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MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — What are New York values?

That’s been the subject of much discussion among the political class since Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz started using the phrase to jab ally-turned-rival Donald Trump, igniting a controversy that led to an unexpectedly stirring Trump defense of his home city during Thursday’s debate and a winking non-apology from Cruz the next day, as the long-held détente between the two candidates erupted over Trump’s birther attacks on Cruz.

But the handy thing about the concept of “New York values” is that everybody thinks they’re something different. Was Cruz saying Trump is a liberal? That he’s un-American? That he’s crass, amoral? People can fill in the blanks. To the voters Cruz is targeting, the phrase can suggest any number of things — and it does. In an election season characterized by blunt political instruments, New York values is a effective for its relative subtlety.

On an anecdotal level, activists assembled at a tea party convention in Myrtle Beach on Saturday all had different responses for what New York values means to them. Both Cruz and Trump spoke at the conference that day, and the crowd was stacked with supporters of both candidates.

“I’ve never been to New York, I really don’t know,” said Steve Brown, 58. “Well, I’m seeing that Mayor de Blasio and he seems to be against his own police force and he’s against the Second Amendment, and if that’s their values I don’t want nothing to do with it.”

“New York is like a piece of the United States that’s not exactly traditional, it’s such a mixture of all kinds of feelings, all kind of backgrounds,” said Dona Vasey, 65. “I think it’s almost too much diversity. Not to say you can’t live there or anything, it’s just so saturated with diversity. That’s what I think of when I think of New York, I can be there but I don’t know if I can live there.”

“Our son is dating a New York girl, she’s Italian, and he made the comment, this was months ago, about she’s got New York attitude,” said Cathy Johnson, 59. “It’s just, I don’t know how to explain it, they have their own beliefs. They’re strong opinionated, that’s what it is, strong opinions.”

“Donald Trump is the one that said he had the New York values, and Ted Cruz is just reiterating what Donald Trump said,” she said.

Cruz has offered, kind of, a definition of New York values: “Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media,” he said during the Republican primary debate on Thursday in Charleston, South Carolina.

He then made his intent a little clearer the next day, telling reporters at a campaign stop in Columbia that he was apologizing — but not for his comments. Instead, he apologized to New Yorkers for their liberal politicians, listing a litany of New York-specific liberal policies that he characterized as being foisted on honest, hard-working New Yorkers. The comments seemed an attempt to put a finer point on the difference between criticism of New York politics and criticism of New Yorkers themselves.

Despite that, the Cruz campaign has not backed down on New York values despite withering criticism, and indeed have stuck with it even after Trump’s debate response that left Cruz with no reply but to clap along with the audience, leading some to suggest that Cruz had overplayed his hand. The campaign has circulated a video of Trump on television in 1999 saying, “I lived in New York City and Manhattan all my life so my views are a little bit different than if I lived in Iowa,” and Cruz tweeted the video on Saturday.

They aren’t trying to sway New York media types, but instead conservative voters in Iowa and elsewhere who find Cruz attractive for the very thing he’s attacking Trump on: values. As Bloomberg’s Joshua Green pointed out on Sunday, 98% of Cruz’s Iowa supporters said in a Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll that they like his “Christian values in opposing abortion and gay marriage.”

Of course, not everyone’s buying it. Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 but who has failed to get any traction this time around as Cruz has become dominant in Iowa, praised Trump’s response when asked about New York values during a media availability ahead of his appearance at the tea party convention in Myrtle Beach.

“I think Donald Trump did a great job the other night in talking about the kind of values that we saw in the sacrifice of New Yorkers on 9/11,” Huckabee said. He took a dig at Cruz when asked if Donald Trump had changed his position on values, saying, “If you want to talk about a candidate that’s switched positions you’ve got a bunch of them out there that’s changed themselves on TPP, ethanol, foreign policy and all over the board.”

“New York values” is “a really failed attempt at a throwaway line,” said Jim Royal, 71, another attendee at the conference. But Royal, who said he’s a Cruz fan, said he understood the exigencies of the campaign and didn’t begrudge Cruz for it.

“It was an excellent card played by Trump – I loved it, I stood up and clapped, thought it was fantastic, but I don’t discredit Cruz for his throwaway campaign sloganeer type joke.”

“I don’t think [Cruz] meant it in the context it came off,” said Brenda Stewart, 73, a Trump and Cruz fan. “I wish they would not criticize each other, but that’s politics and that’s something they’ve got to do to get through the process.”

O’Malley serving up a rare founding fathers misquote from a Democrat.

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Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley misquoted Benjamin Franklin at Sunday evening's Democratic presidential debate.

"I also agree with Benjamin Franklin who said no people should ever give up their privacy or their freedoms in a promise for security," the former Maryland governor said when asked about encryption at the Sunday debate.

The quote from Benjamin Franklin, "those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety," was used out of context by O'Malley. In the context of the quote as it was said in the 1750s, Franklin was actually speaking in support of not only taxation but also defense spending.

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

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

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

A study of the misquote, by Tech Crunch linked the changed context to the rise of the fear of big brother.

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CHARLESTON, S.C. — It took eight amicable months and three other debates. But elbows, sharp at long last were finally thrown. Jabs were landed. Blows, exchanged. Barbs, traded. The gloves, as they say, came off. On Sunday night, with millions watching, here it was: a real race in the Democratic party.

The debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Democrats’ last before the caucuses and primaries begin, featured mostly policy clashes and none of the insult that plays on Republican stages. But after two weeks of more aggressive rhetoric from both of their campaigns, the candidates came ready to draw sharp contrast with each other. Sanders, as he has throughout the campaign, cast Clinton as too close to Wall Street. Clinton said Sanders was too conservative on gun control and idealistic about health care.

Clinton and Sanders took the NBC News/YouTube event as an opportunity for both candidates to escalate their attacks from the campaign trail. The clashes came early and often.

When the subject was gun control — a topic where the Clinton campaign has hammered Sanders over votes that clashed with the desires of the gun safety left — Sanders said Clinton was purposefully telling lies about his record.

"I think Secretary Clinton knows that what she says is very disingenuous," Sanders said.

Clinton repeated mentions of Sanders's vote against the Brady bill and his support for a special legal protection for gun manufacturer (which Sanders backed away from the day before the debate).

"Look, I have made it clear based on Sen. Sanders' own record that he has voted with the NRA, with the gun lobby numerous times," she said.

The relatively civil Democratic primary has, in the span of just weeks, become a relatively uncivil affair. For the first six months of the race, Clinton barely uttered Sanders’ name. Now, she and her aides regularly target Sanders in statements, on press calls, and at events. He is, they’ve argued, a tool of the gun lobby and a “socialist Democrat.” (Sanders calls himself a “Democratic socialist.”) Reportedly, one Clinton booster, David Brock, even raised the issue of Sanders's health.

Sanders has always been happy to ding Clinton on a set of limited issues, such as her vote in favor of the Iraq War and her large-dollar donor base. In the last month, though, he and his allies have stepped up attacks in tandem with Clinton: A new ad casts Clinton as dangerously close to the Wall Street community, and on Sunday, a top surrogate, Cornel West, accused Clinton of “fetishizing” guns to distract voters from economic inequality.

On Sunday, the candidates took that new focus on each other to the debate stage.

In prior debates, the most memorable moments were when Sanders and Clinton got along. Sanders telling Clinton “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails” was the top Twitter moment of any debate, Republican or Democratic. Official Twitter debate stats released by the company last week revealed the moment had the highest “Tweets per Minute” rate of any moment in the 2016 debate cycle. At the December debate in New Hampshire, the takeaway moment was Clinton graciously accepting Sanders’s apology for a Democratic Party data breach in which Sanders aides accessed proprietary Clinton field data.

Sunday’s debate in Charleston will have a different legacy. The top two candidates in the nomination race clashed several times.

The first was over gun control, an issue where Clinton has used Sanders’ voting record to cast him as a friend of the NRA. Sanders called it a cynical move.

“I think Secretary Clinton knows that what she says is very disingenuous,” he said.

Martin O'Malley, previewing a move he would repeat throughout the night, jumped into the fray between Sanders and Clinton on guns to cast himself as the real alternative choice.

"I've listened to Secretary Clinton and Sen. Sanders go back and forth on which of them has the most inconsistent record on gun safety legislation and I would have to agree with both of them," he said. "They've both been inconsistent when it comes to this issue."

Wall Street, Sanders's favorite political turf, was the scene of the his toughest attacks on Clinton.

"Can you really reform Wall Street when they are spending millions and millions of dollars on campaign contributions and when they are providing speaker fees to individuals?" Sanders said. "So it's easy to say, well, I'm going to do this and do that, but I have doubts when people receive huge amounts of money from Wall Street."

When Sanders tied himself to President Obama while also talking about his differences with the president on financial issues, Clinton questioned his seriousness. She noted that Sanders openly suggested a progressive primary challenge against Obama in the 2012 cycle.

"Your profusion of comments about your feelings towards President Obama are a little strange given what you said about him in 2011," Clinton said.

Whether the tone set in the debate will reflect the final weeks before the Iowa Caucuses remains to be seen. Clinton has shown willingness to take Sanders on directly in the hopes of stopping him from an upset win. And Sanders has been willing to directly criticize Clinton, too.

Surrogates for the candidates agreed after the debate that a shift toward contrast was not necessarily a shift toward the negative.

"I don't care about the negativity. I can watch Love and Hip Hop if I want to do that. I care about what's going to help working people sitting around their tables trying to figure it out," Killer Mike, the rapper backing Sanders told BuzzFeed News after the debate. "The tone up there was decent enough tonight. It was typical politician talk, in terms of the temperament to one another. But I was more impressed that [Sanders] got his ideas out."

Christina Reynolds and Stephanie Shriock, two top Clinton supporters, said after the debate that they were happy to see Sanders face tougher questions about his record than they said he has been asked to answer in the past. Shriock, the president of EMILY's List, said she was happy to see "real questions for Sanders."

Neither woman — Reynolds is a senior aide to Clinton's campaign — thought the debate, or the campaign lately, has been particularly negative. And they rejected the idea that Clinton was dragging the campaign into coarser territory out of fear of poll numbers.

"He does contrast all the time," Reynolds said. "Now we're doing it, too."

Donald Trump gave the convocation at Liberty University — a Christian school in Virginia — on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. day.

And he decided to quote scripture.

"Two [sic] Corinthians, right?" he announced. "Two [sic] Corinthians 3:17. That's the whole ballgame."

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Trump is referencing the second epistle or letter to the Corinthians, or "Second Corinthians."

Not "Two Corinthians."

