U.S. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)

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WASHINGTON – Amid the encryption battle between Apple and the FBI that has captured national attention in recent days, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas announced Wednesday that they will advance legislation next week to create a special commission to study digital security issues.

Warner and McCaul said the bill will call for a 16-member expert panel, modeled after the 9/11 Commission and comprised of law enforcement officials, technology companies, privacy advocates and cryptologists.

“In many ways, the current litigation that’s taking place might not have been needed if we had this kind of approach a few years back,” said Warner, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “My fear is that we are talking past each other.”

The group will produce an interim report to Congress in six months, and a final report in one year, the two lawmakers said. The report will seek to address the challenges that encryption poses to law enforcement — a key point of dispute in the encryption debate.

Following the mass shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, the issue of encryption has taken on national prominence. Policymakers remain fearful that criminals and terrorists will exploit communication technology to conspire outside the reach of law enforcement.

“The whole point of the bill and the commission is to find a solution to a Paris-style attack where the attackers are using end-to-end encryption on apps to conduct a major terrorist operation,” said McCaul, who chairs the Committee on Homeland Security in the House of Representatives.

During the announcement, however, neither lawmaker had any solutions to share. “Believe it or not, in Congress, we are not always the experts,” McCaul said. “Particularly an issue as technical as this one, we don’t have the answers.”

Warner and McCaul insisted that the Commission would find a path forward.

Apple does not appear concerned about the prospects of a drawn-out Washington debate, as the iPhone manufacturer locks horns with the FBI in court. In a letter to customers this week, the company suggested that the government form a special commission of experts, and that “Apple would gladly participate in such an effort.”

When asked by a BuzzFeed News reporter, however, if the FBI should withdraw its legal challenge against Apple as Congress works to resolve digital security issues, Warner replied: “No, I think that case is going to be played out.”

In what may be a positive sign to tech companies and privacy advocates, Warner and McCaul emphasized their view of encryption as a vital tool in American society and rejected the common framing of encryption debates as “consumer privacy versus national security.” The two lawmakers also noted that the market for encryption tools is thriving outside of the U.S., and that any solution would have to include an international component.

Highlighting the current standoff between Silicon Valley and Washington, McCaul said, “There is no easy, knee-jerk legislative response to this.”

In the hours of audio reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Trump ranks, rates, and degrades women.

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Donald Trump's rise toward the Republican nomination has been fueled, in part, by his candid and often crude style — more Howard Stern, say, than Mitt Romney.

And the roots of Donald Trump's rhetoric come, in fact, in part from The Howard Stern Show. Trump appeared upwards of two dozen times from the late '90s through the 2000s with the shock jock, and BuzzFeed News has listened to hours of those conversations, which are not publically available. The most popular topic of conversation during these appearances, as is typical of Stern's program, was sex. In particular, Trump frequently discussed women he had sex with, wanted to have sex with, or wouldn't have sex with if given the opportunity. He also rated women on a 10-point scale.

"A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10," he told Stern in one typical exchange.

Women make up a majority of the American electorate, and any of dozens of Trump's remarks would be considered a severe blow to most candidates for public office. Trump has, in the Republican primary, proven largely immune to the backlash that the laws of gravity in politics would predict, but there are also suggestions that he has a deep problem with some women voters: 68% of women voters held an unfavorable view of Trump in a Quinnipiac poll released in December. In a Gallup poll also released in December, Trump had the lowest net favorable rating out of all the candidates among college-educated Republican women. And should he win the nomination, his comments are sure to become ammunition for Democrats against what they have long cast as a Republican "war on women."

Trump has a history of making crude remarks toward women. He reportedly said of his ex-wife Marla Maples, "Nice tits, no brains," and more recently, he has called Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly a "bimbo" and a "lightweight" and said she had "blood coming out of her wherever" during the first GOP debate.

The focus of Trump's attentions when interviewed by Stern was commonly female celebrities — movie and television stars, recording artists, models, and media personalities.

Trump, in more than one instance, expressed his admiration for and attraction to Diana, Princess of Wales.

Months after Diana was killed in an automobile accident in 1997, Trump told Stern he thinks he could have slept with her, saying she had "supermodel beauty." In a different interview in 2000, Trump said he would have slept with her "without hesitation" and that "she had the height, she had the beauty, she had the skin." He added, "She was crazy, but these are minor details."

Describing Angelina Jolie, he said, "I never thought she was good-looking. I don't think she's got good skin. I don't think she's got a great face. I think her lips are too big, to be honest with you, they look like too big."

On several different occasions, Trump ranked or rated women on their looks.

In one instance, Trump ranked his top 10 most beautiful women, and while his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss took the top spot, Trump told Stern he definitely would have sex with Mariah Carey, Cindy Crawford, and Princess Diana, who also made the list. In another appearance, Trump assigned each of the actors on ABC's Desperate Housewives a score of 1 to 10 based on their attractiveness. He said of one of the actors, Nicollette Sheridan: "A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10." When he got to Marcia Cross, he asked Stern, "Would you go out with Marcia Cross or would you turn gay, Howard?"

In the interviews, Stern and his co-hosts often introduced the most vulgar elements into the conversation, but Trump was almost always willing to go along. Talking about Pamela Anderson's hepatitis C diagnosis in 2000, Stern asked Trump, "Would you do her, still?"

Trump replies, "No, I'm sorry."

Robin Quivers, Stern's sidekick, then asked Trump whether he would choose to sleep with Anderson or Whoopi Goldberg.

"You know, right now, I have to go with Whoopi," replied Trump. "Look, it's a terrible thing. It's a sad thing. You know, it's a terrible thing."

Trump also discussed his involvement with beauty pageants. After purchasing the Miss USA pageant in 1997, Trump said he would make the "bathing suits to be smaller and the heels to be higher." In 2005, when promoting the pageant on Stern's show, Trump said, "If you're looking for a rocket scientist, don't tune in tonight, but if you're looking for a really beautiful woman, you should watch."

After buying the Miss USA pageant in 1997, Trump said he would get the "bathing suits to be smaller and the heels to be higher."

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“Voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage.”

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David Duke, a white nationalist and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, is urging the listeners of his radio program to volunteer and vote for Donald Trump.

"Voting for these people, voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage," Duke said on the David Duke Radio Program Wednesday, referring to Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. "I'm not saying I endorse everything about Trump, in fact I haven't formally endorsed him. But I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do."

