If you look up there and see some very young person half your age and he turns around and he says, 'Hot dog, this is my first real flight, and it's going to be fun!' You tell me how comfortable you are."

The former Arkansas governor concluded by saying "we need someone in the left seat who has flown through a few before."

Here's the full video:

youtube.com

“We currently have no evidence to confirm that Thomas Jefferson ever said or wrote” this.

John Trumball / AP

Many of the quotes attributed to the Founding Fathers in two of Rand Paul's books are either fake, misquoted, or taken entirely out of context, BuzzFeed News has found.

Paul's first two books — Government Bullies, which was an e-book best-seller, and The Tea Party Goes to Washington — lay out the conservative manifesto he hoped to bring to Washington following the tea party wave in 2010.

A heavy theme in Paul's books is that the tea party movement is the intellectual heir to the Founding Fathers, with Paul often arguing he knows what position our country's earliest leaders would have had on certain issues.

The final line in Paul's book The Tea Party Goes to Washington is a fake sentiment attributed to Jefferson:

The Constitution is very clear about it. The Tea Party's job is to keep making things clearer, and this is only the beginning. It is not a job that will be finished overnight or even in an election cycle. Thomas Jefferson believed that the price of liberty was eternal vigilance — and now the Tea Party must prove it.

"We currently have no evidence to confirm that Thomas Jefferson ever said or wrote" this phrase, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation has said of "the price of liberty was eternal vigilance," which Paul uses twice in his book.

Earlier, Paul used another fake Jefferson quote:

In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers— whose Constitution was supposed to restrain our rulers— would have likely made the same prediction. Jefferson wrote, "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." This has certainly been true of too much government intervention, as well as attempts to administer too many government benefits.

"This exact quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson," writes the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.

Writing on the Patriot Act, Paul again cites a fake Jefferson quote.

"This sort of invasiveness is also precisely the reason we have a Second Amendment protecting our right to keep and bear arms, or as Jefferson wrote 'The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.'"

As noted by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, "this quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson."

Later, writing on Obamacare, Paul cites a different fake Jefferson quote.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote that a "government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have," he could have easily been referencing Obamacare.

"Neither this quotation nor any of its variant forms has been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson," writes the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. The foundation notes that it has been attributed to Gerald Ford, though an assistant to Ford said he heard it from someone else.

Another quote cited by Paul from Jefferson appears to be a misquote.

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical," reads the Jefferson quote at the beginning on one chapter.

As noted by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, this quote comes from Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and the original actually reads, "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."

Paul also uses a fake George Washington quote.

Such is the nature of government, which is precisely why the Founders viewed military use, even when warranted, as something that should be definite and limited. George Washington told us: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force…. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." Science tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Yet today it seems we are much less hesitant to use government action, whether abroad or domestically, than the Founders could have ever imagined. The Founding Fathers also would not be surprised to see that trying to solve problems with continuous government action creates its own set of problems. Not surprisingly, the majority of what our federal government does today, abroad or domestically, also continues to take place well outside the parameters of the Constitution.

The quote, as noted by professor Eugene Volokh and Fred Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, is also fake.

"This is undoubtedly apocryphal, like many other quotations attributed to Lincoln or Washington," said Shapiro. "No one has ever found any evidence that Washington said it."

Later in the book, a quote from Benjamin Franklin is used out of context. In the context of the quote as used in the 1750s, Franklin was actually speaking in support of not only taxation but also defense spending.

Writes Paul:

Who's to say the Tea Party won't become the government's next target under the PATRIOT Act? Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety," and Americans who continue to support unconstitutional intrusions into the private lives of their fellow citizens will inevitably learn the same lesson.

As noted by Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the editor of Lawfare blog, the letter from Franklin concerned a dispute between the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the Penn family.

"He was writing about a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the family of the Penns, the proprietary family of the Pennsylvania colony who ruled it from afar," Wittes said recently on NPR.

"And the legislature was trying to tax the Penn family lands to pay for frontier defense during the French and Indian War. And the Penn family kept instructing the governor to veto. Franklin felt that this was a great affront to the ability of the legislature to govern. And so he actually meant purchase a little temporary safety very literally. The Penn family was trying to give a lump sum of money in exchange for the General Assembly's acknowledging that it did not have the authority to tax it."

Paul also mischaracterized this quote in his second book, Government Bullies, on two separate occasions with slightly different variations.

Writes Paul in his book, "as Benjamin Franklin famously said and our Founders knew well, those who trade liberty for security get neither."

Then, Paul cites a fake Thomas Jefferson quote again to lead off the chapter "Living Everyday in Fear of Your Government."

"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny," Paul cites Jefferson as saying.

But again, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation notes they "have not found any evidence that Thomas Jefferson said or wrote" these remarks.

Paul's chapter "Paved With Good Intentions" also starts off with a mischaracterized Jefferson quote.

"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny," Paul attributes to Jefferson.

As noted again by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, "This quotation has never been found in Jefferson's papers in its above form, but it is most likely a paraphrase of Jefferson's statement in Notes on the State of Virginia, "Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now."

Paul's chapter "How Can We Solve the Problem" starts off with a quote from former President James Madison that is likewise disputed.

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy," Paul quotes Madison saying.

As noted by etymologist Barry Popik there's no evidence Madison said it, and no citations link it to Madison before the 21st century.

In the past three weeks, Paul has misattributed a quote to former President Abraham Lincoln (a quote he again repeated in a speech today) and used a fake quote from Founding Father Patrick Henry. Previously, Paul used a fake Thomas Jefferson quote in his Senate victory speech.

At CPAC in 2011, Paul cited a Jefferson quote that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation says they have "no evidence" he ever said.

Paul's campaign declined to comment, and the book publisher did not respond to request for comment.

“For now, our focus should be on the victims’ families, Charleston and South Carolina and helping them through this tragedy,” the powerful chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee tells BuzzFeed News.

Drew Angerer / Getty

WASHINGTON — Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley Thursday warned against turning the attack on a South Carolina church that left nine people dead into a politicized push for gun control, arguing there is "ample time" to address the issue in the future.

In response to President Obama's call for new gun control legislation, Grassley, whose committee has jurisdiction over gun control issues, told BuzzFeed News that this is not a time for political fights over guns.

"The Bill of Rights is a core set of liberties and freedoms, none greater than the other, but all of importance in their own right … but nobody wants to see gun violence in our society," Grassley said.

"The question remains how we keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them without violating the constitutional rights of law abiding Americans. There's ample time to learn more about what happened yesterday and debate ways to prevent these kinds of senseless acts. But for now, our focus should be on the victims' families, Charleston and South Carolina and helping them through this tragedy," he added.

In comments on the attack Thursday morning, Obama explicitly criticized the nation's gun laws. "Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun," Obama said, adding "at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it."

Bush campaigning in Pella

Charlie Neibergall / AP

PELLA, Iowa — Jeb Bush answered a lot of questions on Wednesday.

First, he took several questions from voters at a backyard gathering at house of the Mangold family in rural Washington, Iowa. Then, he spoke to reporters for nearly 15 minutes after shaking hands, staying even after a press aide tried to pull him away. A few hours later, he took nearly a dozen questions during a town hall meeting under the blazing hot sun in the town of Pella.

This is typical of candidates in Iowa, where voters are known for having certain expectations of a candidate, but it's a lot of work for someone who, people close to him have said in the recent past, might not even try to win the Iowa caucuses. Jeb, people say, is already running like a general election candidate, focusing more on fundraising and "shock and awe" than on the retail politicking characteristic of this early stage in the cycle. Bush is lagging in Iowa polls (fifth, in the latest Real Clear Politics average), and the recent decision not to name longtime Iowa operative David Kochel as campaign manager, as had been expected, but instead keep him as a chief strategist focusing on the early states was interpreted as a sign that Bush knows he is underperforming in Iowa. But in Iowa on Wednesday, following his official campaign announcement on Monday, Bush campaigned hard and did everything retail-wise that a candidate seeking to win Iowa must do. In fact, it seems clear that the kinds of activities a candidate does in the early primary states — a lot of one-on-one and small group conversations, handshaking, and specific policy questions — are actually much better suited to Bush's strengths and to his liking than giving staged public speeches.

This was on display as Bush campaigned through Washington and Pella on Wednesday.

Bush was unfazed by several reporters following him into The Work Of Our Hands, a fair-trade nonprofit mission store in Pella, where he bought several place mats made out of recycled newspapers as well as chocolate that is compliant with his strict Paleo diet. He paid the tab, $72, in cash, and took a photo with the woman behind the cash register afterward, lingering in the store longer than he probably had to.

Bush can seem stiff during his stump speech. A joke he tells in the beginning of it, about his mother, Barbara Bush, having told him not to brag about himself so much that he feels like she's there while he gives his speech, is still coming out a bit awkwardly. During his announcement speech in Miami, he seemed unclear on what to do during the moments when the audience was applauding. But when it gets to the question-and-answer part, Bush relaxes and can roll with surprises.

During the Q&A part of his town hall in Pella, a man got up and asked about eminent domain, after handing Bush some reading material.

"I saw the signs coming in," Bush said, having correctly deduced that the man's question was really about controversial plans for a small regional airport in Oskaloosa. There are signs along Highway 163 protesting the airport.

"I'm not taking a position on a local issue," Bush said, though he talked a bit about his experience with eminent domain as Florida governor and how he believes eminent domain shouldn't be used for anything "beyond public purpose."

"I hope that didn't suck me into a local issue, it might have, but good luck with the airport," Bush said, to approving laughter from the crowd. "I assume that's what it was, right? I saw about 10 signs, so."

Bush took questions on immigration policy, an issue that is a sticking point between him and many of the conservative base activists he needs to win in Iowa; his past comments about using shame to prevent single motherhood; King v. Burwell; the deficit; and the fact that his campaign logo doesn't include his last name, among other issues.

Bush's skill on handling questions doesn't impress everyone, and it's unclear how positive of an impression he's making so far. Iowa voters are not the easiest to impress.

"I'm pretty skeptical," said Len Gosselink, 77, a semiretired retailer and rental property owner. "He talks good. Could be a good potential candidate. I'm just not sure if he is as realistic and conservative as I am." The last time Gosselink caucused was for Mike Huckabee, he said.

The fact that Bush is a Bush doesn't bother him, Gosselink said, except for the fact that he doesn't consider the Bushes to be conservative. However, he liked what Jeb had to say about job creation.

The economic pitch also worked with Trevor Martin, 35, a physician who attended the Washington, Iowa, event.

"I think he’s addressed a lot of those issues," Martin said, referring to inefficiencies in the federal government and dealing with the national debt. "I think he’s a strong candidate for winning the nomination for the Republican Party and I would vote for him if he does get that nomination."

Martin has not caucused in the past and has always been an independent, he said, but plans to participate for the first time this election. For him, it's not really about Bush himself: "If anyone else has similar ideas I’d listen to them," he said. "He’s probably the strongest candidate with these ideas that has the highest chance of getting the nomination."

Outside of Washington, D.C., Democrats are ready to talk guns.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Contrary to President Obama's dismal read on the prospects of gun-control legislation, activists in the states say they are optimistic — they are finding success in advocating for tighter regulations on firearms.

According to a January report by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 242 new gun laws have been enacted in the states since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Of those laws, 99 place restrictions on gun ownership, 88 remove restrictions, and 55 have been so-called "minimal impact."

The states doing the work gun-safety proponents most like are mostly not ones up for grabs on the national level in 2016: California, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Washington, according to the report. But blue states have close internal elections, and many Democrats in them are going to run on stricter gun control.

"In the face of inaction in Congress, many leaders in state houses around the country are acting to make their communities safer places to live," Mark Prentice, a spokesperson for Americans For Responsible Solutions — the group founded by former Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelley — told BuzzFeed News in an email. "That's why, since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, eight states have acted to close the loopholes that let dangerous people get guns, and why several states have acted to protect domestic violence victims from gun violence."

Prentice said that since Newtown "eight states have expanded background checks," and 18 "now have expanded background checks on handgun sales," a group that covers around 35% of the U.S. population.

In the next election cycle, knowledgeable Democrats said to expect gun control to play a significant part of Democratic campaigns in Oregon and Washington, states not expected to get a lot of presidential attention but have high-profile gubernatorial contests. The Oregon state legislature, which Democrats hope to hold onto as part of their national plan to take a majority of state legislative houses ahead of the 2020 census and the congressional redistricting that will follow it, has already seen Democrats face recall for some gun control laws they've already enacted. The gun control effort was bolstered there by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose Everytown for Gun Safety spent big for pro gun-control Democrats in the state.

Last month that effort paid off when Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, signed a background check bill into law. It's part of a record she'll be running on when she seeks her first elected term as governor in 2016. (Brown got the top job in Oregon after her predecessor resigned in scandal shortly after being reelected.)

In Washington, incumbent Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to run for reelection in 2016. In 2014, voters in the state passed a background check law by public referendum. Inslee is closely tied to that law, having pushed hard for its passage, and its likely Inslee and fellow Democrats in the state will make defending gun control a part of the campaign.

Dan Malloy, the governor of Connecticut and current chair of the Democratic Governors Association, was governor when the Newtown shooting happened and helped to usher through tough gun-control legislation afterwards. He narrowly won re-election in 2014 in a race that included tough criticisms of those laws from Republicans. In a statement, Malloy told BuzzFeed News his state is providing an example for gun control proponents — and said it was time for Congress to take a page from his book.

"After the tragedy at Sandy Hook, Connecticut, responded by passing one of our nation's toughest, smartest gun laws and we took steps to protect our schools, our communities and our children. Now we are seeing crime, including violent crime, fall to record lows across Connecticut while our prison population has also declined," Malloy said. "I stand with President Obama and agree that Congress should take this opportunity to reflect about our nation's gun laws and the needed changes to prevent acts violence in our communities."

Gun-control activists say that victories at the state level will continue to chip away at the resistance to stronger laws at the national level.

"The only thing that will change this sad status quo is when the American public holds its leaders accountable to put our interests first. It took us six votes over seven years to pass the original Brady Bill and we are not going anywhere until we 'finish the job' and expand lifesaving Brady background checks to all gun sales," Jonathan Hutson, a spokesperson for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, wrote in an email. "And in the meantime, we have been taking this fight to the states and winning, building momentum the likes of which this issue hasn't seen in decades."

“I think the Department of Education should monitor institutions of higher education for political bias and withhold federal funding if it exists.”

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson says that part of his plan for education would be to have the Department of Education monitor colleges and universities for "political bias" and withhold funding from them if it exists.

"I think the Department of Education should monitor institutions of higher education for political bias and withhold federal funding if it exists," Carson told Las Vegas radio host Heidi Harris on Thursday.

The retired neurosurgeon was discussing his plan for education -- a plan Carson said would rely heavily on the embracing on new technology.

"I would change the function of the Department of Education," said Carson.

"I know a lot of compatriots want to eliminate it altogether but I think that might be a mistake given the fact we're pretty far behind, particularly in the STEM area. So we need to concentrate on that. We need to use technology to help us, there are computer programs for instance that can look at a way a kid solves a math problem or several math problems and figure out what they don't know, and can go back and tutor them on those things at their own speed. It's the same thing a good teacher can only do, but the teacher can only do it for one student at a time, computers can do it for a whole classroom, whole school, whole city. We need to take advantage of that. We need to take advantage of virtual classrooms working with the best teachers in front of a million students instead of thirty students."

Here's the audio:

w.soundcloud.com

View Video ›

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

WASHINGTON — BuzzFeed News has obtained parts of the video produced by Tea Party group FreedomWorks several years ago that features two female interns dressed up as a panda bear and Hillary Clinton, respectively, and appearing to pretend to engage in a sex act.

The video was produced by FreedomWorks before its "FreePAC" event in Dallas in July 2012, a conference attended by several leading conservative politicians as well as thousands of activists. Mother Jones reported the existence of the video in 2013. BuzzFeed News has obtained three sections of videos that were to be shown at FreePAC: In one, Adam Brandon, who is now the head of FreedomWorks after the departure of former president Matt Kibbe to run a pro-Rand Paul super PAC, is talking to the panda, which is holding an "Abolish the IRS" sign. "Oh, Panda, you really know how to warm my cold libertarian heart," Brandon says suggestively while grabbing the panda.

View Video ›

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

Another clip features Brandon talking to the panda. "How do you know so much about how freedom works?" he asks it. The panda removes its head to reveal a Hillary Clinton mask. It then removes the mask to reveal that it is Kibbe.

View Video ›

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

But the part of the video that caused the most internal consternation at the time was the scene featuring the intern dressed up as a panda appearing to be caught in the midst of giving oral sex to the intern dressed up as Hillary Clinton. Staff were against the video being shown at FreePAC, which had an audience composed mostly of older conservatives.

"It was a series of short videos with a common theme of a mystery panda," a former FreedomWorks employee told BuzzFeed News. The panda was a common meme deployed by FreedomWorks, being a play on words about Democrats "pandering." "When the staff watched the clips a couple of days before the event, most of them gave a big thumbs down. The scene with the underage interns alluding to oral sex was the thing that caused the staff to say this would be a bad idea at a FreedomWorks event."

"Adam Brandon was all for showing the video clips, and couldn't understand why others balked," the employee said. "He was very involved in the creation and direction of these video clips, and as you can see, participated in them as well."

The video ended up not being shown at the event.

"I don't have any thing to add since I last commented on this back in 2012," Brandon said when contacted by BuzzFeed News. Kibbe did not immediately return a request for comment.

Austin Petersen, who produced video content at FreedomWorks at the time, told BuzzFeed News he had written the videos and was disappointed when they weren't shown.

Asked why the videos didn't end up being shown publicly, Petersen said, "Obviously because I'm a young radical libertarian badass and most of FreedomWorks' audience is social conservative types."

"When I pitched it and wrote it, they were like 'Oh, yeah yeah yeah,' and then when we wrote and produced it they were like, 'Uh, no, this isn't going to go over too well with the social conservative crowd,' so they canned it," he said, referring to Brandon and "the rest of the decision-makers."

Asked why Brandon appeared in the video if he disapproved of its content, Petersen said that sometimes when shooting a video, "you don't always know what's going on with every shot all the time" and "just because he was there didn't mean he was always seeing everything." Petersen said he had "grabbed him and threw him in it."

Petersen said that the scene does not imply oral sex, but confirmed that it does directly reference a scene from "The Shining" in which Wendy looks down a hall in the hotel and sees someone in a bear costume appearing to engage in oral sex with a man. That particular clip is part of a longer video that includes other "The Shining" references (the Kibbe clip is supposed to reference "Scooby-Doo").

"It's not implied in any way shape or form that that's what's happening," Petersen said. "The only way you would think that's an implication of oral sex would be if you had seen the movie and then made a logical leap that that's what's going on."

"For comedic effect, it's recreating a scene that implied [oral sex] in the 1970s," he said.

Petersen confirmed that the panda and Clinton were played by interns, but said they had volunteered. He said he did not remember if they were female interns.

FreedomWorks, which played an influential role in the Tea Party's rise in 2009-2010, has struggled in recent years. Sources told BuzzFeed News the organization was in financial disarray in 2013, and the group made headlines when former House Majority Leader and FreedomWorks' former chairman Dick Armey staged an armed coup to wrest back control in the fall of 2012.

Politico reported on Thursday that Kibbe's departure this week was a result of his having been forced out by the board, which was reportedly concerned over the group's lag in fundraising.

“I think there’s a real issue to be talked about: It seems to me — again, without having all the details about this one — that these individuals have been medicated.”

View Video ›

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said Friday that he thinks "there's a real issue to be talked about" in the wake of Wednesday's mass shooting at Emanuel AME church in South Carolina -- psychiatric medication.

The former Texas governor made the comments in an interview with NewsmaxTV's Steve Malzberg, after Malzberg asked whether the shooting, which left 9 dead, should be called "an act of terror."

"I don't know," Perry replied, noting that "there were more people than that killed in Paris" during the attack on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, before going on to identify the Charleston shooting as "a crime of hate."

"And also," Perry continued, "I think there's a real issue to be talked about: It seems to me — again, without having all the details about this one — that these individuals have been medicated. And there may be a real issue in this country, from the standpoint of these drugs, and how they're used."

Perry explained that "the Veterans Administration, for instance, is handing out these opioids in massive amounts. And then people question: 'Well, why can't these young individuals get work?' Or, 'why is the suicide rate so high?'"

"So, I mean, there are a lot of issues here underlying this that I think we as a country need to have a conversation about," Perry concluded, "rather than just the knee-jerk reaction of saying, you know, if we can just take all the guns away this won't happen."

Earlier in the interview, Perry told Malzberg that "the knee-jerk reaction" after mass shootings "is that if we can just take the guns out of the hands of everyone in the country, these kinds of things won't happen again" – but that he believed such violence would occur "as long as evil and cowardice is alive in the world."

As a result, Perry explained, "I'm not ready to point to any particular policy" that he thought should be changed in reaction to the shooting.

Perry also said that he thought any decision to stop flying the Confederate battle flag over the South Carolina statehouse "needs to be made in South Carolina."

Pressed for his own views about the flag, however, Perry said there might be a conversations to be had.

"I agree that we need to be looking at these issues as ways to bring the country together," he answered. "And if these are issues that are pushing us apart, then maybe there's a good conversation that needs to be had."

Sanders embraced the issue of immigration but also tied Latino poverty levels to the need to raise the minimum wage and hit U.S. policy in Latin America, which he said has made lives in the region worse.

Charlie Neibergall / AP

In a forceful speech at the NALEO conference of Latino elected officials in Las Vegas, Nevada, Friday, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said he supports a path to citizenship and further executive action on immigration that would protect the parents of citizens, legal permanent residents, and the DREAMers.

Speaking to a noticeably sparser crowd than Hillary Clinton did in addressing the group Thursday, Sanders said undocumented workers are a critical part of the American economy and without them food production and agriculture would significantly decline.

"Despite the central role undocumented workers play in our economy and our lives these workers are too often reviled for political gain and shunted into the shadows," he said. "It's time to end the politics of division, playing one group against another group; White vs. black, male vs. female, straight vs. gay or native born vs. immigrant."

Sanders also said U.S. policy in Latin America has made issues worse, blaming the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he said he was proud to say he voted against.

"Supporters of NAFTA — I remember it like it was yesterday — said it would increase the standard of living in Mexico and stem the flow of undocumented immigrants into this country as a result, and I'm sad to say the opposite happened," Sanders said, adding that the number of Mexicans living under the poverty line has increased by 14 million since the agreement went into effect in 1994 during Bill Clinton's administration.

And Sanders took a shot at presidential opponent Hillary Clinton and others for their comments during the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America last year.

Sanders said it was "appalling" to him when "so many voices were saying that these children should be sent back like a package marked return to sender."

In an interview with Jorge Ramos during the height of the surge last summer, Clinton said the children should be given as much love as possible but most, ultimately, should be sent back.

"America has always been a haven for the oppressed, we can not and should not shirk the historic role of the United States as a protector of people fleeing persecution," Sanders said.

On support for further executive actions on immigration, Sanders was following Clinton who surprised many by embracing more liberal immigration policies at an early May event in Nevada. He also struck a similar chord as Clinton on voting rights, training his sights on Republicans, and saying candidates should have the "guts" to stand up and argue for their positions to voters.

"Only cowards who can not defend their positions do things to lower voter turnout and suppress the vote," he said.

Republicans have embraced voter ID laws for years and both Clinton and Sanders have framed it as the GOP seeking to stop youth and minorities from voting.

Perhaps the loudest cheers came when Sanders thundered on his support for raising the minimum wage, saying that 1 out of every 4 Latinos live in poverty, 12 million people altogether, and that Hispanic children have a 1 in 3 chance of living in poverty. Many of those people, he argued, work two or three jobs.

"If we're going to improve the lives of Americans, we need to raise the minimum wage, which at $7.25, frankly speaking, is a starvation wage," he said.

Sanders has recently faced criticism over not talking more about immigration, which led him to add more on the issue to his stump speech.

Last week, Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez said, "I don't know if he likes immigrants because he doesn't seem to talk about immigrants."

That changed Friday, as he weaved the story of his Polish immigrant family with the story of the largely Latino crowd in front of him.

"Your story, our story is the story of America and we should be proud of that story," he said. "A story rooted in family and fueled by hope."

The former Maryland governor wants to be the campaign’s leading voice on gun control.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Martin O'Malley launched a major push for gun control tied to the Charleston shooting Friday, his campaign's latest attempt to use his record as Maryland governor to drive up support for his presidential campaign.

In what has become a trademark for O'Malley, he announced his new gun control focus in a brusque manner. "I'm pissed," reads the subject line from a gun-control focused email O'Malley's campaign sent to supporters Friday. (O'Malley sent a similar list-building email after he called Republican economic plans "bullshit" on NPR in April.)

"I'm pissed" comes with a series of policy prescriptions O'Malley promises to make a centerpiece of his campaign moving forward. The plan is modeled on policies O'Malley signed into law as Maryland governor that drew the ire of the NRA and its allies and praise from gun control supporters. O'Malley is proposing a national assault-weapons ban, tightening background checks, and efforts to end so-called "straw purchasing," where firearms will be purchased legally on behalf of someone unable to legally purchase them.

O'Malley's gun policy agenda is similar to ones Democrats and President Obama hoped to pass after the 2012 elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. In the presidential field, it puts him in a more unique position: Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont and according to polling second place candidate in the Democratic nomination race, voted for an assault-weapons ban and expanded background checks in 2013, but has not expressly called for a ban since announcing his presidential candidacy.

Gun-rights advocates ultimately defeated the 2013 effort, leaving Obama, he said Thursday in his remarks after Charleston, with little recourse policy-wise.

The former Maryland governor appeared to take issue with Obama's read on the situation in D.C. — namely, that nothing can be done about new gun laws while Congress is divided the way it is — on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Friday.

"I think you have to advocate for it in Congress," O'Malley said. "I think when incidents like this happen, we shouldn't say, 'well, it's just America. That's just the way it is.'"

Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and Democratic frontrunner, spoke about Charleston Thursday but did not issue support for an assault-weapons ban or other specific policy proposals.

O'Malley's running towards his gun-control record in his new presidential campaign push. His email to supporters boasts about his "F rating from the NRA." A senior O'Malley aide told BuzzFeed News the supporter email was "the beginning of what will be a major push" and said voters "will be hearing a lot more from him on this."

The former mayor of Baltimore will find a friendly audience for a gun-control message when O'Malley addresses the U.S. Conference of Mayors Sunday, his next scheduled public appearance. Mayors have often been among the most vocal proponents of gun-control legislation, and have stepped up their calls for it after mass shootings in the past.

Lance Iversen / AP

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta went on the offensive on Friday against Republicans who have seized on a remark Clinton made in April about the need for some religious beliefs to change in the context of women's rights.

"Hillary Clinton has spoken out for decades against extremists who pervert the world’s great religions to justify brutality against women and girls. That is what Republicans are attacking her for," Podesta said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed News.

"ISIS claims their religious faith justifies forcing Yazidi women in Iraq into sexual slavery. Does Gov. Bush think we should respect that practice?" Podesta said. "The Taliban torture women in Afghanistan in the name of their twisted version of Islam. Does Gov. Jindal think that is acceptable? What about forced marriages or throwing acid in women’s faces?"

"If Republicans think standing up to these atrocities is part of Hillary Clinton’s progressive agenda, we are proud to agree," Podesta said. "As a woman of faith herself, she won’t hesitate to condemn those who distort religious beliefs to justify barbaric actions. Such distortions are a grave affront to both the girls and women who are being persecuted, as well as the religions these barbarians attempt to use as cover for these heinous acts."

Spokespeople for Bush and Jindal responded on Friday.

"What's insulting is that Sec. Clinton's campaign chairman would compare Christians acting on their conscience to barbaric Islamic extremists," Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush's communications director said in response to Podesta.

"Secretary Clinton said verbatim 'Far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth...and deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed… and not just in far away countries but right here in the United States,'" said Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin. "Those are her words, not Governor Jindal’s. If she wasn’t talking about pro-life Christians in the United States, then whom was she talking about? Secretary Clinton can recant her remarks, but she won’t. The Clintons are famous for sicking their attack dogs on anyone who catches them in the act. That's what she is doing to Governor Jindal now, but he won’t be bullied by the Clintons."

During a speech in April at the Women in the World conference, Clinton said during a section on women's rights and access to health care and education that "all the laws we’ve passed don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice, not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs, and structural biases have to be changed. As I have said and as I believe, the advancement of the full participation of women and girls at every aspect of their societies is the great unfinished business of the 21st century, and not just for women but for everyone — and not just in far away countries but right here in the United States."

The comment — which at the time some interpreted to include abortion — has become fodder for Republicans for whom religious freedom is a central talking point. Bush referenced the remark in his announcement speech in Miami this week and at the Faith and Freedom Coalition gathering in Washington on Friday. "Secretary Clinton insists that when the progressive agenda encounters religious beliefs to the contrary, those beliefs ‘have to be changed.’ That is what she said," he said in Miami on Monday.

"There seems to be attitude when the prevailing government policy runs headlong into the views of the faithful, the faithful must yield," Bush said on Friday. "I'm reminded what Secretary, Sen. Clinton said, that when people that have religious beliefs, they run into conflict with a woman's right to choose for example, that the people that have religious conscience have to get over it, have to take a step back. Well, in a big diverse country we need to make sure that we protect the right not just of having religious views but the right of acting on those views."

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is expected to announce his presidential campaign next week, also referenced her remark on Friday.

"The fourth example, you may have seen several weeks ago Hillary Clinton said, 'those of us who are pro life need to have our religious beliefs changed.' I don't know about you but my religious beliefs are not between me and Hillary Clinton," he said. "My religious beliefs are between me and God Almighty. I'm not changing my beliefs simply because they make her unhappy or unpopular with the left. You know, when you hear Hillary Clinton or President Obama say we've got freedom of religious expression, all they mean is you can say what you want in church. That's not religious liberty. Religious liberty is the ability to live our lives, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, according to our religious beliefs. And, unlike Hillary Clinton and President Obama, my views on marriage are not evolving with the polls. I believe in traditional marriage between a man and woman."

Presidential candidates are weighing in on whether the Confederate flag flying above South Carolina’s Capitol should be lowered after the mass-shooting at a Charleston church.

MLADEN ANTONOV / Getty Images

Romney's statement insisting on the flag's removal is the strongest from a member of the Republican party since a white gunman walked into a historically black church and killed nine people Wednesday. Romney made a similar statement in 2008.

Theo Wargo / NBC / Getty Images

View Entire List ›

“It’s a place normally where Earth meets heaven, and Wednesday night it was a place it was a place where Earth met hell.”

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee weighed in on the deaths of nine people who were murdered in Charleston, South Carolina, last week, saying the "heartbreak for what happened in Charleston is it happened in a church."

Huckabee, the Republican presidential candidate and former pastor, added, "There is no other explanation for what is behind such heinous acts" than evil and sin.

"I think the heartbreak for what happened in Charleston is it happened in a church, in a sanctuary, a place where people go for refuge, to be safe, to escape, the horrors of the world and to find God," Huckabee said on the CATS Roundtable Radio Show on AM970 The Answer. "It's a place normally where Earth meets heaven, and Wednesday night it was a place it was a place where Earth met hell."

Huckabee said that Dylann Storm Roof, the 21-year-old man charged for the mass shooting, was "obviously a racist by his own admission." Huckabee said that although it was not "politically correct" to say the shooting was caused by "things such as evil or sin" there was "no other explanation" for what was behind the shootings.

"And this 21-year-old young man, obviously a racist by his own admission, sitting through a prayer and bible study for an hour, and then standing up and murdering nine people," Huckabee said. "It really does remind us that we live in a world where there is evil. I know it's not politically correct, or certainly not in vogue to speak of things such as evil or sin, but John, there is no other explanation for what is behind such heinous acts."

Segueing into a question about the events in Baltimore surrounding the death of Freddie Gray, Huckabee was asked about the 40 people killed in Baltimore in the month of May, the highest rate of homicide for the city since 1999.

"I think police are very afraid in cities like Baltimore when they know that their mayor and their police chief or in that case the prosecuting attorney is more likely to prosecute the police than they are the most notorious criminals," Huckabee said.

"It's really a horrific kind of upheaval of a civilized society," Huckabee continued. "We all know that police can make mistakes and they do, and when they make mistakes or when they do something is intentionally out-of-bounds, yes they need to prosecuted. But you can not, uh, prosecute a police officer for everything that might happen."

Huckabee gave an example from his time as governor, saying he had to authorize more executions than any other governor in his state's history. Saying he had "months" to go over the documents before an execution, Huckabee noted police only have a one or two seconds to make a life of death decision.

Huckabee added we need to "have a great deal more respect" for what we ask officers to do, and that bad cops should be dealt with. However, we should not ever "emasculate the power of our policemen" because of a couple of bad cops.

“[W]e can achieve marriage for same-sex couples nationwide in 15 to 25 years,” the leaders of the LGBT movement declared on June 21, 2005 — a decade ago to the day. The decision followed big losses in November 2004.

A scene from San Francisco on April 3, 2004.

Susan Ragan / ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — In the aftermath of 11 states passing constitutional amendments in November 2004 banning same-sex couples from marrying, the leaders of ten LGBT organizations met in New Jersey to discuss what should happen next.

It was May 2005 and only one state — Massachusetts — had legalized same-sex couples' marriages. Reeling from losses in more than a dozen states, the movement to expand marriage equality was on the defensive, trying to preserve their victory in Massachusetts and fend off an expected "anti-gay-relationship initiative" in California.

On June 21, 2005 — one decade ago to the day — the group published a document titled, "Winning Marriage: What We Need to Do." While late versions of this plan have been publicized, this statement — agreed upon by 10 groups at a time when the future of the marriage equality fight was in real question — is a "concept paper" that formed the basis of much of the work that followed. Never before published, a copy of the full statement was provided to BuzzFeed News.

The document, which represented a compromise among the leading LGBT groups, outlined a recommitment to go forward with the fight for marriage equality. And it came with a strategy and a timetable — 15 to 25 years — that, in retrospect, looks modest.

But a decade ago, there was not unanimity, even among the LGBT leaders who participated, on the wisdom of pursuing marriage rights for same-sex couples. There is a three-paragraph addendum included in the statement addressing the "critical assumption" of why the fight for marriage equality was the path forward.

"Many people in the LGBT community would have preferred not to have made marriage a leading issue now. Many would have preferred to have addressed the legal and social recognition of same-sex couples with different tactics and/or with different conceptual models," the document stated. "Some members of the working group that drafted this concept paper are among those people."

The group — which included key marriage equality movement leaders like Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson and Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders's Mary Bonauto — concluded, "There is no way that gay people can be full participants in American life as long as society and the law treat our relationships as if they were inferior or as if they did not exist."

In addition to Bonauto — who argued for marriage equality at the Supreme Court this April — and Wolfson, leaders from the Human Rights Campaign, Task Force, Lambda Legal, ACLU, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Equality Federation, National Black Justice Coalition, and Basic Rights Oregon participated in the New Jersey meeting and preparation of the "Winning Marriage" statement.

"[O]ur opponents have already seen the possibilities and the dangers of this moment," the statement laid out. "We must give this everything we've got, and we must do it now." The document was blunt, declaring, "we cannot stop our opponents, if we simply continue doing what we are doing now."

The key goal for the movement, mentioned repeatedly throughout the document, was moving public opinion.

"Only with widespread public acceptance will the Supreme Court and/or Congress be ready to take marriage nationwide," the document stated. Even in the face of the losses in the prior election — and with the talk of a Federal Marriage Amendment in the air — the document boldly declared: "Winning the public cannot be something that is deferred to some more convenient time down the road."

The group laid out a "10/10/10/20" strategy — winning marriage in 10 states, civil unions in another 10, domestic partnership benefits in another 10, and "whittling away" at the final 20 states.

The June 2005 timeline for this was 15 to 20 years — five to ten years from now.

The 10/10/10/20 Plan

The document laid out a plan that involved "[p]reserving marriage in Massachusetts" and "[d]efeating the expected anti-gay-relationship initiative(s) in California."

"If 30 or 35 states pass constitutional amendments, we will likely have to repeal a significant number of them before we can turn to the federal government to address holdouts," the document reads.

Massachusetts maintained marriage equality, but after a multi-year fight, California passed its marriage amendment, Proposition 8, in 2008.

When North Carolina passed its marriage amendment in May 2012, it became the 30th state to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying. None of those amendments have been repealed in a popular vote.

Despite setbacks, there was success on the fourth "short-term goal" highlighted by the group: Add 2 or 3 states to the marriage equality column in "4 to 5 years." Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington, DC all had marriage equality by the start of 2010.

The document laid out other goals that were not met, including a warning that, in addition to moving public opinion, the movement must "lose as few court cases as possible." Court losses in New York, Washington, and Maryland would soon follow, as well as a decision in New Jersey that was, at that point, limited to civil unions.

The document also said that the movement had to "start winning in state legislatures as well as in courts." Later that year, California's lawmakers would do so — but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the measure. In 2009, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and DC passed marriage legislatively — although Maine voters repealed the measure in a referendum.

The statement also included a frank assessment of the Federal Marriage Amendment — a proposed constitutional amendment that would have ended marriage equality nationwide — in terms not generally discussed openly by LGBT advocates in that time or in discussions of that time in the time since.

"It might possible to make a ratification fight work for us," according to the statement — but warning that such a fight "would become the exclusive focus of our work for five to seven years."

View Entire List ›

Ted Cruz with the forecast.

"Last week, the city of Houston it was preparing for the onslaught of Tropical Storm Bill. Oddly enough the Hillary campaign is doing the very same thing."

View Video ›

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

Here's the full video, uploaded by the Caffeinated Thoughts blog:

youtube.com

“Well, of course they would rather engage in sensationalism, because that’s how they make their money…”

w.soundcloud.com

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says that the "love of money is the root of all evil," adding that he believes the desire for money is behind the media's skew towards sensationalism.

The retired pediatric neurosurgeon was talking about the media's coverage of tragic events when he said perhaps it would be best to help the media find alternative ways to make revenue.

"Well, of course they would rather engage in sensationalism, because that's how they make their money and the love of money is the root of all evil," said Carson.

"So we have to recognize that does exist within us. But that doesn't mean that we capitulate to it. It means we must offer another alternative and help them to maybe find some other streams of revenue that are not completely associated with the basest instincts of humanity."

Carson also discussed more broadly the events in Charleston, South Carolina, where a gunman killed nine people who had gathered Wednesday night for a prayer meeting in what appears to be a racially motivated attack.

"No, It's definitely not too late by any stretch of the imagination, but we have to start talking about, the leaders of our society have to start talking about," Carson said discussing America's culture. "They have to talk about in a responsible way. When something like what happens in Charleston happens our leaders need to be front and center talking about hatred and where it comes from and what we can begin to do, starting with very young children to help them to understand what true tolerance is and what it means to engage in rational discussion as opposed to getting off in our separate corners and hurling insults at each other."

Carson cited, the comments section of Internet posts, noting "after four or five posts invariably people start calling each other horrible names and just acting like imbeciles. This is what our society has degenerated into."

Here's the full interview:

w.soundcloud.com

The cases involved excessive force claims and hotel guest information. Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the court’s more liberal justices in the two 5-4 decisions.

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Justice Anthony Kennedy joined with the Supreme Court's more liberal justices on Monday to make it easier for a person in pretrial detention to win a lawsuit claiming police used excessive force and, in a separate case, more difficult for hotel owners to be forced to turn over guest records.

The results came in a pair of 5-4 decisions released on Monday, one involving Michael Kingsley, who was arrested on a drug charge in Wisconsin in 2010, and the other involving a Los Angeles Municipal Code section to which a group of hotel owners objected.

In the Los Angeles case, a group of hotel owners sued over a municipal code that required hotels to turn over records about guests that it also was required to keep under the code. They sued because the code did not provide the hotel owners with an opportunity to challenge a request to turn over the record, a process called precompliance review.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the court, holding that the requirement "is facially unconstitutional because it penalizes them for declining to turn over their records without affording them any opportunity for pre-compliance review."

In Kingsley's case, Kingsley alleged that county officers "slammed his head into the concrete bunk" prior to his trial on the drug charge and, while officers dispute that, no one disputes that, subsequently, one of the officers "applied a Taser to Kingsley's back for approximately five seconds."

Kingsley sued, alleging that the officers violated his rights through use of excessive force. The question before the justices was whether Kingsley and other people detained before a trial need to prove that the officer intended the force to cause harm — subjectively unreasonable — or just show that it did cause that harm unreasonably — objectively unreasonable.

If a subjective standard was used, a person detained before trial would need to show — as Wisconsin officials argued — that the use of force "was applied 'maliciously and sadistically to cause harm.'"

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court, though, that the objective standard applies, holding that "the [officer]'s state of mind is not a matter that [Kingsley] is required to prove."

“I wouldn’t join the Bildbergers for philosophic reasons, but the other reason I wouldn’t join them is because I’d be afraid Alex Jones would be outside the meeting with a bullhorn calling me out.”

View Video ›

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

Republican presidential candidate and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul once told conspiracy theorist and InfoWars radio host Alex Jones he wouldn't join the Bilderberg Group out of fear of being shamed by Jones.

"I said I wouldn't join the Bildbergers for philosophic reasons, but the other reason I wouldn't join them is because I'd be afraid Alex Jones would be outside the meeting with a bullhorn calling me out," Paul said in a 2009 interview with Jones.

"So absolutely, I wouldn't but I've seen your videos calling a few of them out and interviewing a few of them, and for some reason they get quite testy with you if ask them questions about it," Paul added.

Asked if he would secretly join the organization and then expose their agenda, Paul said he didn't know "if that would be possible or not."

When Paul was running for the Senate in 2009, he repeatedly bemoaned the conspiracy theories about organizations such as the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and Council on Foreign Relations, but he did reserve criticism for those with "globalist agendas."

"Yeah I don't know if that would be possible or not, but I think we should expose people who are promoting this globalist agenda for personal gain and for financial gain at the expense of the rest of our country and at the expense of our republic," Paul told Jones.

The latest high-profile Latina hire by Clinton is Betsaida Alcantara, who is leaving the communications department at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to join the Clinton campaign as director of media planning.

Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Hillary Clinton has hired Betsaida Alcantara as director of media planning for her presidential campaign, BuzzFeed News has learned.

Alcantara, 31, served as a senior advisor to Julian Castro at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) where she headed the communications team. HUD staff was notified in a memo sent out by Castro on Monday.

In her role with the Clinton campaign Alcantara will work on strategic planning centered on Clinton herself, helping to plan her interviews and media events, as part of a team led by Kristina Schake, who helped shape Michelle Obama's image. Schake, for example, had Obama go on late night television with Jimmy Fallon and make a trip to a suburban Walmart in Virginia.

In his email to staff obtained by BuzzFeed News, Castro said Alcantara has been instrumental in "helping reach people where they are."

"From a segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to HUD's Twitter Town Hall with Zillow, she has done great work to engage the people that we serve, stakeholders and the general public," he wrote.

Castro has often been floated as a possible vice presidential nominee to join Clinton should she win the Democratic nomination, most recently by DNC finance chair Henry Muñoz and former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros.

Alcantara, who is the first in her family to graduate from college, was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in New York. She worked in the Obama administration for six years, with stints at the EPA and GSA as well.

Alcantara is the fourth high-profile Latina hire by the Clinton campaign, joining national political director Amanda Renteria, Nevada director Emmy Ruiz and director of coalitions press Xochitl Hinojosa.

On Friday, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos announced that his daughter Paola Ramos was joining Clinton as well. (The campaign told BuzzFeed News it is also in a communications role.)

The hiring of Alcantara continues the approach stressed by Clinton officials, like Renteria, of making Hispanic hires that aren't necessarily limited to Hispanic roles.

With the Latino vote seen as critical to winning the 2016 election, Clinton has made efforts to engage them, most recently speaking at the NALEO conference of Latino elected officials on Thursday in Las Vegas, Nevada.

LINK: Hillary Clinton Adds Latina From Labor Department To Oversee Hispanic, Black, Women’s Media

“I’m a conservative Republican, but I get along with everybody.”

Charlie Neibergall / AP

Donald Trump says that his past donations to Democratic politicians were part of his business strategy of being "friendly with everybody" because "you're gonna need things from everybody."

Conservative radio host Howie Carr asked Trump about his donations to the Clinton Foundation, as well as his contributions to other prominent Democrats, such as US Sen. from New York Chuck Schumer, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Secretary of State John Kerry, and former NY Congressman Anthony Weiner.

"Look," he said last Wednesday, "politicians are all talk, they're no action. They don't do the job, they don't know what they're doing. I know them better than anybody, Howie. I deal with all of them. And, you know, I make contributions to many of them. They're friends, they're this. It's smart. It's called being an intelligent person and a great business person.

"But the truth is that, you have to be able to get along with—if you're gonna be a business person, even in the United States, you wanna get along with all sides because you're gonna need things from everybody. And you wanna get along with all sides, it's very important."

Trump said that a lack of Republicans in New York also explains his contributions to Democrats over the years.

"I am a businessman," Trump said. "And when, you know, a Speaker of the House or head of the Senate or, you know, people call, you know, I generally speak. As a businessman, you wanna be friendly with everybody."

"I'm a conservative Republican, but I get along with everybody," he continued. "And I've contributed to people that are Democrats and I've contributed to many people," he said. "Now in New York, you know, when you look at Governor when you look at Mayor, it's very rare that you ever see Republicans in New York. You don't even see them, they're like a—they're like a you know 1% of the vote. It's like a very, very—and I'm not sure exactly what the percentage is but you get very, very little."

Asked whether he'd ever donate to current New York mayor Bill de Blasio, Trump said, "No, and I don't think he'd even ask me. He's super liberal and it would be too much for me. I'm a conservative person, as you know."

Trump went on to say that part of the problem in Washington is that no one talks to each other, especially outside party lines.

"That's by the way, part of the problem that the country has is that nobody talks to each other," he said. "The two sides don't get along, Howie. I mean, they don't talk, they don't meet. They don't--and we have gridlock in Washington. I get along with everybody."

Here's the audio:

w.soundcloud.com