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KEENE, N.H. — Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz made a rare mention on Monday of his sister who died of a drug overdose, a topic he doesn’t often bring up.

At a campaign stop at a diner here, Cruz was asked about the heroin epidemic, an issue that has been coming up on the campaign trail as New England in particular struggles with it.

“I know New Hampshire in particular has been hit hard with the heroin epidemic, it is really ugly,” Cruz said. “I will note this is an issue I have more than passing experience with. My older sister Miriam died of a drug overdose. And so she was 9 years older than I am. She had a hard life. She made a lot of foolish decisions over and over and over again. And she had problems with drinking and substance abuse. One morning she didn't wake up, she had overdosed. It is a horrible scourge in our society."

Cruz rarely talks about Miriam or his other half-sister Roxana, a doctor, both the children of Cruz’s father Rafael from an earlier marriage. Cruz did discuss Miriam at length in his book A Time For Truth, which came out last year. In the book, he stated how “I sometimes found it hard to reconcile the bright, fun and charismatic sister I adored with the person who would lie to me without hesitation and who stole money from her teenage brother to feed her various addictions,” and described going to Philadelphia with his father to attempt to intervene in Miriam’s life. She died in 2011.

In Keene this morning, Cruz quickly pivoted to immigration and border security, saying that the cartels are trafficking not only people but “drugs in vast quantities” and promising to end sanctuary cities.

New Hampshire, along with other New England states, has been hard-hit by the heroin crisis; state health officials projected a record number of opioid-related deaths for 2015. Other candidates have weighed in on the trail while campaigning in the state.

Cruz is traveling through New Hampshire on a bus tour until Thursday.

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WHITEFIELD, N.H. — Ted Cruz stepped up his feud with Donald Trump on the campaign trail on Monday, giving the kind of criticisms of Trump that he's lately been giving to the press, but this time before an audience of voters.

During a town hall meeting on Monday night, Cruz characterized Trump as insincere on immigration, saying Trump "was nowhere to be found" during the battle over the Gang of 8 immigration reform bill, and brought up his support for the financial bailouts and for eminent domain.

"We were on the verge of losing this fight and 12 million people here illegally being granted amnesty," Cruz said. "Yet when that fight was being fought, Donald was nowhere to be found. If you didn’t stand up and fight amnesty when the stakes were live or die, when the stakes were do we lose this permanently or do we win, then I would suggest as voters you have reason to doubt the credibility of the promises of a political candidate who discovers the issue after he announces for president." Cruz also slipped in a jab at Marco Rubio, who was one of the Gang of 8, calling him one of the establishment Republicans "side by side proposing amnesty" with the Democrats.

Cruz said he had opposed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and "Obama's massive stimulus plan," but "on both of those Mr. Trump supported it."

(Cruz was not in the Senate at the time TARP was passed and when the Huffington Post reported on the issue last year, there wasn't an apparent record he had publicly opposed TARP. Trump expressed support for TARP at the time.)

"Donald Trump has said he thinks eminent domain is fantastic," Cruz went on. "He supports using government power to seize private people’s homes to give them to giant corporations to, say, hypothetically build a casino."

Cruz brought up Trump all on his own; he had been asked by an audience member about the national debt. After talking about the debt, he segued to Trump and to his other rivals whom he accused of having been absent during fights over Obamacare, gun control, and immigration.

"There are many people who are observing [that] this race nationally is coming more and more down to a two-man race between me and Donald Trump," Cruz said.

The two candidates maintained a mutually beneficial detente for months, but that erupted when Trump started launching birther attacks against Cruz, hinting and then outright stating that Cruz is not eligible for the presidency because of his birth in Canada. Cruz at first tried to laugh off the attacks and blamed the media for creating an artificial conflict between him and Trump, but eventually his campaign started punching back.

The fight spilled into public view in the debate last Thursday, in the form of confrontations over the birther attacks and Cruz's "New York values" attack on Trump. Trump declared their "bromance" over and since then he has continued repeatedly attacking Cruz — his most recent jab over the weekend was that Cruz is "nasty." Cruz has largely stuck to referring to Trump in oblique terms in front of voters — for example, in New Hampshire he has called on voters to be skeptical of candidates who think they can win the state "from a TV studio in New York" — while critiquing him by name when talking to the press. That changed during Monday night's event.

Cruz is in the midst of a bus tour across New Hampshire, where according to the most recent RCP polling averages he is in fourth place and Trump is far and away in the lead. Cruz has picked up momentum in Iowa, where he is leading or even with Trump in the polls.

Despite the criticisms, Cruz insisted on Monday night he likes and respects Trump still and said he will not reciprocate Trump's "insults," but "policy differences are fair game."

Previously on Monday in a media availability in Washington, New Hampshire, Cruz had contrasted Trump with Ronald Reagan and highlighted Trump's record of donating to Democratic politicians.

"Ronald Reagan did not spend the first 60 years of his life supporting Democratic politicians advocating for big government policies," Cruz had said. "I’m pretty sure that Ronald Reagan didn’t write checks and support Democratic politicians like Andrew Cuomo, Anthony Weiner, and Hillary Clinton. I’m pretty sure Ronald Reagan didn’t write a huge check to Rahm Emanuel in December 2010."

“Now we should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick.” The comments leave an opening for rivals like Ted Cruz, who has panned the intervention.

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Donald Trump often rails against U.S. intervention in the Middle East that topples dictators whose exits lead to unstable regional consequences like the rise of ISIS and other terrorist groups.