Duke then urged his followers to call Trump's campaign headquarters to volunteer.

"And I am telling you that it is your job now to get active. Get off your duff. Get off your rear end that's getting fatter and fatter for many of you everyday on your chairs. When this show's over, go out, call the Republican Party, but call Donald Trump's headquarters, volunteer. They're screaming for volunteers. Go in there, you're gonna meet people who are going to have the same kind of mindset that you have."

Earlier in his broadcast, Duke called Trump's victories in Nevada and South Carolina a "historic day."

The scene outside the Supreme Court building on the morning of February 22, 2016.

Chris Geidner/BuzzFeed

WASHINGTON — On Monday morning, the Supreme Court held arguments for the first time since Justice Antonin Scalia's death. Chief Justice John Roberts marked Scalia's passing in remarks at the start of the day's arguments.

By Tuesday, attention had turned completely to the vacancy on the court. What's actually going to happen in the coming days, weeks, and months?

First of all, BuzzFeed News previously went through what is happening at the Supreme Court without Scalia on the bench and what the main political players had said about what they were going to do about the vacancy. Now, though, the questions have turned to the specifics of what happens with the nomination process itself. So, here goes.

When will Obama nominate someone?

We don't know, but the White House has made it clear that Obama will be doing so with plenty of time for the Senate to do what it would need to do in a confirmation process.

How did it work in the past?

Obama has made two nominations to the Supreme Court. The first appointment came when Justice David Souter announced his retirement from the court during Obama's first year in office, and the second came with Justice John Paul Stevens' retirement.

In Souter's case, the justice had alerted the White House in mid-April of his plans to retire at the end of the court's term in June. Souter formally submitted a letter announcing his intentions to Obama on May 1. Less than a month later, Obama announced his selection of Sonia Sotomayor — then a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals — as his nominee on May 26.

In Stevens' case, a 2010 vacancy, the justice announced his intention to retire at the end of the court's term on April 9. Speculation about the potential retirement plans of the justice had been circulating as early as September 2009, when Stevens confirmed that he had only hired one, and not four, clerks to work for him in the term beginning in October 2010. Similar to the Souter retirement, the White House was not caught completely off guard by the retirement. Thirty-one days later, Obama announced his selection of Elena Kagan — then serving as Solicitor General in the Justice Department — as his nominee on May 10.

There was obviously no advance warning this time. In fact, given the timing, it's likely that Obama and the White House had expected that Obama would not be nominating anyone else to the Supreme Court — let alone to replace Scalia.

Nonetheless, the White House has made it clear that they will move quickly — but not too quickly — with spokesperson Eric Schultz saying that Obama "will approach this nomination with the time and rigor required" but also saying that they will do so with plenty of time for "the Senate to consider that nominee."

President Obama walks from the West Wing to the residence of the White House with a binder of potential Supreme Court nominees on February 19, 2016.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images

Is it true that Obama's going to nominate Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval to the Supreme Court?

Well, not so fast.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that Sandoval was being vetted for the nomination.

Here's the thing, though. Based on the Obama White House's actions with the past two nominations, several possible nominees are expected to be vetted by the White House before Obama even speaks to or meets with nominees. With both the Sotomayor and Kagan nominations, Obama met with four different potential nominees in person — after an even larger list had been in consideration — before selecting his nominee.

As such, the Sandoval report is the first of upwards of 10 people who likely will end up being floated as being on the president's "short list" for the nomination. What's more, given that Sandoval is a Republican governor — as opposed to a sitting appellate judge previously considered by Obama for the high court or appointed to an appeals court by Obama or a member of the Obama administration — his vetting would involve more people in more places doing more things. Word of his vetting was more likely to leak anyway.

(Whether Sandoval is in serious contention or just a Republican name thrown into the mix to show Obama is considering a wide range of possibilities is anyone's guess at this point. But when asked if his comments about the vacancy mean he's going to name a moderate, Obama gave a one-word "no" response, followed up with the president asking the reporter how he even got that idea. Based on that, it would appear unlikely that Obama would nominate a Republican to the court.)

In any event, once the "short list" is complete, based on past practice, Obama will pare that list down to four people who he wants to meet with in person. Then, a few days after those in-person interviews, effectively, Obama will call one of them up to offer the person a Supreme Court nomination. The next day, if the person accepts, Obama will announce his selection.

At that point, what happens?

Normally, the Senate Judiciary Committee would take the nomination under consideration and the nominee would receive a questionnaire to complete before the committee schedules hearings for the nominee. During this period, the committee staff are researching the nominee and the nominee is meeting with senators — generally all of the committee members and many others as well.

Then, the hearings are held. After the nominee and witnesses testifying in support of or in opposition to the nominee are done, the committee can ask follow-up questions of the nominee. Then, once everyone is satisfied, the committee would vote on whether to recommend the nomination to the full Senate.

At that point, the Senate majority leader would decide whether and when to schedule the nomination for floor consideration. Once scheduled, debate would ensue, followed by a motion to end debate, a 60-vote majority would end debate, and a vote on the nomination would be held. If the person is approved by a majority of the Senate, the Supreme Court has a new justice.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to the media about the Supreme Court vacancy on February 23, 2016.

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

But, that's not what we are dealing with here, is it?

Nope, not at all.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said repeatedly that the Senate won't consider an Obama nominee. On Tuesday, all of the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to McConnell, saying they won't even hold hearings for the nominee. Several key Senate Republicans have said they won't even meet with the eventual nominee.

Democrats on the committee struck back Tuesday evening, with all of them signing a different letter, calling on the committee to do its work and hold hearings on Obama's eventual nominee. On Wednesday, Obama himself spoke out, making it clear that — in his view — today's hypothetical opposition could play out differently once it turns into actual, long-term opposition to a specific nominee in the midst of a campaign season.

There are signs that everyone isn't totally comfortable with McConnell's plan. The Judiciary Committee's chair, Sen. Charles Grassley, initially had concurred with McConnell, then pulled back, saying he'd wait for Obama to name a nominee before deciding whether to hold hearings. Then, he and his committee sent the letter to McConnell saying he'd hold no hearings regardless of the nominee. Additionally, a White House invitation for Grassley to meet with Obama to discuss the vacancy was not initially accepted. Then, on Wednesday evening, Grassley's office announced that he would, in fact, meet with Obama early next week to discuss the vacancy.

