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South Carolina town hall: Cruz and Rubio battle ahead of primary – live
South Carolina town hall: Cruz and Rubio battle ahead of primary – live
(35 minutes later)
1.06am GMT
1.44am GMT
01:06
01:44
On the issue of criminal justice reform, raised by a young woman who lost a close friend to murder, Carson says that the government needs to focus on providing criminals with the tools to successfully reintegrate into society.
“We have 5% of the population of the world and 25% of the inmates and that obviously means that something is askew,” Carson says. “We need to be thinking about whether they’re going there for life, or whether they’re going to be reintegrated into society,” and provide those who will rejoin society with practical training to become “a welder or a plumber or a whole host of different things.”
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1.41am GMT
01:41
Jeb Lund
Ben Carson believes that people should not drop out of school or go to jail, but that the government should promote the general welfare, not put people on welfare, and in fact back in the old days when people lived far apart sometimes someone would be picking apples and fall and break his leg, and his neighbors would get together and make sure that he remembered America’s values, and that’s why after 15,000 operations Ben Carson is not looking for a job.
Except the presidency. Which Anderson Cooper had to remind him he was actually looking for.
Let’s hope he finds it!
1.40am GMT
01:40
Megan Carpentier
From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier:
Ben Carson, who first noted that America had to compete with the billions of people in China and India, suggested that we had to “not waste” people in the job market.
But instead of suggesting things like paid child care and family leave, which would allow women to remain in the labor force in a cost-effective way (or even just noting that women’s labor market participation rate is lower than men’s), Carson suggested that we need to lower the high school drop-out rate from its current 20% (and reduce incarceration rates).
One problem: the Department of Education says that the high school drop-out rate is 7%.
1.38am GMT
01:38
Ben Jacobs
Ben Jacobs
In an interview with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, Donald Trump dismissed the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll which came out earlier today which showed Cruz with a narrow 28% to 26% lead nationally. It was the first time Trump had trailed in a national poll since the beginning of November.
In his MSNBC interview, Donald Trump refused to assign blame to either side in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
“I think someone at the Wall Street Journal doesn’t like me. But I never do well with the Wall Street Journal polls. I don’t know, they do these small samples and I don’t know exactly what it represents” said Trump.
“I don’t want to get into it for a different reason, Joe, because if I do win, there has to be a certain amount of surprise, unpredictability, our country has no unpredictability,” he told Joe Scarborough.
1.03am GMT
The Republican frontrunner added: “If I win, I don’t want to be in a position where I’m saying to you, and the other side now say, ‘We don’t want Trump involved, we don’t want ... ’ Let me be sort of a neutral guy, let’s see what - I’m going to give it a shot. It would be so great.”
01:03
However, Trump reiterated his longstanding belief that the conflict represented “the toughest agreement of any kind to make” and formidable obstacle even for the author of The Art of The Deal.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... billionaire Donald Trump - who is not scheduled to appear in tonight’s town hall event on CNN - will instead appear on rival cable network MSNBC in a pre-taped interview with Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough.
1.38am GMT
That interview, which will run the gamut from his immigration stance to his suggested lawsuit against fellow candidate Ted Cruz, will be covered by the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs - right here in this liveblog.
01:38
12.56am GMT
00:56
Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Dr. Ben Carson face off in town hall event in South Carolina
Scott Bixby
The winnowing field of Republican presidential candidates is about to begin the last nationally televised event before South Carolina voters take to the polls on Saturday for the first-in-the-South primary.
The first in a pair of town hall events will feature Texas senator Ted Cruz, Florida senator Marco Rubio and retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson - tomorrow night’s town hall will feature former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Ohio governor John Kasich and billionaire Donald Trump.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper is moderating both events.
12.50am GMT
00:50
Mormon and Latino communities could offer Marco Rubio, who spent six years of his childhood in Nevada, a path to caucus success, report Sabrina Siddiqui and Daniel Hernandez:
Rubio’s family moved to Nevada when he was eight years old. His mother worked as a hotel maid at Imperial Palace on the strip. And though they only spent six years in Las Vegas, the Florida senator has often referred to his family’s stint there as a formative period in his life that has, in many ways, shaped his view of working-class America.
