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| Trump, Cruz and Rubio square off for Super Tuesday elections – campaign live | Trump, Cruz and Rubio square off for Super Tuesday elections – campaign live |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 2.25pm GMT | |
| 14:25 | |
| Next up on CNN is Texas senator Ted Cruz, who immediately starts saying that Donald Trump is not conservative enough. | |
| Cruz segues into stump-speech mode, saying he “will stand unapologetically with Israel,” and not put “government bureaucrats in a position to ration your care, especially for seniors”. | |
| He says “those 65% of Republicans that don’t think Donald can beat Hillary will continue to unite” behind his campaign. He does not mention that even if Marco Rubio or John Kasich dropped out of the race, some of their supporters would likely flock to Trump. | |
| Tapper asks whether Cruz would support a nominated Trump. “I will support the Republican,” Cruz says. “I think if we nominate Donald, Hillary probably beats him.” | |
| He again frames Trump as a hypocrite with poor judgment, saying: “Who the heck knows what he would do? Even Donald doesn’t know what he would do.” | |
| Finally, Cruz concedes that Tuesday’s elections are important to keeping his campaign alive: “If you want to stop this Trump train the only way to do so is Super Tuesday.” | |
| 2.17pm GMT | |
| 14:17 | |
| Trump declines to condemn ex-KKK leader | |
| The Anti-Defamation League has asked Trump to condemn ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who urged his sympathizers to vote for the billionaire last week. | |
| On Friday, Trump told reporters that he disavows the endorsement – but he’s evasive two days later when Tapper asks him whether he does in fact condemn Duke and the KKK. | |
| “I don’t know anything about David Duke, I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists,” Trump says. “I know nothing about David Duke, I know nothing about white supremacists.” | |
| “Certainly I would disavow it if I though there was something wrong,” he says, before repeating how he knows nothing about Duke and doesn’t think he’s ever met him. “If you send me a list of groups I’ll let you know.” | |
| 2.15pm GMT | |
| 14:15 | |
| “If they’re doing that that’s a total violation of their pledge,” Trump continues, about reported plans of Republicans not to support him if he wins the nomination. The pledge he’s referring to is one he signed not to run as a third-party candidate. | |
| Tapper asks about tax returns, which Trump has so far not released. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz released returns earlier this weekend. “I fully disclosed my financials, and I put them in right on time,” Trump says, talking about his campaign finance forms. | |
| “Almost 100 pages of financials, and it shows almost, if you figure it out, shows almost $10bn,” Trump goes on, dodging the question. “You can’t tell anything from tax returns.” | |
| He suggests maybe he’ll “make a listing of the various moneys I’ve given over the years”. | |
| “But I can’t release tax returns when there’s an audit,” Trump insists, blaming the IRS. | |
| Tax experts, by the way, say there is no law that prevents him from releasing his returns during an audit. He could release them now on CNN if he felt like it. | |
| But instead Trump says: “I feel Tea Party, I’ve always felt Tea Party,” and draws a contrast between himself and Ted Cruz, who he notes did not disclose a loan from Goldman Sachs as campaign laws require back during his Senate run. | |
| 2.08pm GMT | |
| 14:08 | |
| We’re off to the races with CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper, who starts his Sunday morning as so many do these days: in conversation with Donald Trump. | |
| “Good morning,” Trump says. Tapper asks him about his shiny new endorsement from New Jersey governor Chris Christie – who only a few weeks ago was fighting Trump in New Hampshire. | |
| “I think it is politics, I mean people say things and then all of a sudden reality sets in. He’s great, he’s a great guy,” Trump goes on. “Chris is one that I really wanted to get.” | |
| He then comforts the other people who’ve endorsed him, eg Sarah Palin, Jerry Falwell Jr, saying he loves them too. “I’m bleeding with evangelicals just about every state, nationwide.” | |
| Tapper asks him about the reports of Republican party stalwarts are planning to abandon Trump should he win the nomination. “ I signed a pledge and a pledge is a two way street,” Trump says. “If they have a problem I’m going to have a big problem with that.” | |
| The billionaire says a lot of voters “are angry about the way the Republican party is being run.” He says it’s “not being run properly.” | |
| “If they want to play that game I can play it a lot better than they can.” | |
| Updated | |
| at 2.08pm GMT | |
| 2.07pm GMT | |
| 14:07 | |
| Martin Pengelly | |
| Quick thing, for no real reason other than it’s about the nation’s Great Lost Leader, aka its Great Lost Martin, aka former Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland and mayor of Baltimore who dropped out of the race after Iowa, where he once had an event at which one voter showed up. | |
| Anyway: more than one voter voted for O’Malley in South Carolina: 712 more, to be precise. Of course, Bernie Sanders took 95,737 and the winner, Hillary Clinton, took 270,810. And even Willie Wilson, the unknown other Democrat in the race, got more, with 1,317. But still. Hope for Martins. | |
| .@JohnKasich, it works better if you ask with a smile. #ProTip #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/lNt1JIF4A0 | |
| Updated | |
| at 2.08pm GMT | |
| 1.45pm GMT | 1.45pm GMT |
| 13:45 | 13:45 |
| Hello and welcome of our coverage of the sprint to Super Tuesday, the day after Hillary Clinton swept every county in South Carolina and handed Bernie Sanders his soundest defeat of the election so far. | Hello and welcome of our coverage of the sprint to Super Tuesday, the day after Hillary Clinton swept every county in South Carolina and handed Bernie Sanders his soundest defeat of the election so far. |
| The senator from Vermont faces daunting odds but is still hoping to win big on Tuesday, when 12 states, American Samoa and Democrats living abroad will vote for both parties. The elections will award hundreds of delegates – the puzzle pieces to securing a nomination – and could easily widen the gulf between each party’s frontrunner and her/his adversaries. | The senator from Vermont faces daunting odds but is still hoping to win big on Tuesday, when 12 states, American Samoa and Democrats living abroad will vote for both parties. The elections will award hundreds of delegates – the puzzle pieces to securing a nomination – and could easily widen the gulf between each party’s frontrunner and her/his adversaries. |
| Speaking of frontrunners, the Republican with more delegates than the rest, Donald Trump, has this morning retweeted a parody account posing as the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. The quote is apocryphal, and was likely a proverb before the ally of Adolf Hitler got around to saying it. | Speaking of frontrunners, the Republican with more delegates than the rest, Donald Trump, has this morning retweeted a parody account posing as the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. The quote is apocryphal, and was likely a proverb before the ally of Adolf Hitler got around to saying it. |
| "@ilduce2016: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” – @realDonaldTrump #MakeAmericaGreatAgain" | "@ilduce2016: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” – @realDonaldTrump #MakeAmericaGreatAgain" |
| Speaking of Hitler, two former presidents of Mexico compared Trump to Hitler on Saturday, not long after a French nationalist who believes the Holocaust was not “particularly inhumane” said he’d vote for the billionaire if he could. Trump’s also riding high off endorsements from two sitting governors, Chris Christie of New Jersey and Paul LePage of Maine, and one from former Arizona governor Jan Brewer. | Speaking of Hitler, two former presidents of Mexico compared Trump to Hitler on Saturday, not long after a French nationalist who believes the Holocaust was not “particularly inhumane” said he’d vote for the billionaire if he could. Trump’s also riding high off endorsements from two sitting governors, Chris Christie of New Jersey and Paul LePage of Maine, and one from former Arizona governor Jan Brewer. |
| Many Republicans, not least the men who want to beat Trump for the nomination, are a little concerned about all this. Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are growing especially desperate as their paths to the presidency narrow: Cruz hasn’t won a state since Iowa and Rubio has spent the last month trying to convince Americans that you can win an election from second or third place. | Many Republicans, not least the men who want to beat Trump for the nomination, are a little concerned about all this. Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are growing especially desperate as their paths to the presidency narrow: Cruz hasn’t won a state since Iowa and Rubio has spent the last month trying to convince Americans that you can win an election from second or third place. |
| Cruz leads Trump in his home state of Texas, where 155 delegates are up for grabs on Tuesday, and Rubio has racked up endorsements from local and federal officials around the country. But Cruz is derided by his peers, maybe more so than Trump, and Rubio has failed to convince the hard-right supporters of his fellow senator that he can unite the fractured party. John Kasich and Ben Carson remain in the race, searching for relative moderates and evangelicals respectively, but neither has made a dent in results. | Cruz leads Trump in his home state of Texas, where 155 delegates are up for grabs on Tuesday, and Rubio has racked up endorsements from local and federal officials around the country. But Cruz is derided by his peers, maybe more so than Trump, and Rubio has failed to convince the hard-right supporters of his fellow senator that he can unite the fractured party. John Kasich and Ben Carson remain in the race, searching for relative moderates and evangelicals respectively, but neither has made a dent in results. |
| Party chairman Reince Priebus seems to be pretending none of this is happening. The whole lot of them save Clinton will appear on TV to confront the press this morning – we’ll report, fact-check and analyze it as they do. | Party chairman Reince Priebus seems to be pretending none of this is happening. The whole lot of them save Clinton will appear on TV to confront the press this morning – we’ll report, fact-check and analyze it as they do. |
| Updated | Updated |
| at 1.54pm GMT | at 1.54pm GMT |