Mark Wilson / Getty Images

It was late Monday night, and the first presidential debate had just come to a close. Donald Trump was on TV congratulating himself for not bringing up Bill Clinton's infidelities. Trump's advisers were in the spin room bickering with reporters about his sundry gaffes, lies, and onstage outbursts. The pundits were on Twitter declaring Trump the night's undisputed loser. And Paul Ryan was in Washington, trying to think of something nice to say.

"The energy that Donald Trump offered tonight is why the enthusiasm is on our side," Ryan offered in a statement that went out shortly before midnight. "The American people are ready for solutions, and Donald Trump offers a chance to move in a new direction."

This is Paul Ryan's life now. This is who he is.

In the four months since he formally endorsed his party's nominee for president, Ryan — the esteemed speaker of the House, the sterling guardian of conservatism, the intellectual leader of the Republican Party — has been reduced to a miserable Trump flunky sheepishly counting down the hours until the election is over. Each day he spends tethered to the Donald seems to bring some fresh humiliation; each role he inhabits in the entourage proves more undignified than the last. Adviser, apologist, hype man, scold — none brings redemption, or even reprieve. And so he trudges on toward November, a stench of sadness clinging to him as he goes.

Friends and allies, disappointed though many of them are, have tried to show Ryan support in this difficult time. They labor to give him the benefit of the doubt, to rationalize his endorsement — and when they're defending his honor on the record, they might even find themselves slipping into messianic metaphors.

"I feel so sorry for Paul," said Bob Woodson, the veteran civil rights activist who mentors Ryan on issues of poverty and race. "He wishes someone else could take the cup from him. ... I'd say 'weary martyr' is a good way to describe him."

"I think he endorsed Trump because he tries to see the best in people, and he hoped that his endorsement would be a down payment on a new and improved Trump," said Katie Packer, a friend of Ryan's who served as Mitt Romney's deputy campaign manager in 2012.

"Unfortunately," she added, Ryan's policy agenda "has been hijacked by Donald Trump," and "I think there will be some who find it hard to forgive his support" of the nominee.

Sources close to Ryan said he endorsed Trump in June in hopes of gaining access to the candidate's inner-circle and steering him away from his more destructive behavior. Ryan also believed he could convince Trump to infuse his platform with more orthodox conservative policy.

Of course, neither initiative has been particularly successful — and along the way, Ryan has put himself in the deeply degrading position of having to respond to every outrage Trump committed on the campaign trail.

This mortifying little ritual kicked off in June, when Trump began claiming that a judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University was biased because of his Mexican heritage. Journalists, naturally, wanted to know: Did Ryan agree?

"Claiming a person can't do the job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment," he told a gaggle of reporters. "I think that should be absolutely disavowed. I think that's absolutely unacceptable. But do I believe that Hillary Clinton is the answer? No, I do not."

The next month Trump was at it again, publicly feuding with the parents of a slain Muslim soldier after they'd criticized him from the stage of the Democratic National Convention. Amid a hail of bipartisan criticism, spiraling poll numbers, and desperate pleas from advisers to just let the issue drop, Trump continued to lash out at the Gold Star parents for days.

Ryan's office, flooded with questions about the controversy, put out a statement celebrating America's men and women in uniform, and rejecting Trump's proposed Muslim ban just for good measure: "Many Muslim Americans have served valiantly in our military, and made the ultimate sacrifice. Captain Khan was one such brave example. His sacrifice — and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan — should always be honored. Period."

Just for the record, reporters asked, was Ryan still supporting Trump?

And just for the record, the answer came back: Yes, he was.

People close to Ryan said there is an art to crafting the perfect rhetorical response to one of Trump's eruptions: They must be strongly worded enough for the speaker of the House's condemnation to be taken seriously — but not so strongly worded that he's left with no choice but to withdraw his endorsement. Capitol Hill staffers have expressed pity for Ryan's well-regarded press secretary, AshLee Strong, who is often tasked with drafting and disseminating these statements.

"I can't imagine having to do that," said one GOP communications adviser on the Hill. "It would just be soul-sucking."

As the race has dragged on, Ryan seems to have embarked on a quixotic mission to avoid talking about Trump altogether, his windmill-tilting evasions sometimes taking on a morbidly funny quality.

At a press conference on the night of his August congressional primary, Ryan was bombarded with questions about Trump's recent suggestion that "the Second Amendment people" could stop Hillary Clinton. He replied that he had been too busy campaigning that day to see the clip (which was then dominating national media coverage) but that he assumed it was merely a "joke gone bad." That was followed by another question about Donald Trump, and then another, and finally Ryan declared the press conference over by bolting from the podium.

Ryan no doubt relished his time away from the press during the summer recess, but it's unlikely he found a true respite from the Trump talk at home. Trygve Olson, a Republican strategist who grew up in Ryan's native Wisconsin, said he was surprised during a recent trip home to see how worked up his nonpolitical friends had gotten about the election — and how many of them were repulsed by Trump.

"Knowing [Ryan] a little bit and knowing where he comes from, having grown up in a small town in Wisconsin too, I can't imagine that's not weighing on him," said Olson.

Whatever the reason, Ryan has seemed to grow more visibly dyspeptic about his lot in life since returning to Washington. At a press conference last month, he became uncharacteristically testy with reporters when they asked him about Trump's proclamation that Vladimir Putin was a stronger leader than President Obama.

“Do you think I’m going to stand up here and be an election pundit?" Ryan responded sharply. "I’ve got other things to do in this job. Yeah, he’s the nominee of our party, because he won our nomination fair and square. I’m not going to sit up here and do the tit for tat on what Donald said last night, or the night before, and Hillary versus Donald. That is not my job, and I’m not going to be the election year pundit commenting on all these little things. I’ll leave it at that.”