No other presidential candidate, Democratic or Republican, can claim to have such a connection with the state. On paper, Rubio would be well suited for a strong finish in its 23 February caucus, although his standing in the Republican race has grown more precarious after a disappointing showing in New Hampshire.
Rubio has made just five swings through Nevada as a presidential candidate, having divided much of his time between the first three early voting states – Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. But the senator’s few trips there have carried less an aura of a routine campaign stop than the feeling of a homecoming.
Related: Why Nevada could be the state where Marco Rubio's campaign really takes off
12.06am GMT
00:06
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz called out rival Donald Trump during a news conference in Seneca, South Carolina, earlier today, telling him: “If you want to file a lawsuit ... file the lawsuit.” The argument in question: a television ad the Cruz campaign ran suggesting that Trump is pro-choice, which Trump claimed is misleading and defamatory.
11.19pm GMT
23:19
Mona Chalabi
There are a couple things to say about the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll that shows Trump falling Cruz.
Trump to MSNBC on new NBC/WSJ poll showing him trailing Cruz: "I think someone at the WSJ doesn't like me...they do these small samples."
The first is that the poll was based on 800 registered voters of which 400 were GOP primary voters. If you agree with Trump that those numbers are low you had better reconsider your relationship with polling in general - such small sample sizes aren’t unusual at all (which is one of many reasons why polls aren’t all that accurate these days). And Trump certainly hasn’t had a problem proudly sharing similar polls in the past that have showed him in the leading position.
The second point worth making is that this is just one poll - we have no idea whether it’s an outlier or part of a new emerging trend until we see what other survey results say over the next few weeks. Real Clear Politics has an averageof all polls and it shows Trump safely leading Cruz by 18 percentage points.
So Trump’s skepticism is right - it’s just being voiced at a suspiciously convenient time.
10.55pm GMT
22:55
Ben Jacobs
Ben Jacobs
Donald Trump may have delivered the shortest speech of his campaign in an outdoor rally in rural South Carolina, the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs reports from Walterboro:
Donald Trump admitted during his MSNBC interview that there was one reason that he continued to attack rival Jeb Bush, even after the former Florida governor had collapsed in the polls: “I hit Jeb because he’s sort of easy to hit, to be honest with you.”
Donald Trump may have delivered the shortest speech of his campaign in an outdoor rally in rural South Carolina on Wednesday.
1.35am GMT
In front of a crowd of roughly one thousand, the Republican frontrunner delivered his stump speech in a crisp 24 minutes, a record pace for the normally verbose Trump. Appearing in front of a banner emblazoned with Low Country Sportsmen for Trump, the real estate mogul accepted the group’s endorsement in front of a crowd that started to shiver as the sun set.
01:35
Despite the fireworks earlier in the day, with Cruz holding a long press conference where welcomed a threatened lawsuit from Trump, the real estate mogul only took a cursory shot at the Texas senator. “Here’s a guy he fibs, he lies, he does stuff to Ben Carson,” Trump said of Cruz.
I have multiple marksmanship awards from ROTC.
Some in the crowd didn’t seem to mind the short speech. As guests of the Low Country Sportsmen, they got to dig into several whole hogs that had been barbecued while drinking beverages out of red Solo cups.
Ben Carson, apparently forgetting that his record with the ROTC is a bit ... checkered.
10.38pm GMT
22:38
Sabrina Siddiqui
Ted Cruz’s campaign released a scathing new ad on Wednesday that accuses rival Marco Rubio of pushing “amnesty for illegals,” reports the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui from Aiken, South Carolina:
The one-minute TV spot, which will hit the airwaves in South Carolina days before the state’s primary, draws a direct link between the immigration platform of Rubio and Barack Obama.
Zeroing in on the Florida senator’s sponsorship of a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2013, which Rubio has since disavowed, the ad features a mash-up of Obama and Rubio making the case to grant citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants in almost verbatim terms.
“Marco Rubio burned us once. He shouldn’t get the chance to sell us out again,” the narrator says.
Earlier in the day, Rubio told reporters Cruz was “lying” about his record and spreading misinformation to bolster his campaign.
Rubio and Cruz are locked in a bitter and increasingly ugly contest to emerge as the prohibitive alternative to Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Recent polls have shown Rubio gaining ground in South Carolina, nipping just at the heels of Cruz’s second-place position.
Reached for comment by the Guardian, Rubio spokesman Joe Pounder slammed Cruz in a statement:
“No amount of cheap video editing can cover-up for Senator Cruz’s lies about his own record of wanting immigration reform to pass, advocating for a path to legal status, and wanting to ‘compromise’ on illegal immigrants. Senator Cruz’s millions in attack ads can’t undo his lifelong record of putting politics ahead of conservative principles.”
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10.18pm GMT
1.32am GMT
22:18
01:32
And the
A South Carolina voter asks Carson about gun rights: “What is your plan to preserve my rights to own a gun?”
“The second amendment is there for a very good reason: It’s so the people could assist the government in case of an invasion,” as well as in case “the government itself ever became tyrannical and attempted to rule the people,” Carson says.
money
polls kept rolling in!
At the moment a new poll dropped showing billionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump behind Ted Cruz for the first time among national Republicans, Bloomberg Politics released a poll showing the candidate holding a staggering 19-point lead over Ted Cruz among likely South Carolina Republican primary voters, with Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush duking it out in a close race for third place.
Trump dominates Cruz and the other candidates among nearly every demographic group, including besting Cruz among evangelical Christians. Trump is most trusted by the respondents to tackle nearly every issue.
Among the areas in which Trump scores highest: as the candidate who would be most feared by America’s enemies (57%); take on the “establishment” (51%); win the general election (43%); tackle illegal immigration (41%); and, somewhat surprisingly given Cruz’s background as a former Supreme Court clerk, appoint the best Supreme Court justices (24%).
10.09pm GMT
22:09
Ted Cruz tops Donald Trump in new national poll
Scott Bixby
Donald Trump’s improbable seven-month ride atop national polls of likely Republican voters may finally be slipping: In a national poll conducted by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire businessman has lost his national lead, slipping behind senator Ted Cruz of Texas in a poll released justthisminute.
Cruz leads with 28% support nationwide among Republican voters, beating Trump’s 26% by two percentage points. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida follows in third place with 17%, trailed by followed by Ohio governor John Kasich’s 11%, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s 10% and former Florida governor Jeb(!) Bush’s 4%.
In the last iteration of the poll, Trump topped Cruz by 13%, 33% to 20%. But this latest poll, conducted between Sunday and Tuesday, comes after Cruz beat Trump in the Iowa caucuses, and after Trump’s universally panned performance in last weekend’s debate in South Carolina, in which he attacked former president George W. Bush over the September 11 terrorist attacks and the invasion of Iraq.
The four latest polls of Palmetto State Republicans - all conducted after the debate - show Trump with an average lead of 17.5 percentage points over Cruz.
In two other national surveys released today, Trump leads the GOP field by 15 and 20 percentage points, making the NBC/Wall Street Journal numbers a major outlier.
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9.43pm GMT
1.30am GMT
21:43
01:30
Lauren Gambino
Jeb Lund
At a rally at the Parkway Ballroom in Chicago, Hillary Clinton promised to push for stricter gun laws and better law enforcement practices, saying the country owes it to the “mothers of the movement”, who have lost children to gun violence and police killings.
From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:
Clinton began by invoking the names of Sandra Bland, a black woman who was found dead in her jail cell following a traffic stop in Texas last summer, and Laquan McDonald, a young black man who was shot by a Chicago police officer in 2014. While Clinton spoke, Bland’s family nodded in agreement behind her.
Ben Carson’s insight about the Supreme Court shatters me to my foundations. Did you know that the founders intended for it to consist of jurists who “love America”, who “fully understood its constitution” and who understood it “should preserve its constitutional traditions”? Now I do, and the current court sounds so alien.
“These stories cannot be ones that just provoke our emotions,” Clinton said. “They must move us to action. They must motivate every one of us to take on these issues reforming police practices and making it as hard as possible for people to get guns who shouldn’t have them in the first place.”
Now, in fact, we have activism. And incorrectness. If only we were correct.
At the start of the rally, Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, joined by her daughters and husband, recited a poem she wrote about Clinton, a woman she described as having the “staying power” even after 20 years in politics.
But how to be correct?
“Now is the time and this is place / Now we are ready and Hillary is the face,” Reed-Veal began.
What we need is a litmus test based on what kind of rulings and associations jurists have had over their lives. Not a series of questions for potential nominees, which nominees can prep for. And we definitely have to scrap the current voting system where potential justices grab a scotch egg out of the jar on the bar, and whoever draws the rotten egg becomes the nominee.
When she spoke about her daughter, Reed Veal began to tear up. Clinton reached out, and Reed-Veal finished her introduction.
1.30am GMT
Clinton has won the support of a coalition of mothers whose children were victims of gun violence, including Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner; Maria Hamilton, mother of Dontre Hamilton; and Lucy McBath, mother of Jordan Davis; are planning to campaign for Clinton.
01:30
During Clinton’s remarks, which echoed a speech she gave in Harlem on Tuesday, she also took the opportunity to criticize Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, especially over his relationship with the president who remains wildly popular among Democrats.
On the issue of his lack of political experience, Carson says that his ability to solve problems is more valuable in a presidential candidate than the ability to talk: “It’s the political class that has tried to convince everybody that they are the only ones who can solve our problems.”
“My opponent has been quite critical of the president. He has called him weak, he has called him disappointing he even tried to advocate for somebody to run against him when he ran in 2012,” Clinton said, while some in the crowd booed and jeered. “I am unapologetic,” she continued, above the applause. “I will build on the progress that President Obama has made.”
According to Carson, the United States government was set up to be filled with “citizen statesmen”, rather than political professionals. “I can guarantee you that I have had more 2am phone calls than anybody else put together,” Carson said. “It’s we the people that need to assume, once again, the pinnacle position.”
She also implied that Sanders was a dreamer with a host of big ideas that were unachievable in the current political climate.
“I won’t make any promises that I can’t keep,” she said. “We don’t need any more of those.”
Clinton returned to her native Chicago on Wednesday both to campaign and fundraise. After the rally, she was expected to attend two private fundraisers in the afternoon and a fundraising event in the evening.
9.21pm GMT
21:21
Sabrina Siddiqui
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said Wednesday he hoped Apple would “voluntarily” unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s phone, the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui reports from South Carolina:
“Ultimately, I think being a good corporate citizen is important,” Rubio told reporters while campaigning in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, while adding there was “no easy answer” on the issue of encryption.
“On the one hand this encryption is designed to prevent people from having unauthorized access to your private information. On the other hand there are terrorists and criminals who are using encryption to protect themselves.”
The Florida senator said the government would have to work collaboratively with the private sector to reach a solution. “The question is how can we work collaboratively with Silicon Valley and the tech industry to work through this issue we now face,” Rubio said. “America has a history in times of war, in times of challenge, of working with the private sector.
As president, he added, Rubio would seek out a way forward on encryption “that protects America’s privacy but still allows [the federal government] access to valuable information that can prevent future attacks.”
8.54pm GMT
20:54
Is the Monmouth University poll showing Ohio governor John Kasich in the single digits in South Carolina spooking him out of the contest? Sure looks that way.
According to the Boston Globe, Kasich will not be in the Palmetto State for its Republican primary this Saturday - instead, he’ll be hosting a town hall meeting in Worcester, Massachusetts and will later attend a $2,700-per-person fundraiser in Boston’s bougie Back Bay neighborhood. The event pairing is likely an event to pave Kasich’s way for the Massachusetts Republican primary, to be held on March 1.
Kasich, who has been battling for fourth place in South Carolina, has previously stated that he’s not expecting to win the nation’s second primary. The Massachusetts primary, on the other hand, may be fertile ground for the more moderate Kasich.
8.28pm GMT
20:28
Lauren Gambino
It’s no secret that Vermont senator Bernie Sanders represents an overwhelmingly vanilla-white state, reports the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino - a problem that’s only going to snowball as the primaries move to the South:
His critics say that’s left him flat-footed in responding to issues of racial inequality. Remember Netroots Nation, when Sanders’s response to Black Lives Matter protesters inspired the ironic hashtag #BernieSoBlack?
As the primary race moves to more diverse states, Sanders is making a more concerted efforts to reach black voters. But Vermont’s black leaders told the Daily Beast that their senator Sanders did little to connect with them.
One leader said Sanders only wanted to discuss income inequality and dismissed attempts to address other issues.
“He just always kept coming back to income inequality as a response, as if talking about income inequality would somehow make issues of racism go away,” said Curtiss Reed Jr., the executive director of Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity.
This criticism may prove problematic for Sanders as he courts voters who are dually and disproportionately affected by racial and economic inequality.
So far in his campaign, Sanders has addressed racism through the lens of economic inequality. Rather, she would tackle it as its own ugly form of inequality that is connected to and exacerbated by economic inequality.
On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton drew a clear distinction between herself and Sanders on issues concerning race and implied that her opponent wasn’t up to the challenge.
“We have to begin by facing up to the reality of systemic racism,” she said, speaking in Harlem on Tuesday. “Because these are not only problems of economic inequality. These are problems of racial inequality. And we have got to say that loudly and clearly.”
On Wednesday, surrogates for Clinton piled on.
“It is disturbing to read that Bernie Sanders has a record of consistently turning his back against the Black voters in his very own state of Vermont,” said South Carolina representative Todd Rutherford.
“The lack of confidence that African-American citizens in Vermont have about Senator Bernie Sanders’ leadership is troubling and should be of concern to Black voters throughout the country,” said former NYC mayor, David Dinkins.
Sanders’ campaign has not yet responded to a request for comment.
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7.26pm GMT
1.27am GMT
19:26
01:27
Whose endorsement would you rather have?
Having people become dependent on others is not compassion at all.
-Ben Carson, on Christian charity and the welfare state.
7.15pm GMT
19:15
Sabrina Siddiqui
Governor Nikki Haley will endorse Marco Rubio for president, it was reported on Wednesday, lending a major boost to the Florida senator’s campaign just days ahead of the South Carolina Republican primary, writes Guardian political reporter Sabrina Siddiqui in Aiken, South Carolina:
The Post and Courier first reported the endorsement, adding that Haley will appear alongside Rubio at an evening campaign event in Chapin.
Haley will become the third influential South Carolina official to back Rubio. The senator already has the support of Senator Tim Scott and Congressman Trey Gowdy, two of the state’s popular lawmakers.
Haley’s endorsement had long been sought by Republican candidates. Although her endorsement of Mitt Romney in 2012 did not help him to secure a victory in South Carolina, Haley has risen significantly in stature since then.
Haley, the second Indian American to be elected governor and first woman to hold the post in South Carolina, resurfaced on the national scene last year after a racially motivated church shooting in Charleston.
She was widely praised for her response, which included swift action to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the state Capitol.
She also delivered the Republican response to this year’s State of the Union address, earning accolades for speaking out against the sharp anti-immigrant rhetoric that has taken hold of the GOP primary.
Rubio has lavished Haley with praise, particularly for how she handled the Emanuel AME church massacre, and told reporters Tuesday he would welcome her endorsement.
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1.24am GMT
01:24
Ben Carson says he “probably would” nominate a supreme court justice if he were president, even if it were his last year in office. As for how he would determine who he would nominate, “the litmus test would be their life,” Carson says, citing previous rulings, life experiences and evaluating what their potential opinions on issues like abortion would be through their previous actions.
