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| Republicans and Democrats return to trail after death of Antonin Scalia – campaign live | Republicans and Democrats return to trail after death of Antonin Scalia – campaign live |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 2.08pm GMT | |
| 14:08 | |
| Now Rubio is asked if he is questioning Ted Cruz’s status as a Latino, when he questions the Texas senator’s ability to speak Spanish, as he did last night in the debate. He denies it and instead hammers Cruz – as he did in the debate last night, you know blogging this really is a bit like watching a Beckett play – for lying, being a sneak in elections, for flip-flopping on immigration. Plus ça, or whatever that is in Spanish. | |
| Rubio doubles down on calling Cruz a lier, outright: “He is saying things repeatedly that are not true and he knows they are not true.” | |
| Cruz has also been telling naughty fibs about Rubio’s stance on same-sex marriage and the supreme court, it seems. Or so Rubio says. | |
| And what about Chris Christie. “We’ve tried to get a hold of him,” says Rubio, of the man who eviscerated him in New Hampshire and then dropped out of the race. Rubio says he likes Christie, really, honest. | |
| 2.05pm GMT | |
| 14:05 | |
| It’s Rubio first. | |
| As senator, do you have a responsibility to consider a nominee to replace Scalia? | |
| No. Rubio goes back to his ground from last night, which is that no lame duck president has named a supreme court justice in his last year in office in 80 years, and that thus no, the Senate will not move. | |
| “The court doesn’t meet all year, they have a term and it ends this summer,” Rubio says. He’s happy for an eight-member court and backs Mitch McConnell on the Senate doing nothing. | |
| What about Sri Srinivasan, whose name has come up as a possible Obama nominee? | |
| What about him, Rubio says, essentially. “When I’m president of the United States I’m going to look for someone like justice Scalia. And they’re hard to find.” | |
| No Republican seems to think the next president who does the appointing may be a Democrat. Odd, that. | |
| 2.01pm GMT | |
| 14:01 | |
| The talk begins… | |
| We’re on CNN first, where State of the Union anchor Dana Bash says: “Welcome to Washington, where the state of the union is steeling for a fight.” I’m not sure that makes much sense. Who with? NBC’s Meet the Press? What with? Autocues at five paces? | |
| 1.57pm GMT | |
| 13:57 | |
| Our Washington bureau chief, Dan Roberts, asks: Can anyone stop Donald Trump? | |
| The battle to stop Donald Trump from winning the Republican presidential nomination is sometimes compared, vividly, to a bucket of crabs. | |
| After last night, I’m not sure I can improve on that. | |
| Related: Is Donald Trump unstoppable or can more mainstream rivals reel him in? | |
| 1.55pm GMT | |
| 13:55 | |
| And also and also … here’s Frankie. There’s a guy striding down a corridor purposefully in here, wearing a blazer and a shirt but no tie. There is no doubt that this Means Something. | |
| 1.48pm GMT | |
| 13:48 | |
| …and also, here’s more Jeb Lund on the smorgasbord of insult, rage and incoherence that was the Republican debate: | |
| … this debate veered fully into absurdity somewhere around the third time that Donald Trump told the actual truth about things that actually happened in actual history and was booed by the audience for his trouble. | |
| After stating that the Bush administration lied to the American people in order to drum up support for the war in Iraq, failed to keep us safe on 9/11 and passed up opportunities to assassinate bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks, the sheer mutual antagonism between the candidates and a furious audience caused something between Trump and Bush to come thoroughly unglued. Then, they simply began arguing like two people with mutual antipathy towards one another rather than politicians. | |
| From there, the madness spread through the debate: a great circle of abuse spun around fast enough to fling all sense away. Rubio hates Cruz who hates Trump who hates Bush who hates Trump who hates Cruz who hates Rubio. | |
| Related: Does anyone understand what happened at the Republican debate? | Jeb Lund | |
| 1.40pm GMT | |
| 13:40 | |
| While we wait for the shows … be still our beating hearts, quiet our throbbing temples, play a little light jazz, our aching brains … here’s a sampling of the Guardian’s opinion writers’ thoughts on Scalia, his passing and What It All Means: | |
| Scott Lemieux: | |
| It may well be a year – or several – before the Senate confirm anybody to replace Scalia, who died on Saturday at the age of 79. But that vote will almost assuredly not be unanimous, regardless of who the eventual nominee is: the politics of US supreme court appointments have become as polarized as the rest of American politics. | |
| And Scalia himself played a significant role in that very polarization. | |
| Emily Zanotti: | |
| US supreme court justice Antonin Scalia was not simply a paragon of American jurisprudence: he was an incredible legal scholar, a devout Catholic (his appointment marked the first time that two Catholics served concurrently on the US supreme court), a conservative stalwart, a great teacher and a dedicated family man. | |
| His loss will not only be felt by the people whose lives he impacted through judicial proceedings, but by those he met and those he taught. For many of us, his loss is staggering and personal. | |
| 1.06pm GMT | 1.06pm GMT |
| 13:06 | 13:06 |
| Good morning, and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign, on the morning after the night when House of Cards came to life. | Good morning, and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign, on the morning after the night when House of Cards came to life. |
| Late on Saturday afternoon, news broke that the supreme court justice Antonin Scalia had died at a ranch in Texas, at the age of 79. Tributes were paid from right (“defender of the constitution and the rule of law, patriot, conservative”) and left (“although I did not agree with the justice on many things, he was a great man and a great lawyer and, surprisingly, a good friend of Ruth Bader Ginsburg…”) | Late on Saturday afternoon, news broke that the supreme court justice Antonin Scalia had died at a ranch in Texas, at the age of 79. Tributes were paid from right (“defender of the constitution and the rule of law, patriot, conservative”) and left (“although I did not agree with the justice on many things, he was a great man and a great lawyer and, surprisingly, a good friend of Ruth Bader Ginsburg…”) |
| The news world scrambled. | The news world scrambled. |
| And then, even as the stars and stripes was being lowered to half-staff at the supreme court, Republican senators and Republican senators’ staffers started to say it: there is no way the Republican-controlled Senate will let President Obama even nominate a new justice, never mind confirm one, not when the court is now 4-4 liberal-conservative split and the end of Obama’s term in the White House is 11 months away. | And then, even as the stars and stripes was being lowered to half-staff at the supreme court, Republican senators and Republican senators’ staffers started to say it: there is no way the Republican-controlled Senate will let President Obama even nominate a new justice, never mind confirm one, not when the court is now 4-4 liberal-conservative split and the end of Obama’s term in the White House is 11 months away. |
| And then, Obama, speaking from California – you could tell he was there because he was wearing a blazer and shirt but no tie – paid tribute to Scalia … and said he would indeed nominate a replacement. | And then, Obama, speaking from California – you could tell he was there because he was wearing a blazer and shirt but no tie – paid tribute to Scalia … and said he would indeed nominate a replacement. |
| And then the Republican debate started in South Carolina, and after a brief pause to remember Scalia and say in different ways that Obama shouldn’t even think about nominating a replacement… unless he would just be bipartisan for once and nominate a “consensus candidate”… the ordure hit the air conditioning. | And then the Republican debate started in South Carolina, and after a brief pause to remember Scalia and say in different ways that Obama shouldn’t even think about nominating a replacement… unless he would just be bipartisan for once and nominate a “consensus candidate”… the ordure hit the air conditioning. |
| Donald Trump went – with a vengeance spluttered through paroxysm after paroxysm of red-faced fury – after Jeb Bush. He went to 9/11 and Iraq, again – and, family honour at stake, Jeb jabbed back. | Donald Trump went – with a vengeance spluttered through paroxysm after paroxysm of red-faced fury – after Jeb Bush. He went to 9/11 and Iraq, again – and, family honour at stake, Jeb jabbed back. |
| Marco Rubio, a little less robotic this time, went after Ted Cruz. Cruz tried to speak Spanish. John Kasich didn’t actually say “Jiminy Jillickers, guys!” but he did say “Jeez, oh man” as he contemplated the bile, vitriol and viscera flying about the stage. And, at points, Ben Carson – remember him – seemed to wake up and realise that he is, somehow, still in the race. He said something about the constitution. His new book is about it, remember. | Marco Rubio, a little less robotic this time, went after Ted Cruz. Cruz tried to speak Spanish. John Kasich didn’t actually say “Jiminy Jillickers, guys!” but he did say “Jeez, oh man” as he contemplated the bile, vitriol and viscera flying about the stage. And, at points, Ben Carson – remember him – seemed to wake up and realise that he is, somehow, still in the race. He said something about the constitution. His new book is about it, remember. |
| It was quite a spectacle – in the way that a gang of three year olds squabbling over an Elsa dress at a playgroup Valentine’s Day party is a spectacle. It was bearable for about the same amount of time. | It was quite a spectacle – in the way that a gang of three year olds squabbling over an Elsa dress at a playgroup Valentine’s Day party is a spectacle. It was bearable for about the same amount of time. |
| Jeb Lund, comment maestro de nos newspaper office, he say: | Jeb Lund, comment maestro de nos newspaper office, he say: |
| What the hell happened on Saturday night? | What the hell happened on Saturday night? |
| The umpteenth (or penultiumpteenth) Republican Debate was an ecstasy of noise in which everything was indistinguishable. We are long past you-can’t-do-that-on-television. We are long past manufactured controversy. We are fully into clown slapfight. | The umpteenth (or penultiumpteenth) Republican Debate was an ecstasy of noise in which everything was indistinguishable. We are long past you-can’t-do-that-on-television. We are long past manufactured controversy. We are fully into clown slapfight. |
| Meanwhile, Frank Luntz, Republican pollster of pollsters, he may have a point when he say: | Meanwhile, Frank Luntz, Republican pollster of pollsters, he may have a point when he say: |
| Seriously, this is insane.The GOP is destroying itself tonight, and they have no one to blame but themselves. #GOPDebate | Seriously, this is insane.The GOP is destroying itself tonight, and they have no one to blame but themselves. #GOPDebate |
| …and after all that, this Valentine’s morning, the candidates (and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, remember them) will take to the talk shows and it will all begin again. | …and after all that, this Valentine’s morning, the candidates (and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, remember them) will take to the talk shows and it will all begin again. |
| Enter Francis Underwood, stage left, smirking in sinister fashion. | Enter Francis Underwood, stage left, smirking in sinister fashion. |
| Stick with us as we stick with it. Hopefully. | Stick with us as we stick with it. Hopefully. |
| Updated | Updated |
| at 1.36pm GMT | at 1.36pm GMT |