Brian Snyder / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders added more progressive grassroots support to his campaign Thursday, picking up the endorsement of the Vermont-based Democracy For America, which was founded out of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign.

The endorsement gives the Vermont senator another big piece of the organized progressive movement to leverage for fundraising and grassroots organizing. It's the first time DFA has endorsed in a Democratic primary since its founding, and the group pledged Thursday to throw its weight behind Sanders as the homestretch to the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries begins in earnest.

It's an especially sweet addition to Sanders' lengthy list of lefty boosters thanks to the way the endorsement came about. DFA asked its members to vote for who the group should endorse, as it does for most of its political endorsements. Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley each made direct appeals to DFA members. Dean, who founded the group and backs Clinton, wrote an email to DFA voters on her behalf: "I hope that Hillary will be your choice," Dean wrote.

But in the end, Dean's support for Clinton fell on deaf ears among the progressive faithful at DFA. Officials for the group said more than 270,000 members voted in DFA's online election. Sanders got 87.9% of the vote, while Clinton earned 10.3%. (O'Malley got a paltry 1.1%, just a bit more than "no endorse," which got .08%.)

The DFA endorsement also signals another shift from progressives who tried to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren for president over the Sanders effort. The group was one of the founding members of Run Warren Run, which was suspended in June.

The DFA endorsement was the second big pickup of the day for Sanders. He began Thursday celebrating the endorsement of the Communications Workers of America union, which represents around 700,000 workers across the country. The endorsement wasn't a total surprise, given that one of Sanders' top labor advisers is former CWA president Larry Cohen, but it gave Sanders another opportunity to claim he carries the banner of the working-class left.

The DFA endorsement also helps bolster the Sanders campaign's effort to tap into the power of the progressive grassroots. Sanders hopes to rely on grassroots organizing come caucus time in Iowa, where polls have shown he'll have to turn out large numbers of younger voters and first-time caucus-goers to make a strong showing. This week, Sanders campaign sources announced they were nearing 2 million contributions, a big number that helps make Sanders' case that his voters are plentiful and extra motivated to help Sanders surprise Clinton in Iowa.

“I do not believe Donald is going to be the president.”

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

Ted Cruz on Thursday said he doesn't think Donald Trump will be president but added that he wants Trump's supporters to remain active in the general election so he can beat Hillary Clinton.

"The media always wants to turn things into a food fight," Cruz said on WZFG-AM 1100 radio. "The Washington establishment, there's nothing they would like more than seeing Donald Trump and me battling it out in a cage match. And I'm not interested in giving them what they want, I'm sorry to disappoint them. "

"I like Donald Trump," he said. "I'm glad he's running. I do not believe Donald is going to be the president. But he has excited a whole lot of people and I want every one of Donald Trump's supporters to remain energized and to show up and vote in November 2016 and that's how we're gonna beat Hillary Clinton and win the general election."

Cruz added he would not insult Trump but instead remained focused on conservative issues.

Take a listen:

w.soundcloud.com

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The super PAC focused on helping Democrats win back back a majority of seats in the Senate in 2016 is launching its first major campaign of the cycle, previewing the issues that will likely be at the core of the party's line of attack against Republicans: ties to the Koch brothers and votes on defunding Planned Parenthood.

Senate Majority PAC's $1.5 million campaign will start out with digital ads on Facebook, Twitter and Google against Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey. The ads link to a report the group released earlier this week pointing out that the Pennsylvania Republican has voted with "partisan Republicans 93% of the time, and for the Koch Brothers’ special interest agenda 96% of the time, including 100% of the time in 2015," according to a press release. The report also stresses that Toomey voted five times to defund Planned Parenthood.

“The Republican agenda puts special interests and partisan ideology ahead of what’s best for everyday Americans and Pat Toomey is the poster boy for those misplaced priorities,” said Shripal Shah, a spokesman for the super PAC, in a statement.

“While Pat Toomey has been loyally voting for his party’s agenda in Washington these past 5 years, Pennsylvanians have been left behind. Our ad campaign will hold him accountable for putting his party before Pennsylvania.”

Democrats Katie McGinty, who worked for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf; former Rep. Joe Sestak; and Braddock Mayor John Fetterman are vying for the party's nomination to take on Toomey.

Toomey previously told BuzzFeed News he "wasn't worried about Democrats' attacks."

"I think that’s pretty predictable," he said when Democrats began attacking him over his votes on Planned Parenthood.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Steve Kelly, a spokesman for the Toomey campaign said: “The Allentown Morning Call said it well when it wrote, 'Pat Toomey puts principles over party-line obedience'– whether it’s on background checks for gun purchases, job creation, or keeping predators out of schools, Pat is proud of his work across party lines to make our communities safer and our economy stronger. Suggestions to the contrary are nothing but election season political attacks.”