So, what's going to happen?

At the end of the day, and there are likely to be many days in the coming months where the story changes — while not really changing — as political fights play themselves out in the context of Obama's Supreme Court nomination.

To see how different this situation (final-year-in-office vacancy with a Republican-led Senate) is from Obama's first nomination (first-year-in-office vacancy with a Democrat-led Senate), just look at Grassley's earlier reaction to having been contacted then to discuss the vacancy.

From the New York Times in 2009, regarding the Souter vacancy:

As he narrowed his choices, aides said, Mr. Obama kept asking for more original writings by the candidates, and he called every member of the Judiciary Committee, something few if any presidents have done. ...

“He asked if I had any suggestions for nominees,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, a member of the committee for 29 years. “This is the first time I’ve ever been called by a president on a Supreme Court nomination, be it a Republican or a Democrat.”

Now, the Senate Judiciary Committee's chair — along with the broader Senate leadership and, ultimately, the entire Senate — will need to decide, day by day and week by week, how the politics are playing out and whether they need to meet with the nominee, ask for the nominee to fill out the questionnaire, schedule hearings on the nominee, vote on the nominee in committee, hold a floor debate over the nominee, end debate on the nominee, and vote on the nominee.

Decisions about what kind of nominee the Obama administration will put forward and whether the Senate will take any and each of those steps will play out in the midst of the presidential election and in the midst of elections over 34 Senate seats — 24 of which are held by Republicans.

Whether the court itself is a primarily political body, as some argue, remains up for debate. But the Supreme Court nomination process, already a largely political task, is, in this iteration, entirely a vehicle for politics.

“History tells us that we’re probably finished.”

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Wilkerson, who worked as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff during the Bush administration, has since turned against the Iraq War. He has also said that Dick Cheney should be "in jail for war crimes" and espoused other controversial views, such as when he said in 2013 that Israel could be behind the chemical weapons attack in Syria. Politico reported on Wednesday that Wilkerson has spoken to Sanders once so far as part of the Vermont senator's effort to combat the criticism that he lacks foreign policy knowledge.

"We could easily see, not the usual life of empire, which most historians will put down as somewhere between 100 and 300 years, but a very accelerated demise for the current empire of the United States," Wilkerson said at Lone Star College in Kingwood, Texas. "And even as Niall Ferguson has pointed out, in a Foreign Affairs article not too long ago, we might even see what he would call a chaotic end. That is to say on Monday you go to sleep and everything's okay and on Tuesday morning you wake up and it's all gone. It could happen that fast."

In the September speech, Wilkerson listed a number of features of declining empires.

"They wind up, for example, with less than one percent of their population and it's usually a mercenary percent, bleeding and dying and defending the other 99%. Sound familiar?" he said. "They usually wind up with bankers and financiers running the real power instruments in the empire. Sound familiar? They usually wind up with great hiccups in that financial and economic and trade picture that they have increasing difficulty in managing to survive. Sound familiar? These are the signs of the travails of empire."

Wilkerson went on to describe a scenario that closely resembles the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"So they will go out for example, when an attack occurs upon them by barbarians, that kills 3,000 of their citizens, mostly because of their negligence, they will go out and kill 300,000 people and spend 3 trillion dollars in order to counter that threat to the status quo. They will then proceed throughout the world to exacerbate that threat by their own actions. Sound familiar?" he said.

"Don't bring me arguments about us being an exceptional nation. We're an exceptional national alright financially and economically because we're blessed with 3000 miles of basically arable land on which we can raise monstrous numbers of crops, we've got rivers galore, clean water from one end to the other, benign neighbors and two big oceans. Any fool could've made a power out of what we are. So we're not an exceptional nation," he said, before adding that America was "a nation of people who have an exceptional ideology."

Wilkerson said that the U.S. could manage the decline of its empire to become a significant power that "gets along more by cooperation", but said there was no one solution to the problems he described.

"I'm not gonna stand up here and give you some Pandora's Box, opening up, and then tell you that there's some Panglossian solution to it," he said. "Or that Peter Rabbit will jump out of a hat at any moment and fix everything. Because it isn't gonna happen. History tells us that we're probably finished and then the question becomes, as it was for Britain, how do you pick up the pieces afterwards?"

Wilkerson, who called the invasion of Iraq "the most catastrophic decision in America's history," finally suggested that America could "go bust" by splitting into different countries.

"The sad thing about empires that are extremely powerful like we have been since '45 is that they usually go bust," he said. "And you say, how could we go into real bust? Well, there was a book written a few years ago about the nine nations of North America. Texas featured prominently in that book. Because it was the leader of one of the nine nations of North America. We think it can't happen. We think this country can't break up. I'll tell you right now, I've been in the deep south, where I have listened to governors and legislative members who talk about leaving the union."

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FLORENCE, South Carolina — People working for Bernie Sanders and spreading his message to voters who know little about him have an ask: Do five minutes of research. On your phone. Right now.

Inside the campaign, the undecided black vote is broken down, informally, into two groups: young voters who are thought to be more open toward Sanders, and voters, many of them older, who are staunch defenders of Hillary Clinton.

“You approach them completely differently,” a campaign official doing black outreach but who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the campaign, told BuzzFeed News.

Typically, the older voter has a deep affinity for, and familiarity with, Clinton. To those voters, the campaign official said, talking about Sanders’s platform is usually “a dead end.” It usually leads to a confrontation, a surefire way to turn the voter off completely.

In fact, canvassers and volunteers talking to black voters are told to be complimentary of Clinton and the work she's done over the years for the Democratic Party as a former first lady, senator and secretary of state. “The best strategy is to accept the fact that they're voting for Hillary and to not tell them they are wrong for doing so,” the official, who said he's taught close to 50 people the conversion strategy.

In a confrontation, they'll never get to do the five minutes of research on Sanders that has become lore inside the campaign for its ability to hook black voters on his track record of civil rights — and the common campaign talking point about making the economy work for everyone, not just select few millionaires and billionaires. (The campaign is generally just using Google here; they don’t have a default page or video they’re pointing voters to.)

“The key is to tell the volunteers we engage is telling them don't get into these divisive arguments. We want them to say, ‘Hey, look, I respect your choice, but take a look at Sen. Sanders. And I guarantee you after five minutes you'll be feeling the Bern.”

The strategy has been championed by the campaign’s director of black outreach, Marcus Ferrell, and his deputy, Roy Tatum.