But of course, it will almost certainly not be left at that, no matter how badly Ryan wishes it so. There are yet more questions to answer, more outbursts to disavow, more humiliations to endure. And if it seems like Ryan gets badgered about Trump's every utterance with more frequency — and determination — than other high-profile Republicans do, there's a reason.

For years, Ryan has cultivated a reputation on both sides of the aisle as a paragon of decency, earnestness, and principle; that rare creature of DC who seems genuinely guided by good faith. To many in Washington — including no small number of reporters — Ryan's support for Trump is not merely a political miscalculation, but a craven betrayal.

As one senior GOP Hill staffer put it, "Your heroes always let you down."

Jason Connolly / AFP / Getty Images

LOVELAND, COLORADO — At a rally two days after a New York Times report revealed that Donald Trump may have avoided paying federal income taxes for 18 years, his supporters affirmed their faith in his business abilities as the candidate touted his knowledge of the tax code.

"When you make lots of money, you write off as much as you can," said Molly, who drove down from Fort Collins with her husband for the event and who declined to share her last name. "That's called a good businessman."

"He makes good business decisions, and that's what he's going to do for the country," she continued. "And when things get bad, he knows how to get out of it."

"Find me someone who hasn't lied on their taxes," added her husband, Zeke.

According to leaked documents obtained and verified by the Times, Trump declared $916 million in losses on his 1995 tax return. This may have allowed him to take advantage of rules benefitting wealthy filers and avoid paying taxes on $50 million in taxable income each year for the following 18 years. In a statement to the Times, the Trump campaign neither confirmed nor denied the report. At the rally, Trump argued that the code itself is unfair, and that he alone has the knowledge to fix them.

"I understand the tax laws better than almost anyone, and that's why I can be the one to fix them," he told a crowd of about 7,000 at the Budweiser Events Center.

Fred Tindell

Ellen Cushing / BuzzFeed News

Standing in the pit before Trump's speech, Jim Ryther, a 48-year-old truck driver in a Sturgis Motorcycle Rally t-shirt, said he was drawn to Trump because he's "not a politician," and that this situation was no different.

"He files his tax returns like everybody else does. He doesn't file like a politician," Ryther said, explaining that politicians are "careful."

Meanwhile, Fred Tindell, 58, thinks that "Hillary's just looking for smears."

"He's made billions. Not millions, billions. And when you make that much and have businesses that fail, they let you write it off," Tindell said.

Standing in line for hot dogs, Gwen, 38, and Dennis, 73, also said they believed Trump was the victim of a smear campaign by a biased media.

Clarissa, 36, arrived at the rally too late to get in, but waited outside anyway in the bitter Colorado chill just to "be near the action." Like many of the people BuzzFeed News spoke to, she said she hadn't been following the tax returns story closely, but that she had faith in Trump's business acumen.

"He's a businessman. Sometimes in business, you cut your losses. That's what bankruptcy is. He's a good businessman."

During the event itself, Trump addressed the Times report head-on, saying that "the news media is now obsessed with an alleged filing from the 1990s." As he had at another Colorado rally earlier that day, Trump argued that his understanding of the tax code allowed him to survive the downturn that rocked commercial real estate in the '90s.

"The reason I never felt endangered during the real estate downturn is I knew myself, I knew my business, I knew the financial system, I knew the tax code inside out and backwards," Trump said, arguing that he legally took advantage of the tax code in order to save his business.

But he also called the tax code "a disgrace to our country in so many ways."

"The unfairness of the tax codes is unbelievable. It's something that I've been talking about for a long time. You've heard me talking about it, despite being a very big beneficiary, I must admit." He was interrupted by cheers.

"But you are more important that my being a beneficiary so we are going to straighten it out and make it fair for everybody."

Fox 10 Phoenix / Via youtube.com

In a passionate and angry speech in Sarasota, Florida, on Monday, Vice President Joe Biden attacked Donald Trump for his comments about veterans.

The Republican presidential candidate suggested to a room full of veterans earlier on Monday that soldiers who return from war suffering from PTSD are not “strong” and “can’t handle it.”

Biden, on the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton, said Trump was "thoroughly, completely uninformed."

"Where in the hell is he?" Biden said. "In Iraq I was asked to pin a silver medal on a young captain who had pulled someone out of a burning Humvee, risking his life.

"When I went to pin it on him in front of an entire brigade, he stood and looked at me and said, 'Sir, I don’t want the medal, I don’t want the medal.' Know why? He said, 'He died, he died, Mr Vice President, I don’t want the medal.' How many nights does that kid go to sleep seeing that image in his head, dealing with that?"

Biden said that every morning he has his staff contact the Defense Department for a daily briefing. He then read from Monday's briefing card:

"US troops who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq: 6,753. Not plus 6,000, not 6,700. Six-thousand, seven-hundred, and fifty-three. Because every one of those warriors left behind an entire family, a community, for us. Every one of them," he said, while pounding his fist on the lectern.

"As the veterans can tell you, over 200,000 are coming home with unseen wounds. Twenty suicides a month. I don’t think he [Trump] was trying to be mean, he is just so thoroughly completely uninformed.

"We only have one sacred obligation: to care for those we send to war, and to care for them and their families when they come home."

Biden later reiterated his comments during an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo and invited Trump to visit the "battlefield" with him in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"How can [Trump] be so out of touch and ask to lead this country?" Biden asked.

Fox 10 Phoenix

LINK: Trump Suggests That Soldiers With PTSD Aren’t “Strong”

Yuri Gripas / Reuters

FARMVILLE, Va. — A new ad featuring President Obama urging voters to go to the polls to help protect his legacy has begun airing black radio in Ohio and Florida.

The ad features audio from the speech Obama delivered to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Phoenix Awards dinner, his last as president. In the speech, a fired up Obama ridiculed Trump's black outreach and asked black voters to turn out if they wanted to give him "a good sendoff."

