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South Carolina town hall: Cruz and Rubio battle ahead of primary – live South Carolina town hall: Marco Rubio addresses his feud with Ted Cruz – live
(35 minutes later)
1.44am GMT 2.19am GMT
01:44 02:19
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 should not lower standards for anyone, because this is not a game... It’s not about the gender, it’s about the ability to do the job.”
“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.” – Marco Rubio, on women in combat positions.
2.17am GMT
02:17
Megan Carpentier
So, what “convicted cop killer” living in Cuba was Rubio talking about when he based Obama’s plan to visit?
Assata Skakur (and, if you recognize only the last name, yes. she was rapper Tupac Shakur’s step-aunt and godmother).
Cuba considers her conviction political and has consistently refused to extradite her; Shakur was a member of the Black Liberation Army who was driving a vehicle with two other members when pulled over by New Jersey State troopers in 1973. Shakur and one trooper were shot and survived; Trooper Werner Foerster and one of her passengers died of gunshot wounds. Shakur was convicted after a trial in 1977 that her lawyers have argued was prejudiced (and her lawyers believe that law enforcement interfered with her defense), but escaped and fled to Cuba in 1979.
She remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List today.
Read more on Skakur from The Guardian:
Related: Assata Shakur: from civil rights activist to FBI's most-wanted
2.14am GMT
02:14
“I know I haven’t lived as long as some of the people running for president,” Rubio says, to a retired Army general, “but none of the people running for president has as much experience in national security matters as I do.”
Citing his service in the US senate on the intelligence committee, Rubio describes his prescience in naming Isis as a major threat to the security of the United States, as well as his vote against the use of force in Syria.
“It’s the hardest vote you have to make in Congress,” says Rubio. “No one running as a Republican has shown better judgment or has more experience on national security than I do.”
2.11am GMT
02:11
A woman on the verge of entering dental school, who expects to graduate with as much as half a million dollars in debt, asks Marco Rubio about his plan for making education easier and less expensive to access.
“I’m the only Republican candidate that consistently talks about student-loan debt,” Rubio says, in part because of his own student-loan debt, which he was only able to pay off after he wrote his book American Son, “now available in paperback.”
Citing accreditation reform, realistic scheduling options for non-traditional students and well-educated debt education for future college students, Rubio threw himself into this question.
2.05am GMT
02:05
Florida senator Marco Rubio says that Barack Obama’s plan to visit Cuba - reported tonight - is foolish, and that he would not consider such a trip unless it was under very specific circumstances.
“Not if it’s not a free Cuba,” Rubio says. “A year and two months after the opening to Cuba, the Cuban government remains as repressive as ever.”
UpdatedUpdated
at 1.44am GMT at 2.11am GMT
1.41am GMT 2.01am GMT
01:41 02:01
“President Obama has no standing” to address immigration, Rubio says, because two years of control of the White House and both chambers of Congress yielded no action.
“People won’t support a comprehensive approach to immigration,” Rubio says. “The only way forward is a step-by-step approach that begins by securing our border.”
“No progress will be made on immigration in this country until we prove to the American people... that we secure the border.”
1.59am GMT
01:59
Marco Rubio takes the stage at CNN's two-part town hall
Anderson asks Rubio how it’s feeling on the campaign trail, and whether he’s feeling the #MarcoMentum after South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s endorsement earlier today.
“I feel great about it - I mean, we feel a lot of energy,” Rubio says. “I feel good about what that’s gonna translate to, so we’ll see.”
1.55am GMT
01:55
Jeb LundJeb 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. I ran out of new things to say about Ben Carson about three months ago. All I could think of was to make fun of him; there’s nothing there.
Except the presidency. Which Anderson Cooper had to remind him he was actually looking for. 1.54am GMT
Let’s hope he finds it! 01:54
1.40am GMT And after telling Anderson Cooper that he enjoys classical music, “particularly baroque,” Ben Carson exits the stage.
01:40 Next up: Florida senator Marco Rubio.
Megan Carpentier 1.51am GMT
From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier: 01:51
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. I would relish running against either one of them - it would not be a problem.
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). -Ben Carson, on which Democratic presidential candidate he would rather run against.
One problem: the Department of Education says that the high school drop-out rate is 7%.
1.38am GMT
01:38
Ben Jacobs
In his MSNBC interview, Donald Trump refused to assign blame to either side in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
“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.
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.”
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.
1.38am GMT
01:38
Ben Jacobs
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.”
1.35am GMT
01:35
I have multiple marksmanship awards from ROTC.
Ben Carson, apparently forgetting that his record with the ROTC is a bit ... checkered.
UpdatedUpdated
at 1.37am GMT at 1.56am GMT
1.32am GMT 1.49am GMT
01:32 01:49
A South Carolina voter asks Carson about gun rights: “What is your plan to preserve my rights to own a gun?” “If you are the Republican nominee, how do you plan to get your message out over a boisterous Democrat?” asks a town hall attendee, after noting Ben Carson’s “polite” demeanor.
“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. “The key is not so much the volume with which you speak but its the content of what you say - that’s what’s going to make the difference,” Carson says. “When it comes to the general election, people who are running around saying things like ‘free college for everyone,’ it’ll be very easy to actually educate people as to the actual financial condition to our nation.”
Updated “I look forward to such a challenge,” Carson concludes.
at 1.37am GMT 1.46am GMT
1.30am GMT 01:46
01:30
Jeb LundJeb Lund
From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund: Ben Carson, when you decry the “facilities all around the country that are sitting empty because we’ve decided that it’s too expensive to house the mentally ill... And then they wind up in prison”, thank your friend Ronald Reagan for destroying public mental healthcare in the United States.
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.
Now, in fact, we have activism. And incorrectness. If only we were correct.
But how to be correct?
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.
1.30am GMT
01:30
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.”
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.”
UpdatedUpdated
at 1.35am GMT at 1.46am GMT
1.27am GMT 1.44am GMT
01:27 01:44
Having people become dependent on others is not compassion at all. 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.
-Ben Carson, on Christian charity and the welfare state. “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.”
UpdatedUpdated
at 1.34am GMT at 1.44am GMT
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.
Updated
at 1.34am GMT