The comments come amid a spat between the two over the Republican frontrunner’s claim that he will build a Mexican-funded wall along the U.S. border.
Laura Buckman / AFP / Getty Images
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said Friday that Donald Trump reminds him of Adolf Hitler.
Fox, who was president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, made the comments during a televised interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN.
Sean Rayford / Getty Images
ORANGEBURG, South Carolina — As night fell, and as the Sanders campaign headed to Columbia, campaign surrogates remained quietly optimistic about their candidate’s chances heading into a tough primary here Saturday. But a question accompanies wistful contemplations about what could have been: What if Bernie got here sooner?
It's a question bandied about by a few loyalists and high-profile surrogates supporting him here, and a natural one. Sanders, a virtual unknown in South Carolina just months ago, climbed to respectability. Clinton people aren't exactly worried, but he's made it a contest that, at the very least, can likely be spun into a narrative about growth and gaining ground. Campaign officials, already test driving such statements privately, will try to create more momentum with them into Super Tuesday.
Bernie Sanders and his team left a rally at Claflin University here and crashed Solicitor David Pascoe's Annual Oyster Roast and Fish Fry at the Orangeburg County Fairgrounds. As his campaign was arriving, Hillary Clinton’s left.
Sanders’s appearance was mostly unexpected; campaign officials only told reporters he was confirmed while still at Claflin, a sparsely attended rally attended by about 300 supporters, including Aria Dillard, Miss Claflin University (officially: undecided) who was in full regalia. At the roast, after a rousing address by surrogate Killer Mike, the candidate grabbed the mic: “I'm Bernie Sanders.” He flashed his wide, toothy grin, as if to know, fully, where he was: In a state where few know him and where he will be happy to walk away with a loss in the single digits.
And yet it was a jarring self-introduction for a candidate who has consistently drawn crowds in the thousands at his rallies, whose slogans on the campaign trail are recited back to him and who has become a singular pop culture phenomenon after living in relative obscurity as an independent senator from the one of the least populated states in the country.
Two surrogates with Sanders said they think Sanders would have benefitted by coming to South Carolina earlier and more often.
“The important thing to keep in mind is that Bernie doesn't have to win South Carolina to become president and Hillary Clinton does,” said state Rep. Justin Bamberg, who once supported Clinton. “He started at 6% and he's grown substantially here. I wish he had more time because the gap would have been closed even more.”
“Unfortunately, there are 50 states and every one of them is important.”
BuzzFeed News was first to report that State Sen. Joe Neal had endorsed Sanders at the beginning of February. Even then, Neal was lamenting that time was not on his guy’s side. “I hope he will close the gap and I'll be trying to help him do that as much as I can. It's late in the game and I recognize that,” Neal said. “I wish he'd been here earlier.”
Dr. Mitchell Mackinem of Columbia who is a professor of sociology at Claflin who attended the rally, said he agreed that while Sanders has a majority of support among students on campus, coming to campus earlier would have started a more intense conversation amongst the student body. (Sanders did make it to other HBCUs in South Carolina.) “They haven't seen him until now,” Mackinem said. “It's good the conversation is happening now, but it could have started 6 to 8 weeks ago.”
“That's a challenge because he's only one man,” he said.
On the rope line at Claflin, all kinds of supporters took selfies with Bernie’s wife Jane. “Wish him well! Wish him God’s speed!” one voter, jacket full of Bernie buttons told her. When Jane saw a young voter, she lit up and talked with her before posing for a picture.
“You can only go as fast as you can go,” she told BuzzFeed News, echoing a similar sentiment on the question of whether they should have invested more time in South Carolina that was also delivered by her husband when asked the question himself by BuzzFeed News on a campaign call with Ben Jealous.
Jane Sanders said that while Clinton is the best-known candidate, she'll be watching to see how far he's come here, where he started in the single digits. “We’ll see if that's correct,” she said. “I wish there were 48 hours in the day. That would be fantastic.”
Danny Glover, the campaign’s HBCU coordinator who presided over the festivities at Claflin, said 500 people went to a Sanders rally at South Carolina State, even though the candidate wasn't there. But some voters at the oyster roast said, in fact, seeing him in person had solidified their vote. For others, it made them give Sanders a second look.
One undecided voter, Gracie Franklin, 63, of Orangeburg, said she would as Sanders wrapped up his speech. “It's hard to say,” she said, trying to pinpoint what Sanders had aroused in her. “He's an older person to me. You wonder if he can do the job for four years, as opposed to his opponent.”
Still, she has seen him on TV, and the impromptu appearance at the oyster roast raised questions. “I don't think there's going to be no $15 minimum wage. I don't think that gonna happen. It's been a long time since we had a raise.” His surrogates on stage with him, mostly black, had no effect on her (“Everyone has a choice,” she said.) But something about the occasion — about the spectacle of it — made her say she's going to take time at home Friday night to think harder about her vote. “I guess you could say anything could happen,” when she steps in the booth tomorrow, Franklin said.
A little 10-year-old black kid named Chris was waving two American flags outside of the venue. He had felt the Bern.
“I like what he was saying about black people and about equal rights,” he said. He'd seen Clinton, too, but was less impressed: He put a flag in his mouth and wiggled his hand as if to say “so-so.”
Mario Backmon, a veteran from Orangeburg who said he will be voting for Sanders on Saturday, said he had heard Killer Mike was campaigning with Sanders, but was struck by seeing the pair in person for the first time. He was also impressed by how much time Sanders spent with the crowd shaking hands and taking pictures.
“She said some keywords that got my attention, but Bernie didn't sound scripted,” he said, alluding to Clinton. “But Bernie just felt genuine, you know? To be able to feel it? That was amazing! To be able to feel the Bern in person?”
Patrick Kovarik / AFP / Getty Images
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the larger-than-life founder of France's far-right Front National party, endorsed Donald Trump on his Twitter feed on Saturday.
"If I was American I would vote for Donald Trump," Le Pen tweeted. "May God protect him!"
Trump has often been compared to European far-right movements such as the Front National, with his mix of anti-immigrant rhetoric and economic populism seeming to mirror those movements more than anything else in American politics.
Le Pen was the leader of the Front National from its founding in 1972 to 2011, when his daughter Marine took over. Marine Le Pen forced Jean-Marie Le Pen out of the party last year after Le Pen again made Holocaust-denying remarks, re-upping his famous 1987 comments about the Nazi gas chambers being a "detail of history." Le Pen has faced legal sanctions more than once for Holocaust denial and for other controversial statements. Over the decades, he has repeatedly made disparaging remarks about minorities.
Under Marine Le Pen, the party has pursued a strategy of "de-demonization," seeking to shed its racist image and appeal to mainstream voters. The Front National advocates for a hardline anti-immigration policy alongside economic protectionism.
Trump has previously made an overture to the European right with an interview in Valeurs actuelles, a French magazine that is seen as bridging the divide between the center right and the far right.
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
He’s got a crush on you, Donald.
The Republican presidential candidates are fighting for the “foundation” of the nation.
Rubio continued:"Well, last night he actually was pretty calm after I punched him around a little bit. I guess he's learning how to spell, somebody said here. But he's flying around on Hair Force One and tweeting.
So here's the one tweet he put out, he put out a picture of me having makeup put on me at the debate, which is amazing me to me, that a guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on makeup.
Donald Trump likes to sue people; he should sue whoever did that to his face."
??????????????????
Gary Coronado / AP
"You ought to see [Rubio] backstage. He was using a trowel to put on makeup. I will not say that he was trying to cover up his ears, I will not say that."
"He's a nervous Nellie. I watched him backstage. He's a mess, the guy's a total mess. I joked recently, could you imagine Putin sitting there waiting for a meeting, and Rubio walks in and he's totally drenched? I don't know what it is but I have never seen a human being sweat like this man sweats."
"I thought he was going to die. He was so scared, like a little frightened puppy."
"Lightweight Marco Rubio was working hard last night. The problem is, he is a choker, and once a choker, always a choker! Mr. Meltdown."
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina — An ad running on black radio here begins not with Hillary Clinton's record, but with Barack Obama.
“We all worked hard to elect President Obama in 2008 and 2012,” a black woman’s voice says in the spot produced by Priorities USA, the pro-Clinton super PAC. The ad goes on to tell listeners that Obama trusted Clinton to do perhaps the most important job in his cabinet.
The message has been there for months: Clinton, the candidate and campaign have made clear, will work to defend and extend Obama’s legacy. And it’s working for voters who support Clinton, especially older voters, who see her as the electable heir to Obama and all he accomplished while in office.
But for the voters either supporting Bernie Sanders or are undecided or even the Clinton supporters, there’s often a dreaded reality. Without Obama on the ballot, there’s just not as much interest.
It is a concern among Democrats still concerned about losses in midterm elections in 2010 and 2014. If new voters who enthusiastically supported Obama both election years don’t come back and vote for the eventual Democratic nominee, the party could be in serious trouble, Democratic strategists say.
Without engaging the Obama majority, familiarity with Clinton aside, strategists like Cornell Belcher, president of Brilliant Corners Research and who was part of the Obama polling team in 2008 and 2012, say the electorate will look more like 2010 and 2014, when Republicans destroyed Democrats up and down the ticket. “The danger is you can't win Ohio, Florida, Virginia. North Carolina is not purple,” he said. “That's the danger.”
Belcher told BuzzFeed News that he’s long emphasized — from when Howard Dean chaired the party to now — that Democrats should not mistake Obama voters for voters who would vote Democratic in future elections. Obama, he said, was a culturally relevant and politically agreeable phenomenon, making him, essentially, the presidential candidate of a lifetime.
“I can't overemphasize that: They are Obama voters. Not Democratic voters,” he said. “Yes, they lean Democratic on almost all of the issues, but they were not turning out for Democrats, they turned out for Obama. And unless we build and cultivate that we are not a progressive majority.”
The excitement, Belcher said, lies this year with the Republicans; primary voter participation is down from 2008 on the Democratic side — and up because of Trump and other factors.
Gloria and Clarence Caldwell of Orangeburg are the kind of voters expected to deliver Clinton a double-digit win in Saturday's Democratic primary. They had already cast votes for her a week before the primary and were spreading the word neighbors, friends, and family members.
But even they acknowledge there is muted interest in the election amongst their friends, colleagues, and neighbors, all whom voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. "But you know, there doesn't always have to be as much excitement and enthusiasm as long as we know that the reality is that Hillary Clinton is our better choice,” Gloria Caldwell said.
“I think she has the experience and the vision for a better America,” she continued. “She's been trusted by President Obama, a leader that we love and respect greatly. And we believe that she will carry on the legacy and continue a lot of the initiatives that he started.”
“Amen,” said her husband.
Barbara F. Pettett, 72, has also voted for Clinton, but said her enthusiasm for her pales in comparison to her feeling when Obama. She was in a drug store in Augusta, Georgia, when she saw the prescient cover of TIME magazine that “this man could be president.”
“I felt something in my spirit and I said, ‘Yes, he will.’”
Pettett said she made 150 phone calls for Obama from an office in Harlem in 2012. She can still recite the script. “I was so proud of myself,” she said, working herself into a giggle. “I didn't give any money, but I had to make sure he stayed in the house.”
“Voting for Obama was about this—” she said, patting her hand to signify her skin color. “It's just voting this time.” She was waiting in line to see Clinton and Sen. Cory Booker at Cumberland United Methodist Church in Florence where she'd been married years ago. “It's voting for a Democrat.”
Clinton’s most fiercely loyal black supporters — a cluster of voters who abandoned her for Obama in 2008 — understand Clinton’s viability as the nominee. These supporters generally express three core beliefs: First, the tough primary campaign between Clinton and Obama was simply the nature of politics. Second, they view him choosing of her as secretary of state as a nod to his diplomacy and character — and to her capability and humility. Mostly, and perhaps most importantly, they believe that she will protect his legacy of accomplishment while in the White House — a trust that comes because the voters feel like they know her.
Darren Sands / BuzzFeed News
For all of their affinity for Clinton, however, this year’s election carries none of the excitement factor — a general election concern more than anything.
“I want to see the first white woman in office,” said Annie Green, a black voter leaving Clinton’s town hall Thursday night in North Charleston. “I feel like I’m making up for lost time by voting for her now, I feel bad.”
She said her son, Rico Diggs, had suffered from dementia before his death in August of 2010. She said her son didn’t remember much. But he had remembered that the president was black and that his name was Barack Obama.
“That night when he became president? I didn’t go to bed all night long!” she said. “I was just calling people, ‘Do you know who the president is?’ And my son was right there with me.”
The Clinton campaign has put a great deal of resources into gauging the mood of black voters. The campaign believes that black Americans are “somewhat optimistic,” about their finances and the economy, according to Ron Lester, a well-known pollster hired by Clinton last summer. But many feel that progress could be pulled out from under them. “In focus groups they will tell you that essentially, they feel as though they're skating on thin ice,” Lester said. “It's a struggle but they're optimistic.”
Lester said that Clinton does well with these voters because they are familiar with her and feel she shares their concerns. “They're feeling her,” he said.
Lester said voters had expressed it was important Clinton “support and expand” Obama’s 21st Century Task Force on Policing. Lester said there was also “thousands” of black voters who benefitted from the Affordable Care Act. Lester said protecting the law from repeal is important to black voters, “which the Republicans seem very determined to do.”
Lester’s polling that blacks are familiar with Clinton and trust her experience is a large part of why “she’s my girl,” said Kenneth Jefferson, 62, who came to see Clinton in North Charleston from Goose Creek. “I’m with her 100%. That’s why I came all the way down here today.
“She knows what she’s doing. It ain’t like this is something new for her like it is with Sanders,” he said. “As long as she sticks with Obama, I love it. That’s the perfect move. I consider myself a poor man and she’s down for us. And if she’s down with Obama, I’m down with her just like I was down with her husband. She’s been around us blacks for at least 25 years.”
He said he considered the Clinton presidency better days — today, he receives only $720 a month from social security. “That ain’t no money,” he said.
Priscill Spain of Conway, who saw Clinton at a Thursday rally in Myrtle Beach is among the Obama loyalists who have made their peace with Clinton — and for her, it will all come full circle if Obama endorses her. For now, voters like her are satisfied to hear Clinton say that Obama doesn’t get the credit he deserves for pulling the country out of the doldrums. “I was angry with her when she was running against him, but that’s politics. She had to be negative to a certain degree.”
“I want to make sure that if she’s elected that she has a commitment to not destroying his legacy,” Mary Owens, another voter who saw Clinton in Myrtle Beach, but is from Conway, said. She printed and paid for 150 signs for Clinton and gave them away. “She’s made a commitment to support the programs and initiatives he started so I’m excited about that.” Owens said she comes from a military family — and Sanders’ status in the 1960s as a conscientious objector doesn’t fly in her house.
But Sanders’ appeal with younger voters has been a source of trouble across the board, among women and people of color.
Polling has indicated that young black voters favor Clinton. But, on the campuses of HBCUs — like Allen University, the school where Rep. Jim Clyburn recently endorsed Clinton — many young black students support Sanders. They like that he’s going bolder, more progressive than even Obama. In South Carolina on Friday, for instance, the Kappas on a campus Clinton was speaking on, led by two Bernie supporters, refused to participate in the event. On Capitol Hill, there’s a generational divide: Some black congressional staffers support Sanders; others have questions about why everyone should line up behind Clinton, particularly in light of how the politics of the 1990s led to criminal justice and domestic policies now unpopular and seen as damaging to communities of color.
With these young voters, the idea that Clinton will extend Obama’s legacy may not be enough to excite them. And it was young voters, in particular, that powered Obama’s election and re-election.
“What propelled Obama to the nomination and ultimately to the White House was a surge of new voters who had not previously been part of the process before,” Belcher said. The question Democrats face now is how to excite those voters when Obama is no longer on the ballot and is set to exit the stage. In 2012, Belcher said Mitt Romney had a “perfectly orchestrated” strategy, but failed to account for Obama’s new majority of loyalists he says are thus far unengaged. “Democrats have to be very, very concerned about the lack of energy that you're seeing among younger black and brown people. Arguably, the Mitt Romney playbook works.”
“I was more into it in those years because it was a black man running, to be honest,” a young health care worker who helps uninsured patients find quality insurance and care recently told BuzzFeed News. She is not knowledgeable on either candidate running in the primary, she said.
She did know, however, that Clinton had vowed to protect Obamacare.
“But, in my experience it wasn’t effective,” she said. She asked for anonymity because she was not authorized to speak for her company. “The prices were too high for a lot of the patients so we had to find them Medicaid. It didn’t work like we thought it was going to."
The process was lengthy, and all the kinks had not been worked out she said — and when they were, the insurance still wasn’t affordable for many patients. Protecting that part of Obama’s legacy is not high on her list.
Patreshia Anderson and Ariell Blake both planned on voting Saturday — Anderson (definitely not into Clinton) says she’s voting for Sanders and Blake, while undecided, is leaning toward him, too.
Anderson and Blake, who are members of Sigma Gamma Rho, a black Greek sorority both voted for Obama as freshmen. They will cast another vote on Saturday, this time as seniors who like Sanders’ ideas on college affordability, a $15 minimum wage, and are attracted to his record as a fighter for civil rights for black folks.
For all of their concern about the future (“Are you telling me now that a bachelor’s degree is not enough?” Blake said. “I don’t have 10 to 15 years of experience at anything”) and their support for Sanders, they were less enthusiastic about the eventual nominee — and even the general election.
“Honestly, it’s not the same” enthusiasm, Anderson said. “I think it has to do with race. There’s no black candidate in this election and people here don’t really care as much. Carson is a Republican.”
On the campus of nearby South Carolina State, Anderson and Blake recalled the excitement of election night in 2012. “[S.C.] State’s band was out there playing all night. People were drinking and just having a great time. It felt like a party, I mean, we was turnt. I’m telling you, it was a lituation for Obama,” Anderson said, laughing.
Things have changed.
Said Blake, “Yeah, and now we’re just trying to graduate.”
Trump said on Saturday that Rubio isn’t smart enough to get into Wharton. Here’s what Trump wrote in 1987: “Perhaps the most important thing I learned at Wharton was not to be overly impressed by academic credentials.”
buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com
Speaking in Bentonville, Arkansas, on Saturday, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump attacked Marco Rubio's intelligence, saying he couldn't be a student at Penn's Wharton School of Finance.
"So I went to the Wharton School of Finance, which is considered the best business school okay, got to be very smart to get into that school, very smart," said Trump on Saturday. "The Rubios of the world could not get into that school, believe me. They don't have the capacity. Actually Cruz could, in all fairness, Cruz could. I don't know if he has the temperament. I think neither had the temperament, but academically certainly. But, I go to Wharton, I'm smart, you're smart but you don't have to be smart."
Trump attended Wharton for two years after transferring from Fordham University. In public appearances and speeches in recent years, he has used the undergraduate degree as proof of his business bonafides.
Yet in his most-famous book, The Art of the Deal, Trump said he thought a Wharton degree, in his opinion, didn't "prove very much."
"Perhaps the most important thing I learned at Wharton was not to be overly impressed by academic credentials," wrote Trump in his 1987 bestseller. "It didn't take me long to realize that there was nothing particularly awesome or exceptional about my classmates, and that I could compete with them just fine. The other important thing I got from Wharton was a Wharton degree. In my opinion, that degree doesn't prove very much, but a lot of people I do business with take it very seriously, and it's considered very prestigious. So all things considered, I'm glad I went to Wharton."
Darren Sands / BuzzFeed News
COLUMBIA, South Carolina — “I hate the fucking music.”
Those words, from a Bernie supporter, rang just minutes after Hillary Clinton addressed her supporters a few blocks away. No one knew, exactly, what the music was. Or what had happened on Saturday.
Sanders’ watch party, sans candidate, was held in the upstairs lounge of a restaurant and jazz bar called Pearlz on a well-populated strip downtown. The music was percussive, and yet sad — the handiwork of David Cosgrove, the campaign’s scheduling and advance director for South Carolina.
When the complaints rolled in, there was little Cosgrove could do about it. “What do we want? A little something more upbeat? A little Tribe Called Quest up in this bitch?”
For the crowd of about 85, the drinks were strong, at least. A bartender named Guy Lugenbeel, a Bernie supporter from Columbia, had no idea he would be working for an event. He found out on Facebook and came into work an hour earlier than scheduled after deejaying a rave until 6:15 in the morning. Then, he went to vote for Bernie.
“I just happened to work here and I saw it on Facebook and just hauled ass in here,” Lugenbeel said. “Hey, we gotta go vote, it's time to shut it down.”
He was conflicted about the results.
“I don't know, man,” he said. “The best thing we could have hoped for was, like, a small victory, which would have been a 30-point loss. A victory would have been a 20-point loss. Obviously it didn't seem to work that well.”
“You can only vote and try and do what you can,” he said. “For the most part of course I would be happy with a small victory but I was definitely realistic about it.” Then he poured a huge bourbon on two ice cubes.
If there was an optimistic soul in the whole place, it was Diane May, a former spokesperson for the South Carolina Democratic Party who confidently said she was about to join to the campaign.
“Bernie had a decisive win in New Hampshire and she had a decisive win here,” May said. “We’re looking forward to Super Tuesday and the March 15 primaries. There are a lot of voters who are out there who identify with Bernie’s message and who want to hear from him. We look forward talking with them and seeing them come out.”
Her plans are rough — “I'm literally just gonna pack a bag and go for two weeks” — but they also involved a drive to Vermont.
Others kept looking forward, too.
“I'm proud of our efforts here,” said Aneesa McMillan, Sanders’ South Carolina communications director. “We’ve shown several signs of being able to win. We won the Latino vote in Nevada and the argument there was that we couldn't do well with minorities and we proved that we could.”
Of Clinton’s margin of victory, McMillan said she wished it was narrower, but felt that there wasn't any reason for Bernie’s operatives in South Carolina to hang their heads over it.
“When this race started we were polling in the single digits so I think the momentum continues. It really is the beginning of the contest.”
“I don't feel defeated, I'm not even [kidding] you,” McMillan said. “I'm looking forward to continuing the campaign.”
There were jeers when Clinton spoke on television, but also the absence of much hope. Black voters were said to be close to be about 60% of the electorate in South Carolina and voted overwhelmingly for Clinton — by potentially more percentage points than they did in Obama in 2008, though turnout was down significantly from that contest.
State Rep. Justin Bamberg addressed the crowd. Never one for scripted speeches, Bamberg sent along the candidate’s regards and assured those in attendance that it wasn't over — not by a long shot.
“I wanna tell everybody to keep your head up because we are not done yet. Set back is a set up for a comeback,” he said drawing saying to a supporter who recognized him from TV. He corrected the volunteer from California who said his switch from Clinton to Sanders was due to him seeing “the light.”
“Well, I educated myself,” he said.
Of his address, Bamberg kept it short and simple like his speech. “Just wanted to keep everybody encouraged,” Bamberg said.
Bamberg gave his address to a rapt audience, filled with people looking for some reassurance that things were going to be OK. “And we can crank the music up!”
That music was still a problem, though. Cosgrove had tried, but in the end, this was all there was. “He never changed the music!” one campaign staffer said, then cursed.
Scott Olson / Getty Images
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — Ted Cruz released four years' worth of tax returns on Saturday, two days after promising to do so during the debate on Thursday.
He released only the first two pages of his tax returns for each year, though. The returns show that Cruz and his wife Heidi Cruz made $1.2 million in 2014 and paid $442,701 in taxes. They do not indicate how much the Cruzes spent in charitable contributions, and do not show how much of the Cruz family's income has come from Heidi Cruz, a Goldman Sachs investment manager who is currently on leave during the campaign.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday night ahead of a rally hosted here by pro-Cruz super PAC Keep the Promise, Cruz pointed out that he has now released nine years of tax returns total and said after being asked by reporters that he would release the full returns, and not just the two-page summaries, if his rivals do the same. Cruz released his full tax returns for the previous five years in 2012 during his Senate race.
"The first five years, we released the complete tax returns," Cruz said. "The latest four, we released the summary pages really to match what the other competitors have done."
"If Marco wants to release the complete things for the recent years I’m happy to do so as well, and I would certainly encourage Donald Trump to do it, but we just did it to match what the other candidates are doing, this is a competitive race," Cruz said.
Previously on Saturday, Rubio also released partial tax returns. He reportedly said later on Saturday night that he will release his full returns as well.
Cruz said it raises "serious ethical issues" that Donald Trump has not released any tax returns.
Cruz referenced Mitt Romney's suggestion that there could be a "bombshell" in Trump's returns, and speculated that it could be that Trump is "embarrassed" to reveal that he isn't as rich as he says he is, or that he is worried about legal exposure for the years for which he is being audited. (Trump said during the debate on Thursday that he doesn't want to release his returns because he is being audited, though he didn't know exactly which years). Cruz also raised the question of whether there could be "irregularities" or "fraud."
"If he had tax irregularities, if he had any issues of tax fraud," Cruz said. "Hilary Clinton and the Democrats aided and abetted by the press would make it a major issue in the general election."
Cruz also speculated that Trump may have donated to "left-wing organizations."
"It could be that Donald Trump is not nearly as wealthy as he tells everybody he is," Cruz said. "A lot of people, a lot of reporters, a lot of media outlets have speculated that his claims of wealth are vastly inflated."
Asked about whether he has made charitable contributions — something that isn't evident from what the campaign has released — Cruz said, "I’ve made very substantial charitable contributions." The fact that Cruz didn't tithe in past years became an issue in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, where Mike Huckabee allies made ads centering around the issue.
Cruz campaigned in Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas on Saturday and will be in Oklahoma and Texas in the next two days before Super Tuesday, the day that Cruz has cast in heightened terms as the most important day of his entire campaign.
Though Cruz has been criticizing Trump on a regular basis for weeks after spending months avoiding going negative on him, it is Rubio who has gotten the most attention for his Trump attacks in the days since the debate. Rubio, who previously had not laid a hand on Trump, has made fun of Trump's tan, suggested that he wet his pants, and mocked him for misspelling words. Cruz has repeatedly in the past promised not to engage in personal insults with regard to Trump, but he appears to see the tax return issue as a potent way to needle Trump and cast doubt on his integrity.
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Rep. Jim Clyburn approached the podium, looked out across the room, lifted his 75-year-old arms to the air, cracked a smile, and started to dance. “Happy” by Pharrell was playing on on the loudspeakers.
The crowd went wild. Clyburn was happy. Supporters were happy. Everyone was happy. And by the time she joined him on stage, even Hillary Clinton seemed happy. South Carolina voters, particularly black voters, delivered the big, resounding win that she and her team have wanted badly. Clinton beat Bernie Sanders here by 47 points — and by 72 points among black voters.
The victory carried with it some combination of relief and excitement — a cautious hope that the campaign, after 10 months, might finally start to click. In the volleyball gymnasium at the University of South Carolina, Saturday's rally showed a candidate with deeper confidence, a campaign message newly refined and reframed, and a staff given over to a moment of genuine feeling and commitment.
One campaign aide described the mood simply as “jubilant.”
Supporters danced along to every song. Staffers shared bits of results data in delight. (“We’re winning black voters above 65 years old by 93 points. 93 points!”) And when Clinton took the stage, aides lingering in the back of the gym cheered as hard and loud as the crowd. One jumped up and down, letting out high-pitched screams. Another shouted at the top of his lungs, “HILL-A-RY, HILL-A-RY.”
It was a rare moment of shared celebration for a campaign that has, at points, felt like a slog to participants. One month ago, when Clinton did not claim victory in Iowa — except to say, somewhat unconvincingly, that she was leaving the state with a “big sigh of relief” — she spoke for six minutes and left. No handshakes. No ropeline. No one one knew what to make of it. Two supporters, college students, were left hanging near the stage. “So," one asked, "she’s not coming back?”
Then came the slow and total defeat in New Hampshire. There was talk of a staff shake-up and complaints about the campaign message. Ahead of Nevada and South Carolina, states where Clinton benefited from a diverse electorate, she and her advisers were still working to broaden and reframe their pitch to voters, particularly black voters. Here at her campaign rallies week, Clinton told crowds that she, not Sanders, would work hardest to address racial and ethnic barriers.
On Saturday night, recasting the elements message again, Clinton offered voters a simple concept. The speech, essentially, was an appeal for unity — for a conscientiousness that closes divisions in communities and propels policy changes that help people in small and large ways. All of it, Clinton told the crowd here, comes down to the question a presiding church elder recently put to her: “‘How, how are we ever going to strengthen the bonds of family and community again?’
“Well," Clinton said, reprising a line she has used on the campaign trail this year and explained as a shorthand for her view of politics, "we're going to start by working together with more love and kindness in our hearts and more respect for each other, even when we disagree.
Clinton also pit the message directly against Donald Trump. “Despite what you hear, we don't need to make America great again,” she said, referencing Trump’s campaign slogan. “America has never stopped being great. But we do need to make America whole again. Instead of building walls, we need to be tearing down barriers. We need to show by everything we do that we really are in this together.”
The speech was the likeliest glimpse yet at the message Clinton might present in a general election, particularly against an opponent like Trump. After the rally, aides would not go as far as to say that they believe Trump will be the Republican nominee. (“I’ve given up guessing,” said communications director Jennifer Palmieri.)
Clinton still faces a highly competitive contests with Sanders. He is positioned to do well in caucus-style states next month and could run up a competitive delegate count. But as aides celebrated their victory on Saturday night, winning handily among black voters here, they also expressed surprise when results showed Clinton held an eight-point margin, 54-46, against Sanders among white voters.
“Tomorrow,” she told the crowd, “this campaign goes national!”
But before she left South Carolina, Clinton lingered for a long while on the ropeline. She shook every hand, took every photo, all the way back to the exit. Clinton wouldn’t leave. She doubled back to the other side and went again. Then doubled back again. And again. And when she finally ducked past an American flag, heading backstage, she paused — popping back out for one last wave to the crowd.
Bernie Sanders speaking in Michigan earlier this month
Bill Pugliano / Getty Images
ROCHESTER, Minnesota — Bernie Sanders tried to find some good news in his crushing defeat in the South Carolina primary when he appeared on the Sunday political talk shows from his hotel room here.
He also acknowledged just how crushing the 74% to 26% loss in South Carolina was.
"We got decimated, George. We got decimated," Sanders told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week. "The only positive thing for us is we won the actually — the 29 years of age and younger vote. And that was good. But we got killed."
He made similar comments on other Sunday shows throughout the morning. Sanders didn't concede South Carolina in the traditional sense Saturday night; he congratulated Hillary Clinton in a gaggle with reporters outside his campaign plane in Minnesota before delivering a nearly hour-long stump speech here that never mentioned the night's primary results.
That was in keeping with a tone set by Sanders after his loss in Nevada, when he and his campaign barely mentioned South Carolina and instead focused on next week's 11 state Super Tuesday collection of primaries and caucuses.
Sanders was resoundingly rejected by black voters in South Carolina, a result that led many to question if he could ever make a dent in the important slice of the Democratic electorate.
On This Week, Sanders telegraphed more Super Tuesday defeats among black voters in the day's southern primaries, but suggested black voters outside the region would be more likely to support him.
"I think you're going to see us doing — and I think the polls indicated it, much better within the African-American community outside of the Deep South," Sanders said. "You're going to see us much better in New York state where I think we have a shot to win, in California and in Michigan."
None of the states Sanders mentioned vote on Super Tuesday. In that contest, his campaign remains focused on states with a relatively large population of white Democratic voters.
“You wouldn’t want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about,” Trump said.
Asked on Sunday morning if he would "unequivocally condemn" former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Donald Trump said he couldn't condemn a group or person he knew nothing about.
Duke, who has expressed support for Trump's candidacy throughout the election, urged his radio listeners last week to volunteer and support Trump, saying a vote against Trump is "treason to your heritage."
Asked to condemn Duke by CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday, Trump said, "I don't know, did he endorse me or what's going on, because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you're asking me a question that I'm supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about."
Trump added, "You wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about. I would have to look. If you would send me a list of the groups, I will do research on them. And, certainly, I would disavow if I thought there was something wrong."
Tapper then pressed Trump, saying, "I mean, I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here."
Trump still refused to condemn, responding, "I don't know any — honestly, I don't know David Duke. I don't believe I have ever met him. I'm pretty sure I didn't meet him. And I just don't know anything about him."
Social media harmony in the Democratic primary.
Ethan Miller / Getty Images
OKLAHOMA CITY — Moments before Bernie Sanders stepped on stage to address a large crowd at the Cox Convention Center Arena here Sunday, his campaign account tweeted about Donald Trump and the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump declined to condemn the KKK in a CNN interview earlier in the day, and the Sanders campaign — which has stepped up its attacks on Trump in recent days — took the opportunity to knock him again.
Karen Pulfer Focht / Reuters
WASHINGTON — The Koch network has no plans to jump into the GOP presidential primary, despite new reports claiming the billionaire brothers and their powerful political operation are gearing up to go after the real estate mogul.
A report based on Donald Trump-insider Roger Stone on Infowars — which quickly spread in conservative circles after being picked up by Drudge Report — claims the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch and the donors affiliated with their network met last week and raised $75 million to stop Trump and $25 million to help Marco Rubio. The support for Rubio, however, would be conditional on him winning Florida. If he lost, they would work on getting Mitt Romney into the race.
"This story is completely false," said James Davis, spokesman for the Koch network. "We have not intervened in the presidential primary, and we do not plan to engage. We want the candidates to discuss their positive vision for our nation and how they will reverse our path toward a two-tiered society. Unfortunately, there’s very little of that in the campaign right now.”
The story comes ahead of the Super Tuesday primaries and as the Republican establishment has begun to attack Trump after months of basically ignoring Trump and hoping he'd go away. The American Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit, released three new ads last week featuring former Trump University students attacking Trump. Other groups have been discussing spending against Trump as well as he continues to rack up delegates with big wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.
Although the Koch network had some discussion on whether they should target Trump during a gathering in California in late January, as BuzzFeed News previously reported from the meeting, there have been no efforts to try to slow down Trump.
The network's donors remain split between Rubio and Ted Cruz. Also, donors have been concerned that spending money against him might backfire by bolstering his populist appeal or by encouraging him to run as an independent.
Top donors affiliated with the Koch network said they received no invitation to a gathering last week and denied any plans to spend on the primary. "We are not getting behind any efforts to influence the presidential primary," one of those donors backing Rubio insisted.
In an email, Stone said he stands "by every word and will be proven correct particularly if/when Rubio loses [Florida]."
"I had a quisling in the room," he said. "Watch the anti-[Trump] TV spending quickly exceed the reported $25 million total. Cockroaches always scramble when you shed light on them."
Hillary Clinton speaks a the Greater Imani Cathedral in Memphis, Tenn.
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice."
Speaking from the lectern at Greater Imani Church Cathedral of Faith on Sunday morning, Hillary Clinton began her final push to win Super Tuesday support here with a message of unity, empathy, and understanding. The day after her resounding win in the South Carolina primary, with just 48 hours until the March 1 contests, Clinton flew to Memphis to address two predominantly black congregations.
At both church stops, Clinton expanded on an appeal for togetherness that lay at the heart of her South Carolina victory speech. "My goal in running for president is to break down every barrier that holds any American belt from achieving his or her God-given potential," she told voters at Greater Imani, where the Rev. Bill Adkins introduced her as "our next president" to cheers from the congregants.
Meanwhile, as calls of yes and amen sounded from the pews at Greater Imani, Donald Trump was making the talk show rounds. By mid-morning, the Republican Party frontrunner would refuse to denounce endorsements from a former KKK leader and explain his retweet of a Mussolini quote as "a very good quote."
Clinton did not reference the comments directly in her speeches on Sunday. But in South Carolina and in Tennessee — referencing the infamous "Make America Great Again" slogan — Clinton sought to cast herself as the anti-Trump. This latest pitch to voters, her aides have suggested, would carry over into a general election.
"We have work to do," Clinton told Greater Imani. "I said last night, America has never stopped being great."
"Amen!” a man in the congregation shouted.
"Our task is to make America whole," Clinton said slowly.
The crowd stood in the pews and clapped.
"I want to be not just your president but your partner," Clinton said, "to work on not only the big issues here at home or around the world, but those issues that keep you up at night. That get you worried. That make you wonder whether you’re gonna be able to get ahead and stay ahead. You see, I really do believe if we pull together, if we act like the United States, America’s best years can still be ahead of us."
"We have to begin to listen to one another," Clinton continued. "To look for ways to lift each other up, not push each other down. We need to move away from the mean-spiritless and divisiveness in our political rhetoric and our daily lives."
For now, though, still locked in a competitive primary with Bernie Sanders, Clinton is unlikely to engage much more with Trump on specific points or his remarks on Sunday morning, aides said. At a stop in Nashville later in the afternoon, when actor and campaign surrogate Tony Goldwyn mentioned Trump's comments in passing, Clinton offered a quick off-the-cuff response: "Oh, that's pathetic," she said.
More broadly, aides see the "unity" message as a newly refined way to link the campaign's policies and thematic elements with Clinton's own personal and political motivations — a piece of the campaign aides have struggled with for months.
"I think we need more love and kindness," she told the congregation in Memphis. As cheers filled Greater Imani Church Cathedral, Clinton turned back at Adkins.
"That should not be reserved for Sunday morning, pastor."
“You know what they say about men with small hands.”
"His hands are the size of someone who's 5'2''. And you know what they say about men with small hands," Rubio said before pausing.
Trump's hands have long been a target of jokes from his critics. In November, Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter wrote how Trump for years remained indignant that Carter had described him 25 years ago as a "short-fingered vulgarian." In response, Trump over the years would send photos of his hands, Carter wrote.
"I almost feel sorry for the poor fellow because, to me, the fingers still look abnormally stubby," Carter wrote.
It's become a frequent troll of Trump among some conservatives and libertarians. In January, Sen. Ben Sasse joined in.
CNN / Via giphy.com
Evan Vucci / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida told BuzzFeed News in an interview on Monday that he will endorse Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Grayson, who is also a superdelegate, decided his endorsement after asking his supporters to take part in an online poll to determine who he should support. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of Sanders, who received 84% of the 376,000 votes cast.
“We deliberately structured this so people could not only vote and but also gave their reasons,” Grayson said. “The overarching theme of the comments was that the country is in desperate need of a revolution to combat inequality, and only Bernie Sanders is attempting a revolution that is likely to succeed. He is the only candidate giving voice to the deep anxiety people feel about the economy and widening income inequality.”
Grayson described the results as an "earthquake" and pointed out that more people voted in the poll than in South Carolina’s primary on Saturday, and more than voted in New Hampshire and Nevada combined.
Grayson is the second member of Congress to endorse Sanders in the past two days, after Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard resigned from her position as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and endorsed Sanders on Sunday.
Hillary Clinton's campaign named Grayson to her Florida Leadership Council in November. He later released a statement clarifying he didn’t officially endorse her.
He touted his endorsement of Sanders as a reflection of the will of the people, and expressed concern at the hundreds of superdelegates who have already pledged their support to Clinton when only four states have voted in the primary process.
“It’s surprising and disturbing that so many people have made that decision based on their own personal agendas and what’s good for them rather than what the people want,” Grayson said.
The endorsement also comes two days after Sanders’ crushing defeat in the South Carolina primary, where he lost to Clinton 74% to 26%. Grayson says he still sees a path to victory for Sanders.
“You’ll see him win states tomorrow, on Super Tuesday, and other states going forward,” Grayson said, “and national opinion polls show them neck-and-neck.”
“The primary process focusses on individual states, but this is all a microcosm of the national picture, and the national picture has Bernie eliminating the Clinton lead.”
Democrats in Florida will weigh in on the nomination fight between Clinton and Sanders when they hold their primary on March 15.
Grayson is in his own heated primary; in Florida he is running against Rep. Patrick Murphy in the Democratic primary for Senate. Murphy is the establishment favorite and has received endorsements from party leadership, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who also endorsed Clinton and called for Grayson to drop out of the race because of an ongoing ethics investigation into him having his name on three hedge funds. Grayson in turn has said Reid is turning “the party into a circular firing squad.”
Grayson said he isn’t concerned about any potential backlash he might face from the party for his endorsement of Sanders, and that party leadership should be better attuned to the will of party members.
“I’m disgusted by the party leadership in my race and in so many others,” Grayson said, “we’re choosing our the standard bearer of our party to lead the United States.”
“The Democratic party needs to be democratic,” Grayson continued. “This is a zero sum game. Either the party politburo can pick our candidates, or the people can pick our candidates. I believe the people can and must pick our candidates, otherwise how can we expect them to vote if we take away their choice?”
Charles Dharapak / ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas asked several questions during oral arguments on Monday — the first time he has done so in more than 10 years.
Thomas was silent for much of the debate, in a case that involved legal definitions for domestic violence and gun ownership. Thomas's question comes just weeks after Justice Antonin Scalia — his fellow conservative and originalist — passed away.
Thomas spoke once during his question hiatus, making a one-sentence joke in a 2013 case. The transcript indicates there was laughter.
It appeared Monday's case would pass without a question from Thomas, as is usual.
"If there are no further questions," the federal government's attorney, Ilana Eisenstein began, after answering questions from the other justices.
"Ms. Eisensten, one question," Thomas said. "This is a misdemeanor violation. It suspends a constitutional right. Can you give me another example where a misdemeanor suspends a constitutional right?"
The back-and-forth lasted for roughly five minutes, with Thomas asking several questions.
"You're saying that recklessness is sufficient" to result in a "lifetime ban on possession of a gun," Thomas said. "Which, at least as of now, is a constitutional right."
"In these cases, did any of the petitioners use a weapon?"
Eisenstein responded that they had not.
"So again, the suspension is not directly related to the use of the weapon," Thomas said.
Eisenstein responded that those who commit domestic violence are much more likely to use a gun to kill their partner.
Thomas then floated a hypothetical question, comparing the Second Amendment's protection of gun ownership to the First Amendment's protection of speech. He asked if the government could suspend someone's right to ever publish again if they were convicted of a misdemeanor.
When Eisenstein responded that she did not think the government could suspend the right to publish again in that case, Thomas responded with "So how is that different from suspending your Second Amendment right?"
Before Monday, Thomas' previous question took place Feb. 22, 2006 — in a death penalty case. He has been dismissive of oral arguments in general. “I think it’s unnecessary in deciding cases to ask that many questions, and I don’t think it’s helpful,” Thomas told Harvard Law School in 2013, adding that “most of the work is done in the briefs."
“I go to bed every night praying that our nominee is a person of integrity, intelligence, ideas, and courage.”
Alex Wong / Getty Images
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, when asked on Monday about Donald Trump's refusal to "unequivocally condemn" former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and white supremacists, said he prays every night that the Republican presidential nominee "is a person of integrity, intelligence, ideas, and courage."
Johnson, who is facing a tough re-election fight in Wisconsin said on the Charlie Sykes Show when asked about Trump's comments on Sunday that he is "happy" to condemn white supremacist groups.
"Yes, I'm happy to do so. Charlie, I tell ya, I go to bed every night praying that our nominee is a person of integrity, intelligence, ideas, and courage," Johnson said. "This nation hungers for someone who can lead this nation, not be divisive."
"I'm praying," Johnson said. "That's all I can say, Charlie. I'm praying for such a leader."
Asked about Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse saying he won't vote for Donald Trump, Johnson again said he was praying.
"I'm praying, let's see how the process plays out," he said. "Charlie, we have such enormous problems facing this nation. I don't like demagoguery on any side of the political spectrum and we have it across the political spectrum."
"You do it with facts and figures, not demagoguery, there's way too much demagoguery occurring throughout politics for decades," he said of fixing the country's problems. "It's got to come to an end. We've got to start acknowledging these problems. You've got to get serious about fixing them and unfortunately these elections are just, it's just depressing, it's depressing to see how this is devolving."
Dado Ruvic / Reuters
WASHINGTON – Bruce Sewell, Apple’s senior vice president and general counsel, will testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday, seeking to persuade lawmakers that the FBI's demand that the company help it unlock an iPhone that belonged to the San Bernardino shooter is reckless and without precedent.
Sewell will frame the court battle between Apple and FBI as an "extraordinary circumstance" and tell lawmakers that they, not a judge, should decide the thorny issues surrounding encryption, according to an advanced copy of his opening statements obtained by BuzzFeed News
“The FBI has asked a court to order us to give them something we don’t have,” Sewell will say. “To create an operating system that does not exist — because it would be too dangerous. They are asking for a backdoor into the iPhone — specifically to build a software tool that can break the encryption system which protects personal information on every iPhone.”
For more than two months, FBI technicians have attempted to gain access to the data held by Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone, looking for possible leads pointing to the people Farook had spoken to and the places he had been. Having exhausted its technical capabilities, the FBI has demanded, through a judge, that Apple design special software to disable and bypass several security features built into the phone.
The FBI has argued that the court order entails a very narrow search — a reasonable request of an American tech company to help federal law enforcement break into a single confiscated device.
Apple, however, maintains that this request involves far more than one iPhone. The company has argued that, if forced to create a special government-sanctioned operating system, there would be no limit to this new software’s application. Apple believes this represents an unacceptable risk to its customers across the globe.
“Should the FBI be allowed to stop Apple, or any company, from offering the American people the safest and most secure product it can make?” Sewell will say. “Should the FBI have the right to compel a company to produce a product it doesn't already make, to the FBI’s exact specifications and for the FBI’s use?”
Apple believes the answer to these questions rests not with a judge interpreting the All Writs Act, the 200-year-old statute invoked by the FBI. Instead, Apple insists that Congress should intervene and work through the challenges encryption poses to law enforcement.
"The decisions should be made by you and your colleagues as representatives of the people, rather than through a warrant request based on a 220-year-old-statute," Sewell will tell members of Congress.
Apple and the FBI, despite being locked in a bitter court and public relations battle, are somewhat in agreement on this point. FBI Director James Comey also believes the broader encryption debate that has been brewing for the past several years should be taken up by Congress. “I do think the larger question is not going to be answered in the courts — and shouldn’t be — because it’s really about who we want to be as a country, and how we want to govern ourselves," he said at a congressional hearing last week.
Sewell will conclude: “At Apple, we are ready to have this conversation. The feedback and support we're hearing indicate to us that the American people are ready, too.”