Senate Majority PAC will launch targeted digital ads in other battleground Senate states in the coming months as part of the campaign. Other vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection in 2016 — Rob Portman of Ohio, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Mark Kirk of Illinois, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — could soon see similar ads against them.

The super PAC, which spent $67 million in the 2014 election cycle, aired TV and digital ads backed by $600,000 opposing Ayotte earlier this year, but the latest effort is its first national campaign of the 2016 cycle.

On the Republican side, outside groups including Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and Karl Rove-affiliated One Nation have already spent millions airing TV ads in New Hampshire, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and North Carolina.

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson from Wisconsin recently introduced a Senate version of a House bill that would halt the resettlement of Syrian refugees within the U.S. However, in a radio interview last week he defended the security and effectiveness of the current refugee vetting process.

Johnson, who is the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, spoke with Wisconsin radio host Brad Bennett last week and was asked about the ongoing debate about whether the U.S. should be admitting Syrian refugees.

“There is a pretty robust vetting process, it’s just true,” Johnson said.

“If you’re an Islamic terrorist, probably the last program I’d use to try to get into this country is the refugee program," he continued. "Because there’s a vetting process.”

Johnson said he introduced a version of the House bill to make sure problems in the refugee vetting process don't arise in the future.

“I introduced the House bill to force members of the administration to certify that we aren’t taking any shortcuts in the vetting process, because there’s the danger,” Johnson said. “President Obama announced that he’s going to increase the number of refugees in this country by 21% this year, 43% next year. That’s gonna put a great deal of pressure on the managers of that process, so I think it’s an appropriate response.”

The current screening process for refugees to enter the U.S. is complex and takes an average of 18-24 months to complete.

Hello from the other siiide…

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry made an appearance on Iowa radio on Wednesday, offering praise for fellow Texan Ted Cruz while comparing Marco Rubio's stance on immigration to Donald Trump's position on the Second Amendment.

In a wide-ranging assessment of the presidential campaign he exited in September, Perry said that he felt Ted Cruz had performed strongly in Tuesday night's debate, calling the Texas senator "wily" and "wise" in not "taking the bait" from CNN's moderators to bash his opponents. Perry also suggested that Cruz was the kind of candidate who could provide a "real plan" for the country.

"I think as the caucuses come into view, as they come into focus if you will, the Iowa voter is going to really require some specificity: 'Tell us how you're gonna get this economy back. Tell us how you're going to address with specificity,'" Perry told host Simon Conway. "And I think that's where the Ted Cruzes of the world are going to step forward and we're gonna see a leader with a real plan. So with those individuals that are still on that stage, I thought Senator Cruz was very wily. I think he was very wise in not taking the bait."

Perry said Rubio's continued support for a pathway to citizenship at some point for undocumented immigrants will not go over well in Iowa, calling the position a "third rail" of Republican primary politics.

"Marco Rubio is basically still open to a pathway to citizenship for those individuals who have come into this country illegally and I think I know how Iowa caucus goers pretty well, I think I know the primary voter in a Republican primary and this illegal immigration and those that would create a pathway to citizenship at this particular juncture even though Marco Rubio says it's way down the road, that is still the third rail of politics in the Republican primary and I think again he has a very, very difficult time of divorcing himself from the work that he did with that Gang of Eight," Perry said, referencing the Senate bill addressing immigration Rubio pushed for and then later abandoned.

"It's kind of like Donald Trump and the Second Amendment," Perry continued. "I mean, are you gonna trust someone who said they're basically for a pathway to citizenship relative to Marco Rubio or are you gonna trust someone who said that they're for an assault weapons ban? I mean, again, consistency of your positions—whether you're Donald Trump, whether you're Marco Rubio—and that's one of the things I will say in Senator Cruz's defense, that he has been a very, very consistent individual, day in and day out. He's very disciplined."

In the interview, Perry also reiterated many of the criticisms of Trump he made when he was still in the race and the two were clashing.

Perry said that Trump had reversed his support for single-payer healthcare and an assault weapons ban, and that the Republican front-runner had also reversed his opposition to "politically inflamed rhetoric against Muslims."

"This is an individual who six months ago said that anyone who used politically inflamed rhetoric against Muslims should be—that individual should be held suspect—and then within the last 10 days calling for a ban on Muslims," Perry argued. "Consistency is a very, very important thing for a leader of the free world and I have not seen that consistency out of him. I don't know what he believes in to be real honest with you. I think he believes in Donald Trump and promoting Donald Trump and Donald Trump's brand."

Perry, who found himself relegated to the undercard debate during his run, also lamented the role of the national media in the Republican primary, saying that it had damaged his campaign, along with those of other governors and former governors Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, and Jeb Bush, whose campaign he said was "on life support."

"Simon, I'm biased, but when you had four governors who had very successful records in their home states, and I'm talking about Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, or myself who have now dropped out of the presidential—and Jeb appears to be just on life support from the standpoint of the poll numbers—and those four governors had very good success in their states," he said.