"And after we have achieved historic turnout in 2008 and 2012 especially in the African American community I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy, if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote," Obama said.

"You may have heard Hillary’s opponent in this election say that there’s never been a worse time to be a black person. I mean, he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery and Jim Crow — but we've got a museum for him to visit," Obama said during the speech, referring to the opening of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture.

In Ohio yesterday, Hillary Clinton urged turn out during a visit yesterday to Akron, and has received the endorsement of NBA star LeBron James, one of the state's favorite sons.

Clinton has between a 4% to 6% lead nationally, but is consistently behind in polls in Ohio. Florida, meanwhile, has been a virtual tie for much of the race. Although a Quinnipiac University Poll showed Clinton up 5% in Florida, low turn out there could have dire consequences for her.

Jeff Johnson, a Priorities USA strategists said Trump has "insulted and demeaned" the black community in this campaign and through his life. Obama's call to action, he said, is crucial to making sure Trump never becomes president. "This November we have to build on President Obama’s legacy by turning out in force and electing Hillary Clinton."

Here's the radio spot:

youtube.com

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court held its first day of arguments for the fall — a day for the justices to begin considering key issues important to the rule of law for the nation.

Chris Geidner/BuzzFeed

One of the cases that the eight justices heard on Tuesday was brought by Lawrence Eugene Shaw and deals with the meaning of the federal bank fraud statute.

Via supremecourt.gov

The question in the case is whether, under the law, Shaw only had to deceive the bank in order to be able to be convicted under the law or whether he also had to actually cheat the bank out of money.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Then, minutes into the argument: PLOT TWIST! Justice Stephen Breyer asked about Kim Kardashian's robbery over the weekend — analogizing the bank-fraud case to Kardashian's jewelry theft.

Via supremecourt.gov

NOTE: "Even Kardashian's thief, if there is one..." 👀

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer

Joshua Roberts / Reuters

Really. Breyer kept going with the analogy — sounding like he was very skeptical of Shaw's argument that it's not "defrauding" a bank so long as the bank isn't actually losing money.

Via supremecourt.gov

And showing that he...keeps up with the Kardashians. (Sorrynotsorry.)

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West attend the Off-White 2017 spring/summer ready-to-wear collection fashion show on Sept. 29 in Paris.

Alain Jocard / AFP / Getty Images

Real talk, though: I cannot wait for Kanye to sample the audio* of "dear Miss Kardashian" in his next single.

• = The Supreme Court does not make audio from arguments available until the end of each argument week, so we will have to wait until Friday to hear the audio from Tuesday's arguments.

Via supremecourt.gov

Darren Sands / BuzzFeed News

FARMVILLE, Va. — Hillary Clinton's campaign touted "significant" numbers on Latino early voter requests and black registration gains in the key states of Florida and North Carolina before the vice presidential debate Tuesday, arguing that they represent concrete evidence that the vaunted Obama coalition is coming back together for Clinton.

In the spin room before the debate, campaign manager Robby Mook outlined the latest numbers on early voting — the number of Hispanic voters requesting vote by mail ballots is up a considerable 73% since this point in 2012, he said. That increase follows higher registration numbers among Latinos and blacks in the state since 2012, the campaign said in a field report released Tuesday evening.

In North Carolina, there are 84,000 more black voters registered than at the same point in 2012 and 52,000 more Hispanic voters did the same. Again, ballot requests rose in conjunction with higher registration numbers.

Of note, there is a 73% increase in requests for absentee ballots by Asian-American voters and a 43% increase in Latino ballot requests compared to the same point in 2012, according to the campaign.

"These are significant numbers because voting by mail makes it so much easier — when you get the ballot to your house it makes it much more likely that you’re going to vote," said Jorge Silva, the campaign's Hispanic media director. "You don’t have to take time off, you don’t have to wait in line."

The numbers come as Democrats have expressed concerns publicly and on a private campaign call about the enthusiasm of young Latinos and the state of the Spanish-language advertising operation. The campaign followed those questions by unveiling Spanish-language ads in swing states over the past two weeks.

All told, there are 359,000 more black voters in battleground states than in 2012. There are 660,000 more Latino voters; 294,000 more voters aged 18 to 35; and 125,000 more registered Democrats.

In North Carolina, the numbers are especially encouraging for the Clinton campaign.

Over the summer, North Carolina’s voter ID law was overturned because it was found to target black voters “with racially discriminatory intent.” While it’s not clear if the attention to the voter ID law spurred the increase, the increase in registrations bodes well for Democrats in North Carolina also hoping to elect Roy Cooper, a Democrat in the governor’s race.

“There’s intense interest in voter turnout in North Carolina,” said Rev. Jesse Jackson, who said he’ll be helping to get out the vote there for Clinton next month. "You have communities that feel that their voting rights have been threatened and that’s why the federal government had to intervene to stop the worse of it. We did not intend to go back."

The GOP just published a ~blog post~ ahead of tonight's vice presidential debate declaring Mike Pence the victor and Hillary Clinton the loser.

GOP

“The consensus was clear after the dust settled,” the article read. “Mike Pence was the clear winner of the debate.”

The story praised Pence, saying he "made the most of his opportunity to debate Hillary's VP pick Tim Kaine," and said he "perfectly shared Trump's vision to make America great again and that message is resonating with Americans all across the country."

A second post declared that Hillary Clinton was the loser.

Then there were these posts:

After a few minutes they took them down.

BuzzFeed News has reached out to the GOP for more information.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally Tuesday in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

Evan Vucci / AP

PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz. — Donald Trump has come under fire this week for comments about veterans experiencing PTSD, but despite the ensuing controversy his veteran supporters remain undeterred.

Trump made the comments Monday, saying that when some veterans come back from war sometimes "you’re strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can’t handle it." The remark was widely interpreted as Trump suggesting that veterans experiencing PTSD aren't strong, which prompted outrage and attacks from Hillary Clinton.