“Bernie is not behind because he's a bad person or he's made policy decisions over the course of his career,” the campaign official and a loyalist of the on-the-spot tactic said, reflecting the uphill battle Sanders faces on Saturday few think can be overcome here in South Carolina where Clinton is quite popular. On Super Tuesday, there is more hope, but also a reality: Time is running out.

Ferrell said younger voters are naturally attracted to Sanders because they believe in a $15 minimum wage, agree with Sanders on what changes need to be made in the criminal justice system, and agree that tuition at public colleges and universities should be free.

“It's that simple,” he told BuzzFeed News. “That message in and of itself is bringing people on our side and we see it in the events we’re doing on the campuses of HBCUs and in the amount of positive engagement we see with our candidate on a daily basis.”

“You do only need five minutes,” of research, Ferrell said.

Joshua Roberts / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Anti-Trump groups are scrambling to convince donors to write the last-minute checks they need to fund ads ahead of the March primaries — a major challenge amid what they say are donor concerns of being targeted by Donald Trump.

Most of these groups are organized as super PACs, meaning names of donors would be reported to the Federal Election Commission and revealed to the public monthly, potentially opening up donors to attacks from Trump. Even though using a politically-active nonprofit, or 501c(4), would have allowed for donors to hide their identities, operatives working for some groups say it still wouldn’t have helped with the financing they need to get their ads up in time to influence the March 1 primaries.

According to the groups donors afraid of being identified and attacked by Trump have become more common after Trump recently attacked Marlene Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs and GOP megadonor, on Twitter when it was revealed that she gave $3 million to an anti-Trump super PAC called Our Principles PAC.

“I hear the Rickets [sic] family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $'s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!," Trump tweeted. He has also gone after Club for Growth, another group spending money on ads against him.

Rick Wilson, a Rubio supporter behind another super PAC called “Make America Awesome,” said donors are so concerned about their families and businesses being attacked by Trump that they're being excessively cautious and are convinced that even with a nonprofit “they would somehow be outed."

"The fear of Trump is so widespread that standing up against him seems like a revolutionary act now,” Wilson said.

One of those donors concerned about anonymity told Wilson: "I want to do it but my legal people worry about brand damage if he tweets about us.”

Since it was created in December, Make America Awesome has been able to bring in only $10,000, as of the latest FEC reports that go through the end of January.

Liz Mair, another operative who co-founded the super PAC with Wilson, said using a nonprofit wasn’t really considered when they were organizing because of the “bureaucratic hassle” and because anonymity wasn’t necessarily a concern they were hearing from donors in the beginning.

Also, under rules governing such groups, they would have had to spend the majority of the money on education rather than political activity.

"The stuff that actually resonates with voters could not be done as issues advocacy,” she said. "We would have had to spend a lot of money on pointless crap.”

Although the rules for political active nonprofits aren’t being consistently enforced, Mair said it would have been too risky with Trump, who is also much more difficult to attack through issue advocacy because he’s not an elected official.

“(Trump) does have a very aggressive legal team,” she said. "That’s how he runs his business.”

Make America Awesome has until about 5 p.m. Friday to get the money it needs to get its ads up, Mair said.

Other than the $3 million Ricketts contribution, Our Principles PAC — run by former top Mitt Romney adviser Katie Packer — had received only two other donations totaling less than $8,000 at the end of last month (one of the contributions was from GOP mega donor Richard Uihlein).

Packer released a memo this week calling on donors and party leaders to get involved before it's too late. "If all of us join forces in a concerted effort to expose his record and his rhetoric, it is possible tostop him. If not, we will have the nominee we deserve," she said in the memo.

Packer told BuzzFeed News that she has seen an increase in interest and donations since the memo. She hasn't encountered fearful donors, but said there are "other efforts that take (501c4) money that may emerge. "

She decided against a nonprofit because she "did not want to distract from our message by appearing to have anything to hide."

Jake Schaible, who founded Americans for the Real Deal — a nonprofit focused on educating voters on free trade that hopes to spend on digital ads against Trump — said he's also heard donor concerns about being targeted.

He didn't want to reveal his group's fundraising but said he isn’t having much more luck than Mair and Wilson in raising money even though donors are guaranteed anonymity through his group.

“This tweet on the Ricketts family is as much of a warning to them as it is for other donors,” he said.

Schaible also has message-tested digital ads against Trump waiting on money from donors. He set up a crowd-funding campaign this week to at least get some small-dollar donations through anonymous pledges.

It's troubling that the threat of Trump targeting donors is keeping them on the sidelines, said Frayda Levin, a Republican donor who gives to various groups including Club for Growth.

"It's a scary thing that people are afraid to give to a candidate that they think will hurt the country because that same candidate could embarrass them in public," she said.

David J. Phillip / AP

HOUSTON — After a string of three losses in a row to Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz took turns going after the Republican frontrunner's immigration record at the last debate before Super Tuesday.

Rubio began the attacks by responding to Trump's well-worn line that the only reason immigration has become an issue in the Republican primary is because he inserted it into the discussion.

"In 2011, he talked about the need for a pathway to citizenship," Rubio said. "In 2012, Donald criticized Mitt Romney, saying that Mitt lost his election because of self-deportation."

Rubio was referencing an interview after the 2012 election when Trump said Romney "had a crazy policy of self-deportation, which was maniacal." At the time, Trump said Romney lost all of the Latino and Asian vote — "he lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.”

On Thursday, Rubio argued Trump hired undocumented workers from different countries to take jobs Americans could have filled.

"My mom and dad — my mom was a maid at a hotel, and instead of hiring an American like her, you have brought in over a thousand people from all over the world to fill those jobs instead," Rubio said.

Trump has hired foreign guest workers in the past at Mar-a-Lago, the resort property that he owns in Palm Beach, Florida. On Thursday night, Rubio's campaign was ready, also pulling the trigger on an email linking to a Daily Beast article from last summer that said Trump Tower was built on the backs of undocumented Polish workers.

Trump argued that the undocumented workers he has hired have been in places like Palm Beach, Florida, during "the absolute prime season" when it was difficult to hire people for seasonal part-time jobs.

"I'm the only one on the stage that's hired people," Trump said to Rubio. "You haven't hired anybody."

"Yes, you've hired a thousand from another country," Rubio shot back.

But it wasn't just Rubio that came prepared to hit Trump with new lines he hadn't used before. Cruz came prepared both with a one-liner against Trump, and a new line of attack over his donations to both parties.

"I can tell you, when I ran for Senate here in the state of Texas, I ran promising to lead the fight against amnesty, promising to fight to build a wall," Cruz said. "And in 2013, when I was fight against the 'Gang of Eight' amnesty bill, where was Donald? He was firing Dennis Rodman on Celebrity Apprentice.

Of the bipartisan Gang of 8 senators who crafted immigration legislation in 2013, Cruz said, "Donald gave over $50,000 to three Democrats and two Republicans. And when you're funding open border politicians, you shouldn't be surprised when they fight for open borders."

Cruz and Rubio who at times have been the two candidates most at each other's throats during debates, and mostly on the issue of immigration, tag teamed him.

"And by the way, Marco is exactly right that a federal court found Donald guilty of being part of a conspiracy to hire people illegally and entered a $1 million judgment against him," Cruz said.

But Trump who rocketed to the top of the polls on the strength of his ability to hit back hard in the rare instances when he is challenged, reiterated that he has had "amazing" relationships with politicians as a businessman and took aim at Cruz's reputation as someone with few friends among those who know him.

"You don't have the endorsement of one Republican senator and you work with these people," Trump said. "You should be ashamed of yourself."

But it wasn't just Cruz and Rubio who challenged Trump on specifics; the moderators challenged him on his contention that Mexico will pay for the border wall he has proposed, based solely on the force of him telling them they should.

"The spokesperson for the current president of Mexico says that will never happen," CNN's Wolf Blitzer said to Trump, noting that its former presidents say it won't happen, either.

Blitzer then quoted an interview with former Mexican president Vicente Fox hours before the debate who added, "I'm not going to pay for that fucking wall."

If Trump doesn't get a check from the Mexican government for $8 billion or $10 billion or $12 billion, Blitzer asked him, "how are you going to make them pay for the wall?"

"I will, and the wall just got 10 feet taller, believe me," Trump said.

"If the Mexicans don't pay for the wall, will you start a trade war with Mexico?" Blitzer followed up.

"Well, you know, I don't mind trade wars when we're losing $58 billion a year, you want to know the truth," Trump responded.

Rubio, perhaps sensing that he is running out of time to weaken Trump, was unrelenting in attacks against him he long avoided.

"I don't understand, because your ties and the clothes you make are made in Mexico and in China," Rubio said, in one of his many effective one-liners of the night. "So you're gonna be starting a trade war against your own ties and your own suits?"

But with Trump gaining momentum and Super Tuesday looming, it's unclear if the night's exchanges from Cruz and Rubio will be enough to hurt him.

He didn't seem too concerned during the back and forth.

"If he builds the wall the way he built Trump Towers, he'll be using illegal immigrant labor to do it," Rubio said to applause at one point.

"Such a cute sound bite," Trump responded.

Trump in 2011: “And at this point, if you don’t get rid of Gaddafi, it’s a major, major black eye for this country.”

Pool / Getty Images

Here's the video of Trump making the comments on Thursday:

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HOUSTON — Thursday night’s debate in Houston was one of the first times Donald Trump has taken so much heat from both the “choke artist” and the “liar” — his two main rivals, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

The conventional wisdom going into the debate had been that Cruz and Rubio would, as they have been for weeks, attack each other. There was some of that, of course, but the real shift was that both candidates turned their sights on Trump — even Rubio, who has barely laid a hand on the frontrunner so far. In turn, Trump unloaded many of his nastiest lines on the others, making for one of the feistiest debates yet. But even the fact of Trump’s target status confirmed his position as the central figure in the campaign, and underscored the position that Cruz and Rubio are in: scrapping desperately to be the last man left standing against him.

Later in the debate, after Cruz questioned his position on Israel, Trump responded with a dismissive précis of the two men standing next to him: “I mean, first of all, this guy is a choke artist, and this guy is a liar,” he said, pointing to both Cruz and Rubio. “Other than that, I rest my case.”

The problem for Trump is that no one was letting him rest his case. Rubio got the ball rolling early, going after Trump for shifting on immigration, for hiring foreign workers illegally for construction projects, and for Trump University, Trump’s for-profit college that was the subject of a lawsuit from former students who said they had been defrauded.

Cruz jumped in later and reinforced Rubio on the foreign workers, saying, “Marco is exactly right that a federal court found Donald guilty of being part of a conspiracy to hire people illegally and entered a $1 million judgment against him.”

Cruz then later amplified Rubio’s point about Trump University, saying, “You know, Marco made reference earlier to the litigation against Trump University. It's a fraud case. His lawyers have scheduled the trial for July.”

“I think they both did a pretty good job of tagging the tail on the donkey,” former Texas governor Rick Perry, who has endorsed Cruz, told reporters after the debate. “I think they both did a very good job of tagging Trump as being outside the mainstream of the Republican Party, that’s for sure.”

“I stood in the middle of the stage once. That’s what you get when you stand in the middle of the stage,” Perry said when asked if Cruz and Rubio had worked out anything beforehand with regard to Trump. “I don’t think they called each other and said, ‘I’m wearing a blue tie and you go red and we’re gonna really nail him tonight,’ but when you are the leader and you’re leading the polls and you’re in the middle of the stage, that is exactly what you’re gonna get. I think hooray for that because we’ve got to vet our candidates.”

Trump is a “target-rich environment,” Perry said.

Asked if the two candidates had coordinated beforehand, Rubio adviser Todd Harris told reporters they had not.

“Both Marco and Sen. Cruz went into this debate with similar goals,” Harris said. “The difference is Marco succeeded in his and Sen. Cruz did not.”

Cruz communications adviser Jason Miller, asked the same question, said “No, I mean for weeks now Donald Trump has been masquerading as a conservative. He’s not a conservative, and tonight he got called out for it.”

“Trump lost a lot of juice tonight,” Miller said.

The problem with all this is that it may be simply too late to stop Trump. He is heading into this weekend having won three of the four early primary states and primed to clean up on Super Tuesday. Trump is the likely nominee, and both Cruz and Rubio are trying to be the last man standing against him — but by the time there is a last man standing against him, the moment where that mattered may have passed.

And though he brawled with both men onstage, Trump seemed unsurprised by his rivals’ attacks after the debate.

“I knew they’d be attacking me,” he told reporters. “They had no choice, they’re so far behind they really had no choice.”

“It’s not looking good,” Trump said when asked if he would consider any of the candidates on stage as his running mate. “It’s not looking too good.”

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They said this day would never come.

After months of floating above the fray in the Republican primaries, declining to challenge the frontrunner, and grandiosely celebrating second- and third-place finishes, Marco Rubio finally decided to join the ugly, messy brawl in Thursday night's presidential debate.

He didn't have much of a choice.

In the immediate wake of last week's South Carolina primary, the GOP rushed to crown Rubio as the establishment standard-bearer, giving him the mandate save the party from Donald Trump. But much to the chagrin of some impatient Republican opinion-makers and elites, Rubio initially showed little interest in attacking Trump — shrugging off reporters' questions about him, and directing his campaign to focus their firepower on Ted Cruz.

The calls for Rubio to get tough grew louder Tuesday when Trump tauntingly highlighted their apparent detente in a speech to supporters in Nevada. "I've been very nice to Rubio, because he hasn't hit me," Trump said. "When he does, you will see what happens."

On Thursday night, millions of debate-watchers did get to see — and it wasn't pretty for The Donald.

Indeed, the first half of the debate was dominated by Rubio's tussles with Trump, as the senator energetically recited what seemed like an entire opposition research file and the billionaire responded with his trademark tough-guy rejoinders. Neither candidate emerged un-bruised from these skirmishes, but Rubio employed a tactic that few of Trump's adversaries have used until now. Rather than allowing space for Trump's comebacks to land and draw laughter or applause, the senator routinely stepped on his opponent's punchlines.

This, combined with Trump's penchant for interruptions, resulted in an awful lot of inaudible crosstalk.

Take, for example, this selection from the transcript of Thursday's debate. Rubio had just accused Trump of being "the only person that has ever been fined for hiring people to work on your projects illegally."

TRUMP: No, no, I'm the only one on the stage that's hired people. You haven't hired anybody.

(APPLAUSE)

RUBIO: In fact, some of the people...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: And by the way, I've hired -- and by the way, I've hired tens of thousands of people over at my job. You've hired nobody.

RUBIO: Yes, you've hired a thousand from another country...

TRUMP: You've had nothing but problems with your credit cards, et cetera. So don't tell me about that.

RUBIO: Let me just say -- let me finish the statement. This is important.

TRUMP: You haven't hired one person, you liar.

RUBIO: He hired workers from Poland. And he had to pay a million dollars or so in a judgment from...

TRUMP: That's wrong. That's wrong. Totally wrong.

RUBIO: That's a fact. People can look it up. I'm sure people are Googling it right now. Look it up. "Trump Polish workers," you'll see a million dollars for hiring illegal workers on one of his projects. He did it.

(APPLAUSE)

RUBIO: That happened.

TRUMP: I've hired tens of thousands of people over my lifetime. Tens of thousands...

RUBIO: Many from other countries instead of hiring Americans.

TRUMP: Be quiet. Just be quiet.

Trump's riposte about how Rubio had "never hired anybody" was his most devastating of the night, but because Rubio charged forward undeterred with his line of attack, it harder for Trump's point-scoring to sink in. By the end of the exchange, it sounded like little more than a disjointed jumble of shouting — but it was Trump and Rubio shouting at each other, and that's an image the latter's campaign hopes will stick in voters' minds come Super Tuesday.

"What tonight showed is that Marco is best equipped to take the fight aggressively to Donald Trump," said Rubio adviser Todd Harris in the post-debate spin room. "This is something that Sen. Cruz has been trying to do unsuccessfully for months now, and Marco showed tonight why this really is a two-person race."

Team Rubio sent out a fundraising email to supporters just after midnight in which campaign manager Terry Sullivan proclaimed that his candidate "brought it tonight."

"Everyone who watched tonight’s debate just saw who can stop Donald Trump, and beat the Democrats next fall," Sullivan wrote. "It's Marco. There is now no doubt."

While Cruz and Trump traded jabs as well, it was Rubio who landed the strongest blows of the night. During a round of questions about how to replace Obamacare, Rubio repeatedly — and aggressively — challenged the billionaire to provide detail to his health care proposal. The best Trump could muster under pressure was variations on, "We're going to have many different plans."

And in one of the most memorable attacks of the night, Rubio dismissed his business success as a mere byproduct of a rich father.

"If he hadn't inherited $200 million, you know where Donald Trump would be right now? Selling watches in Manhattan," he said.

The line drew loud applause in the debate hall and blew up Twitter, but it almost certainly got under Trump's skin more than any other unkind word said about him Thursday night. The real test for Rubio will be whether he can accelerate his campaign's momentum in Super Tuesday states amid a barrage of insults from The Donald in coming days.

In post-debate Trump was already making the Florida senator his new target for ridicule — and the Rubio campaign is geared up for the fight.

"I think you can certainly expect to see more of a contrast with Donald Trump in the coming days," said Harris.

Rosie Gray contributed reporting from Houston.

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At a news conference in Ft. Worth, Texas, on Friday, billed by Donald Trump as a "big announcement," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie endorsed Trump for president, calling the businessman "the clear standout" among Republican candidates.

“I am proud to be here to endorse Donald Trump for president of the United States," Christie said.

Christie, who dropped out of the presidential race in early February, cited his decade-long friendship with Trump as the first reason he was endorsing the businessman, saying, "I appreciate him as a person, and as a friend.”

Christie continued, "There is no one who is better prepared to provide America with the strong leadership that it needs both at home and around the world, than Donald Trump. He is, looking at the five people on that stage last night, the clear standout, and the person who will do exactly what needs to be done to make America a leader around the world again.”

Trump, Christie said, was the only Republican presidential candidate who could take on Hillary Clinton in the general election.

“I can guarantee you, that the one person that Hillary and Bill Clinton do not want to see on that stage, come next September, is Donald Trump," he said. "They know how to run the standard political playbook against junior senators and run them around the block. They do not know the playbook with Donald Trump because he is re-writing the playbook.”

The first question from reporters for Christie was about Marco Rubio calling Trump a "con artist" on Friday. Christie said "desperate people do desperate things."

"Listen, the fact is that desperate people do desperate things," Christie said. "And I’ve seen it throughout politics and so have you. And so the idea that Marco Rubio can get inside Donald Trump’s head is an interesting proposition, but one that’s really for the D.C. parlor game."

Earlier on Friday, Rubio hurled several insults directed at Trump during a campaign rally in Texas. “First he had one of those makeup things applying around his mustache because he had one of those sweat mustaches," Rubio said. "Then, then he asked for a full length mirror. I don’t know why because the podium goes up to here (gestures to chest). I don’t know why maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet.”

Trump, responding to a reporter's question about Rubio's comments, said, "I’ll tell you about backstage, I mean, if you like. I walk back there, and he’s with a pile of makeup putting it on his face. I said, ‘Marco, easy with the makeup, you don’t need that much.’”

Later in the news conference, Trump called Rubio a "desperate guy" who doesn't have the temperament to be president. "He is not presidential material, that I can tell you," Trump said. "He doesn't have the demeanor, he is a nervous nelly, I watch him back stage, he's a mess, the guy's a total mess."

“Marco Rubio went into the ring tonight and he had one goal, his goal was to show that he could go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump, he could take him.”

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee thinks Marco Rubio was the winner of yesterday's Republican presidential debate.

"Marco Rubio had a terrific night tonight," Huckabee, who dropped out of the presidential race earlier this month said on NewsMaxTV. "He came prepared. He was loaded with information, he was aggressive and he stuck to attacks only on Donald Trump. He really didn't focus on Cruz."

Huckabee's daughter and top political adviser, Sarah, was announced as a new adviser to frontrunner Donald Trump on Thursday morning.

Huckabee called the back and a forth between Trump and Rubio "schoolyard brawl" and "food fight," noting that he was unsure it would move the polls.

"I would say Trump had a few good moments he had some good lines, he had some good comebacks," added Huckabee. "He had some rough spots to be sure but I thought it was Marco Rubio's night."

Huckabee said he didn't think the debate would affect Trump's support, Cruz might lose support and Kasich could pick up some support. Still, said Huckabee, Rubio showed himself as a candidate with an ability to take on Trump.

"Marco Rubio went into the ring tonight and he had one goal, his goal was to show that he could go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump, he could take him, he was willing to take him on that only in terms of what he said but in aggressive way in which he said," said Huckabee. "I believe he achieved that tonight."

Huckabee said Rubio's strong performance might move money in his direction from donors unhappy with Trump.

Christie said Trump was unfit to be president. Trump called the New Jersey governor “weak” and compared him to a “little boy” for embracing President Obama.

Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump on Friday.

Tom Pennington / Getty Images

In a news conference in Texas, Christie said he appreciated Trump "as a person, and as a friend," adding that "there is no one who is better prepared to provide America with the strong leadership that it needs both at home and around the world, than Donald Trump."

Trump described Christie as his "friend for many years" and a "spectacular governor."

The two did not always express such kind sentiments about each other when Christie was still in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

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"Donald's a great guy and a good person. But I just don't think that he's suited to be president of the United States," he said to Greta Van Susteren in August.

"I don't think his temperament is suited for that and I don't think his experience is."

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“I disavow, OK?”

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At a news conference in Texas on Friday, Donald Trump said he disavows the support of white nationalist and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.

"I didn't even know he endorsed me. David Duke endorsed me? I disavow, OK," Trump said.

Duke, who has expressed his support of Trump's message on immigration throughout the election, urged his radio listeners on Wednesday to volunteer and vote for Trump.

"Voting for these people, voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage," Duke said, referring to Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. "I'm not saying I endorse everything about Trump, in fact I haven't formally endorsed him. But I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do."

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ORANGEBURG, South Carolina — Members of the South Carolina State’s student chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity decided to boycott Hillary Clinton’s rally, members of the organization told BuzzFeed News.

Both Clinton and Bernie Sanders have events in this college town on Friday. Sanders’ event is at nearby Claflin University. The schools, the campaigns, and the student volunteers are trying to drum up support for each event — though many students were already on their way to Charlotte for the CIAA mens basketball tournament, an annual popular weekend destination in February.

On Thursday night, three students said, a representative from S.C. State’s Student Life and Leadership contacted student activities like the cheer squad Greek letter organizations asking them to be involved in Clinton’s rally. Prince O’Connor, a Sanders supporter and intern for his campaign, said he and other immediately objected to a request they stroll at the event.

Strolling is a traditional line dance. Each organization has their own dances and on Friday, several were in the building and had planned to stroll, including Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc.

“They wanted us to come out and stroll, but I told them I didn't want to do it,” said O’Connor, a senior from Prince George’s County, Maryland, told BuzzFeed News. “Kappa Alpha Psi is not strolling. This is not the time or place to be strolling. That would just be taking away from the time people should be asking her questions.”

“People would be amped up and excited about the atmosphere but forget why you're supposed to be there,” he said.

O’Connor and his fraternity brother, Derrick Woods, as Bernie supporters, said they are concerned about civil rights, education, and the economy. Earlier, they were nearby Clinton’s rally trying to get more students over to Sanders’ event but looked a little discouraged. They said they were concerned by the three strikes rule and how the Clintons had contributed to mass incarceration during the 1990s under Bill Clinton’s presidency.

O’Connor said he'd been disillusioned by Clinton bringing celebrities to campus. But hadn't Sanders done the same thing? “Yes, but Killer Mike is an activist.”

The Clinton campaign brought Karen Civil, K. Michel, Star Jones, and Mayor Andrew Gillum of Tallahassee to S.C. State.

Students inside the gym at the event — which is about three-quarters full — from the fraternity Phi Beta Sigma said they, too, had been asked to stroll but they weren't sure if they were still going to go forward with the plan.

James Coleman, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, said the organization was contacted last night about strolling and intends to do so. “We have no problem doing it,” said Coleman, a senior. “We’re about service to our university and to anybody who asks us to do something that needs to be done.”

“I think I should support him because we’re one of the same cloth.”

Paul LePage, the controversial and outspoken Republican governor of Maine, endorsed Donald Trump on Friday.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

"The American people are not going for a governor this year, so I am gonna endorse Donald Trump and the reasons why are very similar: I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular," LePage said on the Howie Carr Show. "So I think I should support him because we're one of the same cloth."

"I really think that he's a businessman, I'm a businessman," added LePage, saying pundits wrote off his re-election campaign as well.

"We talked about it yesterday, we planned it out," said LePage, of endorsing Trump, along with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who similarly endorsed Trump on Friday. "No, I'm kidding, we had been talking this week about the future of country. We're very, very concerned about the future our country. I think Donald Trump is outspoken, he's out there."

LePage suggested Trump read, Team of Rivals, about the administration of Abraham Lincoln, saying he could add Scott Walker, John Kasich, Chris Christie, and others to an administration.

"I think he could be one of the greatest presidents ever if he sits down and he puts together a good team," said LePage. He added he was also reading A People's History of the United States.

LePage said he had yet to speak to Trump and waited to endorse after what he called Christie's "murder-suicide" after the New Hampshire debate between him and Marco Rubio.

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NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Ted Cruz told reporters on Friday that Chris Christie's endorsement of Donald Trump hurts Marco Rubio but doesn't hurt Cruz's Super Tuesday-focused strategy.

"I think the endorsement was no doubt troubling news for the Rubio campaign," Cruz said. "I like Chris, I don’t think the endorsement is a big surprise to many observers. Our focus is real simple, uniting conservatives in the Super Tuesday states, and I don’t think this endorsement has any significant impact on that."

Christie endorsed Trump while Cruz was taping an episode of the Sean Hannity show before a live audience in Nashville. Both Cruz and Rubio spent most of Thursday night's debate attacking Trump on everything from Trump University to his past stances on immigration, but it's Rubio who stood out due to its being his first time attacking Trump in any significant way. And it's Rubio who came out of the debate with a news cycle seemingly all to himself, which was amplified after he joked publicly that Trump had wet his pants and mocked him for applying makeup during a commercial break and misspelling tweets.

But it didn't last long: Christie endorsed Trump earlier today in Texas, an explosive move that neutralized Rubio's news cycle and made Trump's path to the nomination seem even more assured.

Cruz was left out of the equation entirely; Christie did not talk about Cruz in his endorsement of Trump, but instead attacked Rubio, seeming to cast Rubio as Trump's sole remaining rival. Cruz and his team are now laser-focused on Super Tuesday, where they expect to win Cruz's home state of Texas, though Trump is likely to sweep elsewhere. They hope that Cruz will rack up delegates and that the unlikelihood of Rubio winning any states that night will reinforce Cruz's argument that he is the only candidate left who can beat Trump.

Asked about whether he is concerned about the race now being viewed as a two-man contest between Rubio and Trump, Cruz, who has said many times he believes it is a two-man race between himself and Trump, said, "I don't doubt that the media will do everything they can to frame the race as anybody but the proven conservative with a conservative record."

"You know, to win the nomination, you actually have to win states, you have to win delegates," Cruz said, referring to Rubio. "There are only two candidates who have won states, and that's Donald Trump and me. And I'll tell you, on Tuesday we're going to have a very good night. We saw yesterday in my home state of Texas we've got a double digit lead n the state of Texas, the crown jewel of Super Tuesday."

"In contrast, we saw yesterday poll numbers showing Marco is behind by double digits in his home state of Florida," Cruz said. "Anyone who wants to win the nomination has to win a state somewhere."

Cruz, however, has acknowledged that Trump is the one to beat going into March 1.

"Right now, Donald Trump has enormous momentum," Cruz said earlier on Friday. "If he continues with that momentum and powers through and wins everywhere on Super Tuesday, he could easily be unstoppable."

The Sanders campaign says he voted for the 1994 crime bill because it contained a ban on assault weapons — but that ban wasn’t in the version of the bill he initially supported.

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The Bernie Sanders campaign explained the Vermont senator's support for the 1994 crime bill on Thursday with a release saying he voted for the bill in part because it contained a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons.

"The House version of the bill included a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons," the release said. "Sanders had supported the ban since 1988."

The House version of the bill, which passed the House that April and which Sanders has been criticized for voting for when he was a representative from Vermont, did not include an assault weapons ban.

The ban was in the version of the bill that passed the Senate. Sanders ultimately did vote for the bill with the ban in it, and President Bill Clinton signed it into law.

The law added 100,000 officers to the police force and offered federal money to states to build new prisons, on the condition that they agreed to force inmates to serve out their whole sentences. Since the 1990s, attitudes among progressives and libertarians have shifted away from "tough-on-crime" legislation. Hillary Clinton's first speech as Democratic candidate called for an end to the "era of mass incarceration."

In the release, the Sanders campaign sought to distinguish his support for the bill from that of Clinton, who advocated for it as First Lady at the time, and who has herself been criticized for her use of the term "super-predators."

A spokesperson for the campaign did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News for a request to comment.

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WASHINGTON — Lawyers for three Louisiana abortion clinics and two doctors went to the Supreme Court on Friday afternoon, asking the justices to halt an appeals court ruling that the lawyers say will lead to only one doctor being permitted to perform abortions in the state.

A trial court had previously issued a preliminary injunction preventing the state from enforcing a state law that requires all doctors performing abortions at clinics to "[h]ave active admitting privileges at a hospital that is located not further than thirty miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced and that provides obstetrical or gynecological health care services."

On Wednesday, however, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of the district court’s injunction pending the state’s appeal. In other words, the law is enforceable while clinics and doctors appeal the ruling.

The clinics and doctors challenging the law, however, say the outcome is dramatic — and immediate — and have asked for the Supreme Court to vacate the 5th Circuit's stay. Further, they ask for the justices to lift the stay temporarily while the court considers this request.

"Because of the Fifth Circuit’s stay order, which was based on a demonstrably wrong application of the undue burden standard, all but two doctors in the state have been forced to stop providing abortions and turn away women with scheduled appointments, and one of those will shortly be forced to cease, absent relief from this Court. Louisiana will then be left with only one physician providing abortions," the lawyers state in the application with the court.

The application is directed to Justice Clarence Thomas, who by an order of the court on Thursday was assigned to hear such requests out of the 5th Circuit. (They previously had been heard by Justice Antonin Scalia, who died earlier this month.) While Thomas can take action on the application by himself, such requests are usually referred by so-called "circuit" justices to the full court for consideration.

The request comes to the court as the justices prepare to hear a case on March 2 over similar abortion provider restrictions out of Texas. There, as well, the 5th Circuit had allowed the restrictions to go into effect during the litigation. In that case, the Supreme Court put the law on hold until it can resolve the underlying challenge to the law.

The vote there was 5-4 in favor of the stay, with Scalia being one of the dissenting justices. As such, only three of the justices opposed to the stay in the Texas case remain on the court.

Read the Supreme Court filing: