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"Thank you so much. It’s so great to be here in Iowa. We’re here just thawing out. Todd and I and a couple of our friends here from Alaska, lending our support for the next president of our great United States of America, Donald J. Trump.

"Mr. Trump, you’re right, look back there in the press box. Heads are spinning, media heads are spinning. This is going to be so much fun.

"Are you ready to make America great again? We all have a part in this. We all have a responsibility. Looking around at all of you, you hard-working Iowa families. You farm families, and teachers, and teamsters, and cops, and cooks. You rockin’ rollers. And holy rollers! 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.

"When asked why I would jump into a primary — kind of stirring it up a little bit maybe — and choose one over some friends who are running and I’ve endorsed a couple others in their races before they decided to run for president, I was told left and right, “you are going to get so clobbered in the press. You are just going to get beat up, and chewed up, and spit out.” You know, I’m thinking, “and?” You know, like you guys haven’t tried to do that every day since that night in ‘08, when I was on stage nominated for VP, and I got to say, “yeah, I’ll go, send me, you betcha. I’ll serve.” And, like you all, I’m still standing. So those of us who’ve kind of gone through the ringer as Mr. Trump has, makes me respect you even more. That you’re here, and you’re putting your efforts, you’re putting reputations, you’re putting relationships on the line to do the right thing for this country. Because you are ready to make America great again.

"Well, I am here because like you I know that it is now or never. I’m in it to win it because we believe in America, and we love our freedom. And if you love your freedom, thank a vet. Thank a vet, and know that the United States military deserves a commander-in-chief that our country passionately, and will never apologize for this country. A new commander-in-chief who will never leave our men behind. A new commander-in-chief, one who will never lie to the families of the fallen. I’m in it, because just last week, we’re watching our sailors suffer and be humiliated on a world stage at the hands of Iranian captors in violation of international law, because a weak-kneed, capitulator-in-chief has decided America will lead from behind. And he, who would negotiate deals, kind of with the skills of a community organizer maybe organizing a neighborhood tea, well, he deciding that, “No, America would apologize as part of the deal,” as the enemy sends a message to the rest of the world that they capture and we kowtow, and we apologize, and then, we bend over and say, “Thank you, enemy.” We are ready for a change. We are ready and our troops deserve the best. A new commander-in-chief whose track record of success has proven he is the master at the art of the deal. He is one who would know to negotiate.

"Only one candidate’s record of success proves he is the master of the art of the deal. He is beholden to no one but we the people, how refreshing. He is perfectly positioned to let you make America great again. Are you ready for that, Iowa?

"No more pussy footin’ around! Our troops deserve the best, you deserve the best!

"He is from the private sector, not a politician, can I get a “Hallelujah!” Where, in the private sector, you actually have to balance budgets in order to prioritize, to keep the main thing, the main thing, and he knows the main thing: a president is to keep us safe economically and militarily. He knows the main thing, and he knows how to lead the charge. So troops, hang in there, because help’s on the way because he, better than anyone, isn’t he known for being able to command, fire! Are you ready for a commander-in-chief, 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? 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.

"Now, eight years ago, I warned that Obama’s promised fundamental transformation of America. That is was going to take more from you, and leave America weaker on the world stage. And that we would soon be unrecognizable. Well, it’s the one promise that Obama kept. But he didn’t do it alone, and this is important to remember, especially those of you, like me, a member of the GOP, this is what we have to remember, in this very contested, competitive, great primary race.

"Trump’s candidacy, it has exposed not just that tragic ramifications of that betrayal of the transformation of our country, but too, he has exposed the complicity on both sides of the aisle that has enabled it, okay? Well, Trump, what he’s been able to do, which is really ticking people off, which I’m glad about, he’s going rogue left and right, man, that’s why he’s doing so well. He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system. The way that the system really works, and please hear me on this, I want you guys to understand more and more how the system, the establishment, works, and has gotten us into the troubles that we are in in America. The permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class, and that’s why you see that the borders are kept open. For them, for their cheap labor that they want to come in. That’s why they’ve been bloating budgets. It’s for crony capitalists to be able suck off of them. It’s why we see these lousy trade deals that gut our industry for special interests elsewhere. We need someone new, who has the power, and is in the position to bust up that establishment to make things great again. It’s part of the problem.

"His candidacy, which is a movement, it’s a force, it’s a strategy. It proves, as long as the politicos, they get to keep their titles, and their perks, and their media ratings, they don’t really care who wins elections. Believe me on this. And the proof of this? Look what’s happening today. Our own GOP machine, the establishment, they who would assemble the political landscape, they’re attacking their own frontrunner. Now would the Left ever, would the DNC ever come after their frontrunner and her supporters? No because they don’t eat their own, they don’t self-destruct. But for the GOP establishment to be coming after Donald Trump’s supporters even, with accusations that are so false. They are so busted, the way that this thing works.

"We, you, a diverse, dynamic, needed support base that they would attack. And now, some of them even whispering, they’re ready to throw in for Hillary over Trump because they can’t afford to see the status quo go, otherwise, they won’t be able to be slurping off the gravy train that’s been feeding them all these years. They don’t want that to end.

"Well, and then, funny, ha ha, not funny, but now, what they’re doing is wailing, “well, Trump and his, uh, uh, uh, Trumpeters, they’re not conservative enough.” Oh my goodness gracious. What the heck would the establishment know about conservatism? Tell me, is this conservative? GOP majorities handing over a blank check to fund Obamacare and Planned Parenthood and illegal immigration that competes for your jobs, and turning safety nets into hammocks, and all these new Democrat voters that are going to be coming on over border as we keep the borders open, and bequeathing our children millions in new debt, and refusing to fight back for our solvency, and our sovereignty, even though that’s why we elected them and sent them as a majority to DC. No! If they’re not willing to do that, then how are they to tell us that we’re not conservative enough in order to be able to make these changes in America that we know need to be...Now they’re concerned about this ideological purity? Give me a break! Who are they to say that? Oh tell somebody like, Phyllis Schlafly, she is the Republican, conservative movement icon and hero and a Trump supporter. Tell her she’s not conservative. How 'bout the rest of us? Right wingin’, bitter clingin’, proud clingers of our guns, our god, and our religions, and our Constitution. Tell us that we’re not red enough? Yeah, coming from the establishment. Right.

"Well, he being the only one who’s been willing, he’s got the guts to wear the issues that need to be spoken about and debate on his sleeve, where the rest of some of these establishment candidates, they just wanted to duck and hide. They didn’t want to talk about these issue until he brought ‘em up. In fact, they’ve been wearing a, this, political correctness kind of like a suicide vest. And enough is enough. These issues that Donald Trump talks about had to be debated. And he brought them to the forefront. And that’s why we are where we are today with good discussion. A good, heated, and very competitive primary is where we are. And now though, to be lectured that, “Well, you guys are all sounding kind of angry,” is what we’re hearing from the establishment. Doggone right we’re angry! Justifiably so! Yes! You know, they stomp on our neck, and then they tell us, “Just chill, okay just relax.” Well, look, we are mad, and we’ve been had. They need to get used to it.

"This election is more than just your basic ABCs, anybody but Clinton. It’s more than that this go-around. When we’re talking about a nation without borders. When we’re talking about bankruptcies in our federal government. Debt that our children and our grandchildren, they’ll never be able to pay off. When we’re talking about no more Reaganesque power that comes from strength. Power through strength. Well, then, we’re talking about our very existence, so no, we’re not going to chill. In fact it’s time to drill, baby, drill down, and hold these folks accountable. And we need to stop the self-sabotage and elect new, and independent, a candidate who represents that and represents America first, finally. Pro-Constitution, common-sense solutions, that he brings to the table. Yes the status quo has got to go. Otherwise we’re just going to get more of the same, and with their failed agenda, it can't be salvaged. It must be savaged. And Donald Trump is the right one to do that.

"Are you ready for new? And are you ready for the leader who will let you make America great again? It’s gonna take a whole team. It’s gonna take a whole team. Fighters, all of us, in the private sector. Fighters in the House and the Senate. So, our friends, who are fighters in the House and the Senate today, they need to stay there and help out. They can help our new leader in the positions that they are in.

"Let me say something really positive about one of those individuals: Rand Paul. I’m going to tell you about that libertarian streak in him that is healthy, because he knows, you only go to war if you’re determined to win the war! And you quit footin’ the bill for these nations who are oil-rich, we’re paying for some of their squirmishes that have been going on for centuries. Where they're fightin’ each other and yellin’ “Allah Akbar” calling Jihad on each other’s heads for ever and ever. Like I’ve said before, let them duke it out and let Allah sort it out. We’ll fight for American interests, and as Donald Trump has said, other nations where we have been footin’ the bill, but we haven’t prioritized our own domestic budgets well enough to be able to afford what we’re doing overseas. Things are gonna change under President Trump.

"So it can be an unbeatable team with fighters there in the House and the Senate. Yeah, our leader is a little bit different. He’s a multi-billionaire. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But, it’s amazing, he is not elitist at all. Oh, I just hope you guys get to know him more and more as a person, and a family man. What he’s been able to accomplish, with his um, it’s kind of this quiet generosity. Yeah, maybe his largess kind of, I don’t know, some would say gets in the way of that quiet generosity, and, uh, his compassion, but if you know him as a person and you’ll get to know him more and more, you’ll have even more respect. Not just for his record of success, and the good intentions for America, but who he is as a person. He’s not an elitist. And yes, as a multi-billionaire, we still root him on, because he roots us on. And he has, he’s spent his life with the workin’ man. And he tells us Joe six packs, he said, “You know, I’ve worked very, very hard. And I’ve succeeded. Hugely I’ve succeeded,” he says. And he says, “I want you to succeed too.” And that is refreshing, because he, as he builds things, he builds big things, things that touch the sky, big infrastructure that puts other people to work. He has spent his life looking up and respecting the hard-hats and the steel-toed boots and the work ethic that you all have within you. He, being an optimist, passionate about equal-opportunity to work. The self-made success of his, you know that he doesn’t get his power, his high, off of OPM, other people’s money, like a lot of dopes in Washington do. They’re addicted to OPM, where they take other people’s money, and then their high is getting to redistribute it, right? And then they get to be really popular people when they get to give out your hard money. Well, he doesn’t do that. His power, his passion, is the fabric of America. And it’s woven by work ethic and dreams and drive and faith in the Almighty, what a combination.

"Are you ready to share in that again, Iowa? Because that’s what’s going to let you make America great again. He’s going to be able to empower you to look out for one-another again instead of relying on bankrupt government to supposedly be looking out for you. No, and I think you’re ready for that. And Iowa, I believe too that you’re ready to see that our vets are treated better than illegal immigrants are treated in this country. And you’re ready for the tax reform he talks about to open up main street again. And you’re ready to stop the race-baiting and the division based on color and zip code, to unify around the right issues. The issues important to me, or I wouldn’t be endorsing him. Pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, strict constitutionality. Those things that are unifying values and their time-tested truths involved. These are unifying values from big cities to tiny towns, from big mountain states and the Big Apple, to the big, beautiful heartland that’s in between.

"Now, finally friends, I want you to try to picture this, it’s a nice thing to picture. Exactly one year from tomorrow, former President Barack Obama. He packs up the teleprompters and the selfie-sticks, and the Greek columns, and all that hopey, changey stuff and he heads on back to Chicago, where I’m sure he can find some community there to organize again. There, he can finally look up, President Obama will be able to look up, and there, over his head, he’ll be able to see that shining, towering, Trump tower. Yes, Barack, he built that, and that says a lot. Iowa, you say a lot, being here tonight, supporting the right man who will allow you to make America great again. God bless you! God bless the United States of America and our next president of the United States, Donald J. Trump!"

Watch the speech here:

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WASHINGTON — Lawyers for an Alabama man due to be executed on Thursday have asked the Supreme Court to step in and stop his execution because of claimed similarities between the death sentencing laws in Alabama and Florida — whose death sentencing scheme was struck down by the justices this past week.

Alabama, like Florida, places the final decision of whether to impose death on the judge — not a jury.

The petition for a writ of certiorari and application for a stay of execution in Christopher Brooks's case were filed at the court after business hours on Tuesday, lawyers for Brooks told BuzzFeed News.

The filings, provided to BuzzFeed News, came hours after the Alabama Supreme Court had denied Brooks's initial request that the state court put his execution on hold while it determined the effect of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Florida case, Hurst v. Florida.

Brooks was sentenced to death in 1993 for the 1992 murder of Jo Deann Campbell. The jury in his case had recommended a death sentence on an 11-1 vote. Judge James Hard, after hearing additional evidence, sentenced Brooks to death.

Read the petition for certiorari:

Read the stay application:

“I don’t know why he’s so worried about me, maybe he thinks that I’m a real threat to him, cause I am,” Bush said.

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In an interview on Tuesday, Jeb Bush called Donald Trump a "junkyard dog" and said the businessman is not a conservative.

"He's a junkyard dog, that's for sure," the presidential candidate and former Florida governor said on NewsMax Prime. "I seem to be the target of most of his attacks. I don't know why he's so worried about me, maybe he thinks that I'm a real threat to him, cause I am. I'm the only guy that has taken him on."

While Bush has been out front in criticizing Trump, his fellow presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have also taken shots at Trump as the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary draw near.

"There's nothing in his record that suggests to me that he's a conservative," added Bush, noting Trump's donations to Democrats, his past support for gun control and abortion rights, and support of eminent domain.

"He's gone bankrupt four times and says that's a victory when in fact it's a loss for his own equity investment, but more importantly, for all the employees that lost their jobs and the vendors that lost their business. So this is a guy that is not a conservative. He's an incredible personality, don't get me wrong. He's an incredible, he fills the space, and he's captured this sense of frustration that people have about Washington."

Bush said people should support him because of his record of being a "committed conservative," while Trump was "Johnny come lately."

No, not that one.

Aaron P. Bernstein / Getty Images

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Republican frontrunner Donald Trump said Tuesday that a lot of people think that self-described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders is "worse" than a socialist and actually qualifies for "the c-word, meaning the 'communist' word."

"Some people say the tax is gonna be 90 percent in order to pay for all of his crazy ideas," Trump said in an interview with Iowa radio host Simon Conway. "Look, he's a socialist. I guess a lot of people would say he's worse than that. You know, with the 'c-word', meaning the 'communist' word. But you listen to some of the things he has, it's incredible."

Trump went on to say that he doesn't think Sanders will win the Democratic nomination, adding that, if Hillary Clinton gets indicted for her e-mail use as Secretary of State, he thinks Democrats will recruit Vice President Joe Biden to be their nominee.

In the interview, Trump was also asked how he would go about identifying government expenses to cut, with the host suggesting that he would not know about "the minutiae" of federal spending, citing such obscure examples like a study on duck penises. Trump replied that he would know about such minutiae "because they have books that come out and I see it all the time in magazines."

"I think you will know, actually, because they have books that come out and I see it all the time in magazines: 'the dumbest things that we do,'" said the former reality TV star. "For instance, there's one that we actually subsidize China—I don't know if you saw that, in some capacity, not for a huge amount but still a lot of money—that we are subsidizing a piece of China."

Trump later added, "They have books, talking about the stupidity in government. You could probably open up one of those books and knock out 90% of it. Because maybe 5%, has a reason, okay? Or 10% maybe. But you could knock out most of it just by opening up these books. But they have books on the stupidity in our government and some of the things, like what I said about China, like what you're just telling me about this case."

Tell us how you really feel.

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South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham didn't pull any punches when talking about Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in a frank radio interview on Tuesday. Graham, who last week endorsed Jeb Bush's candidacy for the Republican nomination for president, called Trump "beyond crazy" and said Cruz's tactics in the Senate hurt the Republican Party.

Graham's sharpest indictment of both candidates: Hillary Clinton would beat them handily.

Asked on Kilmeade and Friends about the possibility of a Trump nomination, Graham said, "I can just tell you this: That means Hillary Clinton is president." He added that a Trump–Clinton race would not even be close, and called Trump "beyond crazy."

"Insane — on foreign policy, he has no idea what he is talking about. His domestic agenda is a bunch of gibberish," Graham said. "He is saying things that have no chance of becoming reality. He has an 81% disapproval rating with Hispanics."

"So if you want to make Hillary Clinton president, elect Donald Trump," Graham said. "His numbers with young women are terrible; he has through the roof negatives with Hispanics. We'll get creamed, in my view."

Asked for his take on the feud between Trump and Cruz that has been brewing in recent weeks, Graham called it a distraction. He then unloaded on the Texas senator, saying Cruz wasn't mature enough to be president and labeling him the "least respected" person in the Senate.

"Number one, Ted Cruz was born in Canada. I have no doubt he is eligible to run for president of the United States. I have no doubt that he would be an ideologue in the eyes of most Americans. He has been a senator, he has been the most disruptive influence in the Senate, he hasn't passed anything meaningful. His idea to shut down the entire government to get Barack Obama to repeal Obamacare made no sense to me. It hurt the Republican Party."

Pressed by host Brian Kilmeade if Cruz was just standing on principle on Obamacare, Graham shot back, "No, I think what he did he stood up for Ted and threw the Republican Party under the bus."

Graham went further, calling his plan to shutdown the government "stupid" and solely for fundraising.

"Ted's idea of shutting the government down to get Barack Obama to sign a bill that would repeal his signature issue was stupid. He used it to raise money; it hurt the Republican Party — and here is what I hate most about what he did — he accused me and others who disagreed with the tactic of being for Obamacare. "

"Remember the Sandy Hook shooting when those kids were killed? He was going to filibuster a debate on gun control," continued Graham. "We won every vote on the floor. The worst thing the Republican Party could have done is to say after Sandy Hook we don't want a debate. No, I don't think he is ready to be president. I don't think he is mature enough. I think he is all over the board on foreign policy. He is more of a Libertarian than he is a Ronald Reagan conservative. He changes with the wind. I don't dislike Ted as a person but they will cream him — almost anybody else could win."

Graham said Cruz tries to get ahead at the expense of others.

"I don't dislike him; I think he is the least respected," said Graham. "I think what he does is get ahead at other people's expense. When he accused me of being for Obamacare because I did not agree with his tactics of repealing Obamacare, that was very offensive. I have never been for Obamacare, but I had people in South Carolina saying, 'Why are you voting for Obamacare?' I said, 'What are you talking about?' 'Well, you weren't with Cruz.'"

"You know it really pissed me off," he said. "It's OK to disagree on tactics, but to accuse your colleague of being for Obamacare, when you know they are not, because they don't agree with your tactics, is a bridge too far for me. He does not have the ability to pull this country together. When you talk about problem solver, you can't mention Ted Cruz."

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that judges during death penalty sentencing proceedings are not required to explicitly tell the jury that mitigating circumstances — arguments against imposing the death penalty — do not have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The question reached the justices in three cases, two of which came out of the grisly Wichita Massacre — a Kansas crime spree committed by brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr that left five dead.

After a finding of guilt in a capital trial, the sentencing phase requires a jury to consider both aggravating factors — findings that counsel in favor of increased punishment — and mitigating factors — findings that counsel in favor of decreased punishment.

The question before the justices here was whether, under the Eighth Amendment's bar on cruel and unusual punishments, a jury needs to be explicitly instructed that those mitigating factors need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt — the standard the jury must employ for a finding of guilt and for finding aggravating factors.

The Kansas Supreme Court had tossed out the death sentences handed down in the Carrs' cases and in the case of Sidney Gleason because of the way the jury had been instructed on mitigation in the capital trials.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the court's 8-1 decision, began his decision by recounting the facts of Gleason and the brothers' cases.

Making the outcome clear from the start, Scalia began the heart of the opinion by dismissing even the concept of the claim being made by the Carrs and Gleason.

"Approaching the question in the abstract, and without reference to our capital-sentencing case law, we doubt whether it is even possible to apply a standard of proof to the mitigating-factor determination (the so-called 'selection phase' of a capital-sentencing proceeding)," Scalia wrote. "Whether mitigation exists, however, is largely a judgment call (or perhaps a value call); what one juror might consider mitigating another might not."

He was not done, though, going into a question not before the court in this case, but nonetheless writing, "[T]he ultimate question whether mitigating circumstances outweigh aggravating circumstances is mostly a question of mercy—the quality of which, as we know, is not strained."

As to the specifics of the Kansas cases, Scalia concluded, "The instructions repeatedly told the jurors to consider any mitigating factor, meaning any aspect of the defendants' background or the circumstances of their offense. Jurors would not have misunderstood these instructions to prevent their consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence."

The decision reverses the Kansas Supreme Court's decisions tossing out the death sentences for all three men. The decision means, at least on these grounds, that the death sentences handed down for all three men should be reinstated — although other arguments could be raised when the Kansas Supreme Court reconsiders the cases in light of Wednesday's decision.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the sole dissenting justice in the case, argued that the justices should not have even heard the case.

“The standard adage teaches that hard cases make bad law,” Sotomayor wrote. “I fear that these cases suggest a corollary: Shocking cases make too much law.”

In a second question raised in the Carr brothers' cases, the court found that the brothers had no constitutional right under the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment to have the sentencing phase of their trial considered separately.

Evan Vucci / AP

WASHINGTON — Wired magazine named Campaign Zero, a group affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement, as one of the top 20 tech insiders defining the 2016 presidential elections on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for Wired said its addition of Campaign Zero onto its “Clout List” was because the magazine’s editors “think that they are as influential over this campaign as the Facebook’s, Google’s, etc."

The accolade is just the latest indicator of the Black Lives Matter movement, and Campaign Zero in particular, increasing its efforts to make inroads with major Silicon Valley companies.

On Wednesday, DeRay Mckesson, a Campaign Zero leader, was slated to speak in San Francisco at Slack’s headquarters in San Francisco. He has met with Reed Hastings of Netflix and talked via phone with the head of Flipagram. He is something of a regular at the New York offices of Medium, has strong relationships with executives at Slack and Twitter, and has a fledgling relationship with top heads at Facebook.

And activists from Campaign Zero and Twitter executives were — and reportedly still are — working behind the scenes to host a presidential forum on issues around police violence and racial and criminal justice. It is unclear how far planning for the event has progressed. A Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News there was no update on its progress.

Cultivating relationships and counsel from tech giants inside Silicon Valley — like high-profile forums with presidential candidates — has become a major tactic of Campaign Zero. Those relationships have not just increased the group’s profile, but have opened broad access to tools and resources to advance the movement’s platforms in 2016, insiders told BuzzFeed News.

Campaign Zero is not the only group within the broader Black Lives Matter movement to use technology to push its message to the masses, nor the only to attract Silicon Valley’s powerful and often wealthy allies.

In 2015, Twitter named #BlackLivesMatter “one of the top 10 most influential moments of the year” with the hashtag or phrase tweeted 9 million times in 2015, a Twitter spokesperson said.

But Campaign Zero's inclusion on the list perhaps christened it anew as the movement platform most closely aligned with Silicon Valley. “The platforms know how influential they are,” Issie Lapowsky, a staff writer for Wired who worked on the list, told BuzzFeed News. “They are definitely known quantities.”

If Campaign Zero and other Black Lives Matter groups continue to make friends in Silicon Valley, they will have some of the most powerful allies in the country.

“The tech sector has a kind of disproportionate political and economic influence that's representative of how our politics have evolved,” said Decker Ngongang, a senior fellow with Frontline Solutions, a Washington-based consulting firm.

Ngongang said the platforms allows groups fighting for racial justice to bypass legacy entities and philanthropic institutions. That ability to level the playing field represents a major opportunity for Black Lives Matter, Ngongang said: “The Ford Foundation has this $12 billion endowment, but I bet Mark Zuckerberg could pull that together with a few neighbors and friends."

Mckesson also appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday. The show has become, in its latest iteration with the former Comedy Central host, a platform for tech CEOs on late night TV, a space traditionally occupied by Hollywood entertainers. Alongside those celebrities, Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, was among Colbert’s first guests. Colbert also interviewed the CEOs of Snapchat and Tesla. They all appeared as guests within the show's first month, according to Mashable.

On the show, Mckesson — holding an iPhone in one hand and wearing an Apple watch on his other wrist — told Colbert there are ways to use his own platform to dismantle white privilege and promote the need for racial justice. He said technology had helped accelerate the pace of organizing and amplify the message.

“When you think about what is different about the civil rights movement now, it's really about technology," Mckesson said when prompted with a question about the evolution of the movement. "The issues are the same, and we didn't invent resistance, and we didn't discover injustice, but technology has allowed us to amplify these messages in ways that we couldn't before and accelerated the pace of organizing in ways that are really powerful.”

“It still boggles my mind that anybody in the Tea Party, the movement that I came out of, could really be supporting Donald Trump.”

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Rand Paul said in a radio interview on Wendesday that Sarah Palin's endorsement of Donald Trump "boggled" his mind.

The Kentucky senator and presidential candidate, who was endorsed by Palin in 2010 and once called her "the de facto leader of the Tea Party," said he couldn't understand how anyone coming out of the Tea Party movement could support Trump's candidacy.

"I think Donald Trump still got a long way to go to convince many of us that he is a conservative," Paul told Kilmeade and Friends. "He supposedly supported President Obama in 2008, he supported the single payer system, he supported higher taxes, gave money to Harry Reid, gave money to Charlie Rangel." (Ed. note: Trump backed Sen. John McCain in 2008)

"So call me a conservative, a Tea Party conservative that's not really convinced that Donald Trump is a real conservative," continued Paul. "In many ways he may be a fake conservative because he supports the abuse of eminent domain, he built his business model on the government taking away people's private property and giving it to him. It still boggles my mind that anybody in the Tea Party, the movement that I came out of, could really be supporting Donald Trump."

In her Trump endorsement speech in Iowa on Tuesday, Palin complimented Paul's libertarian streak when it came to foreign policy.

"Let me say something really positive about one of those individuals: Rand Paul," Palin said. "I'm going to tell you about that libertarian streak in him that is healthy, because he knows, you only go to war if you're determined to win the war! And you quit footin' the bill for these nations who are oil-rich, we're paying for some of their squirmishes that have been going on for centuries. Where they're fightin' each other and yellin' 'Allah Akbar' calling Jihad on each other's heads for ever and ever. Like I've said before, let them duke it out and let Allah sort it out."

Paul described the importance of Palin's endorsement back in 2010, when she backed him in his Senate race.

"Sarah Palin, we see sort of as the de facto leader of the Tea Party. She is the most popular person in the country regarding the Tea Party movement and to get her endorsement really helps to confirm what we have been arguing for months now. We are the candidate that is the conservative candidate and we are against the establishment moderate and that's the theme and has been the theme of our campaign for six months now. "

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The National Security Agency attempted a public relations makeover in 1998 via the Jerry Bruckheimer–produced spy thriller Enemy of the State, but the agency was disappointed it was portrayed as the "bad guys" in the film, internal emails between agency officials obtained by BuzzFeed News through the Freedom of Information Act show.

One employee wrote in 1998, "Unfortunately, the truth isn't always as riveting as fiction and creative license may mean that 'the NSA,' as portrayed in a given production, bears little resemblance to the place where we all work."

In the 1998 blockbuster film starring Will Smith, Congress, pressed by the NSA, attempts to pass a bill expanding the agency's surveillance powers. At the start of the film, several NSA agents kill a congressman opposing their efforts. However, they do not realize they were secretly recorded by a bird watcher. The bird watcher, chased by the NSA, passes the information along to Will Smith's character, who subsequently finds his phones tapped, clothing bugged, and house burglarized.

Though the NSA hated the movie, officials within the agency met with producers of the film prior to its release. Director Tony Scott, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and executive producer Andy Davis visited the NSA headquarters to learn more about the agency. An office-wide email sent before the film's release showed that employees were eagerly awaiting the film's release.

Still, during production, there were some complaints from rank-and-file employees, though more for perceived annoyances than the film's content.

"I was standing in the parking lot staring like an idiot, wondering why this helicopter with some strange object underneath it was hovering over me," one employee complained after a production helicopter flew above the agency to get establishing shots. "Will Touchstone be getting in touch with me so I can get paid for my appearance in this movie? Because I have no intention of allowing my image to be used for free," the employee concluded, unaware of public access laws.

The helicopter filming led to other complaints. One employee fretted that their car would now be seen in the film, while another complained that his window blinds were up during filming.

In an interview in 2001, then–NSA chief Michael Hayden invited CNN to profile the agency for a piece that would air later that year.

"I made the judgment that we couldn't survive with the popular impression of this agency being formed by the last Will Smith movie," Hayden had said at the time to CNN.

"When Gen. Michael Hayden saw the movie, he saw a problem — an image problem," CNN’s David Ensor narrated in the segment. "That is in part why the NSA decided to let CNN inside the NSA to see where code breakers gather, and code makers protect the nation's secrets," Ensor said. "Above all, Hayden knows NSA cannot afford to be seen as trampling on the privacy rights of U.S. citizens."

Read the emails below:

Mic Smith / AP

LAS VEGAS — As the Clinton campaign works to meet its $50 million fundraising goal for the first quarter of 2016, top campaign officials met with Latino donors and fundraisers on Tuesday in Brooklyn to set ambitious fundraising goals, three sources who attended told BuzzFeed News.

The meeting, which included presentations from campaign chair John Podesta and Marlon Marshall, featured about two dozen Hispanic donors, and gave them the opportunity to get an update on the status of the campaign and question senior staff about Latino outreach.

Donors were shown a map with the cities of the 87 Latinos that have donated more than $10,000, and were told that Hispanics have donated $6.1 million thus far, outpacing the Latino-led Futuro Fund at a similar point in the 2012 cycle.

According to one source present in the meeting, the map showed 13 donors from Los Angeles; four in San Francisco; 14 in Texas, 11 from the Washington, D.C., area; 12 from New York City; and nine from Puerto Rico. Two attendees described the numbers as numbers they would expect to be higher in major metropolitan areas with large Latino populations.

To that end, according to the sources, members of this Latino finance council, the first such meeting of a coalition group (a similar meeting for black fundraisers is set for Thursday), were asked to grow their ranks — each donor was asked to bring in five more Hispanics to donate $10,000 — and the campaign hopes to have 300 such donors by the end of the primary.

While the conversation with Podesta and senior leadership like Amanda Renteria was described as friendly, it was also direct, with donors peppering them with questions to make sure the Hispanic vote isn't being taken for granted and asking if the money they raise will be used for Latino initiatives in key states.

"Latino donors want to know that Latino dollars are going to initiatives that Latinos care about," a source who attended the meeting said.

Podesta was said to be responsive to the concern, which at least 10 people in the room echoed, according to a separate source, and said the campaign will respond with messaging that can be shared with prospective Hispanic donors to specify how their fundraising would further Latino initiatives.

Latino outreach director Lorella Praeli told donors that one of the areas their money is going is to efforts in the early caucus state of Nevada.

The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment by publication.

The campaign, which raised $55 million in the fourth quarter and $112 million in primary money during 2015, is looking to continue a strong fundraising pace, which means Clinton's time will be short and Latino surrogates will be needed to anchor more events.

While the donors sat in the four-and-a-half hour meeting, a CNN/WMUR poll was released showing Sanders up 27 points in New Hampshire.

On a call with supporters Monday, the campaign shared internal polls that showed it up by 5 points in Iowa, trailing Sen. Bernie Sanders by 8 to 9 points in New Hampshire, but with large leads in the next two states with large Hispanic and black populations: up 25 points in Nevada and 35 points in South Carolina.

At the finance meeting, Podesta said the campaign is going to win Iowa, attendees said.

And they said it was a welcome opportunity to raise more specific questions on Latino outreach with senior leadership, where the focus was entirely on the primary, and the general election was barely mentioned.

The campaign was asked if it had, for example, began planning Florida outreach to the growing Puerto Rican population, separate from the engagement it might have with Cuban voters. Donors also said they want to see more Spanish-language ads from the campaign, like radio ads in Nevada.

Campaign officials said the campaign is focused on the four early states at the moment, but the donors mentioned Colorado and Texas, which have their primaries on March 1, as well as Florida and Illinois on March 15. With Sanders looking more competitive, supporters want to make sure Clinton isn't leaving Latino votes on the table.

Per a Pew Hispanic projection for BuzzFeed News, 11.2% of eligible voters in the 12 Super Tuesday states will be Latino.

At the meeting, an Obama veteran made a presentation showing how hard it is to raise money until the convention, something that was reflected by the discussion over what goal to set for Latino donors raising $10,000 or more by the end of the primary. At first someone yelled 500, with some murmurs of agreement, while others said it was too high a number. Then 250 was thrown out, with them eventually settling on a goal of 300 Latino donors at that level.

At the end of the long meeting, the campaign brought in their Hispanic staffers, pointing to Renteria as the highest-ranking Latina, and said their campaign is the most diverse in presidential history.

Thomas Samson / AFP / Getty Images

People have mentioned George Wallace or Sarah Palin, but Donald Trump — a celebrity populist frontrunner for a major party’s nomination without any kind of true political experience — is without modern precedent.

Except for one. Arnold Schwarzenegger — a celebrity who parlayed his name and his instincts into political success on a large stage, who talked trash at his "loser" and "girly men" opponents, and who blew away insiders' confident mockery.

Schwarzenegger even inherits Trump's throne on NBC's The Apprentice this year. (The speculation is that his tagline will be, “You’re terminated.”)

But in a series of recent interviews and in the former governor's first public statement on the subject, Schwarzenegger and his former top aides distanced themselves from the Republican frontrunner. Though all acknowledged the power of his outsider celebrity, they said they worried that he was using that power for in service of what one, Rob Stutzman, described as a "darkness," in contrast with Schwarzenegger's inclusive politics.

Schwarzenegger himself declined to talk directly about Trump, but in a statement he praised the power of outsider candidates — but suggested a more inclusive path than the Republican has taken.

"Some fantastic public servants are running this year, but I also know that coming from outside the system can be a great asset, because you can take on challenges that many insiders don't — whether because they're part of the problem or because they know how hard it is and you're the only one naive enough to go for it," he said in the statement, emailed through a spokesman. "The key for outsiders is to surround themselves with a wildly diverse team to have great debates, study, study, study, and create a vision that serves all of the people, not just the parties or the special interests."

A former press secretary, Aaron McLear, was blunter: Schwarzenegger "is an eternal optimist who uses politics to bring people together to solve problems instead of divisive rhetoric and proposals that push us further apart."

Schwarzenegger and Trump are old acquaintances, and Stutzman recalled the Californian teasing the New Yorker about his hair at a 2004 fundraiser. This cycle, however, Schwarzenegger has not returned the favor: He has donated the maximum legal contribution to John Kasich, Trump's most full-throated critic in the Republican field.

Still, the two men share a political path. The story of Trump's rise is — to a degree not always understood — a story about American celebrity. Trump isn't a particularly successful businessman or a figure in the pages of the Harvard Business Review. But he plays one on television, which is far more important. The real estate business demands an element of showmanship, and that is Trump's element — honed in the New York tabloid press and then on a primetime reality series that made him the best known business figure in America.

Schwarzenegger was a celebrity on a different level. He had come from nothing to invent one industry — bodybuilding — and then risen to the top of another, the movies. He was one of the best known people in the world. And his entry into the governor's race was, given his Terminator image, if anything even more absurd than Trump's.

For both Trump and Schwarzenegger, fame was a way in — but the instincts that made them famous, and that were honed by years in the spotlight, have been central.

"They've applied the lessons they learned from their previous careers to attracting attention on their campaigns," said former Schwarzenegger communications director Dan Schnur, who — like every Schwarzenegger aide I spoke to — stressed that the comparison ended there.

Trump has broken the rules of contemporary politics, making bigoted remarks and stirring conspiratorial suspicion about Muslims in ways that had previously confined to the fringes and to inaudible "dog whistles." Schwarzenegger never crossed those particular lines, but he certainly played by his own, different rules, sometimes flatly refusing to engage in typical legislative compromise, others theatrically inviting legislators to smoke cigars with him in his “smoking tent.”

"Arnold is the most phenomenal promoter of self that has ever existed in modern America," said Stutzman, who served as Schwarzenegger’s deputy chief of staff. Stutzman recalled Schwarzenegger's control, and feel, for his own persona. "We'd have these conversations about how to appropriate himself, and he had a great personal sense of nuance and when too much was too much, and when to crate a little bit of scarcity for a bigger moment."

But Schwarzenegger typically stepped back after crossing the line, said Susan Kennedy, Schwarzenegger's former chief of staff (who spoke to BuzzFeed while smoking a cigar, a habit she said she picked up from her former boss).

"While Arnold could say some pretty outrageous things when attacking ‘the system,’ he always pulled himself back when he went over the edge [and] he spent much more energy inspiring people to believe that things really can get done, so he had the right balance," she said.

"Donald Trump does not pull himself back when he goes over the edge — he doubles down, no matter how negative."

Trump has also been wildly improvisational, and at times flatly dishonest, about policy, and dismissive of traditional policy expertise — a sharp difference from Schwarzenegger, who made a public show credentialing himself by studying policy and had been engaged in traditional policy issues before he ran.

Schwarzenegger had built an educational nonprofit and led the drive for a statewide initiative to fund after school programs, a former adviser, Adam Mendelsohn, pointed out.

“By the time Arnold was running for governor, he had accomplished more in public service than most politicians,” he said.

Still, even the governator’s admirers say that the self-confidence and refusal to play by the rules of the game that came with celebrity — and that have been both his and Trump’s political advantages — have their limits. And not everyone who cheered Schwarzenegger’s rise relish the idea of his finger on the nuclear button.

“The responsibilities that come with being governor of California are very different with those of the president of United States, most notably as the commander in chief of the military and total control of our foreign relations,” one of the former aides said.

“I mean, that’s a horrible thing he did.”

Aaron P. Bernstein / Getty Images

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Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Ted Cruz's failure in 2012 to disclose loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank was "a tremendous sin."

"He's trying to be like he's Robin Hood and the banks, he's gonna get the banks. But in the meantime he's borrowed from the banks, he's personally guaranteed, and he didn't put them on his personal financial disclosure form, which is a tremendous sin," Trump said, inaccurately describing the forms the loans were omitted from. "I mean, that's a horrible thing he did. And he didn't disclose all of this information."

According to the The New York Times, which first reported the omission of the loans last week, Cruz did report the loans in personal financial disclosures filed with the Senate, but did not report them as a source of income for his Senate campaign. Cruz has called the failure to disclose the loans a "technical and inadvertent filing error."

In the interview on The Howie Carr Show, Trump reiterated his case that Cruz, who was born in Canada, should seek to clarify that he is eligible for the presidency, saying "He's got to go to court to take out the doubt, Howie."

And at various points in the conversation the real estate magnate set his sights on Jeb Bush, panning him for his campaign expenditures, calling him a "child," and saying "he's ashamed to use the last name Bush."

"He should give it to the Wounded Warriors and stop wasting his money," Trump said. "And much of it was spent on negative ads on me and then he wonders why I treat him badly. But he's a child. He's a child. And this is the problem. We can't have people like this running our country. China would walk all over Jeb Bush. ISIS would walk all over Jeb Bush."

Trump added later, "He's like a child, he's like a child. And he ought to try using his last name. He's not even proud of his last name. He says Jeb. And he oughta use his last name."

Trump also appeared to defend South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who criticized the former reality TV star in her rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union address, calling on Americans to "resist the siren call of the angriest voices," a comment that led Trump supporters and Trump himself to hit back at her, saying she is "weak" on immigration.

But on Wednesday, Trump, who called himself an "angry person" who is "very happy in my life, but I'm very angry about the way our country is being run," said Haley said she understood his anger.

"She understood it and she actually, you know, came out and said, I fully understand it," Trump said. "I've been a supporter of hers and she understood that I'm angry, but it's not just me. I just filled up an arena in Oklahoma."

Via drudgereport.com

With Ted Cruz clinging to a narrow lead in the fast-approaching Iowa caucuses, an increasingly vocal chorus of evangelical leaders and campaign rivals is questioning the authenticity of the candidate’s vaunted Christian faith by pointing to his reportedly meager record of charitable giving.

In a series of interviews this week, political opponents and pastors alike suggested Cruz — an avowed Baptist who is aggressively courting evangelical voters — has flouted the Biblical commandment of tithing in his personal life.

It's a line of attack that may seem esoteric to nonbelievers, but at least some of Cruz's critics are betting that it could stick in Iowa: a newly formed political group, Americans United for Values, will launch a radio ad Friday that directly goes after the candidate for his tithes, and brands him a "phony."

According to personal tax returns released during his 2012 Senate bid, Cruz contributed less than 1% of his income to charity between 2006 and 2010 — a far cry from the 10% most evangelical leaders believe the Bible demands.

With a crowded field of Republican candidates competing for Iowa's evangelical vote, a public debate over tithing in the heated final days of the race could easily devolve into an unsavory contest of spiritual one-upsmanship. But two of Cruz's rivals Wednesday told BuzzFeed News the issue was one Christian voters should seriously consider.

"I just think it’s hard to say God is first in your life if he’s last in your budget," Mike Huckabee said in an interview when asked about Cruz's tithing. "If I can't trust God with a dime out of each dollar that I earn, then I'm not sure how I can tell him that I trust him with my whole life... To me, it's a validation of a person's stewardship and whether they put God first in their life, not just in their political endeavors."

Huckabee, a former Baptist minister who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, added that he and his wife have tithed at least 10% every year since they were broke, young newlyweds. Asked if there was any public record of his charitable giving, he offered to forward an email from his accountant. (He did: the email stated that Huckabee had donated 11.05% of his taxable income in 2014, and 11.82% in 2013.)

"It's a matter of authenticity," said Huckabee, who was careful not to call out Cruz by name. "If I say I'm a vegan but you look at me eating hamburgers and ribeye every night you're going to say, 'I don't think this guy's really a vegan.'"

Ben Carson, another candidate who has invested heavily in appealing to religious voters, declined to comment directly on Cruz's tithing but highlighted his own giving — without providing specifics — in a statement to BuzzFeed News.

"Since tithing is a personal commitment between oneself and God, I wouldn't begin to speculate on someone else's faith or devotion," Carson said. "I know that tithing and charity are deeply important to me, and I have always been committed to giving back to the Lord and to the community. Every voter will have to decide for themselves what they are looking for in a leader. But I hope that they will see in me a man who has always led by example, and always stayed true to his commitment to God."

A spokesman for Cruz did not respond to multiple requests for comment Wednesday.

There is reason to doubt the political potency of the tithing issue. Within evangelical Christianity, there are various interpretations of what the Bible actually teaches when it comes to tithes and offerings. Does it include only donations to churches, or do contributions to all charities count? Should it be paid on pre-tax income or will net suffice? But by virtually any measure, research suggests that very few evangelicals contribute a full one-tenth of their income — a reality that might complicate any effort to stoke outrage over Cruz's supposed shortcomings on this front.

"I've never heard the tithing question broached in the context of the election. I wish it were a bigger issue," said Frank Page, the former head of the Southern Baptist Convention. "I think what [a candidate] does in regards to their possessions indicates their caring for people and sensitivity to the commands and dictates of the Lord. But unfortunately, those who do tithe are in the distinct minority, and because of that most people don't bring it up."

What's more, Cruz is hardly the first presidential candidate to have skimped on charitable donations before entering the national political stage. Professor Barack Obama reportedly donated just around 1% of his annual income when he was at the University of Chicago in the early 2000s. During Jeb Bush's semi-retirement in 2012 and 2013 he gave less than 2% of his earnings to charity. And among the members of America's billionaires club, Donald Trump has long had a reputation for relative stinginess (though his opaque personal finances and penchant for hyperbole make it hard to tell for sure.)

But for Cruz, who has already faced suspicions from some quarters of the religious right over private comments he made to donors about same-sex marriage, the questions about his tithing history could pack a special punch.

As I report in my book, The Wilderness, some who worked closely with Cruz earlier in his career have been puzzled by his recent transformation into a culture warrior. "He was never particularly religious as far as I knew," said one aide who worked for him in the Texas solicitor general's office. "I'm not even sure he went to church."

So far in the 2016 primary race, speculation about the genuineness of Cruz's devotion has been confined to church-pew chatter and political-class snark. But some wonder how well the candidate's base — which is made up largely of evangelical support — will fare when he's faced with a barrage of attack ads questioning his beliefs, and an emboldened cast of opponents eager to show off their Christian bonafides.

One GOP consultant involved with the new anti-Cruz radio ads airing in Iowa promised there would be more to follow, possibly including on TV.

"There are multiple groups deeply bothered by Cruz and his senior team of operatives' phony exploitation of faith for political gain," the consultant said. "This is the first but not the last time this issue will be brought to the attention of Iowa caucus-goers before February 1st."

"This is the kind of thing that moves the needle for a committed Christian," said a politically active Southern Baptist church leader in South Carolina, who requested anonymity because he is neutral in the primary race.

Dr. Wendell Estep, another South Carolina-based pastor who is not affiliated with any of the candidates, tried to avoid criticizing Cruz directly while arguing that tithing was an indication of a Christian's "spiritual maturity."

"I’m interested in a candidate’s commitment to the Lord," said Estep, who has met with many of the Republican contenders, including Cruz.

Asked what he thought of Cruz's reported tithing, he hesitated. Finally, he offered, "He is not a member of my church... That's something for him to take up with his pastor."

Incidentally, the website for Houston's First Baptist Church, which Cruz and his family attend, includes a "generosity calculator" that places different levels of tithing into categories that range from "extravagant" (12% - 15%) down to "intentional" (3% - 8%).

Even if Cruz failed to meet his church's lowest standard for tithing, it didn't lose him the endorsement of his pastor Gregg Matte. In a statement touted by the campaign last month, Matte said he was supporting the candidate "because of what I have seen of Ted Cruz, as a father, a husband, and a Christian, both in and out of the political arena."

Similarly, Cruz's father Rafael, a pulpit-pounding minister, has preached fervently to evangelical crowds about the blessings God will rain down on those who tithe mightily. And though his son may not have fully heeded this call, Rafael has never wavered in his zealous support for the candidate.

For other pastors, however, Cruz's commitment to tithing — or lack thereof — is serious enough to be a deal-breaker.

Brad Sherman, a pastor at Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville, Iowa, sat down with Cruz and his wife last July. He described the meeting as "cordial" but he ended up endorsing Huckabee instead. He said he didn't know at the time about Cruz's record of tithing, but once he found out he felt his decision had been validated.

"Character matters," Sherman said. "And tithing is one of the big issues that points to a person's character. The Bible has a lot to say about how we handle money. You know, you can't serve God and mammon... I wouldn't judge a candidate's salvation based on that, but I would certainly judge their priorities."

Since Cruz's surge to first place in Iowa, Sherman has spoken with a number of the candidate's Christian supporters, and he said they are often shocked to find out about his tithing history.

"I think it's an issue a lot of evangelicals who are supporting him are unaware of," Sherman said.

Here's the new radio ad in Iowa attacking Cruz's tithing history:

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Sean Rayford / Getty Images

PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire — The central case of Bernie Sanders’s campaign isn’t the promise to create a single-payer health care system, or to break up the big banks.

The Big Promise is that Sanders will engineer an unstoppable progressive train that carries the country leftward. Sanders promises a no-compromise liberalism powered by millions of activists he can call on at a moment’s notice to force Congress and the rest of the political establishment in the proper direction.

His critics call it naive; the crowds at his massive events call it genius. As a rallying cry, it’s been smart politics. But can it actually solve big problems? Sanders’s newest surrogate, leading environmental activist Bill McKibben, told BuzzFeed News Thursday that radical, movement politics are the only way to beat back the political power of climate change skeptics. In a long interview about the Democratic Party, movement politics, President Obama, and Hillary Clinton, McKibben tried to make the practical case for Sanders’s revolutionary politics.

Compromise won’t work on climate, McKibben said.

“When you're dealing with climate change, your adversary, more than anything, your adversary is physics. And physics is entirely uninterested in spin, positioning, and it's a terrible negotiator — 'Ah well, you know, OK, the economy's in a rough patch, we'll meet you halfway.' — Physics doesn't care.” he said. “Bernie has a good understanding that we're going to have to do big things, not the little easy things because this is not one of those issues. It's different from most of the political problems that we're used to dealing with, where everybody meets halfway and you come back five years later and everyone starts again and whatever."

“That doesn't work here, and it especially doesn't work here because we've wasted 25 years,” he said. “We're now have to work hard, and decisively and adamantly.”

McKibben doesn’t serve as surrogate for candidates very often. Sanders is a friend and fellow Vermonter, and (McKibben said) one of the few in Washington who really get it when it comes to climate change. On Thursday, McKibben was scheduled to criss-cross the state on Sanders’s behalf, appearing with him at a couple of events and stumping on his own at a couple more. His goal: convince people that Sanders’s revolution is for real.

“My job is to vouch for bernie,” he said. “I can straight up tell people he means what he says.”

Though he looked entirely the part of a Middlebury College professor on the campaign trail — dark corduroy pants, a fleece vest over checked shirt, the whole ensemble emblazoned with a large, light blue Bernie sticker — McKibben is no stranger to radical political action. As a leader of 350.org, he helped push the Obama administration to scuttle approval for the Keystone XL pipeline project through a program of modern digital grassroots politics and old-school civil disobedience. McKibben chained himself to the White House fence and was arrested trying to make Keystone a big deal in Washington.

The brash Keystone opposition movement had its detractors. Some in the environmental movement felt that prioritizing the defeat of a popular pipeline project relegated the idea of actual bipartisan compromise on climate change even further into the realm of political fantasy. The green lobby is a well-established part of Washington politics and there are plenty of activists there who still believe in winning Republican support for climate change legislation. Keystone pitted those activists against those from the McKibben school, who believe the climate change cause is too critical to human survival to waste time trying to find middle ground.

The anti-Keystone effort was a success. Hillary Clinton came out against the pipeline project last September and not long after the administration went on record in opposition to it. The fight has now entered the opaque world of the international trade court system, but 350’s goal of making Keystone opposition fundamental to being a political ally of environmentalists was a success.

Sanders has been associated with the McKibben school of environmentalism since the early days. He publicly opposed Keystone from the beginning and has warmly embraced the state-level anti-pipeline protests that have emerged since the Keystone fight was won. He’s already positioned himself for the next big climate change fight, the push for legislation mandating the fossil fuels still in the ground stay there.

In recent days, the Sanders campaign has tried to draw a stark contrast with Clinton over climate. Sanders aides have said Clinton doesn’t have a detailed climate plan and last month a 350 activist confronted her with the suggestion that she’s too cozy with the fossil-fuel industry. Clinton has said repeatedly that fighting climate change is a top priority.

For the most part, McKibben shied away from attacking Clinton over climate. (“I guess I’m not a very good surrogate,” he said, when pressed to talk about Clinton’s climate policy.) But in the past he’s been happy to take her on, writing an open letter to Clinton last summer detailing “Five reasons environmentalists distrust you.”

McKibben said he’s been happier with the way Clinton has talked about climate since then.

“I think she said some of the right things,” he said. “She came out against Keystone after that and she also joined Bernie in calling for an investigation of Exxon, I think. Which is the correct thing to be doing.”

But if Clinton’s rhetoric on climate is good, Sanders’s consistency on the topic is better, McKibben said.

“I was really pleased when Hillary, in September, came out against the Keystone pipeline. I tweeted about it and said good for you,” he said dryly. “I was happier when Bernie came out against it in September of 2011, but, you know...”

Clinton has her own green bona fides to run on this cycle. Clinton won the endorsement from the League of Conservation Voters in November after leaders of the group said Clinton “has proved she’s an effective leader who can stand up to the big polluters.” (Sanders supporters flooded the group’s Facebook page noting he had a higher LCV score than Clinton, a fact the group said was due to a missed vote.)

McKibben chalked up the LCV endorsement to “old habits,” from a quieter, more ways-of-Washington-mindful environmental lobby “still lingering on.”

The Sanders vision of politics — grassroots, angry, active — is more appealing to the new brand of “environmental justice” activists guiding environmentalism to a new, more adversarial stance that crops up around just about every fossil fuel project in the country these days, McKibben said.

“The head of the Natural Gas Association last year complained about the ‘Keystonization’ of every project in the country,” McKibben said. “That made me feel very good.”

“Sanders is a movement politician,” McKibben went on. “His theory of history is that movements change things. I think he’s right.”

Whether or not voters buy Sanders’s promised ability to lead a grassroots movement from the Oval Office that can topple the pillars of the establishment could be the key to whether or not his enthusiastic boosters turn into reliable voters for him. Whether Democrats really believe that kind of active revolutionary politics is possible or not is a key to a Sanders victory.

McKibben is already convinced that kind of politics works. It’s the way forward for the environmental movement, he said — no matter who the president is.

“The cruelest trick would be to elect Bernie and then walk away. Leave him to deal with all this stuff on his own,” McKibben said. “That would be terrible. And I don't think he wants it and I think he'd be mad if people did that and rightly so.”

“I like Barack Obama and went and knocked on doors for him, but also ended up chained to his fence at the White House,” he added. “It's completely possible I'll end up chained to Bernie Sanders's fence too.”

Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty Images

INDIANOLA, Iowa — The Democratic caucuses here on Feb. 1, according to Hillary Clinton, come down to a simple, single choice: the difference between between “reality” and “theory.”

At the first of three stops across Iowa on Thursday, with 600 people packed into an atrium at Simpson College, Clinton flatly promised that Sen. Bernie Sanders’s single-payer health care plan would never pass Congress. “I’ll tell ya,” she said, “I’m not interested in ideas that sound good on paper that will never make it to the real world. And that gets us to the choice that you have to make in this caucus.”

Clinton began her remarks here by stressing that, compared to the candidates on the Republican side, she and Sanders disagree on relatively little. “But we have different records and different ideas about how to drive progress,” she said.

In recent weeks, Clinton has honed in on her rival’s health care plan, telling voters in Iowa and New Hampshire that his would dismantle the Affordable Health Care and start from scratch. But with two weeks before the caucuses, she took her comments further, framing Sanders’s plan as an empty promise — and his record in Congress as the proof.

“Sen. Sanders has been in Congress for 25 years. He’s introduced his health care plan nine times. But he never got even a single vote in the House, or a single Senate co-sponsor. Not one,” Clinton said.

“Now he has a new plan. You hear a promise to build a whole new system. But that’s not what you’ll get. You’ll get gridlock, an endless wait for advances that will never come.”

Clinton’s health plan is aimed at lowering prescription drug costs and targeted fixes to the existing Affordable Care Act. “I know Sen. Sanders cares about covering more people as I do. But rather than build on the progress we’ve made, he wants to start over from scratch with a whole new system."

“Now, in theory, there’s a lot to like about some of his ideas. But ‘in theory’ isn’t enough. A president has to deliver in reality,” Clinton said to applause and cheering in the room.

At these last stops across Iowa before the caucuses, flanked by her campaign’s signature “Fighting For Us” signs, Clinton has taken to naming the men and women she’s met in her nine months on the campaign trail, people who’ve shared their problems and need urgent, pragmatic solutions, she says. “The people I’ve met can’t wait.”

“The grandmother who has to chose between paying for medicine and paying the rent can’t wait. The single mom who desperately needs a raise can’t wait. The student with a mountain of debt can’t wait. You can’t wait, and neither can out country.”

Her message to voters here could be summed up in Clinton’s last lines to Indianola, before stepping down from the stage for pictures and handshakes. “I’m listening to you. I’m fighting for you. And with your help as president, I will deliver for you.”

“I think at the last minute people bring up things that they think will divert voters’ attentions, but Ted and I are a partnership.”

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Heidi Cruz, the wife of presidential candidate Ted Cruz, offered an explanation in a radio interview on Thursday for the decision to take out two loans during Cruz's 2012 Senate race, saying they took out loans on their assets because it was a good time to keep their money invested.

As first reported by the The New York Times, Ted Cruz failed to disclose a loan against his assets from Goldman Sachs and a separate loan from Citibank that were used to help fund his 2012 Senate campaign.

Heidi Cruz was asked about the loans in an interview on Iowa radio 1400AM KVFD.

Noting her current employment and leave of absence at Goldman Sachs, Cruz said, "When you are an employee of Goldman Sachs, you are required to keep your assets there. We had assets there in Ted's Senate race. We put our life and our financial situation on hold for Ted to be able to run to represent Texans in the U.S. Senate and I believe that Texans are grateful that we did that."

"We took out a loan against our assets at Goldman and we took out a loan at Citibank. We did that because the market was going up that year," she continued. "It was a good time to keep your money invested and to take a loan out on them, and we were able to prominently pay that back because of the money we had in the bank. We borrowed that money at market rates, so I don't see why it's a question. I think at the last minute people bring up things that they think will divert voters' attentions, but Ted and I are a partnership. I've been proud to have a wonderful career and so I'm supportive of Ted because he is going the right thing."

According to the Times, the Texas senator reported the loans on his personal financial disclosures filed with the Senate but did not report them as a source of income for his Senate campaign. Cruz has called the failure to disclose the loans a "technical and inadvertent filing error."

Dominick Reuter / Reuters

AIKEN, S.C. — With a month to go before the GOP presidential primary here, a group of activists in the basement of a local pizzeria called voters Tuesday evening to remind them of "corrupt politicians" and "special interests" hijacking their government.

Although the frustrated, anti-establishment tone is similar to rhetoric coming from some of the presidential campaigns, these volunteers weren’t working on behalf of any White House hopeful looking for a victory in this early state.

Dressed in bright green T-shirts, with their iPads and flip-phones in hand, these activists are part of the largest grassroots operation on the right: the Koch-backed conservative group Americans for Prosperity.

Known over the years for its army of volunteers and its barrage of issue ads hitting Democrats, AFP has more recently been laying the groundwork in ruby red states take on what many might consider one of its own: the Republican Party.

The group is spending significant resources — even in a crucial presidential election year — in states like South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Indiana to push GOP-controlled legislatures and governors toward its conservative principles. AFP’s investment in these states comes as national Republicans grow wary of the increasing influence of the constellation of groups affiliated with billionaires Charles and David Koch.

"Republicans in some states, where they have super majorities and governors, sometimes pursue big government policies," Tim Phillips, president of AFP, told BuzzFeed News. "Our goal is to genuinely hold both parties accountable."

The group, which now has 35 state chapters, has spent tens of millions in recent years — as Republicans have picked up majorities and super-majorities in state legislatures under the Obama administration — on building an infrastructure in red states to advocate against a range of issues including the expansion of Medicaid and different forms of tax hikes.

Phillips declined to discuss the details of the group’s investment, but said: "The actual breakdown is difficult, but it is significant. It takes a sustained effort over a long period of time. We're never in a state for just window dressing."

Overall, the political network affiliated with the Kochs plans to spend $889 million on conservative causes and candidates in the run-up to the 2016 election.

In South Carolina, AFP has zeroed in on the GOP-controlled legislature and Gov. Nikki Haley’s push for a 10-cent increase in the gas tax to pay for transportation projects. Haley, a rising star in the Republican Party and potential vice presidential candidate, has said she will veto a hike if it doesn’t include reforming the Department of Transportation and income tax.

“I will not sign any piece of legislation that does not include real reform to the Department of Transportation – the days of horse-trading South Carolina roads have to end,” she reiterated at her annual State of the State on Wednesday. “And I will not buy into the idea that we somehow cannot afford to cut income taxes for our people.”

Some conservative leaders and groups — including the state chapter of Club for Growth, former Sen. Jim DeMint and Grover Norquist’s group Americans for Tax Reform — have endorsed Haley’s plan. But that hasn’t been enough for AFP, which wants her to veto any measure with a gas tax increase.

Other than weekly phone banks all over the state against the gas tax, the group is using Facebook ads and routine robocalls to update voters on any incremental move in the legislature on the issue. In its effort to portray a vote in favor of the hike as political suicide for these Republican lawmakers, AFP also hasn't ruled out airing TV ads.

There are already several contenders looking to primary their legislators, and the debate over the gas tax has only encouraged them, activists say.

"The country club Republican atmosphere is very pervasive here, and in that atmosphere, politicians were unchallenged,” Dave Schwartz, executive director of AFP's South Carolina chapter, told BuzzFeed News. “There was no way to hold them accountable. But we have to get out of thinking, 'Oh but they’re Republicans.’ I don’t care what letter is behind your name — whether it’s D or R — I’m going to hold you accountable.”

"I’ve talked to folks who are contemplating primary challenges saying thank you for educating us on the gas tax,” he said. "I expect a lot of primary challenges this year, regardless of whether this gas tax goes through."

At first, Republicans in the state were shocked and enraged by the group spending resources against them rather than Democrats, Schwartz said. "The line we got a lot from them last year was ‘There’s much bigger fish to fry.’”

“They might be beyond that now,” he added with a big smile.

An AFP volunteer discusses the gas tax increase with a Lexington resident at an early morning event at a gas station.

Tarini Parti/BuzzFeed News

To draw voters’ attention to the gas tax proposal, AFP paid for the state and federal gas tax along with the proposed hike, which works out to be 45 cents per gallon, at an Exxon Mobile just outside the state capital in Lexington for the first 2,000 gallons of gas on a cold Wednesday morning. While drivers pumped the discounted gas ($1.10 per gallon), the group’s volunteers explained the issue to drivers and passed out handouts asking them to call Haley to “tell her to VETO ANY GAS TAX HIKES!!”

“Transportation in SC is a MESS,” the handout read. "We are wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on a broken, corrupt system that works for the lobbyists and politicians, but not for us.”

One of AFP's volunteers, Lee Canaday, who took time off work Wednesday morning to talk to drivers about the gas tax hike, said those who stopped by were outraged when they heard about it. The issue, he says, exemplifies the concerns conservatives have about the Republican Party in South Carolina.

"They’re not really Republicans. Here in South Carolina, we don’t have Republicans or Democrats because they’re both big spenders," said Canday, a Lexington resident who works in irrigation. "It’s all a dog and pony show and the only way you can change it is by causing them pain when they start to look bad before the election."

Despite AFP’s battle with the Republican Party in red states on issues, the group’s investment does have some advantages for the party.

For example, if drivers gave their email addresses and other contact information to volunteers at the gas station in Lexington, the group was able to fire off a drafted email against the gas tax to their respective state legislators on their iPads in seconds. But they also added the voter’s information to their records.

Like other Koch-backed groups, AFP uses a platform called i360 for voter data. State-level campaigns, such as the gas tax hike in South Carolina, have helped build out the i360 platform that can later be used by various different groups and candidates on the national level.

Last year, the Republican National Committee’s data firm and i360 signed a file sharing agreement, meaning the eventual GOP presidential nominee could use the data AFP is collecting to turn out the vote in red and battleground states.

Besides the voter data, AFP has also at times provided air cover to Republicans in red states if they support issues in line with the group. So whether the group’s investments in red states can complement or hurt the GOP is really up to the lawmakers, activists repeatedly pointed out.

"It's not always about stopping Republicans from doing bad things. It's also thanking them,” Philips said. “We want them to know that if you do the right thing, there's going to be an organization out there that's going to have your back in a substantial way."

Gary Cameron / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Amid calls for his resignation over his handling of the police shooting of a black teenager, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will announce data at the end of January showing “heavy recruitment” of minority residents testing to be police officers, Emanuel told BuzzFeed News in an interview.

An aide to the mayor said the numbers are “through the roof” compared to other years the city has administered police exams. The city used targeted social media to recruit minority residents, the aide said.

Speaking to BuzzFeed News in the lobby of the Capital Hilton, where the U.S. Conference of Mayors convened this week, Emanuel declined to elaborate on his broader plan to rehabilitate the Chicago Police Department, but he seemed hopeful that the latest round of testing would put more minority officers on the street.

Emanuel's administration has been rocked by protests and calls for the mayor's resignation following the November release of video of the police shooting of Laquan McDonald. Chicago originally tried to block the release of the video, which contradicted the police narrative of the shooting, until the city was ordered by a court to disclose the footage.

“One of the things I strive towards is not just trust and cooperation,” President Obama’s former chief of staff told BuzzFeed News. “You can either have policing that patrols a neighborhood or policing that's part of a neighborhood. And you will be better at getting towards safety and security throughout some of the most difficult neighborhoods from a crime perspective if the police are seen and perceived as part of the community.”

Emanuel said he wants more of his police officers to participate in things like basketball tournaments and other activities to make them more visible in troubled communities. “There's a lot of things that [officers] can constantly do to create a police department that looks like the city," he said.

In addition to trying to recruit more minority officers, Emanuel said he’s also initiated a more open dialogue with the community by attending meeting with police commanders, chambers of commerce, and religious and other leaders. Emanuel described one such meeting where the citizens said they want more visible roll calls.

“I said, ‘Who here has stopped at the police station and just said thank you? You appropriately want to see roll calls out in the community for increased visibility, they also need to be told, when appropriate, thank you.' These are simple things but they all build towards [being] part of a community not simply patrolling it."

Emanuel also reiterated to BuzzFeed News his support for law enforcement officers, echoing the White House’s message that the overwhelming majority of them do their jobs well. He said those officers’ work is compromised when trust is low.

“We need to be on our game when an officer doesn’t live up to the professionalism they aspire to," he said. “They need to held accountable because they are undermining all the trust and cooperation that's essential for their colleagues to be effective and bring safety to the community.”

“Every night across the city of Chicago, there's hundreds of 911 calls," Emanuel continued. "You never read or hear about them, because our police officers answer them professionally. They too want their colleagues held to the highest standard of professionalism because anything that undermines that trust or cooperation undermines any one of their officer’s effectiveness. We have work to do as a city, like other cities, to create the procedures and oversight to demand the highest professionalism from our police officers because they are capable of delivering it. I see it all the time.”

Asked why he’d seemed optimistic about the challenges related to the shooting of McDonald, Emanuel said the issue of police and community relations is “longstanding in every city” and every Chicago mayor “has dealt with some issue as it relates to police use of force.”

“It's one thing if Chicago was the only city," Emanuel said. "Whether it's Baltimore, Ferguson, Charleston, New York, Cleveland, or the situation in San Francisco. Something happened in Miami recently. There's a new context to police use of force with mainly communities of color and how they feel put upon.”

“One of the first things I [told] my task force is we’ve had this 50 to 60 year policy of protecting the integrity of the investigation, that you don't let information out," he continued. "Well, the public today is in a different place. They want to know.”

Justice Stephen Breyer

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen Breyer reiterated his call for the Supreme Court to reconsider the constitutionality of the death penalty on Thursday night, just hours before the justices are due to consider hearing a case that could do just that.

The comments came in response to Christopher Brooks's request to the justices that they halt his pending execution in Alabama. The court denied the request, but Breyer objected — noting in a short, two-paragraph statement that he would have granted the request.

Breyer went further, though, stating that the treatment of Brooks's case "underscores the need to reconsider the validity of capital punishment under the Eighth Amendment."

This past June, Breyer dissented from the court's decision in Glossip v. Gross upholding Oklahoma's use of the sedative midazolam in executions. He joined a dissenting opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor that detailed why the four more liberal justices believe Oklahoma's use of midazolam was unconstitutional. Breyer went further though, writing a second dissenting opinion — in which he was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

"But rather than try to patch up the death penalty’s legal wounds one at a time," he wrote, "I would ask for full briefing on a more basic question: whether the death penalty violates the Constitution." He then spent 40 pages explaining why the court should do so, concluding, "I believe it highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment."

Since that time, some advocates have taken the dissent as a sign that the time is now to get a case before the justices that would allow them to take such a step. Others, most recently the Brennan Center's Andrew Cohen, call a belief that the death penalty could be nearing its end "implausible."

Breyer had not written further about his call in any of the death penalty cases the court has had before it since then — even in cases where his call was specifically referenced. Thirteen executions had been carried out between the court's opinion in Glossip and Thursday morning.

Breyer chose Brooks's case — in which Sotomayor and Ginsburg noted that, despite questions about Alabama's death sentencing scheme, "procedural obstacles" ultimately would have kept the court from overturning his death sentence — as the moment to raise the issue again. He referenced those procedurals obstacles — noting that he had opposed the court's decision putting those obstacles in place in the first place — but then returned to his Glossip dissent.

Although he did not explain why he chose now, and not any of the prior 13 executions, to raise the issue, Thursday's statement came as the justices are due to consider Shonda Walter's request out of Pennsylvania that the court reconsider the validity of capital punishment under the Eighth Amendment.

The justices initially were scheduled to consider Walter's petition on Jan. 15 at their private conference, but, with no explanation given, the case was rescheduled to be considered at another time. On Tuesday, it was set to be considered at Friday's conference.

Walter's case comes to the court on direct appeal after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld her conviction — a distinction from the other, last-minute requests that have raised the question since Breyer's dissent this past June. In presenting Walter's case, her lawyer told the justices: "Shonda Walter is an African American female, and the last woman on Pennsylvania’s death row. Her case exemplifies what is wrong with the death penalty."

The petition goes on to detail issues raised in her case, from the legal counsel she had at trial to her treatment in prison to the progress of her appeals to claims of arbitrariness and racial discrimination throughout the process.

"The death penalty has outlived any conceivable use," Walter's lawyer, Daniel Silverman, writes in the petition. "It is imperfect in application, haphazard in result, and of negligible utility."

Although it is possible that word of the outcome of the justices' consideration of Walter's petition could come on Friday, that is unlikely — unless there is a concerted effort to expand the court's calendar in order to hear the case this term.

More likely, the soonest the outcome of the consideration will be known would be if the justices decline to take up Walter's case. In that situation, the denial of certiorari would be noted in the orders scheduled to be released on Monday, Jan. 25.

If, however, the justices are considering taking Walter's case, they are likely — in accordance with the court's usual, though not exclusive, practice over the past few terms — to re-list the case for their next conference before granting certiorari.

That itself adds another question to the mix. The justices' next conference is not until Feb. 19 — by which time at least one more petition seeking a full reconsideration of the constitutionality of the death penalty, in a case out of Louisiana, is expected to be before the justices.

David Becker / Reuters

National Review, the conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley, released an entire special issue Thursday night dedicated to making the case that Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is not a conservative.

In an editorial, the magazine writes: "Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones."

The issue includes op-eds by prominent conservatives such as Glenn Beck, Bill Kristol, and Yuval Levin.