But at a rally Tuesday in Prescott Valley — about an hour and a half north of Phoenix — none of the more than a dozen veterans who spoke with BuzzFeed News said the comment had shaken their support for Trump.

"I watched that whole thing," Norm Stephens, a veteran of the Marines, said, "and I didn't see anything derogatory."

Stephens said that instead, Trump was expressing support for veterans struggling with the traumas of combat, and that the media twisted his words to make it seem like he was criticizing US soldiers. "The alternative to Trump is a lot worse," Stephens added.

Many other veterans who spoke with BuzzFeed News had a similar take on the comments. A man who asked to be identified only as Patrick and said he served in the Army during Vietnam praised Trump's comments. Patrick said that Trump was trying to say veterans need more mental health support, not that they lack strength.

"Combat is a bitch," he said. "Some can handle it and some can't. There's a lot of things going on in your head."

Norm Swanty, a Marine veteran who served in Korea, also described Trump's comments as supportive of the military, and said the candidate's promises to beef up the armed forces would benefit soldiers' mental health as well.

"I was over in Korea and we didn't have this problem," Swanty said of PTSD. "It's a different time and a different world, and a lot of it is that we don't go to war to win any more."

Norm Swanty attends a Trump rally Tuesday in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

Jim Dalrymple II / BuzzFeed News

Dave Jenkins agreed, saying he believed Trump was saying he would build up support to help veterans and that Trump's comments were taken out of context.

"People who have PTSD have to have a lot of help," he said. "That isn't that they're weak."

Vince Ansel, an Army veteran who deployed to Vietnam, said that he had struggled with his own experiences in combat yet remained loyal to the Republican candidate despite Monday's comments.

"I have PTSD," Ansel said. "I personally did not take offense at that."

According to Ansel, Trump "may not be the most eloquent speaker, but we know in our hearts what he means." When asked what exactly Trump meant by the comments, Ansel said he wasn't sure because he "hadn't spent much time analyzing that."

Vince Ansel attends a Trump rally Tuesday in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

Jim Dalrymple II / BuzzFeed News

Ansel wasn't alone. More than half of the veterans who spoke with BuzzFeed News said they hadn't heard any comments Trump made about PTSD or veterans being "strong." Instead, many pointed to Trump's promises to build up the military, and to complaints about Clinton, as reasons they continue to support the Republican candidate.

"Whoever votes for Hillary is crazy," Sonny Hamilton, also a Vietnam veteran, said.

Scores of veterans that filled the crowd Tuesday with hats and shirts identifying themselves as former members of the military seemed to agree. Many were among the most enthusiastic members of the crowd, cheering loudly when Trump promised to build a wall on the Mexican border and chanting and booing when a couple of protesters were briefly escorted out of the venue.

David Ryan, a Navy veteran who served in the Gulf War, was among those who hadn't heard about the controversy over Trump's comments.

David Ryan attends a Donald Trump rally in Prescott Valley, Arizona, Tuesday.

Jim Dalrymple II / BuzzFeed News

When asked about Trump's attitude toward soldiers, Ryan said "if you haven't been there, you don't know." But Ryan added that like many other veterans he remains committed to Trump — who has not served in the military — because he sees the alternative as worse.

"During Desert Storm the United States had the largest military it ever had," Ryan said. "And even since it's been downsized. I think Trump will definitely work at building it back up."

LINK: Trump Suggests That Soldiers With PTSD Aren’t “Strong”

LINK: People Are Furious After Trump Suggested Vets With PTSD Aren’t “Strong”

He just couldn’t let Mike Pence have 90 minutes to himself.

gifrific.com

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Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

Mike Pence was clear on Tuesday night: Russia is a geopolitical aggressor led by a "small and bullying leader," Vladimir Putin.

That posture isn't unusual in politics — Mitt Romney in 2012 argued Russia was a core threat to the United States. But it is a stark contrast with Pence's own presidential nominee, whose friendly overtures toward Russia and comfort with its growing influence in the Middle East have dominated the foreign policy discussion this year.

Donald Trump has argued that Putin is a stronger leader than Obama, praised his polling numbers in the restrictive political environment of Russia, expressed openness to working with Russia (which supports the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and is often allied with Iran) to combat ISIS, and often explained his rationale on personal terms.

"Well, I think when he calls me brilliant, I’ll take the compliment, OK?" Trump recently replied as to why he would accept Putin's support.

Despite all this, Pence was undeterred in his portrait of Russia and some of the key policy confrontations between the US and Russia. On Tuesday night, he affirmed support for missile defense programs in eastern Europe that the Russians have opposed. He emphasized that the United States has a stronger economy than Russia, which he framed as somewhat repressive.

Pence, who voted for the Iraq War and supported the Libya intervention, holds a more hawkish, traditionally Republican worldview than his running mate. "We’ve just got to have American strength on the world stage,” Pence said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, though Trump has repeatedly promised to knock the hell out of ISIS, his campaign has represented a return to a more realist, and perhaps even isolationist, foreign policy approach. Though he personally supported the Iraq War and Libya intervention, during his campaign, he has repeatedly criticized regime change, foreign interventions, and argued for reassessing major military alliances, and looking to Russia and others for support abroad.

Frequently on the trail, Trump and Pence have seemed to be running entirely different campaigns — ones that aren't quite coordinating messages.

Jason Connolly / AFP / Getty Images

FARMVILLE, Va. — Two House Republicans backing the Trump-Pence ticket declined to say if they thought Donald Trump would be a good role model for their children, as they spoke to reporters following the vice presidential debate Tuesday night.

"Oh, he'll be a great president," responded Kansas GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo when asked by BuzzFeed News if Trump would be a good role model.

Reminded the question was whether the GOP presidential nominee would be a good role model, not president, Pompeo responded: "My son I ask to have people as a role model people like me — his father and his mother. We're Christian and so we want his pastor and the people who help teach him his faith to be the role model. What's important to the American people is how the president is going to behave — how he's going to get the economy going again so Kansans can have jobs, how he will protect America from radical Islamic terrorists — those are the things that real people care about.

"The Washington media elite is obsessed with some of these silly questions. What people in Kansas really care about is real leaders who are going to take care of America."

Asked one more time if Trump was a good role model, Pompeo responded, "I've answered the question," before walking away.

Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the only other House Republican who spoke to reporters after the debate about Pence, immediately pivoted to Hillary Clinton when asked the same question.

"I don't think Clinton is a good role model for my daughter, because I don't want to teach my daughter to violate the law," he said. "I don't want my daughter to be reckless with national security, so I don't find Hillary Clinton to be a good role model."

But is Trump a good role model?

"Listen, I don't agree with everything he has said," Hensarling said. "I don't even agree with everything that he has done. But I know this American economy has got to get working for working people, and I want to go to bed at night thinking that my fourteen-year-old daughter and my thirteen-year-old son are safer. And I cannot think of living in a world where Hillary Clinton is moving from the State Department to the White House to make America an even more dangerous place to live in."

Pompeo and Hensarling's responses come the day after New Hampshire GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is in a tough re-election, struggled to answer that question in a debate.

"I think that certainly there are many role models that we have, and I believe he can serve as president and so, absolutely. I would do that," Ayotte said during the debate. Her campaign later released a statement saying she had misspoken and didn't think either Trump or Clinton would make good role models.

Because a debate without Uncle Joe is just a bunch of malarkey.

View Entire List ›

David Goldman / AP

FARMVILLE, Va. — At the first presidential debate, Trump's signature wall along the U.S.-Mexican border did not come up.

On Tuesday, Tim Kaine and Mike Pence dove deep into immigration, retreating to their respective sides, debating both the merits of Clinton and Trump's plans — the most expansively liberal and restrictive immigration plans, respectively, in recent decades — but also accusing each other of being the extreme ticket on the issue.

Pence began by saying Trump laid out a plan to end illegal immigration once and for all, leaning on Trump's fiery Phoenix speech, in which he said his great wall would rise in the south, "criminal aliens" had to be deported, and visa overstays and sanctuary cities had to come to an end, all because the wages of American workers were being driven down.

But the conversation on immigration from the two vice presidential nominees also heavily reflected the charged way the issue has been used during the 2016 race, with Pence claiming that Clinton advocates "open borders." (Her campaign quickly sought to refute, sending out an email linking to fact-checking website Politifact, which said it was a "huge distortion" of her proposals.)

Kaine, who whiffed on canned lines during the debate at moments early in the debate, delivered his immigration one more successfully.

"Hillary and I believe in comprehensive immigration reform," Kaine said, while "Donald Trump believes in deportation nation. You've got to pick your choice."

Kaine said the campaign's plans revolve chiefly around keeping families together, while focusing enforcement efforts on those who are violent, and allowing undocumented immigrants in the country who are working hard and paying taxes to eventually become citizens.

But Kaine too had a whopper for Pence — Trump wants to deport 16 million people, Kaine charged, adding the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country illegally and 4.5 million children of immigrants who benefitted from the 14th Amendment to the constitution, which confers birthright citizenship.

On this one Kaine didn't just seek to tie Pence to Trump, but brought up Pence's support for a bill in 2007 and 2009 when he was in Congress that would redefine birthright citizenship, limiting it for children "who have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen, legal permanent resident or is serving on active duty in the military," the Associated Press reported in July.

Pence said claims of 16 million deportations led by a deportation force were "nonsense" and that the real deportation force already exists — Immigration and Customs Enforcement, noting that their union endorsed Trump.

After a shaky start, Kaine delivered more strongly when he pressed Pence on defending Trump's most controversial statements, that Mexicans are criminals and rapists and that Gonzalo Curiel, the Mexican-American judge overseeing the Trump University lawsuit, was incapable of doing his job because of his ethnicity.

"Again, he refused to defend Donald Trump’s racist comments about a judge in his own home state," said Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook in the spin room after the debate, of Pence, who was the governor of Indiana, where Curiel is from.

"The policies he laid out do speak to the core contrast in this race, which is that Secretary Clinton and Sen. Kaine do support comprehensive immigration reform, Donald Trump does not," Mook continued.

But Trump senior advisor A.J. Delgado argued that Clinton's plan is the radical one — focused more on undocumented immigrants than American workers.

"It's really just what else can we do for the illegal immigrant that we haven’t done already — it's quite radical, it's quite frightening," said Delgado, who is a Cuban-American from Florida and served as a surrogate before joining the campaign.

Leslie Sanchez, a veteran GOP strategist said Pence's opening salvo on immigration was politically savvy. "The best part of that argument is that Pence started with 'you are for open borders,' because even conservative Democrats don’t support that."

Clinton campaign surrogates were happy to pile on Pence, using the same strategy Kaine did, charging that Pence was unwilling to defend Trump's most polarizing statements.

"Getting rid of birthright citizenship is totally unconstitutional to such an extreme that almost no rational candidate would bring it up," said Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego. "Mike Pence obviously ignored all of this because its an indefensible position. It's unpopular, like the wall is unpopular."

Kaine repeatedly said that Pence would not defend Trump, eventually irritating Pence. "Don't put words in my mouth that I won't defend him," Pence said.

Kaine unloaded the greatest hits of all of Trump's insults — to immigrants, women, and John McCain — so often, that Pence awkwardly responded to a relitigation of the comments about Mexicans late in the debate with, "Senator, you whipped out that Mexican thing again."

"And many of them are good people," Pence said to Kaine, reminding him of the way Trump initially sought to soften his comments when he launched his campaign.

The exchange led to the #ThatMexicanThingAgain hashtag on Twitter for some Latinos who were offended by Pence's inelegant phrasing and a website from the Voto Latino Action Network to register Hispanics at thatmexicanthing.org.

While each side felt they got the better of the exchange on immigration — comfortable in the knowledge that their base voters heard what they wanted to hear — the real test will come when the two presidential candidates try their hand at defending their signature immigration policies.

Trump, for example, does not explain his immigration plan as clearly as Pence did. During his Phoenix speech he barely touched on what he would do with undocumented immigrants who are not violent criminals and will not be subject to deportation.

For her part, Clinton will face the challenge of selling how she can successfully pass an immigration package on legislation that has eluded president after president.

But those questions didn't really matter Tuesday night, with each side celebrating the fact that they heard what they believe on immigration. Afterwards, in the spin room, Gallego characterized the Republican ticket platform on immigration.

"Pence and Trump's plan," Gallego said to Telemundo in Spanish, before ending an interview and turning to other reporters. "Deportation first, deportation second, and deportation third."

John Moore / Getty Images

Eric Trump on Tuesday did what his father so far hasn't: Stated emphatically that Donald Trump has "absolutely" paid federal income tax.

Speaking after the vice presidential debate, Eric Trump eventually responded directly to CNN's Dana Bash after being asked specifically if his father had paid federal income tax over the last 18 years.

“Of course, yes, absolutely. My father pays a tremendous amount of tax," he said. "We as a company, pay a tremendous amount of tax."

The question comes after the New York Times reported on Donald Trump's tax return for 1995, in which he declared a loss of $916 million for the year — an amount so large, that it would have allowed him to avoid paying federal income taxes for nearly two decades.

Bash continued to press Eric Trump on the tax issue after the debate.

"So if we ever see your father’s income taxes, it will show that he has paid federal income taxes?”

“There is no question about it,” Eric Trump responded.

“When the audit is over, my father will release it,” he added, referring to the often cited reason that Donald Trump claims he will not release his taxes returns.

He also attacked Hillary Clinton, who he said has “lived off of the government her entire life.”

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

FARMVILLE, Virginia — Mike Pence is running for vice president on Donald Trump’s ticket. But his debate performance on Tuesday seemed to occur in a bizarre alternate universe where some normal establishment Republican is the nominee.

Pence gave a solid, smooth performance that heartened some wary conservatives. But there was a sense of cognitive dissonance as he delivered line after line that could have been applied to a hypothetical Mitt Romney candidacy, instead of his own running mate's.

Pence broke with Trump on Russia, characterizing Vladimir Putin — whom Trump has repeatedly praised as a strong leader — as a “small and bullying leader.” He avoided directly defending some of Trump’s most controversial statements, instead focusing on Hillary Clinton and at times shaking his head when Tim Kaine recited things Trump has said, indicating that Trump hasn’t really said them. He talked at length about his belief in the anti-abortion cause. He spoke of cutting spending, reducing deficits, and preserving a soluble Social Security, causes that have defined small-government Republicans in recent years, but hardly animate Trump’s campaign.

In the spin room after the debate, surrogates for Trump and Pence defended or downplayed the obvious distance between the candidates.

“Donald Trump did not bring in a clone of himself to be his running mate like Hillary Clinton did,” said Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling. He said he thinks “it’s a healthy thing to occasionally have some disagreements with your candidate.”

Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo disputed the idea that the nominee and his running mate have different positions on Russia.

“On Russia, I think that Trump and Pence were right together,” Pompeo said, adding that there is “not a sliver” of daylight between the two.

“I don’t know whether he would use that words or not,” Sen. Jeff Sessions said when asked if Trump agrees with Pence’s “small, bullying” characterization of Putin. Sessions said that Trump’s praise for Putin has simply been “to say that he’s been an effective leader for his people.”

During the debate, Kaine listed several controversial or offensive things Trump has said, including his comments about Mexicans being rapists and his referring to women in crude, sexist terms. Pence said Kaine had launched an “avalanche of insults” and said “if Donald Trump had said all of the things that you've said he said in the way you said he said them, he still wouldn't have a fraction of the insults that Hillary Clinton leveled when she said that half of our supporters were a basket of deplorables.” But Pence did not explicitly defend Trump’s comments. And eventually, after being pressed by Kaine on Trump’s comments about Mexicans, Pence accused him of “whipping out that Mexican thing again” — showing how little he wanted to deal with the substance of the remarks.

“Mike Pence is asked every single day to defend Donald Trump, he does that, he’s on the ticket with him,” Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told reporters.

By creating some space between himself and Trump, Pence positions himself better for a potential presidential run in 2020 if Trump loses. And his performance underscored the way he has, since being chosen as the running mate, run a kind of parallel campaign to Trump’s that has seemed at times like an unconnected effort.

His performance tonight impressed some anti-Trump conservatives who have still not endorsed Trump, including Erick Erickson, who tweeted, “I must retract my prior tweet from months ago about Pence being disqualified in 2020 by saying yes to Trump. He's really redeemed himself.” But it’s unclear whether it will be enough to bring the last stragglers on board.

“Heck no,” Erickson told BuzzFeed News in an email when asked if Pence’s performance could change his view on Trump. “But it does make me think I can’t dismiss Pence outright for 2020.”

“I just have to imagine Pence realizes that he needs to be a loyal lieutenant without coming away with the stench so many others have. See, e.g., Christie, Giuliani, etc.,” Erickson said.

Rick Wilson, another anti-Trump conservative who is working on independent candidate Evan McMullin’s campaign, also told BuzzFeed News that Pence didn’t change his mind about Trump despite giving a good performance.

“He was more polished and disciplined than Kaine, but I don't think there was a lot of conversion left to do. Both men are burdened by shitty running mates,” Wilson said.

LINK: You Probably Didn’t Watch The Vice Presidential Debate So Here’s A Quick Rundown

LINK: Mike Pence Splits With Donald Trump On Putin And Russia

LINK: How Trump And Pence Are Doing Their Rallies Is “Totally Unprecedented”

Pool / Getty Images

FARMVILLE, Virginia — Advisers and surrogates for both vice presidential candidates came to a rare bipartisan consensus in the spin room here Tuesday night: The debate that just took place was incredibly unpleasant to watch.

Widely expected to be a snoozy and forgettable affair, the face-off between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence took on a surprisingly peevish tone almost immediately, and stayed that way for 90 grueling minutes.

Kaine interrupted his opponent constantly, letting loose a rat-a-tat of real-time fact-checks, pre-fab zingers, and outraged recitations of Donald Trump's sins. Pence spent much of the evening shaking his head, rolling his eyes, and mocking Kaine for his scripted one-liners. Frequently, the two men ended up talking over each other for extended periods of time while moderator Elaine Quijano pleaded, "Gentlemen, please." According to a post-debate transcript, the debate devolved into indecipherable "crosstalk" 32 times.

The overall effect for viewers was more grating than inspiring.

Given the astronomical "unfavorable" ratings possessed by both Trump and Hillary Clinton, some had predicted that the vice presidential debate would offer a welcome reprieve to an electorate desperate for candidates they actually like. Both Pence and Kaine have been presented in the media as affable, polite, and mild-mannered.

But apparently the Clinton campaign made a calculation that Kaine should ditch the dorky dad persona he's honed on the campaign trail, and instead play the part of the pit bull prosecutor.

In the spin room after the debate, neither campaign bothered trying to argue that America had just witnessed a stirring, high-toned contest of ideas. Rather, they all unanimously acknowledged the repellant nature of the performance — and then blamed the other side.

"It's one thing to be an attack dog, it's another to be a little yappy dog that just won't stop," said Matt Schlapp, a Trump surrogate and chairman of the American Conservative Union, of Kaine's performance. "I think there were too many times where they were talking at the same time, and that's unfortunate for people who were trying to listen, like me."

Schlapp added, "I think when [voters] see all the interruptions it just turns them off, because they think politics is just a lot of posturing."

Arizona congressman Ruben Gallego, a Democrat and Clinton supporter, said Kaine's interruptions were necessary because he was challenging Pence to defend his running-mate's record. While Gallego said Kaine succeeded in this mission, he acknowledged it likely wasn't a treat for the viewers at home.

"I think voters get turned off by almost everything in politics," he said."

Senior Clinton adviser Karen Finney argued that Pence's behavior in the debate — "the scowling, the shaking his head, the trying to laugh it off" — contributed to the contentious dynamic. Meanwhile, Trump adviser Sarah Huckabee Sanders placed the fault firmly with Kaine "because he was the primary interruptor, and I don't think it wore well."

Alex Wong / Getty Images

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — A small crowd here at a labor hall received a jarring warning about Donald Trump on Wednesday morning from their congressman, Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, during an event with President Bill Clinton on behalf of his wife’s campaign.

“He will gut you, and he will walk over your cold dead body, and he won’t even flinch,” Ryan said of Trump as he introduced the former president at the International Union of Operating Engineers Local #66.

“He’ll climb over your cold dead body and get on his helicopter."

Ryan, Ohio’s longtime Democratic congressman from this sweep of steel country, referred specifically to what he said a Trump presidency would mean for labor workers.

“I don’t mean to be graphic,” Ryan said before launching into the metaphor. “But this guy, to our friends in the trades, to our steel-workers he’s been treating very, unfairly, very unfairly…” The congressman trailed off.

“Keep goin’!” a man in the crowd yelled.

“Right?” Ryan said. “I don’t mean to be dramatic. But that’s what’s at stake.”

The 43-year-old was one of the Clinton campaign’s earliest and most enthusiastic surrogates, signing onto the nascent “Ready For Hillary” effort in 2013, more than a year before it became clear that the former secretary of state planned to run.

Bill Clinton appeared here on Wednesday morning as part of a two-day bus tour across Ohio, a state that has become increasingly competitive against the Republican nominee in recent weeks.

As he took the stage, the former president praised Ryan as one of the few people in congress with a head and a “heart.”

“I think we ought to give Tim Ryan another hand,” he said.

Mike Segar / Reuters

After being widely critiqued for interrupting his opponent dozens of times during last week’s presidential debate, Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine for doing the same.

During Tuesday evening’s debate at Longwood University in Virginia, an aggressive Kaine interrupted Gov. Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, or made a brief interjection more than 70 times, according to FiveThirtyEight. The data website said Pence interrupted or interjected more than 40 times.

The normally subdued Kaine drew criticism from many pundits for his forceful style, especially compared to Pence’s more restrained delivery.

Tweeting on Wednesday morning, Trump praised his running mate, while assailing Kaine’s “constant interruptions.”

However, during last week’s first presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York, Trump himself interrupted Hillary Clinton 51 times, according to both the Associated Press and Vox.

Here’s a recap of just a few of Trump’s interjections:

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LINK: Both Campaigns Agree: The VP Debate Was Painful To Watch

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Loveland, Colorado, on Oct. 3.

Mike Segar / Reuters

On Saturday, the New York Times published portions of Donald Trump’s tax returns showing that he declared a $916 million loss in 1995. Declaring such a huge loss could have allowed him to legally avoid paying federal income taxes for a period of time, the Times reported.

But most of Trump’s finances are still shrouded in mystery. Unlike every other modern presidential candidate, he hasn’t released his tax returns. And his privately held companies aren’t compelled to release financial details.

One major exception to that veil of secrecy: In the early 1990s, Trump’s companies filed several major bankruptcies, and the massive court filings in those bankruptcies have been a key part of previous reporting on Trump’s finances.

But those files — totaling thousands of pages — have not been available online before today, though they have been pored over by reporters at a range of outlets. With Trump’s finances the source of intense speculation and interest a month before the election, BuzzFeed News is making them available in full for the first time.

(We are posting the most complete record available. A clerk at the bankruptcy court told us that some of the filings are missing from their records.)

The documents are, in particular, court filings from three of his bankruptcies in 1991 and 1992:

• The Trump Taj Mahal Casino
  
• Trump’s Plaza
• The Trump Castle

Those bankruptcies almost certainly contributed to the loss he reported in his 1995 taxes.

The documents provide a glimpse into Trump’s business tactics. “He was a brutal and ruthless negotiator,” Bryant Simon, professor at Temple University and author of Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America, told the Washington Post. “People paid the price.”

The Post reported that, in the Taj Mahal Casino bankruptcy, large institutions took the biggest losses, but “many small-time investors who had bought the bonds, directly or through retirement funds, also suffered losses … so did the small-business owners who sold Trump paint, equipment, food, limousine services, and much more. Many were eventually paid only a fraction of what they were due.”

A New York Times review of the court records, as well as other filings, found that despite his claims to the contrary, there is “little doubt that Mr. Trump’s casino business was a protracted failure.”

Trump has touted his bankruptcies as a savvy business move.

“Don’t forget, I’m the king of debt, I love debt,” he told Wolf Blitzer of CNN in May.

Tim L. O’Brien, executive editor at Bloomberg View and author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, reported that Trump had a very different view of bankruptcy a decade ago. He “told me that he wanted to avoid bankruptcy at all costs because he felt that it would permanently taint him as a failure or a quitter,” O’Brien wrote.

Christina Swarns, lawyer for Duane Buck, speaks to the media after arguments at the Supreme Court in Buck's case on Wednesday.

Chris Geidner/BuzzFeed

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court appeared likely on Wednesday to side with Duane Buck, a black death row inmate challenging his sentence after an expert testified at his trial that he was more of a danger because of his race.

A finding of “future dangerousness” is required under Texas law in order for the death penalty to be imposed, and Buck’s lawyers argue that a federal appeals court did not properly allow for review of his challenge to his death sentence after several similar cases ended in re-sentencing.

Even Justice Samuel Alito — who railed against death penalty opponents in arguments during a 2014 case — called what happened to Buck “indefensible.”

The eight justices, however, spent much of the time during oral arguments discussing how far the ruling should go and what its impact would be on other cases. Justice Clarence Thomas, as is his usual practice, asked no questions on Wednesday.

Buck was sentenced to death 20 years ago for killing his ex-girlfriend and a man he thought was sleeping with her. During the sentencing phase of his trial, an expert hired by Buck’s own attorney testified that Buck would be more likely to be dangerous in the future because he’s black.

The expert, Dr. Walter Quijano, was later harshly discredited for his testimony — which appeared in a number of death penalty cases. In six cases in which Quijano had testified, the state of Texas admitted error in the cases and re-sentencing was ordered for five of the men. After initially including Buck’s case among those in which it admitted error, the state then reversed course, forcing Buck to fight for resentencing through federal courts.

Buck, who had previously challenged his sentencing in federal courts, sought to reopen his challenge on the basis that his lawyer was ineffective. A federal judge agreed that the defense lawyer — by seeking Quijano’s testimony and report — was deficient, but disagreed that Buck was prejudiced by the decisions.

The judge found that the case did not meet the federal requirements for reopening a federal challenge to his sentence — a requirement that “extraordinary circumstances” be involved. Further, the court did not believe that “reasonable jurists” could debate the court’s conclusion — preventing an appeal of Buck’s case. Buck appealed that ruling — called a “Certificate of Appealability” (COA) — and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the trial court that the case did not merit a COA.

On Wednesday, there appeared to be little question about whether Buck’s trial counsel was ineffective. One of Buck’s attorneys was Jerry Guerinot, an attorney infamous for never winning a capital case.

“Doesn't the fact that [Buck]’s own counsel introduced this show how abysmal his representation was?” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked. “This evidence, everyone agrees, should not have come in. What competent counsel would put that evidence before a jury?”

Alito echoed the concerns, saying, “This is a very unusual case, and what occurred at the penalty phase of this trial is indefensible.”

Even Texas’ attorney, Solicitor General Scott Keller, said the state isn’t defending the actions of Buck’s attorneys or his expert. Instead, he argued the case is unique because it was Buck’s attorney and not the prosecutor that invited the racist testimony.

The larger question the court grappled with, though, is how wide the effect of the opinion will be.

Buck’s attorneys point out a huge discrepancy in the rate of COAs being issued among the circuit courts. The 5th Circuit, which denied Buck a certificate, denies them in nearly 60 percent of cases. The 11th Circuit and 4th Circuit courts deny them in 6 percent and 0 percent of requests, respectively.

Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether Buck’s case was a poor one to address larger issues about the appeals court’s handling of these cases.

“To the extent it is a unique case, it really doesn't provide a basis for us to say anything at all about how the 5th Circuit approaches Certificates of Appealability, does it?” Roberts said. “It's a unique case, so this would be an odd platform to issue general rules.”

Justice Elena Kagan, however, jumped in to frame the situation another way.

“[I would assume] you think this is such an extraordinary case, and that the 5th Circuit got this so wrong, that it's the best proof that there is that the court is approaching the COA inquiry in the wrong way,” Kagan suggested, prompting agreement from Buck’s attorney, Christina Swarns.

Justice Stephen Breyer has questioned the constitutionality of the death penalty for its arbitrariness, as well as other factors. He pointed out that in all of the other cases where Dr. Quijano offered racist testimony, Texas allowed the inmates to be re-sentenced.

“And now in this ... case, you're taking the opposite position,” Breyer said. “And I have to admit, like what the Chief Justice [said], I don't understand the reason. It seems to me it proves the arbitrariness of what's going on.”

Read A Transcript Of The Argument: