The groups are circulating a draft of a letter that will soon be sent to members. The letter is part of an effort to unite tea party groups and House conservatives in the aftermath of Speaker John Boehner’s retirement announcement.

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WASHINGTON – Tea Party leaders will call on House Republicans to come together around strong conservative candidates during their upcoming leadership elections as part of a broader push to avoid the types of infighting and divisions that have hamstrung the movement in recent years.

According to sources familiar with the situation, several leading Tea Party groups have begun circulating a draft letter to Republicans, underscoring the need to make sure conservatives are elected to House leadership. The letter, which they plan to send to members as early as Wednesday, is part of the behind-the-scenes effort to get outside groups and House members to present a united front.

"It's all hands on deck right now," said one prominent tea party group leader. "We've got a come-to-Jesus moment for all of us."

Although unhappiness with outgoing Speaker John Boehner is nearly universal amongst conservatives, activists and their allies in the House have repeatedly stymied their own agenda because of infighting, something they are hoping to avoid this time around.

At the same time, conservatives are still working out who they ultimately want to see fill the Majority Leader and Majority Whip slots — two of the most powerful positions in the House. In order to facilitate that process, they also are pushing to delay leadership elections to have more time to coalesce around their favorite candidates and also turn up the heat on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to continue to rally the base against establishment Republicans.

"There's a lot of education going on right now. Lot of moving parts," a second Tea Party leader said.

Emboldened not just by Boehner's decision to step down, but also by polls in the presidential race that show political outsiders like Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina ahead of GOP establishment favorites, conservatives are looking at the next few weeks as a potential turning point for the tea party movement based on how the GOP leadership shakes out.

Although many are still openly grumbling about a lack of a strong contender from the conservative wing to challenge Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy for the speakership, there's an understanding that the focus needs to be on the majority leader race, where conservatives see a better shot at at getting one of their own into the top ranks.

Groups like TheTeaParty.Net, which used to organize the Tea Party Caucus meetings in the Capitol, have already lined up behind Rep. Tom Price for the No. 2 position. "We are very supportive of Tom Price, who we think would be a great majority leader," Niger Innis, chairman of the group, told BuzzFeed News.

Price, who has locked up a few key endorsements including one from Rep. Paul Ryan, is competing against Majority Whip Steve Scalise for the slot. There's also an effort to draft Rep. Trey Gowdy — who some see as a candidate conservatives could more easily rally behind — to run for majority leader. Gowdy has said he is not interested in running for the position, but members continue to float his name as an option.

But despite the grassroots dissatisfaction over McCarthy — "Boehner's right-hand man" or "minion" as some activists are labeling him — likely becoming speaker, a few tea party leaders pointed to "a stark contrast" in the tone McCarthy has adopted in recent days compared to Boehner when it comes to dealing with conservatives.

In an interview with CNN Tuesday, McCarthy went so far as to praise conservative firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz. "Ted Cruz is healthy for this party, just as every other Republican is healthy for this party," he said. "And I want more people to be part of the Republican party."

Activists view McCarthy's tone as a sign that the California Republican is much more aware of the need to have a good relationship with conservatives than Boehner ever was.

"When Kevin was a Republican leader here, everybody felt included," said Sal Russo, chairman of Tea Party Express, which is based in Sacramento. "That's what was lacking with Boehner. McCarthy's personality is different. He's good at bringing people together."

The House Freedom Caucus, Tea Party Caucus, and Conservative Opportunity Society — three conservative groups within the House — are expected to soon start interviewing McCarthy and Rep. Daniel Webster, candidates for speaker.

Many of those House members have been in regular communication with outside conservative groups and are touting the meetings as the first real chance since the tea party wave in 2010 to have a debate on who the leaders of the party should be.

"(McCarthy's) going to have to have a plan to restore trust not just with our caucus but with the our voters," said Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, who is a member of the Freedom Caucus.

"The message in all this was, 'Fire John Boehner,' so he quit. But it's not as easy as moving people around. You gotta actually talk about changing policy. You gotta talk about principles."

When in doubt, lash out.

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

For the first time on Tuesday, Donald Trump raised the possibility of dropping out the 2016 Republican primary field if he wasn't doing well.

"This is going to be an ebb and flow, how can I continue to lead by such wide margins?," Trump said on the Today Show.

"I'm a practical person," Trump continued. "If I see things aren't going well, like for instance there are people right now in the Republican party who are not doing well I don't think it's going to change for many of them, at some point you have to get out."

"Right now, I'm leading every poll I get the biggest crowds by far. I had 20,000 in Dallas I had 35,000 people in Mobile, Alabama, you know so far it's looking good," he added. "So I will go and if for some reason I think it's not going to work, I'll go back to my business."

And while Trump is unlikely to go anywhere while he leads the polls, the answer to how he might exit the race could lay in his flirtation in 2000 with a run for presidency on the Reform Party ticket.

When he announced he would not be running that year, Trump decided to lash out at the Reform Party -- and the candidates running -- as not viable options for the presidency. Trump had actively flirted for months with a Reform Party run, making appearances and getting access to early state ballots.

"The Reform Party is a total mess," Trump said on NBC that year. "I will not be running."

"You could only win the whole thing with a totally unified party," Trump added, saying the party was "self-destructing."

In particular, Trump lashed out at then-Reform candidate Pat Buchanan, as well as former Klansman David Duke, who were also seeking the nomination. Trump had slammed Buchanan as "too controversial" to be president.

"The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani," Trump said in a statement on why he would not run at the time. "This is not company I wish to keep."

In a New York Times op-ed Trump, Trump slammed the "fringe element" of the Reform Party as a reason for not running.

I also saw the underside of the Reform Party. The fringe element that wanted to repeal the federal income tax, believed that the country was being run by the Trilateral Commission and suspected that my potential candidacy was a stalking horse for (take your pick) Gov. George W. Bush, Senator John McCain or Vice President Al Gore.

When I held a reception for Reform Party leaders in California, the room was crowded with Elvis look-alikes, resplendent in various campaign buttons and anxious to give me a pamphlet explaining the Swiss-Zionist conspiracy to control America.

Three things happened to destroy any viable chance that I may have had to run an insurgent candidacy in the fall. The Commission on Presidential Debates, made up solely of Republicans and Democrats, produced debate criteria specifically designed to keep the Reform Party's candidate out of the fall debates. I felt confident that I could sell the American people if I could get into the debate, but my lawyers told me that was unlikely.

Trump said he "seriously thought that America might be ready for a businessman president, someone with an eye for the bottom line, someone who has created thousands of jobs and isn't part of the 'inside the Beltway' buddy system," as a reason for his run.

And while the circumstances today are very different, if the past shows anything, it's that The Donald, in attempting to save face, will lash out at the party and the candidates should the bells toll for his candidacy.

No candidate has mentioned the pope more on the campaign trail than Bernie Sanders. “The senator made clear in interviews and comments last week that there are areas where he has differences with the church, including gay rights and women’s rights,” a top aide tells BuzzFeed News after news that pope met with Kim Davis.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — No candidate has spoken positively about Pope Francis on the presidential campaign more than independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, currently running second in national polls of the Democratic presidential primary.

On Wednesday, his campaign was silent when asked about news that Francis met with Rowan County Kentucky clerk Kim Davis. A top aide declined to comment on the meeting or if it would change how Sanders discusses Francis on the campaign trail when asked by BuzzFeed News.

In Iowa over the weekend, Sanders stepped up his Francis shout-outs on the campaign trail, opening remarks at a Latino Heritage Festival in Des Moines with praise for the pope. Sanders has been effusive when it comes to Francis, calling him "one of the great moral and religious leaders of our time and in modern history" in a Sept. 24 CNN appearance.

Sanders has acknowledged his differences with Francis over issues of abortion rights (Sanders favors legal abortion) and marriage equality (Sanders has been supportive of expanded rights for LGBT Americans for decades.) But he generally downplays those issues when discussing Francis, saying the pope's economic progressivism and climate change activism is more important.

Hours after the pope addressed Congress earlier this month, Sanders's campaign sent out a fundraising email to supporters that captured the senator's tone when it comes to Francis:

...I am emailing you today to discuss Pope Francis in the hope that we can examine the very profound lessons that he is teaching people all over this world and some of the issues for which he is advocating.

Now, there are issues on which the pope and I disagree — like choice and marriage equality — but from the moment he was elected, Pope Francis immediately let it be known that he would be a different kind of pope, a different kind of religious leader. He forces us to address some of the major issues facing humanity: war, income and wealth inequality, poverty, unemployment, greed, the death penalty and other issues that too many prefer to ignore.

"The senator made clear in interviews and comments last week that there are areas where he has differences with the church, including gay rights and women's rights," Briggs said.

Trump isn’t happy about Forbes estimating his net worth at less than half the $10 billion he claims, but it’s not the first time Trump and the magazine have battled over the size of his personal fortune.

J Pat Carter / AP

"You're gonna look bad," Donald Trump told Forbes in response to its estimate that his net worth was a paltry $4.5 billion, less than half of the $10 billion the real estate mogul says is his personal fortune.

"And look," he said in the story released Tuesday, "all I can say is Forbes is a bankrupt magazine, doesn't know what they're talking about."

It's not the first time the Republican presidential candidate has feuded with Forbes over his net worth.

The first battle came in 1990, a year after the magazine ranked him number 19 on its list of the 400 richest Americans. Forbes estimated Trump's net worth at $1.7 billion, less than the $3.7 billion he claimed for himself, but still lofty enough to appease Trump.

In fact, according to John O'Donnell, a former President of Trump Plaza, one of Trump's casinos in Atlantic City, the high ranking was the result of years of effort by The Donald to boost public perception of his wealth. O'Donnell says in Trumped!, an account of his time working for Trump written after he quit his job at Trump Plaza, that one tactic Trump resorted to was to refer a Forbes researcher to a lawyer he claimed worked for a man who supposedly offered him $650 million for a strip of property in Manhattan. The lawyer actually worked for Trump.

O'Donnell writes that this made Forbes "suspicious," and next year the publication ran a story revising its estimate of Trump's net worth downward by more than two-thirds.

The magazine conceded that Trump's assets had a market value of around $3.7 billion, a number that originated in 1988 with a one-page document Trump labeled "Confidential," but that his surrogates sent to Fortune and Forbes, according Harry Hurt III's Trump biography, Lost Tycoon. That document, however, did not account for Trump's liabilities, which the 1990 Forbes story estimated added up to about $3.2 billion.

"If our estimates are substantially correct — and we think they are generous — Donald Trump's current net worth is about $ 500 million," the story read. "Does Trump command an impressive pile of assets? Yes. Do his assets exceed his debts by a comfortable margin? That's a different question."

The magazine continued with an even more damning indictment of the state of Trump's finances, suggesting that he owed about $180 million a year in interest, but that his properties only yielded $140 million a year in cash flow.

"That leaves Trump bleeding at the rate of at least $40 million a year, $3 million a month, $770,000 a week," Forbes said.

As he did on Tuesday, Trump responded to the 1990 article by accusing the magazine of carrying out a "personal vendetta."

Their evaluation of his wealth, he argued in a syndicated column published that October, was related to his failure to attend the "much-ballyhooed 70th birthday party" of late editor Malcolm Forbes in Morocco in 1989, a move he said he made because Forbes was "a hypocrite who favored those who advertised in his magazine and tried, with surprising viciousness, to punish those who didn't."

Trump also explained that he "saw a double standard" in how Forbes "lived openly as a homosexual — which he had every right to do — but expected the media and his famous friends to cover for him."

"Malcolm and the Forbes family no doubt sensed my coolness toward them, and for that reason and also because I never advertised much in Forbes magazine, they were not great admirers of Donald Trump," wrote Donald Trump.

Though Malcolm Forbes has been dead for more than 15 years, Trump suggested in Tuesday's article that the vendetta lives on. Asked whether he thinks Forbes, which says it devoted "unprecedented resources to valuing a single fortune" for the story, assesses his net worth differently from how it assesses those of other real estate tycoons, Trump answered, "Yes, I do. Yes, I do."

“Kudos for Mr. Trump for being specific because up ‘til now he’s basically just been insulting people and using bluster as a campaign tool.”

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Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush says Donald Trump's tax plan is going to increase the deficit more than his plan, citing a think tank analysis of the two proposals.

"So our plan has been scored, the terminology to, you know, to determine what the impact is over ten years at a certain amount and the Trump deficit in his plan, the estimate by the same group is it's three times larger, it's 10 trillion dollars and there's no dynamic effect of increasing economic activity that overcomes that and so maybe Donald needs to go back to the drawing board in that regard," the former governor of Florida told Concord News Radio on Wednesday.

Bush said there were similarities between his plan and Trump's plan, which reduces rates across the board, but said the growth created by his plan is far greater.

"In our case, the economic growth will create a significant, will cover a significant portion of that and what I commit to is that we're going to reduce the spending in Washington D.C. to deal with the rest of it," he added.

Similarly, in another radio interview earlier in the day, Bush gave Trump kudos, but again, said his plan would increase the debt.

"And the Trump plan mirrors some of the elements of it and I applaud that, lowering rates, eliminating some exemption," Bush said of his own plan on New Hampshire Today radio. "But according to the Tax Foundation, the conservative think tank that does the scoring for these budgets, it would create a ten-trillion dollar hole that you can't overcome by any kind of dynamic scoring. Kudos for Mr. Trump for being specific because up 'til now he's basically just been insulting people and using bluster as a campaign tool but I think his plan probably isn't gonna create the kind of economic impact that mine will."

Bush noted the growth from his plan would mean it would only increase the deficit a trillion dollars over ten years.

"First of all the growth side cuts this to close to a trillion dollars over 10 years," he said. "Sounds like a lot of money, but over ten years that's 100 billion dollars. We're spending over those 10 years 50 trillion or 45 trillion dollars just to put it into perspective. And so growth covers most of it and then the rest comes from curbing the growth and spending."

Bush said changes to Obamacare, Medicaid and Medicare, and Social Security would help handle the country's rising debt.

"It requires a whole new approach to how you deal with entitlements," said Bush. "It requires repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a consumer-driven system where tax credits are the principal means by which the federal government provides support for families. It means dealing with the entitlement challenges and the changing demographics of our country."

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“Trump, Trump, Trump, this Latino’s gonna vote for Trump!”

You most likely didn't wake up this morning and say, "I could use a Donald Trump salsa anthem." But here one is:

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Ruben Obed Martinez, 38, is Puerto Rican, was born and grew up in New Jersey, and lives on the island now producing music.

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As the uproar grew over Donald Trump's controversial comments about Mexicans and immigrants, Martinez felt differently, and wanted to defend the billionaire and show that not all Latinos hate him.

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"A lot of things Trump says really resonate with me," he told BuzzFeed News. "I felt an obligation to represent the other side of the Latino community that isn’t thinking this way."

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Coming out of a meeting in Washington on Wednesday night, several members of Congress said they would consider backing the presidential candidate.

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WASHINGTON – Carly Fiorina — one of the White House hopefuls pitching herself to voters as a political outsider — might soon have a handful of endorsements from members of Congress.

Coming out of a closed-door meeting at the Capitol Hill Club with Fiorina and her campaign staff Wednesday evening, several House Republicans repeatedly said they were "very impressed" by her, and some even said they were seriously considering throwing their support behind her.

The former business executive was able to draw members of Congress from across the Republican conference — conservatives and establishment members — at a time when the Republican Party is becoming increasingly fractured. According to members who attended the event billed as a roundtable discussion, Fiorina addressed the standing-room-only crowd for a few minutes, highlighting her background as a business executive and the need to control government spending, and then took questions from attendees.

"She was as impressive with the members and this audience as she was in the debates," said Illinois Rep. Peter Roskam. "Clearly, the only challenge for her now is the high-level of scrutiny that she'll be under. And she's clearly a tier-one candidate — that was not lost on anyone in there. I can clearly see there is a pathway for her to be a nominee."

Roskam added: "There was a wide range of Republican members who were there and her message and her passion and her clarity really resonated with the group."

Reps. Mark Walker and Peter King were among those who said Fiorina was on their short-list of presidential candidates they were considering endorsing.

"She's a strong woman and certainly someone who has gained my respect," Walker said. The North Carolina Republican is deciding between Fiorina and Sen. Marco Rubio.

King, who is deciding between Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Fiorina, stressed that Fiorina wasn't just a sound bite, unlike many other presidential contenders. "Whenever I've seen her, she's been very effective, very knowledgeable," he said.

Fiorina's meeting with House members and staff comes as the former executive has skyrocketed in recent polls after two impressive debate performances. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Wednesday found Fiorina tied with neurosurgeon Ben Carson in second place at 13%.

The event was organized by South Carolina Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan, who is hosting events for different presidential candidates. So far only two members of Congress — Reps. Candice Miller and Lynn Jenkins — have endorsed Fiorina.

Reps. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas and Mark Meadows of North Carolina — members of a group of conservatives called House Freedom Caucus — said Fiorina's outsider appeal makes her an attractive choice for the conservative wing.

"She's another outsider, and what a time to come to town when you know John Boehner just lost his job, and we're looking for someone new," Huelskamp said.

Trump says he welcomes Russian airstrikes targeting ISIS in Syria, and that he would send Syrian refugees back to Syria.

Darren Mccollester / Getty Images

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Keene, New Hampshire Wednesday night, Donald Trump said, as president, he would send Syrian refugees back to Syria, arguing that the refugees might actually be a "200,000 man army" for ISIS.

"I'm putting people on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration. That if I win, they're going back. They're going back. I'm telling you," Trump said.

Trump also he said he welcomes Russian airstrikes in Syria and believes the Russians are targeting ISIS.

"Russia wants to get rid of ISIS. We want to get rid of ISIS. Maybe let Russia do it. Let them get rid of ISIS. What the hell do we care?" Trump told 60 Minutes on Sunday.

The comments are in line with a position Trump laid out first in his book The America We Deserve 15 years ago -- the U.S. should not get overly involved in conflicts for humanitarian reasons.

"Humanitarian concerns, which are sometimes represented as working in our 'national interest,' are not good enough reasons in themselves for deployment of forces," writes Trump, who goes on to say the U.S. doesn't "have a dog" in most of the world's conflicts.

Trump says the U.S. has no right to intervene just because we don't like seeing innocent people being killed.

"That's not to say our hearts don't go out to people whose countries are being ravaged by war," writes The Donald. "Far from it. Our hearts do go out to them, and so does a lot of U.S. humanitarian aid. But we have no business, and certainly no right, to intervene in conflicts just because we don't like to see innocent people being killed or dislocated. Just after we started bombing the European capital of Belgrade, a poll came out saying that a majority of Americans thought it was our 'right' to get into this longstanding and bloody dispute. I disagree."

Citing The Balkan War at the time, Trump said the U.S. intervening does little more temporary tilting the balance of war in the conflict.

"Yet it should be clear by now that when we intervene in these conflicts we do little more than temporarily tilt the balance of power," writes The Donald. "Sometimes, as in the Balkan mess, we're allies with one side for a while, then shift our support to the other side. In the first place, we don't have any idea of how to build democracies in these countries, even if such a thing were possible or desired by them. To top it off, we are deploying troops at the same time we are cutting defense expenditures. None of this makes one bit of sense."

Trump wrote the U.S. could give money, but only intervene if there was a direct threat to the U.S. at the time.

"Make no mistake, I love the American desire to help others," he writes. "The American public will give the disadvantaged money and aid with no expectation of return. They give simply because they know it is the right thing to do. We are the greatest of all humanitarian nations.

"At the same time, we must not get involved in a long-festering conflict for humanitarian reasons. If that's our standard, we should have troops stationed all over Africa, and much of Asia as well. We will provide humanitarian assistance, but when our men and women volunteer in our armed forces it should be with the strict understanding that they will be sent into danger's way only in cases where our national survival is directly affected. Young people now enlist, thinking they're signing up to protect America, and end up responding to and end up responding to a palace coup in a country few ever heard of."

Keith F. Thompson / Facebook

Before this year, he was never much of a Hillary Clinton person. But he's never disliked her. He's never found her "cold" or "calculating," never seen her as "inauthentic" or "unapproachable." He didn't buy into all that — the "caricatures," he said.

Still, for Keith F. Thompson, meeting Clinton for the first time in the flesh — seeing her, talking with her, even starting to tear up with her — came as something of a revelation.

“I knew the caricatures — I knew that was from some angry person in their mom’s basement," said Thompson, a 52-year-old delegate from New Hampshire.

"I knew that," he said. “But the contrast is huge.”

Thompson did not plan for the encounter. On the morning of the New Hampshire Democratic convention, as he made the drive to Manchester, he was not expecting that upon arriving, a friend would rush to his side and whisper, “Come with me,” or that soon after, he would find himself deep in the Verizon Wireless Arena, under the dim lights of a makeshift hold-room, waiting with a small group of Democrats to meet Clinton.

Thompson, a self-described “New Hampshire person” — namely, a “New Hampshire person who expects to meet each candidate twice and have dinner or something” — was already committed to her campaign at the time of the convention. But before that Saturday, he hadn’t met Clinton or even seen her speak. In 2008, his candidate was John Edwards. (He loved the “two Americas” bit.) When that collapsed, he “stayed out of the Clinton-Obama thing.” (“It was getting messy.”) This summer, when it came time to pick a candidate, after some going “back and forth,” Thompson landed on Clinton.

That morning, there was a long wait in the hold-room. Thompson figured she’d be rushed — that “maybe all we would get is a quick hi and group photo.” If he did get to talk to her, he’d have to make it quick: He decided to thank her for focusing on gun violence prevention.

Shortly after Clinton walked in, his plan fell apart.

Instead of speeding through the meet-and-greet, she moved slowly and methodically from one person to the next. And when she reached his side of the room, instead of mentioning gun violence, Thompson clasped her hands and thanked her for something far more personal and painful. And instead of the “guarded” politician he anticipated, Clinton listened intently, she reached out and touched his arm, she welled up with tears.

In her campaign, Clinton has said the country must do more to help people like Thompson. He works part-time at a library and volunteers in politics — but Thompson also lives with and cares for his mother, who happened that day to be turning 84.

“I’m taking care of my mom,” Thompson told Clinton. “She has Alzheimer’s. I’m one of those people. I’m working part-time now, and… Thank you for speaking up for that.”

“How old is your mom?” she asked.

“Today’s her 84th birthday.”

“Oh, boy.”

“She took care of five children on her own. She took care of her dad and my grandmother. And now it’s my turn to take care of her. Day care for an elderly person is very expensive, and my part-time salary might be in the negative, just for the few hours I work.”

“… so I take her to work with me,” he told her.

It was at that point that Clinton, head back, got tears in her eyes. “Oh my gosh,” she said. Thompson started to cry, too. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” he said.

“No, no, I’m so glad you did. Oh my gosh. Thank you, thank you.” She grabbed his shoulder. “Your story is so incredibly moving, and it’s also a story for so many people. That’s what I keep finding everywhere I go… stories about what’s happening in their lives.”

When he and Clinton parted ways, Thompson watched her move down the line — and do the same thing again. Next to him was a person whom Clinton had already met. “She followed up with her about her daughter, who has a seizure disorder, and she remembered,” he said. “I was just astonished. That blew me away.”

The whole experience left Thompson stunned. “Holy cow,” he said. “I get it. Women of her generation have to be guarded at times. And sometimes she defaults to that. That’s understandable. I just hope that more people get to see her the way she was with me.”

In an effort to share the story, Thompson took to Facebook:

"I'm not usually the one who asserts himself, but when Secretary Clinton came to shake my hand, I held it for a moment and thanked her for speaking out about support for caregivers... I told her of the challenge of taking care of Mom, keeping her safe, and working part time to be able to be with her. Then I told her that, in order to keep Mom safe, I take her to work with me. Her compassion and sympathy was amazing, and she welled up with tears. That, of course, got me going. She wasn't just listening. As I explained the challenges of caring for Mom, Secretary Clinton was actually finishing my thoughts. She was right there with me."

Thompson’s post, widely shared by friends, and eventually by the campaign, teases at a question Clinton has been getting now for more than 20 years — most recently this month, on the set of CBS News’s Face the Nation, near the end of an interview.

Across the table, host John Dickerson leaned in and asked his guest for three words that describe “the real Hillary Clinton.”

Since the ’90s, this so-called “real Hillary” has made regular cameo appearances in news stories and biographies, and in Clinton’s own campaign literature and strategy. She is most often invoked as hidden or unknowable, separate from the figure who walks through public life. Friends wish you could meet the “real Hillary.” Aides wish you could appreciate the "real Hillary.” In 1992, her husband’s pollsters strategized ways to show off the “real Hillary.” In 2000, her Senate campaign drew up biographical pamphlets headlined, “Hillary: The Real Story.” And in 2008, advisers commissioned video testimonials from friends and family for a series called, “The Hillary I Know.”

That Sunday, when the question arose again on the set of Face the Nation, Clinton sat up, threw her arms in the air, and exclaimed, “I mean, look. I am a real person!”

At this point, Clinton may be resigned to the routine. In the interview with Dickerson, she cited the regular tabloid series, “Stars: They’re Just Like Us,” which shows photos of celebrities living doing regular things like regular people: getting groceries, pumping gas, carrying luggage. “I've been in the public eye for so long that I think it's like the feature you see in some magazines sometimes,” Clinton said. “‘Real people actually go shopping!’”

The aides on her second presidential campaign — now six months in — have looked for ways to show voters that Clinton, as Thompson discovered, is indeed a real person.

This month, Clinton sat for at least 16 interviews with news and entertainment outlets. But campaign aides have also pursued a more organic, digitally based strategy in videos and on social media, seizing on moments like the one she had with Thompson this month in New Hampshire. On the road, even at large events, voters stand to share deeply personal stories and problems: a son, dead of a drug overdose; a nephew, unable to get psychiatric help; or a caretaker, working part-time and taking his mother along with him, because Medicaid and Medicare don’t provide day-to-day support outside a nursing home.

More often than not, though, the exchanges happen far from a stage or podium, unseen to reporters and aides in headquarters.

The moment from the convention might not have surfaced were it not for a circuitous chain of events across multiple platforms. It started with Thompson’s “public” status update on Facebook. That night, one of Clinton’s most devout volunteers, Kim Frederick, happened to read about the post on the page of a mutual friend. (Frederick doesn’t know Thompson, she said.) Frederick then shared a link to Thompson's Facebook post on Twitter, tagging several reporters. From there, Thompson’s story began traveling across both platforms, and the next day, campaign aides reposted Thompson’s status update on Clinton’s Facebook account. ("A moving moment backstage," the caption read.) That night, they cut and published a video of the exchange on YouTube. In recent speeches, including one at the convention, Clinton also referenced the encounter.

Stories like Thompson’s are of course more likely to be shared by and with people who already back Clinton. But even for supporters, the moments can be newly revealing.

Days later, Thompson was still posting about it on Facebook. “I cannot stress enough how empathetic and REAL Hillary Clinton was,” he wrote last week. “With real people, she is real. Real people are her strength… None of us would be comfortable with Jimmy Fallon or a network reporter."

"We are more ourselves with other real people, and so is she.”

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A group of Republican and Democrat senators announced a long-awaited deal on a broad criminal justice bill Thursday. Advocates didn’t get the cuts in mandatory minimums they were hoping for but are still supporting the bill.

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WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators has reached a deal on a long-awaited criminal justice bill that would reduce some mandatory minimum sentences and give federal judges more flexibility in sentencing.

In a press conference Thursday morning, seven Republican and Democratic senators released details of the Criminal Justice Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 — the result of months of negotiations and several years of growing bipartisan consensus around the issue.

The bill does not eliminate any mandatory minimum sentences, as many criminal justice advocates had hoped for, and in fact adds a couple new ones, but it includes several measures that supporters say will nonetheless ease some of the most punitive laws passed during the tough-on-crime heyday of the 1980s and '90s.

"People can always point to things they'd rather have in a bill," Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, one of the key Republican lawmakers involved in the bill, told BuzzFeed News. "This reflects changes that are positive, strong steps in the right direction. I think they will make all the difference in the world to those to whom the laws will apply."

Other senators involved in crafting the legislation include Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, Texas Republican John Cornyn, Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, North Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, and New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker.

Most significantly, the bill secured the support of Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a conservative law-and-order Republican who is considered by advocacy groups to be the biggest hurdle facing any broad criminal justice reforms in the Senate.

The bill would reduce enhanced mandatory-minimum penalties for repeat drug offenders without serious violent felonies, dropping the mandatory guideline from life in prison to 25 years, as well as broaden the "safety valve" exception to federal mandatory minimum sentences. It would also create a second safety valve for certain low-level offenders facing 10-year mandatory minimum sentences.

The bill would also make the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses, apply retroactively — a change that could impact the sentences of thousands of federal prisoners serving mandatory minimum sentences.

"It looks like the reforms are going to be meaningful and certainly address some of the worst-of-the-worst mandatory minimum gun and drug sentences," Molly Gill, the government affairs counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, told BuzzFeed News.

"It doesn't go nearly as far as FAMM would like in that it doesn't eliminate any mandatory minimums," Gill said. "With that caveat, it does appear to give judges more flexibility and broaden the safety valve. The current safety valve is pretty strict, so this seems to let more people benefit, and that's a positive thing."

The bill also includes significant portions of earlier legislation crafted by Whitehouse and Cornyn aimed at decreasing crowding in federal prisons, which are currently operating at 30 percent over capacity. The legislation would allow low or medium-risk prisoners to earn earlier releases by completing anti-recidivism programs.

Other provisions in the legislation include limiting solitary confinement for juveniles in federal custody, allowing juvenile offenders to petition for a reduced sentence after serving more than 20 years in prison, and providing for compassionate release for inmates who have served two-thirds of their sentence, are more than 60 years old, and are terminally ill.

Negotiations over the bill in the Senate have been ongoing for much of this year between a core group of "smart-on-crime" Republicans and progressive Democrats.

"This is an issue that I've been wanting to address ever since I got in the Senate," Lee said.

Lee related a story, one he often tells, about his time as assistant U.S. attorney, where he witnessed a man in his mid-20s get sentenced to 55 years in prison under inflexible mandatory-minimum guidelines for selling marijuana three times to an undercover officer.

"I don't mean to condone what he did, but I've never met anyone who thought a 55-year sentence was appropriate in that case," Lee said. "He's going to be in jail until he's 80."

Lee and the other senators' efforts were backed by the White House, which has made criminal justice one of its top issues during President Obama's second term, and top Justice Department officials. A broad coalition of conservative and liberal organizations, ranging from the Center for American Progress to Koch Industries, also have thrown their weight behind trying to get a bill passed in Congress this term.

The question was whether Grassley would balk at the demands to cut mandatory minimums, and whether progressives would stomach any new tough-on-crime measures he demanded.

Grassley appears to have mostly stood firm. The bill would add new mandatory minimum sentences for interstate domestic abuse and providing support for terrorists, while strengthening penalties for certain other crimes.

But the other provisions reducing mandatory minimums seem to be strong enough to keep the delicate bipartisan coalition together. Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy, the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has in the past steadfastly voted against bills that created any new mandatory minimums, but an aide said he supports the new legislation as well.

It's unclear, however, if Congress will have the time or will to take up the bill in the final months of the year.

"The clock is ticking, and we hope Congress acts before the end of the year," Gill said.

In the House, Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott and Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin have introduced their own criminal justice bill, the SAFE Justice Act.

Lee, though, is optimistic, pointing to the large amount of bipartisan support and the crucial pickup of Grassley. "Nothing is easy to move through Congress," he said. "That said, I think we're in really good shape on this one."

The way they were.

Phil Coale / AP

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday attempted again to compare Marco Rubio's experience to President Barack Obama's, noting that Rubio, like Obama at the time of his election, is untested and has little experience.

"It's not known. Barack Obama didn't end up having them, and he won an election based on the belief people had that he could, and he didn't even try," Bush said on Morning Joe when asked if his opponent and former protege Sen. Rubio had the needed skills to be president.

"I think I have the leadership skills to fix things, and that's my strength and that's what I talk about. Marco was a member of the House of Representatives when I was governor and he followed my lead and I'm proud of that," added Bush.

Three years ago, however, Bush said the Florida senator had more experience than Obama and had the ability to be president.

"Marco Rubio is my favorite because we have a close relationship," Bush said of Rubio to Charlie Rosie when asked about who Mitt Romney should pick as his vice president.

"I admire him greatly. He`s probably the most articulate conservative elected official on the scene today. He speaks with great passion about American exceptionalism. I think it would lift -- you know lift the spirits of the campaign and -- and provide some energy."

Asked directly if Rubio had the expercience to be president, Bush said he thought so.

"I believe so," said Bush. "Look he has more experience than Barack Obama had when he ran and more practical experience. And certainly got the intellectual acumen and the fortitude to be a good president and I have a special place in my heart for him. I just -- it`s hard to describe the pride I feel for his incredible success."

"And how well he has moved into the job of being a United States Senator with humility and not trying to be an arrogant guy; to learn the -- learn the trade, if you will," continued Bush. "And he`s got great -- people in Washington really admire him."

The lovefest appears to be over.

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“I can’t advertise because I’m getting so much coverage. It would almost be: you’d OD on Trump. You understand. That’s overdose on Trump.”

J Pat Carter / AP

Donald Trump said on Thursday that, despite having "unlimited" money to spend on securing the Republican presidential nomination, he hasn't spent very much on advertising because, he fears if he did people would "OD on Trump."

"What happens is I'm not spending that much money," he said on the show New Hampshire Today. "I thought I would've spent about 20 million dollars for advertising, you know, up until this point, right? I've spent nothing. I can't advertise because I'm getting so much coverage. It would almost be: you'd OD on Trump. You understand. That's overdose on Trump."

Trump went on to refer to a recent People magazine article as an example of the enormous share of media coverage his campaign has received, adding that, if he advertised on shows he was already being heavily featured on, "people would get sick."

"Like, People magazine has a beautiful article today," he said. "You know, it's a cover story and so I have so much stuff —i f I ever did that: Let's say you have a show on television, the whole thing's Trump and then on top of it you have the commercials Trump too. People would get sick. They'd say, 'It's too much. I can't take it anymore.'"

Not mentioning a Forbes story from earlier in the week that challenged his 10 billion dollar estimation of his own wealth, Trump reiterated that he would be willing to spend an "unlimited" sum if he needs it.

"I have unlimited to spend as I need it," Trump asserted. "And I will spend as I need it. Assuming I continue to do well, Jack. You know, maybe it's possible at some point I won't do so well and, you know, you see, you know, a lot of these candidates, you have to see the handwriting on the wall at some point."

Asked if he would stay in the race until the nomination, Trump said "the answer is totally," but suggested that might change if "I found that if I was doing horribly all of a sudden."

The interview also touched on an array of other topics, from Trump's newly released tax plan, which he argued was "not that different" from Jeb Bush's (though he said "the tax cuts are a bit larger" and it's "more dynamic"), to Vladimir Putin, whom Trump called a "much more dynamic leader" than President Obama.

"You look at Russia, they like him," Trump said. "You know, he's got very high—can you believe, they even do polls in Russia on popularity? We do the polls, so we know they're at least reasonably okay."

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After finding out late that it had the wrong drugs, Oklahoma is asking all its executions be postponed indefinitely. But if the state had followed its own protocol, the problem would have been noticed much earlier.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton, right, leaves the media center following a statement to reporters at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

Sue Ogrocki / AP

Even when under heightened scrutiny after a botched execution that resulted in an eight-month moratorium on executions in Oklahoma, a review of the state's actions during the past week revealed the Oklahoma Department of Corrections is still not consistently following all of its execution procedures.

After courts signed off on the execution of Richard Glossip on Wednesday, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and Gov. Mary Fallin had to announce that a drug mix-up meant they would be unable to carry out his execution. Fallin, who has opposed Glossip's attempts to halt his execution, requested a temporary stay Wednesday.

Now, however, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is asking a state court for an indefinite stay of all upcoming executions — and raising his own questions about the Department of Corrections's ability to carry out its execution protocol.

"Until my office knows more about these circumstances and gains confidence that DOC can carry out executions in accordance with the execution protocol, I am asking the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to issue an indefinite stay of all scheduled executions," Pruitt said in a statement accompanying his court filing on Thursday.

It would have been Oklahoma's second execution since it botched the execution of Clayton Lockett in April 2014. Lockett writhed on a gurney and sat up in an ordeal that lasted 43 minutes. The mistakes that led to yesterday's delay mimic some of the state's errors in the Lockett botch.

"What happened yesterday raises the question of whether the Department of Corrections is even competent to carry out the ultimate sanction the state can impose," Glossip's attorney, Dale Baich, said. "The state assured the federal court and the public that any problems were fixed, and that it had an improved protocol and a shiny new execution chamber. Now this."

A review of the state's execution protocol and the actual implementation of Glossip's planned execution this week in fact show multiple areas where the state either did not follow the protocol or interpreted it in an unexpected way in order to claim compliance.

After Glossip's execution warrant had become valid, corrections personnel discovered they didn't have the right drugs in stock. Oklahoma's three-drug protocol for lethal injections calls for potassium chloride to be used as the last drug: the one that kills. The state instead received potassium acetate and did not notice the mix-up until the day of the execution.

The Department of Corrections received the drugs in a sealed box on Wednesday and did not open it until that afternoon, saying it is unable to store drugs on site without a DEA license.

At a press conference Thursday, Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton said the supplier of the drugs, which the state keeps secret, made the decision on its own to switch out the drug after it could not obtain the correct one. According to Patton, when contacted about the mix-up, the supplier told state officials the drugs are interchangeable.

Oklahoma's execution protocol, which has been approved for use by the courts, specifically calls for potassium chloride as the third drug. No state is known to have tried using potassium acetate as a substitute.

In addition to the matter of the drug itself, the mix-up should have been noticed much earlier under the state's protocol. It specifically requires Warden Anita Trammel to make sure that execution drugs and equipment are on hand two days in advance of an execution.

via Oklahoma Department of Corrections

Fallin's office disagreed that the protocol requires the warden to verify the inventory of drugs, arguing that "execution inventory" instead refers to other things executions require, like syringes. Spokesman Alex Weintz said there is no timeline for checking the inventory of execution drugs.

Attorney General Scott Pruitt's office did not respond to a request for comment. But in a court filing asking for three executions to be postponed indefinitely, his office admitted proper procedures were not followed.

"The Attorney General needs time to evaluate the events that transpired on September 30, 2015, ODOC's acquisition of a drug contrary to protocol, and internal procedures relative to the protocol," Pruitt's office wrote. "The State has a strong interest in ensuring that the execution protocol is strictly followed."

In a statement, Pruitt said he wasn't notified of the error until shortly before the scheduled execution.

What makes the mix-up more surprising is the state claimed in August that it had all of the necessary drugs.

"I have received confirmation from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections that sufficient drugs to carry out the executions of Richard Glossip, Benjamin Cole and John Grant have been obtained," an assistant attorney general wrote to Glossip's attorneys on August 11. "The drugs are midazolam, rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride."

But Fallin said at a Wednesday press conference that the state didn't even receive the drugs until the day of the execution. And it wasn't the warden that noticed the mix-up. It was the doctor.

Asked about the discrepancy, Fallin's spokesman said the Aug. 11 letter had "unclear drafting."

"It says DOC has 'obtained' midazolam and other drugs," Weintz said. "DOC had, or thought they had, 'obtained access' to those drugs. They would never have had them physically present at the penitentiary."

The Department of Corrections and Attorney General Scott Pruitt did not respond to questions.

"The Department of Corrections follows the protocol, except when it doesn't," Baich said. "In August, the DOC said it obtained the drugs to be used in Mr. Glossip's execution. On Monday, the DOC was supposed to verify that it had what it needed to carry out the execution set for Wednesday. We learned yesterday that the DOC did not obtain the drugs until Wednesday morning. DOC's representation in August, which was part of a court filing, is inconsistent with the governor's statement on Wednesday."

According to thousands of pages of interviews conducted by the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety following Lockett's botched execution, obtained by BuzzFeed News, execution personnel complained that the Department of Corrections didn't have the proper equipment — the right size needles — for the execution.

"So I went back into the execution room to get a -- to see if I had a 2 ½ inch 14-gauge [needle]," the EMT, a member of the execution team, told investigators afterward. "That's what you're going to need for a femoral. Didn't have one."

"All I had was the inch and a quarter and I told [the doctor] three times, 'All I have is an inch and a quarter [long needle], but I've got a 14 [gauge needle] and I've got a 16 [gauge needle].'"

According to the EMT, the doctor said, "Well, we'll just have to make it work."

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Sean Rayford / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Despite poor fundraising numbers and the possibility that the candidate may be bumped down to the next undercard debate, supporters of and advisers to Rand Paul say the campaign is not in danger of shutting down yet.

People close to Paul are emphasizing that though the campaign doesn't have much money — it pulled in a mere $2.5 million in the third quarter — the campaign is also running a leaner operation than, for example, Scott Walker, who had an expansive organization that was later cited as one of the campaign's biggest flaws after he had dropped out.

"I can tell you that in this race we’re being extremely frugal about our money and how we spend our money," said Mike Biundo, a national senior adviser to the campaign. Biundo, who was Rick Santorum's campaign manager in 2012, pointed out that the Santorum 2012 campaign also had a small budget and an economical operation but still won Iowa and "was the runner up to Mitt Romney."

"We’re spending less money in a month than Walker was in a week," Biundo said.

"I think they have been very lean in how they’ve been running it so far," said one adviser to the campaign who spoke on condition of anonymity. "So I do not get the sense he’s on the verge of dropping out or they’re really short of money or anything like that. You can run these things on a shoestring."

The numbers show that Paul has been spending quite a bit of the money he has, though. The Paul campaign says it now has $2 million cash on hand. But at the second quarter, the campaign had over $4.1 million cash on hand — meaning the campaign spent more than it raised in the third quarter. One of the costs incurred during the third quarter: transferring $250,000 to the Republican Party of Kentucky to help fund the state's caucuses, so Paul is able to run for both president and his senate seat concurrently.

There have been other concerning signs. Purple PAC, a pro-Paul libertarian super PAC, said this week that it was no longer raising money for him. And the latest Real Clear Politics polling average has Paul with 2.3% of the vote, meaning he is at risk of being bumped down to the undercard debate — candidates for the next debate must meet a threshold of 3%.

The campaign sent a note to top donors and supporters this week alerting them to the fundraising numbers coming out and emphasizing that the campaign is not running an unwieldy operation like Walker's.

Senior adviser Doug Wead said the campaign held a meeting yesterday that was "full speed ahead" and that multiple projects were discussed, such as finding and recruiting delegates in key states. Wead says there was a discussion of making a new hire even in yesterday's meeting. Another Paul aide told BuzzFeed News that the campaign had made a few new hires in the past two weeks.

Biundo said the campaign had hired people in states like Minnesota that hold caucuses instead of primaries, as part of a strategy to prepare for states beyond the first few contests as well as continuing to build an organization in Iowa and New Hampshire.

"You can’t just come out of Iowa or New Hampshire with a tail wind behind you," he said. "You need to be working those caucus states in addition to them."

Frayda Levin, a major GOP donor and Paul backer, said Paul's third-quarter haul doesn't fully reflect his current standing because the Kentucky Republican's fundraising didn't really kick in until after the second debate in the last few weeks of the quarter.

"I think there is much more of a positive feel in the libertarian community after the last debate," she said, adding that she was able to easily convince a few people at a recent Cato Institute conference to max out to Paul's campaign.

Levin, who has bundled money for Paul's campaign and contributed to one of the super PACs supporting him, said donors at an event a few days before the debate urged Paul to highlight his libertarian positions instead of trying to become more of a mainstream Republican in the crowded presidential primary. "They were pleased with how Rand listened. He came with his wife and really took to heart some of the concerns."

Reason magazine, a libertarian publication, praised Paul after the debate for having "consistently brought libertarian—or at least libertarianish—perspectives on major policy debates."

Reflecting what the campaign had said in its note to supporters, Levin said that despite the low third-quarter haul, Paul is nowhere close to dropping out because he doesn't have a big operation — as Walker did — and doesn't need as much money to stick it out. "His staffing level has been pretty low. He has been more careful about that," she said.

She also said that it's unfair to compare Paul's fundraising with that of his father's when he ran for president. "It's just a very different race." Ron Paul at certain points during the 2012 cycle raised more than twice as much money in a single day than his son did this past quarter.

Despite the glimmers of hope, one adviser to the campaign who spoke on condition of anonymity said "I think there’s already been some cutting back," and that "the campaign headquarters used to be jammed with people coming and going and now it's quite thinned out."

"But some of that may be just reorganizing," the adviser said. "I don't know that they were all on payroll, all of these people."

"No we haven’t cut people from headquarters," Biundo said. "There’s not less people buzzing around, we’ve deployed people out to do different things."

Rob Kim / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — There aren't many more incongruous places for an antiwar Democratic presidential candidate who supports leaving Bashar al-Assad in power and developing closer ties with Venezuela to appear than the annual forum for the Foreign Policy Initiative, a hawkish right-leaning Washington think tank.

But this is precisely where Lincoln Chafee, the former Rhode Island senator and governor who is currently polling at 0.2% in the most recent Real Clear Politics average, spent his Thursday afternoon.

Chafee, who arrived at the conference a couple hours in advance of his onstage conversation with FPI policy director David Adesnik, treated the crowd to a full look at his foreign policy positions which are to the left of likely every single other person running for president. Chafee used to be a Republican and switched parties in 2007.

Chafee supports lifting sanctions against Russia in response to its hostilities in Ukraine. He openly states that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad should be allowed to stay in power if it will mean a peaceful end to the Syrian conflict (the Obama administration says Assad must go). He thinks the U.S. can learn from Cuba's health care system and laments the idea of American chain businesses setting up shop there. He believes the U.S. disrespected former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who he says "wanted good relations with the United States."

And all this, at the annual forum for a group whose board of directors are prominent neoconservatives Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan, Dan Senor, and Eric Edelman. Chafee received a polite reception, but the room was only half full on a rainy day in Washington, and some at the event seemed a little confused about what the soft-spoken liberal was doing there.

Asked after his appearance how this appearance had come about, Chafee replied, "They invited me. I was as surprised as you are. When I looked them up — FPI? What? What am I doing here?"

Chafee said it was "to their credit" that they didn't have "all the same people saying the same thing."

Chafee had just come from telling the audience that though he supports re-opening relations with Cuba, "for those that have been [to Cuba] it’s going to be sad in a way to have globalization descend on Havana, and the Kentucky Fried Chickens and the Gaps, because it’s so different now."

He described meeting with Chavez years ago, who he says told him "it took me a while to get elected president but I was. And all I wanted was to sit in the Oval Office like the other world leaders get to do in front of the fireplace."

"A little disrespect and things go off the rails, and he’s making friends with people we don’t want him to make friends with, and saying things we don't want him to say," Chafee said.

Asked after his speech about whether the recent sentencing of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez to 14 years in prison in what rights groups have characterized as a sham judicial process merits a bit of "disrespect" toward the Venezuelan government, Chafee told BuzzFeed News, "They probably have some criticism of whatever our oil companies are doing in Venezuela, whatever it might be, I’m sure they have some arguments against us, and we should go back and forth and resolve them, those areas of disagreement, but stress the areas of commonality."

Chafee did come close to something of a campaign attack line against frontrunner Hillary Clinton at one point, telling BuzzFeed News that "The main thing is respect for democratically elected leaders. That’s what we haven’t done in the last number of years, the Bush-Cheney years, and even continuing unfortunately under Secretary Clinton and those early Obama years" — a reminder that he is, in fact, running for president.

“We certainly have had headwinds this summer.”

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

The communications director for Hillary Clinton's campaign, Jennifer Palmieri, said in a radio interview on Friday that stories about Clinton's exclusive use of a private email server have been a "distraction," adding that Clinton was "moving on" to focus on "issues that we think people care about."

"We certainly have had headwinds this summer. Emails in particular has been a — it's been a distraction — we feel like — your listeners have heard her address that," Jennifer Palmieri said in a wide-ranging radio interview with NH Today on Friday.

"That's a problem that we take responsibility for, that she has apologized for," she continued. "And she's happy to answer questions. We're gonna go up before Congress to do that. But she's — but, you know, in terms of her focus, she's moving on and focusing on the issues that we think people care about."

Asked about a New York Times story that the Clinton campaign was "making a sudden and urgent effort to throw roadblocks into" Vice President Joe Biden's path to the Democratic nomination should he decide to run, Palmieri categorized the story as inaccurate.

"Our view was that was not reflects what is actually happening on our campaign," she said.

Still, Palmieri said Biden would be a strong opponent if he decides to enter.

"If he gets in, he's a sitting vice president, he'll be a major force, he's someone we have a lot of respect for and we will deal with that if it happens," she said.

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“I disagree strenuously with Donald Trump when he just says, ‘Oh, let the Russians go in there and take care of ISIS.’”

Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said on Friday that she disagrees with Donald Trump's assertion that the U.S. should allow Russia to "get rid of ISIS," adding that Russia, Iran, Syria, and Iraq have formed an "unholy alliance."

Fiorina was being interviewed on the radio show New Hampshire Today when she agreed with Trump's assertion that Putin is a stronger leader than President Obama, but said that allowing Russia to "take care of ISIS" would exacerbate a "dangerous situation" created by the alliance of those countries.

"Well, Putin is clearly stronger than President Obama," the former Hewlett-Packard CEO said. "However, I disagree strenuously with Donald Trump when he just says, 'Oh, let the Russians go in there and take care of ISIS.' It is a very dangerous situation that Russia, Iran, Syria, and Iraq have formed an unholy alliance."

Fiorina argued that Russia's increased involvement in Syria is part of Iran's plan to become a "regional hegemon."

"It is a very dangerous situation when General Suleimani, the head of the Quds force travels to Moscow, to tell the Russians to come in and save Syria. It really is about Iran becoming a regional hegemon with Russia as their ally," she said.

She added that Russia was trying to "extend its influence into the Middle East" and into NATO countries.

"Russia wants to extend its influence into the Middle East," Fiorina asserted. "They have had this as an ambition for a long time under Vladimir Putin. He is extending his influence into NATO. The NATO alliance is falling apart because we are not showing leadership and resolve and the Middle East is becoming a very, very dangerous place because we are not showing leadership and resolve."

Earlier in the interview, Fiorina also said she disagreed with "several features" of the tax plans of both Trump and Jeb Bush, though she did not say specifically which features of those plans she opposed.

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Arturo Carmona, who has led the 300,000 member Presente organization, is joining Sanders as national Latino outreach director and southwest political director. He has repeatedly been critical of the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton.

Charlie Neibergall / AP

In the latest sign that Bernie Sanders is looking to expand his solid base of support beyond white voters and bring minority voters into the fold, the Vermont senator is bringing on longtime immigration activist Arturo Carmona to be his national Latino outreach director and southwest political director.

Carmona, who has served as the executive director of Presente.org, a 300,000 member strong advocacy organization, said he believes Latinos need to be part of the political revolution Sanders is calling for. The challenge, Carmona acknowledges, is that Sanders repeatedly scores low in name ID in polls of Hispanics. But he sees it as an opportunity.

"We're going to do it by connecting with everyday families on issues like immigration reform and economic inequality," he said.

Carmona is the second high-profile immigration activist to join a campaign, after Lorella Praeli left United We Dream for a Latino outreach role with Hillary Clinton's campaign. But where Praeli was advised by Democrats that her role now is not to be an activist, but to help Clinton get elected, Carmona said he sees it differently.

"I am absolutely not going to stop being an activist," Carmona said. "What the senator is calling for is a political revolution, inclusive of all Americans and Latinos will disproportionally benefit from that movement. So I will be continuing to provide the same type of leadership, being a vocal activist representing our community."

Carmona has certainly been vocal.

When President Obama delayed his executive actions on immigration, Carmona called it a "betrayal" and "one of the single biggest attacks on Latino families by the Democratic Party in recent memory." He has also repeatedly criticized Clinton for her reaction to the surge of unaccompanied minors at the border.

But Carmona courted controversy among Democrats as well, when after Obama's delay he said Latinos should vote against four vulnerable Democratic senators who were a factor in delaying the announcement until after the midterm election.

Carmona said Presente was one of the first organizations to hold Obama accountable on immigration, all the way back in 2009, and that the criticism has been about the country realizing and understanding "the value of Latinos and our families."

"We are seeing that the Democratic Party is coming to Latinos and coming to our political interests and values," he said. "That sophistication is evolving but the party is coming to its senses."

National immigration activist Erika Andiola, who has been informally advising the Sanders campaign and Senate office was heartened by the hire, particularly because she believes it is a sign the campaign won't hesitate to take on the establishment. But she echoed that the challenge for Sanders is that Latinos largely don't know him yet.

"With Hillary all they have to do is sell her to Latinos, her new ideas, her developed thinking," she said. "With Sanders you have to introduce him to the Latino community."

Sanders is upping his outreach to Hispanics. He took part in Iowa's Latino Heritage Festival on Saturday and this week held a Q&A session with Univision on Facebook. But he has also been criticized for comments he made about immigrants lowering wages in the country. To that end, Carmona said one of his central tasks will be to ensure the campaign is communicating effectively to the Hispanic community.

Carmona is also the southwest political director, where Nevada will serve as an early challenge of Sanders' organization in the caucus state as well as his Latino support. He said the state has gone through dramatic changes in the last 10 years, with the Latino population exploding.

"Nevada is definitely a top priority," he said. "You saw the most devastation, wealth extraction, and the results of the housing bubble happen to Latinos." He said the campaign's message on income and wealth inequality will resonate in the state with the community. But the campaign will be going against a Clinton operation in Nevada that has had experienced operatives on the ground since April.

When Andiola speaks to immigrants in her community and in other states, she says many think Clinton is the only Democrat running, and she wants Hispanics to know there are multiple choices in the field.

"I've been vocal with the Sanders camp, they have to make sure the Latino community knows there is more than one candidate," she said. "We want them to know what the choice is between those two."

“…they try to use these tragedies as an excuse to come after the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. It’s unconstitutional, it’s cynical, and it’s wrong.”

Sean Rayford / Getty Images

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday criticized President Obama for the comments he made following the mass shooting in Oregon that left 10 people dead.

"Well, unfortunately that is the approach with President Obama on every issue, is that he seeks to tear us apart, he seeks to politicize it and it's worth remembering he is ideological and he's a radical," Cruz stated on the Mark Levin Show. "You know, as his former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel said, 'you never let a good crisis go to waste' and that sadly is his approach."

Speaking from the White House briefing room on Thursday, the president called the latest mass shooting at a small community college in Oregon "a political choice" that the country allows to happen again and again. The president, in comments directed at the gun lobby, added "this is something we should politicize."'

Cruz said Obama would use the tragedy as excuse to take away guns from law-abiding Americans.

"We ought to first of all be lifting up in prayer the families of those who lost their loved ones today to this horrific crime, we still don't know the details of what exactly happened or what the motivations were, but what is clear is that every time we see a shooting of this kind, we've seen people with significant mental illnesses, with people who are violent criminals and there is no doubt that we ought to come down on violent criminals like a ton of bricks," said Cruz.

"We ought to do everything we can, for example, to be prosecuting the felons and fugitives who are trying to illegally buy guns. The Obama administration doesn't do that. Instead they try to use these tragedies as an excuse to come after the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. It's unconstitutional, it's cynical, and it's wrong."

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“You have no reason for things such as selfless love, when a father dives in to save his son from drowning.”

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a noted creationist, once said those who believe in evolution "dismiss ethics" and believe you don't have to abide by a moral code.

"Ultimately, if you accept the evolutionary theory, you dismiss ethics, you don't have to abide by a set of moral codes, you determine your own conscience based on your own desires," Carson told Adventist Review, the magazine of the Seventh-day Adventist Church of which Carson is a member for a 2004 cover story.

The interview can be read online via the Web Archive, which archives webpages.

"You have no reason for things such as selfless love, when a father dives in to save his son from drowning," Carson continued. "You can trash the Bible as irrelevant, just silly fables, since you believe that it does not conform to scientific thought. You can be like Lucifer, who said, 'I will make myself like the Most High.'"

BuzzFeed News reported last week that Carson in a 2012 speech said the big bang theory was part of the "fairy tales" pushed by "highfalutin scientists" as a story of creation and he believed the theory of evolution was encouraged by the devil.

"Can you prove evolution? No. Can you prove creation? No. Can you use the intellect God has given you to decide whether something is logical or illogical," added. Carson. "Yes, absolutely. It all comes down to 'faith' — and I don't have enough to believe in evolution. I'm too logical!"

Carson said the consequences for accepting the theory of evolution would be an abandonment of the human moral compass.

"By believing we are the product of random acts, we eliminate morality and the basis of ethical behavior," stated Carson. "For if there is no such thing as moral authority, you can do anything you want. You make everything relative, and there's no reason for any of our higher values."

Similarly, Carson said it was impossible to believe in God and evolution.

"Yes, in my education I had to learn evolutionary theories, and as a God-fearing Christian I wondered how to make God and evolution mesh," said Carson. "The truth is that you can't make them mesh — you have to choose one or the other."