“How would you like to be the soldier that’s sent back to Iraq to say, ‘hey we’re here to take your oil to pay for our wounded warriors?’”

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday continued his repeated attacks on Republican front-runner Donald Trump, saying he thought it was clear Trump had never served in the military from the real estate mogul's "silly idea" to defeat ISIS.

Trump has said he would defeat ISIS by taking their oil wealth using ground troops.

"Name one person who thinks it's a good idea for America to go to Iraq and Syria, take the oil [and] use it for our benefit," Graham said of Trump on New Hampshire's Concord News Radio . "How smart do you have to be to know that will inflame the entire Middle East? That will be a recruiting boon for ISIL. This is a silly idea, it's a dangerous idea and honestly you've never served in the military if you think that's a good idea."

"How would you like to be the soldier that's sent back to Iraq to say, 'hey we're here to take your oil to pay for our wounded warriors,'" continued Graham. "If you want to turn everybody in Iraq against us that's a good idea. If you want a radical jihadist-on-steroids movement then go ahead and implement that idea. It's a dangerous idea. It shows you don't know what you're talking about."

"Name one military analyst or advisor who suggests that's a good idea. All I can say [is] there's no substitute for experience when it comes to being commander in chief. You're asking people to go into war, sending a ground force into Iraq and Syria to take the oil from the Iraqi and Syrian people to use for our benefit is just beyond irresponsible. It would destroy our ability to operate in the Mid East, it would allow our - ISIL to flourish."

Graham added that if Trump thought he could deport 11 million people, "then literally you don't know what you're talking about."

The South Carolina senator said Trump's rhetoric and popularly was nothing usual, saying the United States had a history of anti-immigrant sentiment.

"This happened throughout the history of the United States. We had a wave in the '20s and '30s where we stopped immigration - legal immigration - cause we didn't want to change the Protestant nature of our country," he stated. "We put immigration limits on Catholics. We had a time when Irish need not apply. This has happened before. There was a time before World War II when we were isolationist."

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Nebraskans for the Death Penalty turned in nearly three times as many signatures Wednesday as are required to put the measure on the ballot. If enough signatures are found to be valid, the measure will be voted on in 2016.

Gatherers collect signatures in Omaha, Neb.

Nati Harnik / AP

Although the legislature voted to repeal it months ago, the death penalty — or at least a fight over it — could be coming back to Nebraska.

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, a group financed largely by Gov. Pete Ricketts, turned in almost 167,000 of signatures on Wednesday to the secretary of state. If the signatures are deemed valid and are gathered from a diverse enough pool of counties, the fate of the death penalty will be before voters in Nov. 2016.

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty announced that it had collected 166,692 signatures, according to a state senator that supported the effort.

From those signatures, the group needs to gather valid signatures of 5 percent of voters in the state — roughly 57,000 signatures. The signatures also need to be collected from 5 percent of voters in at least 38 of the 93 counties. If Nebraskans for the Death Penalty was able to collect valid signatures from 10 percent of the eligible voters, that would keep death penalty in place until the voters decide.

The legislature abolished the death penalty in May, over the objections — and the veto — of the governor. Since then, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to gather signatures to block the repeal or bring it back. Ricketts and his father gave $300,000 to the effort — roughly half of what the group ultimately raised, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.

Another group, Nebraskans for Public Safety, formed in response to support the repeal. Almost all of its money was raised from a Massachusetts-based progressive organization called Proteus Action League. Proteus gave Nebraskans for Public Safety $400,000, and has spent millions on anti-death penalty efforts in the past.

Regardless of how the death penalty referendum turns out, Ricketts believes he will still be able to execute the 10 men Nebraska has left on death row. In pursuit of that goal, Ricketts oversaw the purchase of $54,000 worth of lethal drugs — enough for hundreds of executions — from overseas. The FDA has said it would be illegal for the drugs to enter the United States as the drugs are not FDA-approved. Customs is expected to confiscate or turn away the shipment when it comes in.

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Rowan County Clerk Kimberly Davis had asked for a trial court ruling to be put on hold while she appeals her “no marriage licenses” policy. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals denied her request on Wednesday.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, right, listens as her attorney Roger Gannam addresses the media on the steps of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in Covington, Ky., Monday, July 20, 2015.

Timothy D. Easley / AP

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that a Kentucky clerk arguing that she cannot be forced to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples has "little or no likelihood" to succeed in her lawsuit.

Rowan County Clerk Kimberly Davis, who was sued by same-sex couples denied marriage licenses under her 'no marriage licenses' policy, will still be able to present her full appeal to the 6th Circuit. However, she will now be under an order in the meantime to stop applying her policy to "future marriage license requests submitted by Plaintiffs" in the case.

Davis argues that she has a religious objection to her name appearing on the marriage licenses of same-sex couples and, as such, has begun a "no marriage licenses" policy.

After losing at the trial court, the judge denied Davis's request for a stay of his ruling during her appeal to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals — but that judge, Judge David Bunning, did give Davis a brief period in which to seek a stay from the 6th Circuit.

The appeals court denied that request on Wednesday, holding, "In light of the binding holding of Obergefell, it cannot be defensibly argued that the holder of the Rowan County Clerk's office, apart from who personally occupies that office, may decline to act in conformity with the United States Constitution as interpreted by a dispositive holding of the United States Supreme Court. There is thus little or no likelihood that the Clerk in her official capacity will prevail on appeal."

Read the order:

“It will violate civil liberties in this country for innocent American citizens.”

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

Jeb Bush on Wednesday suggested that Republican front-runner Donald Trump's immigration plan is not only unfeasible, but would be illegal if implemented.

"Donald Trump is the frontrunner right now and so he needs to be held to the same standard as other candidates," the former Florida governor said on KSL News radio's The Doug Wright Show.

"When he says things, he needs to be - he needs to explain how he'll pay for it," he continued. "For example, it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to deport 11 million people. It will violate civil liberties in this country for innocent American citizens. Building a wall and making another country pay for it is not a plan. He can't come up with the kind of money that it would take to do this."

Bush added that Trump's overall message on immigration and other issues make him unfit to be the Republican Party's general election nominee.

"Right now Mr. Trump is really good at dividing us up in our disparate parts, but we need a broader, more hopeful, optimistic message with a leader that has actually done it to be able to take this message to the - in the general election." Bush said. "And I intend to be that candidate. I'm working hard with a lot of support. I'm excited about the prospects of this. I know it's an arduous, long journey, but I believe we're on the right path to win."

Bush said that despite Trump's candidacy, he knows the best way forward in the primary campaign.

"I just think it's important to provide an alternative. First of all, inform people of what his views truly are, secondly to provide an alternative that gives people a sense of what conservatism, Reagan conservatism means, which is an uplifting message not one that's focused on grievance. And then respect the people that are supporting him today because of their legitimate anger about the dysfunction in Washington," Bush concluded.

Take a listen to the audio:

Two years ago, Trump met with immigration activists who told them their stories and asked for his support on immigration. “You convinced me,” Trump said as the meeting ended.

Donald Trump with Antonio Tijerino, Estuardo Rodriguez, and DREAMer activists at his office in 2013.

Courtesy Estuardo Rodriguez

On an August day two years ago, Donald Trump was in a much different place: He was just a billionaire with the simple goal of connecting his beauty pageant business with the upcoming Hispanic Heritage Awards.

So at his New York penthouse office atop Trump Tower, he convened a meeting.

Trump ushered in a pair of men — one to talk about the awards and a Democratic strategist who works with nonprofits — and three young DREAMer activists. The DREAMers were on a tour sharing their stories with those less likely to support them, like Tea Party supporters.

Trump, according to four attendees who recounted the meeting to BuzzFeed News, talked about how rich he is ("This is the best view in New York!"), the golf courses he was building around the world, and about each prospective Republican candidate ("What do you think about Jeb Bush?") and whether Latinos liked them.

Then the DREAMers began telling their life stories.

Jose Machado spoke about how his mom was deported when he was 15 years old. Diego Sanchez talked about how he was trying to go to law school and struggling to come up with ways to pay for it.

Trump alternated between making no sense and broad ignorance on the issue, according to Gaby Pacheco, a prominent national activist and the third DREAMer in the meeting.

"Don't you think someone in a wheelchair is more deserving than you all?" Trump said to silence.

But he also kept asking, "Can't you just become a citizen if you want to?" No, we can't, the activists said, there's no process for that. Trump was reflective, the activists said.

"You know, the truth is I have a lot of illegals working for me in Miami," he told them, using the term for undocumented immigrants those in the meeting found offensive. "You know in Miami, my golf course is tended by all these Hispanics — if it wasn't for them my lawn wouldn't be the lawn it is, it's the best lawn," Pacheco recalled Trump saying.

Trump said he knew the work of undocumented people is what makes his golf courses and hotels great.

"At the end of the day, what we're looking at is a value proposition for America," Tijerino said to Trump at the end of the meeting, referring to immigration legislation.

"You've convinced me," Trump said to the delight of the activists in the room.

"We all smiled at each other and said, 'Wow, we did it, we got this guy to change his mind,'" Pacheco said.

Two years later, they see a showman just playing to the crowd. Trump, of course, has spun the Republican field into a debate about immigration that has involved whether the 14th Amendment should be revoked, and if the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants should be deported.

"This is an entertainer who knows how to appease his audience," Rodriguez said. "In his office he had an audience that was completely receptive to what he had to say about respecting the drive of these students who are here to change their lives. But once that conversation was done, that conversation was done. There was no follow up."

Antonio Tijerino, the businessman who spoke about the Hispanic Heritage Awards at the meeting, said Trump's people didn't expect him to come with activists in tow — but Trump was "gracious, engaged, warm, and friendly."

It was very different, Tijerino said from the Trump of 2015, the man whom Tijerino believes provoked the alleged beating of a homeless Hispanic man last week by two white men from Boston who justified the attack by telling police, "Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported."

In 2013, though, he was in entertainer mode even as the meeting concluded, cracking jokes with the group about how they needed better ties — and walked them downstairs straight to his gift shop.

Trump declared that they could have whatever they wanted for free.

He gave away a watch, and his daughter's book. He gave away chocolate. Pacheco scored a perfume, the guys got a bunch of Donald Trump ties.

"Everything said, 'Made in China,'" Pacheco said.

Sanchez, who is 25 and now in law school, cracked up when asked about the ties. He said he was literally wearing one of the three Trump gave him that day.

"Considering what he told us, it's a complete 360, all he's doing now is spewing hate," Sanchez said. "He's digging himself in a hole even more. He was nice then but now he wants to kick us out of the country."

Rodriguez, who took a tie and gave it to his dad, said this is what should upset Trump's supporters: They're just being used by a showman who knows what to say depending on who he's talking to.

"That's what he's doing now — using his celebrity and getting people starstruck by playing to his audience."

The state aims to use compounded pentobarbital in executions, but no executions can proceed while appeals in the case continue.

Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery

Erik Schelzig / AP

WASHINGTON — A state judge in Tennessee ruled on Wednesday afternoon against death row inmates challenging the state's execution procedures.

Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman found that the state's single-drug compounded pentobarbital execution protocol is constitutional, the Tennessean reported and a lawyer for the inmates confirmed to BuzzFeed News.

The judge issued her ruling from the bench on Wednesday, and a transcript of the ruling will be forthcoming.

"Bonnyman said a group of condemned inmates and their attorneys did not prove during trial that the protocol creates risk of cruel and unusual harm, which is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment," the Tennesean reported about the ruling.

The lawyers for the inmates plan to appeal, and, under a standing order from the Tennessee Supreme Court, no execution dates will be set until the appeals are concluded.

He might not want their endorsement, but white nationalists want him.

John Flavell / AP

America's white nationalists have spoken, and they've spoken loud and clear: Donald Trump is their presidential candidate of choice.

From former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke on down, the proudly racist fringe of the American electorate supports Trump. For his part, the candidate is not welcoming their support.

"I don't need his endorsement," Trump told Bloomberg TV of Duke's praise. "I certainly wouldn't want his endorsement. I don't need anybody's endorsement."

Although he also told Bloomberg on Wednesday that he didn't know anything about Duke, in 2000, Trump even cited Duke as a reason he would not run as the Reform Party candidate. "The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani," he said at the time. "This is not company I wish to keep."

But, regardless of what Trump wants, at least eight top figures in the marginalized white nationalist movement said — in recent posts, podcasts, and interviews with BuzzFeed News — that they want Trump.

Visitors to the website for the Council of Conservative Citizens — a white nationalist group cited by Charleston church shooter Dylan Roof — will find a steady stream of pro-Trump articles. "Trump Surge Continues," "Jorge Ramos Deported From Trump Press Conference," "Trump's Nationalist Coalition," reads the front page of the site.

Earl Holt, the president of the organization, declined to comment on Trump.

But Jared Taylor, who runs the site American Renaissance — which argues that "one of the most destructive myths of modern times is that people of all races have the same average intelligence" — is an avid supporter of The Donald.

In a recent post, Taylor contended, "If Mr. Trump loses, this could be the last chance whites have to vote for a president who could actually do something useful for them and for their country."

In an interview on Wednesday with BuzzFeed News, Taylor further explained that his support for Trump was based on his desire for whites to remain the majority racial group in the United States.

"Why should whites want to be a minority?" he said. "Answer me that question. Why should we want to celebrate diversity when celebrating diversity means celebrating our dwindling numbers and influence? And to the extent that Trump succeeds in putting the brakes on immigration, he will also be succeeding at reducing the speed with which whites are reduced to a minority."

He added that this was the way "frankly that all whites feel, we just never dare say so."

Brad Griffin, who writes under the pseudonym Hunter Wallace for the white nationalist blog Occidental Dissent ("We don't want to see our peoples be submerged"), said in an interview that he supports Trump for other reasons. In addition to his staunch opposition to immigration, he also noted the candidate's positions on "trade, political correctness, and campaign finance."

"I like the fact that he's funny," Griffin added.

Peter Brimelow, the founder of the extreme anti-immigration Vdare.com, agrees.

"He just shoots from the hip but his hip seems to move in a very good direction," he said on a recent podcast.

"They are stunning," Brimelow said of Trump's immigration proposals. "They were stunning."

"In the Meet the Press interview he gave, just flat-out said they have to go. And he doesn't say that in his actual position paper, but of course it's good news and of course he's right they should go," Brimelow said later. "All of them."

The immigration plan is a particular winner with the white nationalists. In a weekly report last week, Rocky J. Suhayda, chair of the American Nazi Party, similarly praised Trump's immigration policy and attitude.

"Americans of ALL races are FED UP with this ILLEGAL ALIEN INVASION — so he says that he'll BUILD a WALL to keep them out! CHEERS! He states that "Political Correctness" is disgusting and it's time to STOP IT! More CHEERS! He DARES to turn his guns on the paid morons of the system controlled MEDIA! And regular folks LOVE it," he wrote.

On a recent podcast, Stormfront radio co-host Don Advo affirmed Ann Coulter's description of Trump's immigration plan as "the greatest political document since the Magna Carta" — though he noted that was "a little bit of an exaggeration, but not very much of one."

Trump's critics, Advo said, are people "living on the pieces of silver that they get from their Jewish paymasters so that they can preside over our extermination, our disposition, and our ultimate disappearance from the face of the earth."

Advo's anti-Semitic language was in reference to conservative commentators like Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, and David Brooks.

On his podcast, Richard B. Spencer, the president of the white nationalist National Policy Institute, said while what Trump is saying isn't that different from other Republicans, Trump's passion "inspired" him.

"Trump says things, says these in a way — mundane things — with such gusto, with such visceral energy and toughness, that's why he's gotten under the skin of his critics and that's why he's kind of inspired people like me is because he gives us the impression that he gets it maybe on a visceral level and maybe not on an intellectual or policy level," Spencer said.

This mirrors the comments of Advo, who believes that whether or not Trump wins, his campaign is "gonna give people the ability to come openly out of the shadows and really work very hard for something that will have a lasting effect."

"This anger, this fire, is not going to go away," he said. "It's not going to go away at all. And that has not been noticed by the neocons — or perhaps we should them neo-Cohens — in the Republican Party."

Sentiments like those are not uncommon among white nationalist Trump defenders.

Andrew Anglin, who edits the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, wrote an article on Wednesday contending that New Yorker writer Evan Osnos' recent story on white nationalist support for Trump was a product of the author being a "super-Jew."

"The Jew activism against Trump is just beginning," Anglin wrote. "Osnos' piece has set a narrative that people who support The Donald are 'neo-Nazis' and the rest of the Jew media is already running with it. Huffington Post just did a piece on it, and I've gotten three emails from newspapers plus one from CNN asking for comments on Trump."

Anglin clarified on Wednesday via email what he meant by "Jew activism against Trump," suggesting that BuzzFeed News was involved in this conspiracy, in spite of Trump framing himself, "for decades, as a proponent of the Jewish people."

"Although it is a bit ridiculous for me to explain what I mean by 'Jew activism' to a BuzzFeed reporter," Anglin wrote, "what I refer to is the Jewish-controlled media outlets and political groups which act in concert to push what can only be, in objective terms, viewed as a collective ethnic agenda."

He continued, "Aside from lobbying for unlimited money and weapons to be sent to Israel forever, lobbying for unlimited mass non-white immigration has for decades been at the core of Jewish political activism. All of these Jewish groups are entirely obsessed with flooding America with brown people.

"As such, I don't think Trump's repeatedly stated support for Israel is going to mean much to these aggressive ethnic activists, and they will instead throw their massive political and media clout behind trying to thwart him."

Yet there is also some doubt within the white nationalist ranks regarding whether Trump will be effective and whether he is sincere.

Asked about a comment Trump made Tuesday on the Simon Conway Show — "We have to bring the people out," but that it would be "very warm and humane" — Taylor, the American Renaissance editor, said, "If he does it in a warm and humane way, then he will ensure that practically no one actually self-deports. So I think that's a stupid idea and a very ineffective one."

Taylor has previously argued that an effective strategy of encouraging self-deportation would be to broadcast "television images of Mexican families dropped over the border with no more than they could carry."

In the same vein, Griffin, the Occidental Dissent blogger, said, "It troubles me that he wants to deport all the illegal aliens and then let them back."

After having called himself a supporter earlier in the conversation, Griffin added, "I'm not really supporting him at the moment. I'm kind of leaning toward it."

On his podcast, Don Black, a former KKK grand dragon who runs the popular white nationalist Stormfront.org, said he was skeptical of Trump. "He's by no means our savior," Black said of Trump's policy ideas on immigration, but added that he would "take what I can get for now."

By the same token, Taylor says he will remain behind Trump regardless of his doubts, because he's "the best of a very sorry lot."

And when asked whom he would support if something happened to Trump's campaign, Taylor would not answer.

"I realize that the purpose of your article is to discredit Donald Trump by, 'Look at these wicked horrible people who support him,'" he said, "so I don't think I would give you any ammunition against any other candidate."

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WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul said on Wednesday night that the Black Lives Matter movement should change its name.

"I think they should change their name maybe, if they were 'All Lives Matter' or 'Innocent Lives Matter,'" Paul said during an appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News show. "I am about justice, and frankly I think a lot of poor people in our country, and many African-Americans, are trapped in this war on drugs and I want to change it. But commandeering the microphone and bullying people and pushing people out of the way I think really isn't a way to get their message across."

"I've appeared with many members of the Congressional Black Caucus to talk about criminal justice, I've been to Howard University, I've discussed it in Chicago and other cities, and so I'm more than willing to discuss it, but having people take the microphone — they need to go somewhere else and they need to rent their own microphone," Paul said.

Hannity had asked Paul about comments he made in an interview with a local Seattle TV station in which he criticized the tactics some activists have used on the campaign trail. Paul had said in the interview, "Do I think it's a good idea for people to jump up and commandeer the microphone? No, and I wouldn't let them take my microphone."

Black Lives Matter activists have become a force in, particularly, the Democratic presidential primary this summer for bring racial and criminal justices to the fore. Activists have successfully disrupted events where Bernie Sanders was set to speak in Phoenix and Seattle, as well as securing a private meeting with Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire after a recent event.

In Cleveland, Clinton hit Republicans hard for what she said are their “extreme” views on women.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

During a speech in Cleveland Thursday, Hillary Clinton compared her Republican challengers' views on women to those of terrorist groups.

"Marco Rubio brags about wanting to deny victims of rape and incest access to health care, to abortion. Jeb Bush says Planned Parenthood shouldn't get a penny. Your governor right here in Ohio banned state funding for some rape crisis centers because they sometimes refer women to other health facilities that do provide abortions," Clinton said.

"I would like these Republican candidates to look a mom in the eye who caught her breast cancer early because she was able to get a screening for cancer. Or the teenager who didn't get pregnant because she had access to contraception. Or anyone who's ever been protected by an HIV test.

"Now, extreme views about women, we expect that from some of the terrorist groups, we expect that from people who don't want to live in the modern world, but it's a little hard to take from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States, yet they espouse out of date, out of touch policies. They are dead wrong for 21st century America. We are going forward, we are not going back."

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A federal appeals court on Wednesday offered little hope to the Rowan County clerk seeking to avoid issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but, on Thursday, nothing had changed on the ground. Update: The clerk plans to ask the Supreme Court on Friday to step in and keep same-sex couples waiting.

William Smith Jr., right, and his partner James Yates, second right, speak with an unnamed clerk in an attempt to obtain a marriage license at the Rowan County Courthouse in Morehead, Ky., Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015.

Timothy D. Easley / AP

WASHINGTON — Despite a ruling from a federal appeals court on Wednesday, Thursday morning brought little clarity for same-sex couples seeking to marry in Rowan County, Kentucky.

On Wednesday, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals told Rowan County Clerk Kimberly Davis that she had "little or no likelihood" of succeeding in her effort to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The ruling, however, was potentially just another step in what could be a very lengthy process — with Davis planning to ask the Supreme Court on Friday to step in and help her.

In the wake of June's Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality, Davis has argued that she has a religious objection to same-sex couples' marriages such that she should be exempted from having to put her name on those couples' licenses. She ordered her office to stop issuing licenses altogether, beginning a "no marriage licenses" policy that led to the lawsuit at issue in Wednesday's ruling.

On Thursday morning, the Courier-Journal reported, with accompanying video, that the Rowan County Clerk's Office again denied a marriage license to a same-sex couple, James Yates and William Smith Jr.

While the denial sparked an incredulous response online, the official from the clerk's office refusing the couple gave a simple response, telling the couple, "There's a stay until the 31st."

A stay is an order putting a court decision on hold and, here, was a reference to an order issued in the ongoing lawsuit, which was brought by four same-sex couples seeking to marry in Rowan County. Although Judge David Bunning ordered Davis to stop enforcing her "no marriage licenses" policy against those couples, he also put that order on hold until Aug. 31 to give Davis a chance to seek a more lengthy stay from the 6th Circuit. Bunning added, however, that his temporary stay could end earlier if the 6th Circuit issued an order doing ending it.

After Wednesday's ruling, Yates and Smith, who are not plaintiffs in the ongoing litigation, went to get a license — apparently taking Wednesday's ruling against issuing a stay to be such a "contrary" order. The clerk's office, however, appears to be taking the view that, while the 6th Circuit denied Davis's request for a more lengthy stay, its Wednesday order did nothing to end the stay Bunning put in place until Monday. In the meantime, Davis appears to be ready to wait it out — reportedly closing the office for "computer upgrades."

Davis's lawyer, Liberty Counsel attorney Mat Staver, told BuzzFeed News that he is planning to ask the Supreme Court on Friday for a stay during the appeal of the case.

Even if nothing changes before Monday, however, it is not clear whether Rowan County officials will grant a license to Yates and Smith. In the lawsuit challenging Davis, the plaintiffs are still attempting to get a class certified — meaning that Bunning's ruling would apply to all same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses from Davis's office. There is no decision yet on that class certification, however, so Bunning's preliminary order in the case only relates to the named plaintiffs in the case — not all same-sex couples.

As such, even though the logic of Bunning's order clearly would apply to Yates and Smith's request for a marriage license, Davis — should she still refuse them come Monday — would not technically be violating Bunning's order. Of course, Davis would still be acting in a way that Bunning has already ruled is not likely allowed, so, ultimately — either through class certification or if Yates and Smith sought to have their names added to the lawsuit — the couple likely will prevail. But, refusal to give them a marriage license on Monday — as opposed to refusal to grant a marriage license to any of the same-sex couples named as plaintiffs in the case — is unlikely to lead to Davis being held in contempt of court.

If, however, Davis refuses to grant a marriage license to any of the named plaintiff couples on Monday, expect the plaintiffs' lawyers to go to Bunning seeking a contempt order.

Obama’s vaunted campaign email list has been turned over to the DNC, doubling the size of the party’s email list.

Pool / Getty Images

MINNEAPOLIS — The most envied digital contact list in politics is now in the hands of the Democratic Party.

Party officials and the remnants of President Obama's 2012 campaign team have hashed out a deal that turns over control of the campaign's email list to the DNC, a move that more than doubles the party's current email contact list and puts some of the most advanced digital contact infrastructure in the complete control of the Democratic Party.

DNC officials declined to discuss the size of the list, but DNC digital director Matt Compton's excitement at owning the list that helped Obama raise "more than $500 million" last cycle according to the Wall Street Journal was palpable in an intervew at the DNC's Summer Meeting. DNC officials said the list was the "largest political email list in the world."

"The email list will help the DNC expand its reach online, build support for a new generation of leadership, and test new tactics for activating Democratic voters in future elections," he said. "Email is critically important tool for fundraising, grassroots engagement in support of key issues, and setting the record straight about the Republican candidates as well."

The DNC formally acquired the list earlier this month, and has already used it to send out an email aimed at boosting support for Obama's clean power proposal. The DNC has used the list before, but only after messages were approved by the campaign organization that owned it. Now, the DNC is free to use it as they please.

What sets the list apart is its enhancements. More than just a huge file of emails, the Obama 2012 list includes information about which specific type of appeals a supporter responded to, how much they donated and when, how they prefer to be contacted, and other granular data that helped make Obama's digital grassroots outreach the best over two separate campaign cycles.

DNC control means that eventually the party's presidential nominee will get access to the email list Obama built. Every Democratic presidential campaign would love access to the list, and there has been public grumbling about whether or not Obama would give it up for months. There are no current plans for the competing Democratic primary candidates to get access to the list, DNC officials said, but that could change in the future.

For now, Democratic Party officials are excited to have one of the most sought-after tools in politics. Compton said the list gives Democrats a huge leg up over the GOP in digital outreach.

"The acquisition of this dataset is part of the DNC's broad efforts to build on its success in political technology and digital organizing, and to keep us many steps ahead of our RNC rivals — and to widen that gap even further," Compton said.

“…I think she’s wasting time quite frankly.”

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says it's a waste of time for Carly Fiorina to "quibble" about CNN's rules for the second Republican debate.

Fiorina's presidential campaign on Wednesday released a memo criticizing CNN and the Republican National Committee for debate criteria that will keep Fiorina off the main stage despite a bump in the polls after her strong performance at Fox News' undercard debate in August. CNN will still include polls taken before the first Fox News' debate in addition to those taken after.

On Thursday, Christie called Fiorina's efforts to get on the stage a waste of time.

"Listen we could all sit here and quibble over debate rules, but it's not what the American people care about," Christie said on The Mike Gallagher Show.

"If Carly wants to quibble about debate rules I think she's wasting time quite frankly. Let's just get to the debate and have the discussions so the American people can hear our ideas and see what kind of leaders we'd be as president."

At five percent, Fiorina is ahead of Christie, who is at four percent, in the latest Quinnipiac University National poll.

The second Republican debate will he held at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, on Sept. 16.

Listen to the audio here:

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Democratic Party avoids nasty public fight over President Obama’s nuclear deal at summer meeting.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Democratic Party leadership decided against putting forth, and thus openly debating, a resolution on President Obama's Iran deal at an operational meeting Thursday -- a potential acknowledgement of just how divisive the issue is within the party.

The Democratic National Committee's Resolutions Committee, which considers and recommends changes to the party platform, chose instead to circulate a petition of support for the deal among DNC members meeting in Minneapolis for the party's summer meeting. The petition only registers support for the deal.

"This is the first time we ever did [a letter,]" Resolutions Committee co-chair Jim Zogby told BuzzFeed News after the meeting. He said the letter was his idea, and came about after no DNC members submitted a resolution about the Iran deal before the deadline 14 days prior to Thursday's meeting.

"I said, 'I want to do one,' and [party officials said] 'then you have go to the Executive Committee.' I decided I really didn't want to go that route because I didn't want to put anybody on the spot," Zogby said. "This issue is not going to get decided at the Democratic National Committee, it's going to be decided in Congress. So the option for me was, 'why not just let members show their support for the president? So that's what we decided to do, to take the path of least resistance."

During a brief discussion of the Iran deal at the Resolutions Committee meeting, members said the deal divided some Democratic households in the same way it has divided Democratic leadership in Washington. New York Sen. Charles Schumer, the expected replacement for Nevada Sen. Harry Reid as the Senate's Democratic leader in 2017, is the most prominent of a handful of Democrats opposing the Obama administration-negotiated plan to curtail Iran's nuclear program. Reid supports the plan.

Resolutions passed through the committee Thursday will be voted on by the full DNC membership in attendance Friday. Since the petition is voluntary and circulated among attendees, there will be no vote officially recording opposition and support. The number of signatories on the petition will be public.

The petition, addressed to the president, expresses strong support for the Iran deal while also giving a hat tip to opposition among some Democrats.

"We recognize that there are some who in good faith have expressed reservations with elements of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action]," the letter reads in part, "but we believe that you and key members of your administration have effectively and respectfully responded to these concerns. We, therefore, join you in supporting the JCPOA as the best way forward to secure our nation, our allies and world peace."

Zogby, who supports the Iran deal, said he doubted there would have been a raucous public debate if it had their been a formal resolution on it at the DNC meeting. Members would have eventually negotiated language "everyone could live with," he said.

"I just thought that nobody wanted at this point to spend energy on that," Zogby said. "I just thought if we can get a couple of hundred signatures supporting the president, that's all we want to to do, to just say that we support the president."

Scott Olson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — “I’m for Trump,” conservative talk radio host Michael Savage told listeners last month. “Point blank, best choice we have.”

Right now, the lead video on the radio host’s YouTube channel is an “exciting, must-see compilation set to music” of Trump moments from this summer.

The symbiotic relationship between Donald Trump and cable news is well established. But what’s gotten less attention this summer beyond frustrated conservative circles online is the another media engine driving Trump: good old-fashioned talk radio.

For weeks, some of the biggest names in conservative talk radio — Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Savage — have praised Trump and his bashing of the politically correct left and Republican establishment.

But the conservative talkers are also pushing his rhetoric on immigration and his vow to revoke birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants — and delivering that content straight to their millions of listeners.

Unlike cable news, conservative talk radio speaks directly to the disaffected conservative base fueling Trump’s rise. Rush Limbaugh’s is still the most-listened-to talk radio program in the country, pulling in 13 and a quarter million weekly listeners, according to estimates in Talkers magazine, an industry publication (Limbaugh himself has estimated it in the past at 20 million). Talkers puts Sean Hannity in second, with 12.5 million. Mark Levin ties with Glenn Beck (a Trump critic) for fourth, with 7 million. Savage has more than 5 million, according to Talkers’ estimates.

And if you’re someone who listens to a lot of talk radio, you can go from Ingraham to Limbaugh to Hannity or Savage to Levin in a day and hear nary a word of displeasure with Trump.

“I liken the bond between hosts and their listeners to a friendship,” said Brian Rosenwald, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has studied conservative talk radio. “Politically, the result of this bond is that when hosts talk to listeners about a candidate or bill it’s like having your brother-in-law or best friend tell you about the candidate or bill.”

Though many hosts have avoided a formal endorsement, they’ve heaped praise on the candidate and signaled to their listeners that Trump is their guy.

“I’m not endorsing anybody as you well know, but the fact of the matter is I like the way this guy talks,” Levin said this week on Hannity’s Fox News show. Ingraham has framed her posture towards Trump as “analyzing Trump’s appeal.”

The praise is often couched as praise of Trump’s supporters and of Trump’s connection with them.

“I watched this thing last night,” Limbaugh said on Wednesday’s program. “I happened to get on the airplane to catch maybe the last 30 minutes of it on the way home, and the last 10 minutes of what Trump did last night sealed the deal,” Limbaugh said, referring to Trump’s appearance in Dubuque, Iowa.

“I mean, the sincerity, the appreciation for the audience that showed up. He gave every indication. He left no doubt how much he loved those people that showed up, how much he respects them, how much their presence means to him. All the braggadocio aside, all of the showmanship and the flamboyance, all of that aside, Donald Trump let them know at the end of everything else he said how deeply touched and moved he is by their support, by their belief in him.”

It’s hard to tell whether the hosts actually really like Trump, whose conservative bona fides fall apart the minute the discussion goes beyond immigration, or whether they’re more concerned with pleasing their audience and with keeping the focus on the immigration debate that fires up the base. Trump, after all, has supported many positions antithetical to conservative orthodoxy over the years — universal health care, a pro-choice approach to abortion (since reversed), banning assault weapons, and so forth.

That inconsistency hasn’t gone unnoticed in conservative circles, where it’s vexed the vocal Trump opposition.

Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist who has come under attack from fellow conservatives for opposing Trump, said that he thought conservative talk radio’s focus on Trump is a ploy to please listeners and keep them tuned in. The conservative media is more crowded than ever with sources of information, and though they still command large audiences, talkers don’t have the same kind of hegemony they once did.

“The get out of jail free card of ‘I'm not with Trump but isn't he awesome about The Wall/Those Damn Dirty Mexicans/Bush/Megyn Kelly/the media/topic du jour’ is a mighty tiny fig leaf,” Wilson said. “Of course, they're in the phase where they've monetized Trump mania, so they have to keep stoking the story and stirring their audiences with ever-more-grandiose paeans to Trump's godhood.”

“Fealty to Trump demands the broadcasters fully buy in to the Trump Reality Distortion Field, or be cast into the outer darkness,” Wilson said. “I mean, this isn't a new observation, but Fox News is no longer conservative enough in their eyes. I heard a Newsmax promo this week that said, ‘Tune in to Newsmax TV to get the real story from Ted Cruz... without the Fox News filter.’”

Fox News has been supplanted as the voice of the base, if it ever was. For all the hemming and hawing in recent years about talk radio’s supposed decline in influence, there’s still no purer media ecosystem for the ideas that animate conservatives. If Rush Limbaugh or Mark Levin or Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham decide that birthright citizenship is going to be a big issue, then lo, it becomes the issue of the week, or month. Ingraham was one of the biggest voices championing Rep. David Brat before his upset win over Eric Cantor. Limbaugh especially has a proven record of this; in a New York Times story in 2008, Karl Rove said he thought Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” may actually have tipped the Texas primary Hillary Clinton’s way.

And Limbaugh positions himself as no unaware actor. On his program on Aug. 18, he gave a representative précis of the talk radio position in response to a caller who called in and implied that Limbaugh is supporting Trump:

“Do you understand that I always have a purpose?” Limbaugh said. “Do you realize nothing is haphazard? You're wondering why I'm supporting Trump. Who says I am? Have I announced specifically that I am, or are you perceiving it? A better question would be: If you think that, why? And I can't go any further. I did with my brother last night. It's on record, if I have to go back and prove this, and I told Snerdley this morning about this. But I can't go any further here. It is what it is. I know it's a cliche.”

Limbaugh’s show is less generation of the policies themselves than a mechanism for spreading the ideas far and wide. “In truth, Limbaugh is less a theoretician than a popularizer of what he regards as the correct conservative responses to contemporary issues,” that same 2008 Times story, by Limbaugh and Roger Ailes biographer Zev Chafets, argued.

And right now, Trump’s embrace of hardline immigration ideas like ending birthright citizenship matches up perfectly with the policies that some of these hosts have been promoting for some time. The Trump-inspired debate over immigration is allowing them to mainstream ideas that once didn’t have much purchase, the birthright citizenship question being a notable recent example. Both Levin and Limbaugh have seized on a quote by Sen. Jacob Howard, the original sponsor of the Citizenship Clause, that they’re using to bolster their case that the 14th amendment doesn’t guarantee citizenship to the children of people in the country illegally. Laura Ingraham has also referenced it.

Talk radio hasn’t totally been a monolith for Trump. Several of the major hosts, most notably Glenn Beck, have been either skeptical or downright hostile to the frontrunner. Beck in particular has gone after Trump early and often, calling him a “flaming body part” after his announcement and a “son of a bitch” after the first primary debate earlier this month in Cleveland. Beck has also criticized his peers in the conservative media for supporting Trump.

“Why are big name ‘conservatives’ supporting him?” Beck asked on his Facebook page earlier this month. “I am not talking about the average Joe, I am talking about Sean Hannity or Ann Colter [sic]. How about Savage or Rush? These are smart people. What am I missing? Just based on his favorability ratings he could never win in a general. Research shows that he may be near his ceiling now. Are they just trying to hold on to those disenfranchised republicans and keep them in the fold?”

And for Hannity, the situation has been complicated by Trump’s war with Fox News following the Fox moderators’ tough questioning of him in the debate. Though Hannity is positive on Trump, he’s stood up for his colleague Megyn Kelly who has borne the brunt of Trump’s attacks. He told his “friend” Trump to “leave Megyn Kelly alone” on Twitter this week and later expanded on the criticism, saying on his radio show on Tuesday that Trump needs to focus more on the issues.

There’s also a case to be made that Trump is famous enough that he didn’t need talk radio in the first place. Hugh Hewitt, who has been skeptical of Trump and asked him tough questions but hasn’t declared war like Beck, said he thought that Trump would have reached this level even without talk radio’s help.

“Donald Trump is a ratings phenomenon that would exist even if every talker in America suddenly went silent for the next year,” Hewitt said. “He has a built-in audience by virtue of his decades in the spotlight, his television and publishing success, and of course his overall profile as a deal-making maestro. Yes, we all talk about him — I'd gladly open every show with him if he was available, and all four times he has appeared with me have been great — but his appeal is independent of talk radio.”

Webb is busy moving his daughter into college this week, but a top aide to his campaign told BuzzFeed News his absence is also meant to send a message.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

MINNEAPOLIS -- Most of the Democrats running for president will take the stage Friday at the Democratic National Committee's Summer Meeting, but not former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb.

Webb told party officials last week that he planned to skip the event due to family obligations, namely moving his daughter into college.

But top campaign aide Craig Crawford told BuzzFeed News late Thursday that Webb's absence was also meant to send a message that the conservative Democrat was not happy with the event or the party's recent move to enter a joint fundraising agreement with his opponent Hillary Clinton.

"What's the point of time limited 10 minute speeches and a hospitality room?" Crawford told BuzzFeed News in an email. "And considering the DNC announcement of their joint fundraising deal with the Clinton campaign haven't they just turned themselves into another poor parody of the Sopranos?"

The joint fundraising agreement means Clinton can use her extensive fundraising network to help fill the coffers of the cash-strapped DNC, according to Democrats. But to Webb's team, it's another sign the DNC infrastructure is being lined up behind Clinton. And that's part of the reason DNC members won't see Webb on stage along with Clinton, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

"The DNC and the Clinton campaign must be be channelling former AIG chairman Hank Greenberg, who once said, 'All I ask for is an unfair advantage,'" Crawford said.

The three-judge panel, each writing a separate opinion, all agree that the 2013 trial court decision finding the post-9/11 program likely to be unconstitutional went too far.

Christof Stache / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Friday reversed a trial court decision that would have barred the government from continuing its post-9/11 bulk data collection program implemented by the National Security Agency.

The decision means that, for now, the NSA program implemented under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act can continue unimpeded.

All three judges from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing the appeal agreed that the 2013 trial court decision finding the program likely violated the Constitution went too far.

The case will now go back to the trial court, as agreed upon by two of the judges hearing the appeal, Judge Janice Rogers Brown and Stephen Williams. Judge David Sentelle, the court announced, "would order the case dismissed."

A key question at the appeals court was whether the plaintiffs, Verizon customers, had shown that the NSA collected their data — evidence that would show they had standing to bring the case, which is a requirement to bring a case in federal court. The government, however, has only acknowledged collection of data from Verizon Business accounts, the court noted.

Brown was the most sympathetic to the claims brought by the plaintiffs challenging the program. Although she disagreed that the plaintiffs had, as U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon decided in 2013, shown a "substantial likelihood" that they would succeed in their case, Brown wrote that "one could reasonably infer from the evidence presented the government collected plaintiffs' own metadata."

Brown noted that, back at the trial court, Leon will need to determine what exchange of evidence is appropriate so that the plaintiffs can show whether the NSA actually collected their data.

In noting that, however, she added, "It is entirely possible that, even if plaintiffs are granted discovery, the government may refuse to provide information (if any exists) that would further plaintiffs' case. Plaintiffs' claims may well founder in that event. But such is the nature of the government's privileged control over certain classes of information."

Williams, while allowing the matter to return to the trial court, was less sympathetic to the plaintiffs' claims, stating outright, "[P]laintiffs lack direct evidence that records involving their calls have actually been collected." Nonetheless, she supported sending the case back to the trial court because of "the possibility that plaintiffs' efforts" to show that their data was collected "may be fruitful."

Finally, Sentelle, the least sympathetic to the plaintiffs' claims, declared that, since the plaintiffs cannot show that they have standing, "we do not have jurisdiction to make any determination in the cause." As such, he wrote, the case should be dismissed.

Sentelle and Williams were appointed to the court by President Reagan, and Brown was appointed by President George W. Bush.

Read the decision:

Couples ask court for quick action to stop enforcement of Mississippi’s ban on same-sex couples adopting children.

Jan Smith, left, and Donna Phillips, with their 8-year-old daughter.

Photo courtesy of EKB Photography

WASHINGTON — Married same-sex couples on Friday asked a federal judge to order Mississippi to allow both parents to adopt a child, seeking a ruling that the state's ban on such adoptions is unconstitutional.

"The Supreme Court has now left no ambiguity: gay couples must be granted the same 'equal dignity in the eyes of the law' as straight couples," the lawyers for the couples wrote, citing the 2013 Supreme Court case striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act and this June's decision striking down state bans on same-sex couples' marriages.

The Mississippi adoption ban states simply that "[a]doption by couples of the same gender is prohibited."

Friday's action in the lawsuit — which was filed earlier this month by the Campaign for Southern Equality, Family Equality Council, and four same-sex couples — is limited to seeking immediate resolution, in the form of a preliminary injunction, on the requests of two married same-sex couples.

"Donna [Phillips] and Jan [Smith] were married on August 1, 2013 and have an eight-year-old daughter, H.M.S.P. Kathy [Garner] and Susan [Hrostowski] were married on June 17, 2014 and have a fifteen-year-old son, H.M.G.," the lawyers for the couples state. "But because of nine words in a Mississippi statute, H.M.S.P. has only one legal parent, Donna, and H.M.G. has only one legal parent, Kathy."

In their filing, the lawyers take a poke at the state's governor, one of the defendants in the case.

The lawyers — led by Paul Weiss's Robbie Kaplan, who earlier represented DOMA challenger Edie Windsor and represented the couples who successfully challenged Mississippi's marriage ban — want U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Jordan to take immediate action as to those two couples.

"Because of this statute, the Parent Plaintiffs and their children are irreparably harmed and they therefore ask this Court to enter an immediate order preliminarily enjoining the relevant government officials from enforcing the Mississippi Adoption Ban as it applies to them."

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The trial court’s order that Rowan County Clerk Kimberly Davis stop her “no marriage licenses” policy is due to take effect, at the latest, on Monday.

William Smith Jr., right, and his partner James Yates, second right, speak with an unnamed clerk in an attempt to obtain a marriage license at the Rowan County Courthouse in Morehead, Ky., Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015.

Timothy D. Easley / AP

WASHINGTON — The Kentucky County clerk seeking to be exempted from providing marriage licenses to same-sex couples has taken her request to the Supreme Court — which ruled in favor of same-sex couples' marriage rights in June — in a filing Friday afternoon.

Rowan County Clerk Kimberly Davis asked Justice Elena Kagan, responsible for hearing such requests from cases out of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, to issue a stay during her appeal of the trial court's decision against Davis's claim.

Earlier this month, the trial court in the case ordered that Davis stop her "no marriage licenses" policy, put in place because she objects to her name appearing on the marriage licenses of same-sex couples, as to the plaintiffs who sued her. The judge, U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning, put that ruling on hold until, at the latest, Monday.

Because of that, Davis asked Kagan to at least issue a temporary stay while Kagan considers whether to issue a stay to last through the full appeal. If Kagan is "disinclined" from granting those requests, however, Davis asks for the matter to be referred to the full Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the 6th Circuit denied Davis's request for a stay pending appeal, leading Davis to go to the Supreme Court on Friday for relief.

"On June 26, 2015, immediately following this Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Kentucky Governor ... issued a directive (the "SSM Mandate") ordering all Kentucky County Clerks to authorize same- sex "marriage" ("SSM") licenses, without exception," the lawyers for Davis write.

They go on to argue that "the SSM Mandate demands that she either fall in line (her conscience be damned) or leave office (her livelihood and job for three-decades in the clerk's office be damned)."

The 6th Circuit on Wednesday held that Davis had "little or no likelihood" of succeeding in her case. Her lawyers argued to Kagan on Friday, though, that — even if the 6th Circuit ultimately ends up agreeing with Bunning that Davis cannot be exempted from issuing licenses to same-sex couples — there is "at least a reasonable probability" that the Supreme Court would hear the case and "at least a fair prospect" the justices would side with Davis.

Specifically, Davis argues that the policy requiring her office to issue licenses to same-sex couples "substantially burden[s]" her religious freedom rights under the U.S. and Kentucky constitutions and Kentucky's Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Additionally, she argues, the policy "constitutes an impermissible religious test."

In a separate filing Friday, this one at the trial court, Davis asked Bunning to extend the trial court's stay — which, at the latest, expires on Aug. 31 — until the Supreme Court resolves her latest request.

Read the filing to Justice Elena Kagan:

Adam Bettcher / Getty Images

MINNEAPOLIS — Two weeks ago, she shrugged it off with a joke. (Snapchat! “Those messages disappear all by themselves.”) A week later, the levity soured to frustration. (Did she wipe the server? “What, like with a cloth or something?”)

And in recent days, at the encouragement of her campaign aides, Hillary Clinton has shown a new approach to fielding questions about her email account. Her tone is patient and contrite — and her goal, as she told reporters on Friday, is to better “explain” to people the “confusing” intricacies of the controversy that, after nearly six months of coverage, still hangs over her presidential campaign.

“It’s a little confusing, and I certainly understand why, for the press and for the public to try to make sense of this," said Clinton.

It was first revealed in March that during her four years as secretary of state, Clinton used a personal email account, maintained on a private server. Since then, questions about the email account have shifted in focus: This month, amid a government investigation into the security of the set-up, Clinton has provided the FBI with the server.

All the while, she has come back to one point: No information that was classified at the time, she insists, ever passed through her account. But in addressing questions, Clinton has been perceived by some Democrats as too dismissive and defiant. She has joked about the email inquiry, and on other occasions, characterized it as an analog to the Republican-led Benghazi investigation: the latest iteration of what she describes as a long-running partisan effort to derail her and her husband.

In recent weeks, Clinton campaign aides worked to focus the widened coverage of the inquiry — and clarify for the public the byzantine system by which information is classified, often retroactively. Her comments on Friday, made in a press conference at the annual meeting of the Democratic National Committee, reflect an effort to untangle the issue and present a more understanding, if not apologetic, front from the candidate.

“I am not frustrated,” Clinton said. “I’m just trying to explain for people who have never had to follow this before that it is complicated and that there is nothing unique about the process that is being conducted about the process with my emails.”

“This is what happens any time somebody gets FOIAed,” Clinton said, referring to the Freedom of Information Act, “any time there is another reason why information should be made public.”

For those unfamiliar with the the government’s classification process, Clinton said, the matter is not exactly straightforward. “Something that wasn’t classified in 2009, in 2010, but maybe... should,” she offered.

“But if you’ve been around the process, you know that that’s not uncommon. Maybe when we get all this behind us, people should say, hey, let’s take a deep breath here and try to figure out, is that the best process.”

Earlier this week, after an event in Iowa, Clinton told reporters that she takes “responsibility” for the decision to keep a personal email server. “I know people have raised questions about my email use as secretary of state, and I understand why,” Clinton said. “I get it. So here’s what I want the American people to know: My use of personal email was allowed by the State Department. It clearly wasn’t the best choice. I should’ve used two emails: one personal, one for work.”

Clinton had the same message on Friday in Minneapolis.

“Right now it doesn’t frustrate me,” she said again. “It’s just the reality. And I’m trying to do a better job of explaining to people what’s going on. So there’s not all this concern, and there’s some sense made out of the confusion, and to answer people’s questions.”

Adam Bettcher / Getty Images

MINNEAPOLIS — One made his name as the most loyal, hard-working, do-anything-and-everything surrogate inside the Democratic Party. He did two tours as the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, hit every Sunday show for President Obama in 2012, and traveled to more than two dozen states for fellow Democrats in 2014.

The other built a career on the party’s periphery. He is the oft-described “self-described socialist,” the liberal’s liberal, the registered independent from Vermont who carved out an unlikely spot in Washington. He has only attended one Democratic convention — and until Friday, he had never addressed a meeting of the Democratic Party.

It was at that meeting in Minneapolis — an annual gathering of delegates and elected officials — that Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders traded places.

At every turn, the reversal was on display. In his speech, Sanders, the man long without a party, promised to lift all Democrats with the “enormous amount of enthusiasm” powering his campaign. In his, O’Malley, accused his longtime partners of favoritism as the party chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, sat just steps away on stage.

In his press conference, O’Malley outlined the injustices of Democratic leadership. In his, Sanders made a new appeal to the establishment that he is a nationally viable candidate with a “path to victory.” (Some polls, he said, suggested he could beat Donald Trump and Jeb Bush in one-to-one match-ups. “Can we defeat the Republicans? I think the answer is becoming more and more that we can.”)

It’s the new phase of a Democratic primary that continues to revolve around but never deeply interfere with the frontrunner candidate, Hillary Clinton, who roused the DNC audience into three standing ovations, still leads the field in polling, fundraising, and, her campaign revealed on Friday, in superdelegate support, too.

In Minneapolis, the primary still began and ended with Clinton. The response from Sanders, who has come closest in support to the former secretary of state, was a suddenly aggressive play for party credibility. “As our campaign progresses,” he warned reporters, “you’re going to see a lot of superdelegates” switch sides. Just 10 minutes earlier, Sanders said, one superdelegate had told him, “‘Well, you swayed me. I’m on your side now.’”

Get behind me, he told delegates, and I’ll show you a way to prevent the bruising losses of 2014. The party he has officially shunned as a senator is now the one he’ll carry to overwhelming victory as a presidential nominee, according to Sanders. He pointedly spoke to Democrats as “we,” tying himself to the party that’s still not listed next to his name in the Senate directory.

“The Republican Party did not win the midterm election in November. We lost that election. They didn't win. We lost, because voter turnout was abysmally, embarrassingly low,” Sanders said in his speech to the DNC hall. “Democrats will not retain the White House, will not regain the Senate or the U.S. House, will not be successful in dozens of governors' races all across this country, unless we generate excitement and momentum and produce a huge voter turnout.”

As Sanders spoke, the assembled delegates from across the country — an audience of Democratic establishment figures — remained seated in the front, while rows of his campaign’s supporters stood and cheered in approval toward the back of the room.

“With all due respect — and I do not mean to insult anyone here — that turnout, that enthusiasm, will not happen with politics as usual. The same old, same old will not work,” Sanders said.

As he has throughout the campaign, Sanders pointed to his crowds as evidence he knows what he’s doing. But where he’s previously used that turnout to prove that an army of voters willing to vote for a socialist exists, in Minneapolis, he argued his youth support can help the Democratic establishment deliver voters in the demographic that stayed home in 2014.

“All across this country, we have drawn some of the largest crowds of this campaign, including many young people and working people who have not previously been involved in the political process,” he said.

It was a striking turn to see the candidate who usually talks about “revolution” lean into talk about delegate counts and returning the oldest political party in the country to fighting shape. But the success that has seemingly surprised even Sanders has led him to seek bridges to an establishment he has previously eschewed. Sanders told reporters the Minnesota speech was his first address at a DNC meeting. Despite decades in progressive politics, Sanders said the only Democratic National Convention he’s attended was in 2008. Nevertheless, he said, he strongly suggested he’s a Democrat even if he’s not officially listed as one.

“From a legal point of view… nobody can register in a Democrat in the state of Vermont,” he said. “I vote in the Democratic primaries. I have helped elect some Democratic governors in the state of Vermont. I have been a member of the Democratic caucus from virtually the first day I was in the House and throughout my nine years in the Senate.”

O’Malley, meanwhile, sought to recast himself as the true insurgent of the race, fighting back as a renegade.

When a reporter asked about the six Democratic debates — had the DNC stacked the schedule for Clinton? — O’Malley replied flatly, “Yes.” His campaign signs, scattered across the Minneapolis Hilton, bore a new campaign slogan: “We Need Debate.”

It’s not a tough sell for the former governor of Maryland, who is firmly parked far behind Clinton and Sanders in public opinion polls. But in the past, O’Malley fully embraced the establishment, chairing the Democratic Governors Association, backing Clinton over President Obama in the 2008 Democratic race, and running a state for two terms. In Minneapolis, he suggested someone was pulling the strings in the Democratic Party and he was there to cut them. With the party leadership assembled around him on the dais, he essentially accused them of fixing the game so candidates like him don’t have a shot.

O’Malley has been urging the Democrats for weeks to schedule more debates, saying the truncated calendar benefits Clinton. In Minneapolis, he ratched that rhetoric up in front of an audience of the party establishment.

“Four debates, and four debates only we are told. This is totally unprecedented in our party history. This sort of rigged process this has never been attempted before,” he said. “Whose decree is this exactly? Where did it come from? To what end? For what purpose? What national or party interest does this decree does this serve? How does this tell the story of the last eight years of Democratic progress? How does this promote our Democratic ideas for making wages go up and household incomes go up again, instead of down?”

The shifts in tone mean different things for both Clinton opponents. For Sanders, a move toward the establishment Democratic Party is an attempt to legitimize a campaign with great grassroots success many Democrats see as a fluke or even potentially detrimental for the general election. If Sanders can convince even a few mainstream Democrats that he’s the one to carry the party banner over the line next year, he can earn the institutional support he needs to be a serious threat to the front runner. For O’Malley, the willingness to take on the party establishment is yet another attempt to move his active yet so far largely unsuccessful campaign from also-ran to top tier status.

“Every year there’s an inevitable frontrunner right up until the people get to vote,” he told reporters. “And you always hear, circle the wagons, and all this or this stuff. And I don’t believe that’s best for our country. I don’t believe that’s best for our party.”