Contending that Rand Paul "shouldn't have been on the main stage" on Tuesday, Perry further said he thought the four people "still alive in this process" were Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and Ben Carson, "barring some massive blowing up, if you will, of the electorate."

The former governor concluded his analysis with a reference to the Grateful Dead.

"Again, this is a strange and bizarre—what was the old Grateful Dead? What a long, strange trip it's been, comes to mind," Perry said. "This has been a long and strange trip in a Republican primary and who knows what may come out of it in the final analysis."

“I heard that even before I suspended our campaign.”

Andy Manis / Getty Images

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said he's heard some of his fellow Republicans say they won't support Donald Trump if he's the party's nominee in the general election.

Just last week Republican Rep. Reid Ribble, also of Wisconsin, said he would not back Trump as the nominee. Asked on the Charlie Skyes Show on WTMJ about Ribble's comments that many other Republicans have expressed the same sentiment privately, Walker said, "I hear that, I made it clear when I was a candidate, I signed off, that first debate, I said I will support the nominee and I will support the nominee of the party, but I hear that grumbling. I heard that even before I suspended our campaign. I definitely hear that going around the state of Wisconsin."

Walker cautioned, however, that historically front-runners at this point in presidential primary process fade before the voting takes place.

Take a listen:

w.soundcloud.com

via Fontbonne Academy website / Via fontbonneacademy.org

WASHINGTON — A state court in Massachusetts has ruled that a Catholic preparatory school violated the state's antidiscrimination law when it rescinded a job offer to a man because he was married to another man.

Matthew Barrett had accepted a job as Food Service Director at the Fontbonne Academy, a Catholic girls school. On his employment forms, he listed his husband as his emergency contact — a move that led the school to rescind the job offer.

On Wednesday, Superior Court Associate Justice Douglas Wilkins ruled that Fontbonne discriminated against Barrett based on sexual orientation and rejected the school's arguments as to why it should be exempted from the state law or otherwise not subject to its employment discrimination ban.

Barrett's lawyers from Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders praised the judge's ruling as "the first of its kind in the country."

Wilkins's first decision in the case was that Barrett was, in fact, discriminated against:

Despite that, the school argued it was exempted from the law and that the state could not, under the U.S. Constitution, enforce the law because it would violate the school's right of expressive association and free exercise of religion — all of which the court ultimately rejected.

The statutory exemption for education organizations "operated, supervised or controlled by or in connection with a religious organization" includes exemption for "any action with respect to matters of employment" — language that the court acknowledges "appears to confer upon Fontbonne the exemption it claims in this case."

However, the court pointed to later language in the statute limiting the "employer" exemption only to those schools that "limit membership, enrollment, admission, or participation to members of that religion." The school, the court found, does no such thing, so the exemption does not apply.

As to the constitutional claim, the school argued that its expressive association rights would be infringed if forced to hire Barrett. The court, however, found that the school failed to meet two of the three standards set by the Supreme Court for such claims in its 2000 decision regarding the Boy Scouts. Although the academy does engage in "at least some form of expression," meeting the first standard, the court found that there is "minimal risk" that Barrett's hire would "significantly and seriously burden [Fontbonne's] expression."

Explaining that, Wilkins wrote:

Additionally, the court found that Massachusetts "has a compelling interest in prohibiting discrimination" — an interest "rarely stronger than in the employment context" — such that any burden on associational rights is outweighed by that interest.

Finally, the court found that Fontbonne's free exercise claim — based on the "ministerial exception" — also failed. Looking at a 2012 Supreme Court case addressing the exception, the court found that Barrett "has no duties as an administrator or teacher of religious matters" and that the job is not subject to the exception. As Wilkins explained:

Responding to the ruling, Barrett's lawyer, Bennett Klein from GLAD, told reporters on a call Thursday morning, "Since the advent of marriage equality, we have seen efforts by religiously affiliated organizations to expand the grounds for exemptions from the obligation of nondiscrimination. The court's ruling ... affirms that a religious employer has no greater constitutional right to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation than it does to discriminate on the basis of a person's race or sex."

A message seeking comment from Fontbonne Academy was left with the school.

Read the ruling:

“One of the things we heard from the shooter in Colorado Springs, he almost parroted some of the outrageous and inciteful comments that have been made on social media by some of our officials.”

Darren Mccollester / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen on Thursday said some of the statements made by the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooter mirrored "outrageous and inciteful" comments made by "some of our officials" on social media.

"One of the things we heard from the shooter in Colorado Springs, he almost parroted some of the outrageous and inciteful comments that have been made on social media by some of our officials," the New Hampshire senator said on WKBK Radio. "And that is not a good way to address the issues facing this country."

"We need to have thoughtful dialogue," she added. "We need to be respectful of other people's opinions. We need to understand that we're not all going to agree but hopefully we can agree to be respectful, and we can agree to debate issues peacefully without name calling without getting into personal attacks. I think that's part of how we respond as well as looking at laws."

Robert Dear, the alleged shooter of three people at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs said in court that he was guilty and called himself a "warrior for the babies." Several media outlets also cited unnamed law enforcement officials to report Dear said "no more baby parts" when he was taken into custody.

Shaheen said earlier in the interview that she believed background checks were an important component of keeping guns from criminals.

FitzGibbon Media suddenly announced it was closing Thursday amid allegations that the group’s president sexually harassed female employees.

WASHINGTON -- In a sudden announcement on Thursday, the progressive public relations firm FitzGibbon Media said it would close amid allegations of sexual harassment by the group's president, Trevor FitzGibbon.

The company worked with leading progressive organizations, such as NARAL, the AFL-CIO, the Center for American Progress, and the American Federation of Teachers.

The news was first reported by the Huffington Post Thursday. According to the report, Fitzgibbon "faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment from female employees."

"It is with tremendous regret that we had to close FitzGibbon Media. Our team was at the helm of many of the most important policy debates of our time. We were the undisputed communications leader for the progressive movement. Although the company is closing, our talents and our mission remain unchanged.

"The allegations against me are a distraction to the mission at hand. In order to do what is best for the company, I took a leave of absence. However, it is abundantly clear that an irreconcilable difference has arisen between the FitzGibbon team and me. We had no choice but to make the difficult decision to close FitzGibbon Media.

"I apologize to my team and our clients for the impact this closing will have on them. I will work to once again regain the trust that was lost."

View Entire List ›

WASHINGTON — Former employees of FitzGibbon Media, the progressive public relations firm that shut down suddenly Thursday, accused company founder Trevor FitzGibbon of “sexual assault and harassment of multiple female staffers" in a statement.

BuzzFeed News learned Thursday the allegations were made formally against FitzGibbon through the company’s HR department. So far, law enforcement has not been contacted, a source said, but that could change in the future.

A majority of the company’s former staff — representing both accusers and other employees across the company’s offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Georgia and Tennessee — released a statement to the press.

“Staffers reported over a half dozen incidents of sexual harassment and at least two involving sexual assault committed by Trevor FitzGibbon against his own employees,” the statement from the former employees reads.

Accusers reached by BuzzFeed News declined to speak on the record. Trevor FitzGibbon’s representatives did not directly respond to the assault charges when asked Thursday evening, but distributed a statement from the company founder and president earlier in the day that called the allegations against him “a distraction” that forced the closure of the company.

In a city chockablock with PR professionals, the team at FitzGibbon stood out due to the company’s no-compromise mission when it came to advancing the progressive cause. Over the years, the firm represented some of the biggest names in liberal politics, including MoveOn, Democracy For America, labor groups, and the Center for American Progress.

Four days ago, FitzGibbon was confronted with the allegations by HR, a source familiar said. He then took a leave of absence from the company. On Monday, employees said they couldn’t continue to work at the firm unless FtizGibbon was totally separated from it. On Thursday, FtizGibbon shut the firm down.

“The allegations against me are a distraction to the mission at hand. In order to do what is best for the company, I took a leave of absence,” FitzGibbon said in a statement. “However, it is abundantly clear that an irreconcilable difference has arisen between the FitzGibbon team and me. We had no choice but to make the difficult decision to close FitzGibbon Media.”

The allegations began two weeks ago, after what one accuser said was "an incident" between Trevor FitzGibbon and a woman employee who complained to another company staffer. The incident occurred at a company retreat in Austin, Texas.

"After that, female employees began sharing stories with one another about what they had experienced, which is when we realized that this one incident was not isolated," said one former employee.

For the 30 or so employees of FitzGibbon Media, the impact of Thursday is still being felt. Employees suddenly found themselves out of a job, and those reached by BuzzFeed News said they were now hitting the crowded job market. Clients were informed of the firm’s demise in a letter sent out Thursday.

For the city’s progressive political base, the news Thursday reverberated. The progressive-minded team at FitzGibbon, as well as players in the progressive space, said the implosion of FitzGibbon and the allegations that predicated it were jarring. Email list, text messaging apps and GChat windows across the progressive movement lit up with news of FitzGibbon’s demise and the allegations surrounding Trevor. In the statement, former employees said they were “devastated.”

“For decades, Trevor presented himself a champion of the progressive movement, claiming to support and respect women and feminist issues, from equal pay to reproductive rights, but his actions prove a hypocrisy so great that FitzGibbon Media closed its doors today, as we could no longer continue working under his leadership,” the statement from former employees reads. “We lost our jobs standing up for what’s right, to ensure a safe workplace for all — and while we may have been left without jobs, benefits and long-term healthcare, we have our integrity and each other.”

Former FitzGibbon clients also expressed dismay.

“Sexual Harassment must be taken seriously and it has no place in the progressive movement or anywhere else,” leaders from women’s activism group UltraViolet, former FitzGibbon clients, told BuzzFeed News in a statement. “Every worker deserves to be treated with respect and to feel respected and safe at work. This is not a distraction from our collective mission but rather foundational to it.”

“We’re shocked and dismayed by the allegations of sexual assault and harassment at FitzGibbon Media,” read a statement from leaders at MoveOn. “These allegations must be taken seriously. There is no room for sexual assault or harassment in our movement, in any workplace, or anywhere. Our thoughts are with affected members of the former FitzGibbon team.”

Updated with additional comment from a former FitzGibbon employee.

“I think that certainly is not something that I would take off the table.”

View Video ›

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson says the United States should formally declare war on ISIS, which would allow the government to treat U.S. citizens who aid and abet ISIS as traitors.

"We need to recognize that we are at war," Carson told NewsMaxTV on Thursday. "This is nothing to play around with, and also, once that formal declaration of war has been declared, anybody aiding and abetting them will be a traitor and will be treated as such and I think that makes a big difference."

Once leading the Republican field in certain polls, Carson's campaign suffered as the national debate turned towards foreign policy after the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.

In the interview, Carson said executions of traitors should not be taken off the table.

"I think that certainly is not something that I would take off the table, doesn't say that you have to execute them it says that it is one of the tools that is available to us," he said.

“This is all a game for these guys,” Bush said of the Russian president’s endorsement of his Republican rival.

Natalia Kolesnikova / AFP / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Jeb Bush said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin's endorsement of his opponent Donald Trump showed that Putin was "playing" America "the way that Trump plays the press."

The former Florida Gov. made the comment on Michael Medved's radio show, after the host asked him about the Russian leader's endorsement of Bush's GOP rival.

"I think Putin is playing with us like a Stradivarius," Bush said, starting to apply the same analogy to Putin that he applied to Trump earlier this month. "He's playing us, America, the way that Trump plays the press. This is all a game for these guys. But we have a stake in the Middle East. We can't pull back. We can't ban all Muslims coming into our country and expect to create a coalition which would be essential for the long-term stability of Syria and Iraq."

Bush also criticized what he called Trump's apparent affinity for Putin.

"And his proposals are just crazy," Bush said of Trump. "I mean, to say that you get your military advice from the shows. To suggest that Hillary Clinton would do a good job negotiating with Iran, better than anybody else. These are the things that he's said. He has a strong feeling of apparently affinity towards Vladimir Putin, one of the great despots of our time."

The presidential campaign filed a lawsuit in federal court Friday after the Democratic National Committee barred its aides from accessing voter data.

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks Wednesday in Washington.

Andrew Harnik / AP

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders's campaign on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee after aides were barred from accessing voter data collected and compiled by the campaign.

The complaint demands that the DNC restore its access to the data and calls for at least $75,000 in damages. It states that a request for a temporary restraining order will be forthcoming "immediately."

Asked Friday evening when the filling was expected, Sanders spokesperson Michael Briggs told BuzzFeed News, "Lawyers are working into the night."

The suit comes after the DNC penalized the Sanders campaign for gaining access to Hillary Clinton's private voter data information, BuzzFeed News reported Thursday.

At a press conference Friday, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver railed against the DNC for its "inappropriate reaction," and accused the committee of denying the campaign access to its own voter information.

"We are announcing today that if the DNC continues to hold our campaign hostage, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking immediate relief," he said.

The lawsuit has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, nominated to the federal district court in D.C. by President Obama at the end of 2013. After approval from the Senate, she took the bench in June 2014.

The complaint offers a glimpse into the Sanders campaign, stating for example that over three days in December it managed to raise more than $2.4 million. "Most of this money came from individual donors identified through, inter alia, the strategic use of Voter Data," it stated.

The Sanders campaign estimated the costs of being cut off from the data "exceed $600,000 per day."

A similar security breach happened during the 2008 presidential primaries, the complaint said, and ended up transmitting confidential information to another still-prominent candidate: Clinton.

The information breach came through the NGP VAN, which allowed a short window of time for access to crucial voter ID statistics.

The campaign aide who briefly accessed Clinton's files was immediately fired after the incident.

The complaint offers new details about how the security breach worked through the Sanders campaign. Indeed, it states that "several" staff members viewed and accessed confidential information, though "most" of them did so inadvertently. The breach then prompted an internal investigation which revealed "that one individual may have repeatedly accessed" the information. That person was then fired.

Ultimately, the complaint alleges, the "inadvertent access" of confidential information didn't actually violate the Sanders campaign's contract with the DNC, and the DNC didn't give the campaign a contractually-required notice that it was cutting them off.

"The Campaign should not be punished for the carelessness of the DNC and its third-party vendor," the complaint adds.

Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Bernie Sanders, talks to the media Friday in Washington.

Yuri Gripas / Reuters

Weaver said the Sanders campaign would seek a complete audit of the DNC's operations from the beginning of campaigning through the present. Such a probe would include a similar data breach in August which resulted in exposed data from the Sanders campaign.

Weaver said that the issue was brought to the DNC and they were assured it would not happen again.

He called the DNC's response to Wednesday's breach "inappropriate," and charged the DNC with trying to sabotage their campaign.

"I would like to see another instance where a presidential campaign was locked out of its own volunteer data," Weaver said.

In a statement Friday, Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said a decision on the Sanders campaign's access to data will be made after the DNC gets a "full accounting" of what happened.

"Once the DNC became aware that the Sanders campaign had inappropriately and systematically accessed Clinton campaign data, and in doing so violated the agreement that all the presidential campaigns have signed with the DNC, as the agreement provides, we directed NGP VAN to suspend the Sanders campaign's access to the system until the DNC is provided with a full accounting of whether or not this information was used and the way in which it was disposed," she said. "I have personally reached out to Senator Sanders to make sure that he is aware of the situation. When we receive this report from the Sanders campaign, we will make a determination of re-enabling the campaign's access to the system."

Hillary for America spokesperson Brian Fallon said in a statement Friday that the organization was "informed that our proprietary data was breached by Sanders campaign staff in 25 searches by four different accounts and that this data was saved into the Sanders' campaign account."

"We are asking that the Sanders campaign and the DNC work expeditiously to ensure that our data is not in the Sanders campaign's account and that the Sanders campaign only have access to their own data," Fallon continued.

The progressive grassroots organization Democracy For America, which endorsed Sanders yesterday, called the DNC's actions "profoundly damaging to the party's democratic process" in a statement handed out to reporters at the press conference.

View Entire List ›

“I wouldn’t want that endorsement, Brian, not for five seconds.”

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie responded to Russian president Vladimir Putin's endorsement of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump by saying he wouldn't want Putin's endorsement.

"I am not looking for an endorsement from someone who can't vote," Christie said on the Kilmeade and Friends radio show Friday. "I want endorsements from people who can vote. Vladimir Putin's not going to have a vote for President of the United States."

"I wouldn't want that endorsement, Brian, not for five seconds," Christie added.

Putin praised Trump on Wednesday in a press conference.

"He's a really brilliant and talented person, without any doubt. It's not our job to judge his qualities, that's a job for American voters, but he's the absolute leader in the presidential race," Putin stated. "He says he wants to move on to a new, more substantial relationship, a deeper relationship with Russia; how can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome that."

Christie also took aim at Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who questioned Christie's judgement to be commander-in-chief at Tuesday's Republican debate, citing the Bridge-gate scandal.

"I am running for the President of the United States, and I am not worried about the small stuff, and Rand Paul is the small stuff," Christie said.

The New Jersey governor added he didn't need to respond to every insult.

"That's what people want from a president," said Christie. "They want someone who is strong and tough, which I showed them I could be, but they also want someone who is not reacting loudly and crazy to every insult."

"When you are president of the United States, you are going to get insulted a lot and you can't react to every insult," he continued. "You have to have the resolve to know that what you are doing in your heart and mind is right and continue to move forward. I am not going to respond to every insult. If I did, I mean, geez Brain, I live in New Jersey, if I responded to every insult, all I would be doing is responding."

Scott Olson / Getty Images

A little-known, decades-old measure keeping schools from using federal funds to bus students "in order to overcome racial imbalance" was included in the spending bill President Obama signed into law on Friday.

The measure in the 2,000-page legislation has been in spending bills since the 1970s, according to congressional and administration aides, but no one is sure of why the language is still included. And in a year fraught with racial tensions, some activists are taking notice.

The measure states: "No funds appropriated in this Act may be used for the transportation of students or teachers (or for the purchase of equipment for such transportation) in order to overcome racial imbalance in any school or school system, or for the transportation of students or teachers (or for the purchase of equipment for such transportation) in order to carry out a plan of racial desegregation of any school or school system."

The provision — along with other education-related amendments — was first approved when it was slipped into a spending bill in 1972. President Richard Nixon had failed earlier that year to get a standalone bill through Congress.

During that time period, after series of Supreme Court decisions, many school districts had mandated busing students in order to desegregate schools. In many parts of the country, elected officials were facing increasing pressure from white families — who opposed busing — to take action.

Decades later, aides and even members of Congress from both parties were unable to explain to BuzzFeed News why the provision is still included. Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said: "I'm not familiar with it at all to be honest with you. But every now and then we probably should weed the garden."

The provision was also included in President Barack Obama's budget request.

One of the leading figures in the Black Lives Matter movement Deray McKesson pointed out the language in the new spending bill on Twitter after it was first released on Wednesday.

McKesson said in an interview after Congress passed the bill that the provision is an example of how all legislation -- even those with big, bipartisan support -- need to be read "with a fine tooth comb."

"It's a stark reminder that a few lines of a bill can have significant impact," he said. "It explicitly allows for funds to not be used to mitigate racism," he said.

The House passed the spending bill 316-113, and the Senate passed it 65-33 on Friday.

Mark Kauzlarich / Reuters

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is calling for rival Bernie Sanders to undergo an “independent review” following the data breach that her top officials described on Friday evening as theft and a possible “violation of the law.”

Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, and spokesman, Brian Fallon, laid out the demands in a conference call with reporters on Friday: Sanders, they said, must provide a full accounting of the incident and submit to an external review to ensure that his campaign aides no longer have access to or copies of Clinton's data.


The breach occurred on Wednesday when a software glitch in the NGP VAN, the technology company that gives campaigns access to a 50-state voter file, exposed the campaigns’ internal “voter ID” data. During that period, Mook said Friday, the Sanders campaign “made 25 intentional and targeted searches of our data."

"And while they told us that they didn’t save anything, we have been told that they did in fact store the data," said Mook, referring to an audit report provided by the NGP VAN. Sanders, he said, accessed the “fundamental keys to our campaign."

According to Fallon, the Clinton spokesman, the Sanders campaign also attempted to copy and past voter data into an excel spreadsheet in an effort to "try to preserve it offline."

In response, the Democratic National Committee has cut off Sanders’s access to the voter file until his campaign officials can “prove” they’ve deleted the Clinton data, a DNC official said on Thursday. It is not clear what party would conduct the “independent review,” or what such a review would entail — or whether it is possible to prove that the Sanders campaign no longer has the data.

“At this point we still don’t know if they have access to this data,” Mook told reporters, describing the voter ID data as worth “millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours.” Since its launch in April, the Clinton campaign has focused the large share of its time and resources into a robust organizing program in the first four caucus and primary states, particularly Iowa.

According to NGP VAN, Sanders’s campaign was “unable to export lists of people,” only a “one page-style report containing summary data,” or modeling data.

On Thursday, the Sanders campaign fired its data director, but also cast the incident as inadvertent — a direct result of the NGP VAN’s glitch. Mook, however, pointed to the 25 searches, arguing that the breach was “not an inadvertent glimpse into our data.”

“They have tried downplay what this means,” he said, describing the data as “stolen.”

Mook and Fallon also raised questions about whether the breach may amount to “a violation of the law.” (The NGP VAN is structured as a legal agreement, with campaign adhering to rules in each state.)

On Friday, the Sanders campaign filed a lawsuit against the DNC for breach of contract, alleging that their response to suspend access to the voter vile violated a rule that campaigns be given 10 days notice first. A Sanders spokesman said that the campaign will also file a motion for injunctive relief to restore NGP VAN access.

“Putin said some very nice things about me, he doesn’t know me, but he certainly gave me great compliments the other day, and all I did was respond with a thank you, that’s very nice.”

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Donald Trump doubled down Friday on his love for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and said there's "a lot of truth" to earlier comments he made about the U.S. killing people like Russia.

On WABC's Election Central with Rita Cosby, Trump was asked about comments he made on Morning Joe, where, when questioned about Putin murdering journalists, he said, "I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe."

Trump did not back away from those comments in his interview with Cosby, saying, "Well, there's a lot of truth to that. We have such incompetent leadership that we're going all over the place. We're killing people. They're killing people. Everybody and you know, it'd be nice to have peace in the world. So, Putin said some very nice things about me, he doesn't know me, but he certainly gave me great compliments the other day, and all I did was respond with a thank you, that's very nice."

Trump noted to Cosby that the U.S. was not killing journalists like Putin, but was involved in several conflicts.

"No, we're not killing journalists, but we're certainly at a lot of different wars with a lot of different people, and maybe with good diplomacy and, you know, better leadership, things could work out a lot better than they're working out right now, you never know," he said.

Earlier Friday, on Morning Joe, Trump praised Putin, saying, "He's running this country, and at least he's a leader, you know, unlike what we have in this country."

Trump told Cosby that, as president, he'd have a better relationship with Russia.

"So we don't have good leadership to put it mildly, I'm being very nice, because it's your first show," he stated. "So we don't have good leadership, and I will say that if, if I get in, things will be a lot different. We'll have smart leadership and strong leadership, and you know frankly, having a good relationship with Russia instead of a terrible relationship with Russia would be a positive thing, not a negative thing."

youtube.com

Allowing himself a "moment of therapy," Jeb Bush finally got something off his chest on Saturday morning by calling Donald Trump a "jerk" before a crowd at a New Hampshire campaign event.

Bullied by Trump for months over his "low energy" and tanking poll numbers, the former Florida governor's frank description of the GOP frontrunner was evidently a cathartic moment. Just Friday, the billionaire had described Bush as being "dumb as a rock."

"Just one other thing — I gotta get this off my chest — Donald Trump is a jerk," Bush told the crowd in Contoocook to applause and laughter captured by a CNN camera.

The moment came after Bush answered a question on how he would help people with disabilities as president. He then took the opportunity to highlight Trump's apparent mocking last month of a New York Times reporter with a disability.