But one intervention he has subsequently come to pan — the 2011 U.S. intervention in Libya, which led to the toppling of longtime leader Muammar al-Qaddafi — Trump once very loudly called for on humanitarian grounds.

"I mean, look at Libya," Trump said on CNN's State of the Union last year. "Look at Iraq. Iraq used to be no terrorists. He [Saddam Hussein] would kill the terrorists immediately, which is like, now it's the Harvard of terrorism. If you look at Iraq from years ago, I'm not saying he was a nice guy — he was a horrible guy — but it was a lot better than it is right now. Right now, Iraq is a training ground for terrorists. Right now, Libya, nobody even knows Libya, frankly there is no Iraq and there is no Libya. It's all broken up. They have no control. Nobody knows what's going on."

When asked if the world would be better with Qaddafi in power, Trump said, "100%."

Trump made similar comments on Meet the Press this year as well.

"You wouldn't have had your Benghazi situation," said Trump. "It's not even a country."

The comments are a sharp contrast for Trump from 2011, when, on his video blog, he pushed hard for the United States to intervene in Libya.

"I can't believe what our country is doing," said Trump on his video blog. "Qaddafi in Libya is killing thousands of people, nobody knows how bad it is, and we're sitting around we have soldiers all have the Middle East, and we're not bringing them in to stop this horrible carnage and that's what it is: It's a carnage."

Trump said Libya could end up one of the worst massacres in history, and it would be very easy to topple Qaddafi.

"You talk about things that have happened in history; this could be one of the worst," he said. "Now we should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically, stop him from doing it, and save these lives. This is absolutely nuts. We don't want to get involved and you're gonna end up with something like you've never seen before."

Trump said the people would take over from Qaddafi eventually and then "they should pay us back" out of appreciation.

"But we have go in to save these lives; these people are being slaughtered like animals," he said. "It's horrible what's going on; it has to be stopped. We should do on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya, knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives."

Then, "After it's all done," Trump said, the protesters who took over the country would reimburse the U.S. through oil.

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WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, the Supreme Court agreed to add yet another hot-button item to this term's agenda — deciding to hear the administration's defense of President Obama's immigration executive actions, which were challenged by Texas and more than two dozen other states.

The Obama administration asked the justices to take the case in November, weeks after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court ruling putting the executive actions on hold.

The appeals court ruled, specifically, that the states had the authority to sue the Obama administration over the 2014 order known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and that the program would continue to be put on hold because Obama lacked the authority to implement it as he did.

"If left undisturbed, that ruling will allow States to frustrate the federal government’s enforcement of the Nation’s immigration laws," the Justice Department argued in asking the Supreme Court to take the case.

In addition to taking up the questions posed in the Obama administration's petition about whether the states have authority, or standing, to sue and whether the immigration order violates the law, the court added — as referenced by the states in their response to the petition — a question about whether the order violates the Take Care Clause of the Constitution. The clause directs that the president "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

The 2014 order also expanded the scope of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program previously put in place. The DAPA and expanded DACE actions authorized deferring deportations for an estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants.

Today's order means there will be briefing on the issue in coming weeks, with arguments likely to be held in April. A decision, in that situation, would be expected by late June.

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CARROLL, Iowa — Bernie Sanders, like many progressives, wasn’t happy with President Obama’s signature domestic achievement when it became law. The Affordable Care Act, many on the left said at the time, was too watered-down, too tied to health insurance companies, too much of a compromise to make a real difference.

For the most part, the left has come around on the health care law. Obama’s legacy as a progressive has become an important part of left-wing lore, and unyielding Republican resistance to the legislation has helped to rally liberal support for it. The liberals who once railed against Obamacare now often defend it as an achievement of the last decade.

Among them: Sanders. Faced with a barrage of attacks from Hillary Clinton defending the Affordable Care Act and warning voters that a push for a single-payer system like the one Sanders supports could mean scrapping the law and starting over, and that the votes weren’t there for single-payer even in the Democratic majority days of 2009, Sanders has cast himself as a friend of Obamacare and the candidate who wants to take what Obama started and move it to the next level.

“We're not going to tear up the Affordable Care Act. I helped write it,” Sanders said on the debate stage Sunday night. “But we are going to move on top of that to a Medicaid-for-all system.”

One former Obama administration aide who helped lead the slog through healthcare in 2009 recalled Sanders’s role in the legislation very differently.

“It’s difficult to comment on Bernie Sanders’s role in crafting the Affordable Care Act because he played virtually no role in crafting the Affordable Care Act,” the former aide told BuzzFeed News. “Voting on something and working on something are two very different things.”

Jonathan Gruber, the health care policy wonk and MIT professor who first helped craft Romneycare before helping the White House guide its own version of the Massachusetts health care system through Congress, told BuzzFeed News Sanders was not one of the key architects of the law.

“He certainly was not a leader on the legislation and did not contribute in any way to the coverage portion of the bill,” Gruber said. He allowed that Sanders “may have worked on other parts of the bill that I was not involved in.”

Politifact found Sanders to be overstating his role in crafting the ACA a bit. On his contention that he “helped write” the law, the fact checking site ruled Sanders was “mostly false.”

Sanders served on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions panel — the so-called HELP committee — during the yearlong push to craft and pass what would become the Affordable Care Act. On the debate stage, he explained his role in its final language.

“I made the Affordable Care Act along with [Rep.] Jim Clyburn [a Democrat from South Carolina] a better piece of legislation,” Sanders said. “I voted for it, but right now, what we have to deal with is the fact that 29 million people still have no health insurance. We are paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, getting ripped off.”

The addition Sanders refers to is the $11 billion in funding for Community Health Clinics, which expand access to primary care for poorer Americans, especially those living in rural areas. It’s a big deal, and one of the few ACA items Republicans consistently try to keep in operation.

Back in 2009, the community health center funding switched Sannders from a no to a yes vote for the ACA in the months before final passage of the law. Sanders “took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers, while denying it was a ‘sweetheart deal’” Politico reported at the time. “He was clearly more enthusiastic about a bill he said he couldn’t support just three days ago.”

Sanders’s tone on Obamacare these days suggests he considers it a good idea that now needs fundamental changes to make it closer to single-payer. That’s close to what Sanders has said in the past with a key change — the emphasis is more on the “good idea” vs the “needs fundamental changes.”

“Yesterday evening some of us met with the Leader, Senate Leader, Harry Reid, to make it very clear that we believe, absolutely, that any kind of legislation coming out of the Senate has to have a strong public option,” Sanders told the progressive radio show Democracy Now in October 2009.

The public option was a progressive goal throughout the fight over the ACA. The idea was that the federal government would run it’s own insurance plan that would compete with private plans offered in the Obamacare insurance exchange. Private companies didn’t like that, and critics said it would be the first step to a European-style single-payer system, where governments pay for everything. The idea was scuttled by health care law supporters during the long slog to passage of the Affordable Care Act.

Sanders criticized the White House for not pushing harder for a public option in the final weeks of the health care debate, which didn’t end until 2010.

"I think we do have 50 votes in the Senate for a public option and frankly I don't know why the president has not put it in and I hope that we can inject it,” Sanders said during those heated final weeks of health care debate. His critique of the bill went on through final passage.

The loss of the public option still stings Sanders, campaign manager Jeff Weaver told BuzzFeed News after Sunday night. But Sanders is now standing much closer to a law he was extremely critical of in the past.

“His goal has always been, as have Democrats since Frankin Delano Roosevelt, he wanted a universal health care system. Obviously the public option was stripped at the last minute by insurance companies and their allies,” Weaver said. “I think everyone understands not everyone got everything they wanted in the affordable care act, not even the admin. that said it was an incredible step forward.”

As for Sanders’s role in crafting the law, Weaver said that his proximity to the process made Sanders a co-author.

“He was on the committee that passed it in the Senate. He worked very closely with Rep. Jim Clyburn...to add a major provision [for] primary health care access through the community health care program,” Weaver said. “So he was a very active participant, he was obviously involved in all the hearings and the markups, and he was on the committee that passed it.”

“When Tim Russert asked me on Meet the Press if I would ban partial-birth abortion if I were president, my pro-choice instincts led me to say no. After the show, I consulted two doctors I respect and, upon learning more about this procedure, I have concluded that I would indeed support a ban.”

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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has attempted to use a 1999 interview during Donald Trump's then flirtation with running for president against the real estate mogul.

In the Meet the Press interview, Trump expressed significantly more liberal views on a number of issues in the interview, citing living in New York City all his life. But one area Trump is being attacked for, saying he wouldn't ban late-term abortion, Trump actually backtracked on later that year.

"Donald explained that he was very very pro-choice and supported partial-birth abortion. And he explained the reason for that is that he was a New Yorker and those are the views of the people of New York," Cruz told Yahoo News' Hunter Walker in an interview this week.

It's a line Cruz has repeated in recent days as he's sought to attack Trump for embodying so-called "New York values" of liberalism.

But Trump said in his book, The America We Deserve, which was published in 2000, that he was wrong to say he supported late-term abortion. After he talked with doctors, he wrote, he would indeed support a ban on the procedure.

"There are some issues I don't want to say much about," wrote Trump in the book. "I support a woman's right to choose, for example, but I am uncomfortable with the procedures. When Tim Russert asked me on Meet the Press if I would ban partial-birth abortion if I were president, my pro-choice instincts led me to say no. After the show, I consulted two doctors I respect and, upon learning more about this procedure, I have concluded that I would indeed support a ban."

Christie has recently denied certain aspects of his record.

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Jeb Bush says rival presidential candidate Chris Christie needs to be honest about his record. In recent days, the New Jersey governor has flatly denied he took past positions and actions, including his well-documented support for Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2009.

"I think Christie has to own up to his record, and overall it's a good record, but it's also a record where he advocated restricting gun rights and he did support Sotomayor, and he did expand Medicaid, and other people — look everybody's record needs to be scrutinized," the former Florida governor said on Concord News Radio Monday, noting he didn't support expanding Medicaid (as a private citizen not governor).

"I had an A+ rating with the NRA cause of my views were always to protect the rights of innocent gun owners, and I didn't support Sotomayor," continued Bush. "He's got a good record, but the full record needs to be scrutinized, and he can't avoid the things that he's said before, I don't know why he would even try."

Last week, in an interview with CBS News' John Dickerson, Christie denied he supported Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court back in 2009 (he did). He's also been called out for denying he gave a personal donation to Planned Parenthood and for how he has described his record on gun control in New Jersey.

“I mean, come on, ‘New York City? Get a rope.’ Remember that ad, for the picante sauce?”

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Rick Perry agrees with Ted Cruz over Donald Trump on the true meaning of "New York values."

In an interview last Friday with Iowa radio show Mickelson in the Morning, the former Texas governor said that making fun of New York is common and referred to an old advertisement in which a group of cowboys become outraged after being served picante sauce made in New York City.

"Mr. Trump took umbrage by Ted Cruz talking about New York values, and, you know, became very serious about — as we all were — what happened on September the 11th of 2001. We were all New Yorkers that day — don't get confused with that — but you know, I would hope there's enough humor in that person to understand that, hey listen, we all make fun of New York. I mean, come on, 'New York City? Get a rope.' Remember that ad, for the picante sauce?" Perry said, referencing an ad for Pace Picante sauce, wherein a cowboy calls for the lynching of a chef who has served the group a brand of sauce made in New York.

Perry, who exited the 2016 presidential race in September, said that Cruz was similarly mocking New York with his line that Trump embodies "New York values."

"So we have fun with that, and I think that's exactly what Senator Cruz was doing, talking about New York values, and I thought he did a good job of explaining that New York values are, you know, very liberal, particularly Manhattan," said Perry, who added that he felt that Cruz won the debate overall.

In the interview, Perry also called Trump's idea of getting Mexico to pay for a wall on America's southern border a "throwaway, jingoistic line."

"And frankly, just a kind of throwaway, jingoistic line of we're gonna build a wall, it's gonna be beautiful and we're gonna make Mexico pay for it. Uh, you know, when a thoughtful individual says, 'Yeah, we gotta secure the border, but how? Just building a wall is not gonna do it,'" he said.

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Country First.

Aaron P. Bernstein / Getty Images

In a December 2008 blog post, Donald Trump praised Hillary Clinton and said Mitt Romney would have been a better pick than Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate.

There has been speculation, based on Palin's flight plans, that the former Alaska governor might endorse Trump Tuesday night in Iowa.

"Hillary is smart, tough and a very nice person, and so is her husband," wrote Trump. "Bill Clinton was a great president. They are fine people. Hillary was roughed up by the media, and it was a tough campaign for her, but she's a great trouper. Her history is far from being over.

Turning to Palin, Trump said Romney would have been better for McCain.

"Romney would have been a better choice, but she revived interest in the Republican Party," wrote Trump.

In one CNN interview also from 2008 — in which he also said Barack Obama should have picked Clinton as his vice president — Trump said he was impressed with McCain picking Palin.

Read the post below:

The second half of my interview with Dominic Carter brought up some interesting points. Being a New York based television show, he asked me what I thought of Governor Patterson, the Governor of New York. As I've gotten to know him, I can say he's smart, sharp and street-wise, and I expect that he will handle the problems that this state has for him and very well.

Dominic did a word-association test on me with some well-known names in New York (and nationwide for that matter), and here were some of my comments:

Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City: Michael Bloomberg is a friend, a great mayor, and he's done an amazing job for the city. The other thing I mentioned is that he doesn't want, or need, my contribution or your contribution. Regarding his running for a third term, I think the ultimate term limit would be to vote someone out. He's done great things for the city and will continue to do so.

Hillary Clinton: Hillary is smart, tough and a very nice person, and so is her husband. Bill Clinton was a great President. They are fine people. Hillary was roughed up by the media, and it was a tough campaign for her, but she's a great trouper. Her history is far from being over.

Rudy Giuliani: Rudy got the city started toward greatness.

Ray Kelly (Police Commissioner of New York City): Ray is a great leader who has done a fantastic job. The city has the lowest crime rate ever since he's been in charge.

Sarah Palin: Romney would have been a better choice, but she revived interest in the Republican Party.

We also discussed Freedom Tower, and the World Trade Center. The Twin Towers were iconic. They were not great architecture, but when they went down, everyone loved them. To me, Freedom Tower is like a white elephant. There's no market right now. My idea was that we should build two towers, make them one story taller than the original towers, but stronger. The ultimate signal would have been sent out. The New York Post received more letters than ever about that idea, it was very popular. But now? Freedom Tower will provide 10 million square feet of office space when the city is experiencing vacancy in business buildings.

All in all, it was a great interview, and we can continue to expect insightful coverage from Dominic Carter.

Via web.archive.org

Carson in Iowa in October.

Charlie Neibergall / AP

Republican presidential contender Ben Carson on Tuesday cancelled all scheduled events after a campaign staffer was killed in a car crash in Iowa.

Braden Joplin, a 25-year-old volunteer, was among a group of four campaign staffers who were traveling in a van that hit a patch of ice, flipped on its side, and was struck by another vehicle, the Carson campaign said in a news release.

The three other passengers in the van were treated and released, according to a statement from the trauma hospital Nebraska Medicine, where Joplin died shortly after 4:30 p.m.

Scene of the crash on Tuesday.

Iowa Department of Public Safety

Carson planned to meet with Joplin's family later in the evening.

In a statement, Carson asked his supporters to keep Joplin's family in their prayers.

"One of the precious few joys of campaigning is the privilege of meeting bright young men and women who are so enthusiastic about their country that they will freely give of their time and energy to work on its behalf," Carson said. "America lost one of those bright young men today."

Carson spokesman Jason Osborne told BuzzFeed News said the campaign was informed of the crash mid-morning, adding that the staffers were believed to be traveling to the city of Atlantic in Iowa to prepare for a campaign event later this week.

A dispatcher with the Iowa State Patrol told BuzzFeed News the crash involved a green 2015 Ford van and a black 2012 Chevy Avalanche.

"Dr. Carson has spoken with the family of the volunteer being transported to Omaha, as well as the attending physician," the campaign said. "Dr. Carson has cancelled all remaining campaign events today and will be traveling to Omaha this afternoon to be with the family during this difficult time."

“I play golf with him and I like him.”

Aaron P. Bernstein / Getty Images

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has in recent weeks declared Bill Clinton's past "fair game" when attacking Hillary Clinton. In a 2014 interview, however, Trump said there was nothing not to like about the former president.

Don Imus asked Trump in the interview what he thought of Rand Paul bringing up Bill Clinton's past as an issue in the run-up to the 2016 campaign.

Trump responded, complimenting Paul's style and using the word "schlonged," saying, "Well I watched Rand Paul two weeks ago, when he started that, and I thought it was really tough, and yet he got no, there was no pushback on it, I was a little surprised to see that I thought he would be just schlonged. There was no push back, and that was amazing. And now he's taking it to a new level, because he is actually blaming Hillary at the same time. So I don't know, you know it depends. Hey, everyone has their own style and he certainly has a good style and people like him and he's another one that I think you have to watch. But people have a certain way of doing things."

Trump then turned his attention to Clinton. "I watched Bill Clinton yesterday give a little speech and people do like Bill Clinton, there is no question about it. And I play golf with him and I like him. I mean what's not to like?"

Viciously criticizing those he once praised is not a new phenomenon for Trump. He has often said that his past support for the Clintons was part of being a good businessman and getting along with everyone.

The star of Sarah Palin’s Alaska backed Donald Trump of The Apprentice at a rally in Iowa Tuesday, and with it, brought her folksy style back to the campaign trail.

Mary Altaffer / Associated Press

Sarah Palin brought her folksy style back to the presidential campaign stage in Iowa Tuesday, endorsing Donald Trump as someone who has the business acumen and gravitas to lead from ahead, not behind.

Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, took the stage in her metallic fringe jacket to a packed crowd, her famous one-liners drawing cheers as Trump stood silently to the side.

"Looking around at all of you — you hard working Iowa families, you farm families and teachers and teamsters and cops and cooks — you rock-and-rollers and holy rollers!" Palin said. "All of you who work so hard. You full-time moms. You with the hands that rock the cradle. You all make the world go round, and now our cause is one."

She also addressed the terror threat and Trump's ability to lead on the world stage.

"Are you ready for a commander-in-chief who will let our warriors do their job and go kick ISIS' ass? Ready for someone who will secure our borders, to secure our jobs, and to secure our homes?" she asked. "Ready to make America great again, are you ready to stump for Trump? I'm here to support the next president of the United States, Donald Trump."

Palin's endorsement was first reported Tuesday by the New York Times.

It had been widely speculated that the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee would appear with Trump at a rally in Ames, Iowa, based on flight records and Trump himself teasing a "big announcement" with a "very special guest."

Palin's endorsement is a major pick-up for Trump in Iowa, where he's running neck-and-neck with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who was once championed by Palin.

Trump said of the endorsement, "I am greatly honored to receive Sarah's endorsement. She is a friend, and a high quality person whom I have great respect for. I am proud to have her support."

Palin emerged from the 2008 campaign as a star in the grassroots conservative movement. After resigning as governor in 2009, Palin went on to endorse a slew tea party candidates who would win their elections in 2010, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Before her endorsement Tuesday evening, Cruz's campaign spokesman Rick Tyler warned that Palin backing Trump would damage her image as a champion of conservative causes.

"I think it'd be a blow to Sarah Palin, because Sarah Palin has been a champion for the conservative cause, and if she was going to endorse Donald Trump, sadly, she would be endorsing someone who's held progressive views all their life on the sanctity of life, on marriage, on partial-birth abortion," Tyler said on CNN's New Day.

Cruz listed off Palin’s successful endorsements in a glowing introduction speech.

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During a speech introducing Sarah Palin at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz listed off a series of successful Republican candidates that Palin had endorsed, including himself.

"You know what, she can pick winners," Cruz said of the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee. "Sarah Palin jumped in early and supported Rand Paul, she supported Marco Rubio, she supported Tim Scott, she supported Pat Toomey, she supported Nikki Haley, and this past election cycle there were three Republicans who won new seats, Deb Fischer, Jeff Flake and myself. She supported all three of us."

Palin on Tuesday endorsed Republican presidential front-runner — and Cruz's main challenger in Iowa — Donald Trump, according to a report from the New York Times.

There had been widespread speculation that Palin would Trump at a rally in Ames, Iowa on Tuesday. Asked about her rumored endorsement, Cruz's campaign spokesman Rick Tyler warned Tuesday that Palin backing Trump would damage her image as a champion of conservative causes.

"I think it'd be a blow to Sarah Palin, because Sarah Palin has been a champion for the conservative cause, and if she was going to endorse Donald Trump, sadly, she would be endorsing someone who's held progressive views all their life on the sanctity of life, on marriage, on partial-birth abortion," Tyler said on CNN's New Day.

Bristol Palin used the "she can pick winners" quote from the speech in a blog post published Tuesday afternoon, titled "Is THIS Why People Don't like Cruz?"

Cruz went on to say in his 2013 speech, "Let me tell you something, I would not be in the U.S Senate today, if it were not for for Governor Sarah Palin. She is fearless, she is principled, she is courageous, and she is a mama grizzly. I give you Sarah Palin."

He joked "well as all of you know, I am not remotely cool enough to be Sarah Palin," at the beginning of the introduction.

This afternoon Cruz expressed his fondness of Palin on twitter.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

CENTER BARNSTEAD, N.H. — Ted Cruz dismissed Iowa governor Terry Branstad’s opposition to his campaign on Tuesday, implying that Branstad is part of the same “cronyism” establishment as Donald Trump.

“It is not a surprise that the establishment is in full panic mode,” Cruz told BuzzFeed News in an interview on his campaign bus. “We predicted from the very beginning that the Washington cartel would fire every tool in its arsenal to prevent a conservative victory in this primary.”

“The cartel exists to make deals and to pick winners and losers through cronyism and corporate welfare,” Cruz told BuzzFeed News. “And so it’s no surprise that more and more of the establishment is beginning to support Donald Trump. Because Donald has promised to make deals and to continue the cronyism and corporate welfare of Washington. That’s what the cartel does. They make deals with Democrats.”

Branstad told reporters at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit on Tuesday that Cruz "hasn’t supported renewable fuels, and I think it would be a big mistake for Iowa to support him." Cruz opposes the Renewable Fuel Standard, a government standard requiring transportation fuel to include a certain amount of ethanol, which is a touchstone of Iowa politics.

Branstad confirmed to reporters that he doesn’t want Cruz to win the Iowa caucuses. He had previously said he remain neutral. Branstad, whose son works for a pro-ethanol group, has also said that Donald Trump’s questions about Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency because of his birth in Canada are “fair game.”

Shortly after speaking to BuzzFeed News, Cruz repeated a similar version of his response to Branstad to reporters outside a campaign stop in Center Barnstead.

Iowa corn farmers are “fed up with politicians who make deals every day to grow government, expand the debt, to do things like fund Planned Parenthood, support Obamacare, give into amnesty,” Cruz told reporters.

“Donald Trump said just yesterday that the problem with me is that I wouldn’t go to Washington to make a deal and go along to get along with the Democrats,” Cruz said. “If you’re looking for someone who’s a dealmaker, who’ll capitulate even more to the Democrats who’ll give in to Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, then perhaps Donald Trump is your man.”

Over the past few days, Cruz has sharpened and intensified his criticisms of Trump both with the media and directly in front of voters. He is in the midst of a bus tour in New Hampshire, where Trump is the frontrunner.

Speaking with reporters, Cruz also addressed Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Trump, saying “I love Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is fantastic. Without her friendship and support I wouldn’t be in the Senate today. Regardless of what Sarah decides to do in 2016, I will always remain a big big fan of Sarah Palin.” Palin endorsed Cruz for Senate in 2012.

“I heard Donald Trump say, have Ted Cruz go to the court and get a declaratory judgement, maybe that’s the best way to take care of this and get it out of the way,” the Wisconsin senator said.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

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Republican Sen. Ron Johnson says it might be a good idea for Ted Cruz to go to the courts to get a judgement saying he is eligible to run for president.

Donald Trump and others have said Cruz, who was born in Canada to his mother (a U.S. citizen), might not be a natural-born citizen and therefore unable to run for president under the Constitution. When asked on the John Williams Show earlier this month if he was worried about Cruz's citizenship, Johnson said, "I'm not, no."

But, the Wisconsin senator added, Cruz might need to go to the courts to resolve the issue preemptively.

"Listen, I'm not a constitutional scholar," said Johnson. "I heard Donald Trump say, have Ted Cruz go to the court and get a declaratory judgement, maybe that's the best way to take care of this and get it out of the way."

"Have a federal judge say, 'no this is fine.' But I'm not the legal scholar to judge, it's not something I'm worrying about. I've got a serious responsibility with my chairmanship (of the Homeland Security Committee) with my position as U.S. senator, trying to solve problems. So I'm not overly concerned about that."

“We don’t need to make it just about always saying, ‘Oh, the president’s a dastardly dude,’ which he is.”

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

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Rand Paul said on Monday that Republicans should celebrate the release of American prisoners in Iran instead of merely calling President Obama a "dastardly dude."

"At the same time, we don't need to make it just about always saying, 'Oh, the president's a dastardly dude,' which he is," the Kentucky senator told Iowa radio host Simon Conway. "I think we have to admit that there is cause for celebration in getting our people home."

Paul was commenting on the release of five Americans who were detained in Iran, four of whom, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, were released in a prisoner swap. The U.S. released seven Iranians. Paul spoke about the nuclear deal with Iran, expressing skepticism as to whether Iran had been "completely honest with us," when he called the release of the Americans "a bright spot."

Those were not the only positive words the Republican presidential candidate had to offer for Obama. Earlier in the interview, he praised Obama for granting clemency to the mother of Denver Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas, Katrina Smith.

"While I don't agree with the president on much, this is something I do agree with the president on," Paul said. "He granted clemency to Demaryius Thomas' mom and I agree with it."

He had previously argued that Hillary Clinton should apologize to Smith "for putting her in jail for 15 years."

"You know, back in the '90s, the Clintons were big on putting everybody in jail for life sentences for drugs," Paul said. "But then it turns out that a whole generation of African-Americans have been put away, including Demaryius Thomas' mom."