"You cannot insult your way to the presidency," Bush said, repeating a line he used against Trump in Tuesday's GOP debate. "You can't disparage women, Hispanics, disabled people. Who is he kidding?"

"This country is far better than that, and the idea that he's actually running for president and insulting people is deeply discouraging," he said.

"A guy like that should not be the front-running candidate of our great party. That is not how we win," Bush said to more applause.

"I feel better now. I gave myself therapy there. Thank you for allowing me to do that."

“We have a lot of work to do to earn the trust of the American people before I would be proposing anything like that. I think Marco’s wrong to be proposing it now.”

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Chris Christie said on Friday that his Republican opponent Marco Rubio is wrong to be proposing a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants at this point in time, citing the American people's lack of trust.

"We have a lot of work to do to earn the trust of the American people before I would be proposing anything like that," Christie told radio host Michael Medved of a path to earned legal status. "I think Marco's wrong to be proposing it now. We have to get our house in order first."

Rubio's opponents, particularly Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, have criticized him in recent weeks for his support of a 2013 Senate immigration bill that would have granted a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. After distancing himself from that legislation, Rubio has said this year that he is open to granting undocumented immigrants legal status, but only after measures are taken to bring illegal immigration "under control" and immigrants learn English and pay a fine.

Christie, who also supported a pathway to citizenship in the past, told Medved that he didn't think those who had broken the law to enter the country should receive American citizenship, which he called "the greatest reward any human being on this earth can get."

"I'm not for path to citizenship, Michael," Christie said. "I don't believe that anyone who has knowingly come here illegally should be rewarded with the greatest reward any human being on this earth can get, which is an American passport saying you're an American citizen. As far as legalization goes, the fact is that we're so far away from that, that I can't even picture pitching that idea to the American people. We have to get our house in order first. "

Asked whether he would be in favor of a path to legalization once levels of illegal immigration were reduced, Christie said, "I cannot even visualize the American people supporting it. And if the American people don't support it, you can't do it, Michael. I mean, you know, the fact is that the government has let them down so much on this score that they're not gonna be supportive of anything that we try to do in that area."

Earlier in the interview, Christie also argued that he felt the deportation of all the undocumented immigrants currently in the country, as Donald Trump has proposed, was not "feasible or affordable."

Wilfredo Lee / AP

MANCHESTER, N.H. — The loudest day on the Democratic presidential campaign trail this cycle was one of the quietest for the team doing the actual work of getting Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders votes in this, his strongest primary state.

That work was once again underway Saturday as the dust settles on an extraordinary 48 hours.

There wasn’t much Sanders field operatives could do Thursday and Friday after the Democratic National Committee suspended the campaign’s access to the party voter file. The file is the lifeblood of modern field campaigning: canvass lists, phone lists, and other voter contact efforts flow through it and are measured against it. Without it, there’s basically nothing.

“It looks like a lot of empty chairs,” Jeff Weaver, Sanders’s campaign manager told BuzzFeed News when asked what a day without a voter file looks like. The campaign couldn’t do phone banks or canvassing. It couldn’t even send Sanders around to events to keep things moving during the voter file lockout because the file is used to alert people near where Sanders will be speaking and build crowds.

Volunteers were turned away, field efforts shut down. Staff scrambled to assemble jury-rigged backup systems using paper lists to get canvassers back on the street.

In New Hampshire, Sanders staff couldn’t “cut turf” — campaign lingo for creating canvass routes. That’s a big loss in a state where retail politics are still seen as the key to victory and where Sanders is trying to hold onto his one primary state lead over rival Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in polls. Staff worked through the night to create a functional analog version of the digital outreach operation run through the voter file. But no one expected that system to match what they had before.

“In a modern campaign, you can’t do anything,” Weaver said.

Online, Sanders’s grassroots army was in a state of disarray. Used to working closely with the campaign to push digital outreach and phonebanking from their homes, volunteers instead had to wait, or get by pushing some of the online petitions launched by progressives to protest the DNC.

A top official at a progressive group backing Sanders recalled one dismayed Sanders volunteer cold-calling his office, begging for a list of Iowans he could call.

“We don’t have those kinds of lists,” the official had to tell the volunteer.

Late Friday night, after furious negotiations with the Sanders camp, the DNC flipped the switch back on, and the data started flowing again early Saturday morning.

Weaver said Saturday afternoon that things were running at normal speed again, and in New Hampshire things were rolling at a breakneck pace.

Last weekend, the Sanders campaign conducted 250 total canvass shifts, according to a source familiar with the operation. On Saturday alone, the campaign conducted 130. All 15 of the campaign’s New Hampshire offices were open for business, and 40 volunteers were working phone banks.

The drudgery of campaigns — “cutting turf” is about as exciting as it sounds — are usually the real keys to victory. It remains to be seen what impact the period without full-tilt drudgery will have, Sanders aides told BuzzFeed News.

“We lost two days of operation,” Weaver said. “That makes a huge difference.”