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| Ted Cruz doubles down on support of Israel at presidential town hall – live | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 12.44am GMT | |
| 00:44 | |
| Scott Bixby | |
| “We’re seeing Republicans uniting against this campaign,” Cruz said, noting that Lindsey Graham, who once compared choosing to support Cruz to being poisoned. | |
| After playing a clip of Donald Trump calling him “Lyin’ Ted,” and noting his disapproval among evangelical voters. | |
| “Every time Donald gets scared, he begins lashing out,” Cruz said. “I will say this - Donald’s campaign, his entire campaign is built on a lie.” | |
| “I understand the people who are supporting Donald - they are frustrated with Washington,” he continued. “But if you’re fed up with Washington, withb the corruption of Washington, then it doesn’t make any sense to support Donald Trump... he is the system.” | |
| “Donald trump has made billions buying influence in Washington; Hillary Clinton has made millions selling influence in Washington.” | |
| 12.41am GMT | |
| 00:41 | |
| “What Obama’s doing in Cuba is actually very much the same as what he’s doing in Iran,” Cruz said, lambasting Barack Obama for opening up relations with Cuba. | |
| “We should be standing up to enemies of America - we shouldn’t be giving billions of dollars to people who hate us,” Cruz said. “What this will do is this will strengthen the repressive regime of the Castros.” | |
| “There is power in standing up and speaking the truth to evil, and what this president does is the opposite,” Cruz concludes. | |
| 12.38am GMT | |
| 00:38 | |
| Scott Bixby | |
| Frank Gaffney, one of Ted Cruz’s new foreign policy advisors, has said that Barack Obama is a hidden Muslim and that Chris Christie committed an act of treason by hiring a Muslim to a government position - Blitzer asks Cruz whether that’s the kind of person who will be working in a Cruz administration. | |
| Smiling, Cruz said that “folks in the media get really nervous when you actually call out radical Islamic terrorism.” | |
| “He’s endured attacks from the left, from the media, because he speaks out against radical Islamic terrorism,” Cruz said. “I don’t know what he said in 2009, I don’t have the full context, I’m not interested in playing the media ‘gotcha’ game.” | |
| “Defending America means defeating radical Islamic terrorism and defeating Isis,” Cruz said. “I’m actually interested in talking about problems in this country - this is silly.” | |
| 12.35am GMT | |
| 00:35 | |
| Scott Bixby | |
| Ted Cruz dismissed Donald Trump as likely “unaware” of America’s commitment to America’ Nato allies. “I’ll bet you dollars to donuts Donald has no idea about that,” Cruz said. | |
| “That is so hopelessly naive, and what Donald Trump has said is that he would unilaterally surrender to Russia and Putin - give Russia a massive foreign policy victory - and abandon Nato,” Cruz said. “When you saw leaders of the world marching with Paris, and singularly absent was America... that reflects Obama’s leading from behind, and Trump’s foreign policy is Obama-Hillary leading from behind.” | |
| 12.34am GMT | |
| 00:34 | |
| John Stoehr | |
| Tonight, John Kasich and Ted Cruz are once again using a national news platform to attempt to beat back the tide of Donald Trump’s candidacy. | |
| The only thing missing is the supporting role from Fox News showing high-definition graphics of Trump’s flip-flopping. CNN of course would never do that, but it is doing a bang-up job of enabling the co-conspirators to frame their policy views as all things anti-Trumpian. | |
| Next thing you know, someone will admit to liking Cruz. | |
| 12.32am GMT | |
| 00:32 | |
| “Today, at Aipac, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton before him promised to move the embassy [to Jerusalem],” Cruz said, of moving the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. “The difference is that when I promise to do something, I do something.” | |
| “When I say it, I say it taking the consequences into account - it’s not just empty campaign rhetoric,” Cruz said. “Moving the embassy to Jerusalem makes a statement that America is back.” | |
| “The era of appeasement under the Obama-Clinton foreign policy is over,” Cruz concluded. | |
| 12.29am GMT | |
| 00:29 | |
| Ted Cruz joins Wolf Blitzer on CNN town hall | |
| Scott Bixby | |
| On the heels of a speech at Aipac that criticized Donald Trump’s former stance of “neutrality” on the issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations, Ted Cruz doubled down on declaring that Trump is insufficiently pro-Israel. | |
| “What that suggests is that he buys into the moral equivalency that many in the media pitch,” Cruz said of Trump’s previous stance. “If you think that the state of Israel is somehow morally equivalent to terrorists...” | |
| “The Palestinian Authority is in a so-called unity government with Hamas, a terrorist organization,” Cruz said. “I’m happy to try to broker a deal from the beginning - but the difference is that you need a president who stands with Israel, who doesn’t accept this moral equivalence.” | |
| “What Donald Trump does is the same thing that Hillary Clinton does.” | |
| 12.22am GMT | |
| 00:22 | |
| Scott Bixby | |
| Anderson Cooper asks John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, about Donald Trump’s floating of the idea that there would be riots in Cleveland if his nomination is denied him. “This would happen under your watch - are you planning on calling the Ohio National Guard?” | |
| “We always manage events where we think there could be problems the best we can,” Kasich said. “But that kind of language is not acceptable... We have to be better than that kind of language.” | |
| 12.20am GMT | |
| 00:20 | |
| Scott Bixby | |
| “You’re the only Republican who beats Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup,” and yet the majority of Republicans want John Kasich to drop out, Cooper noted. | |
| “I don’t think anybody’s going to have enough delegates to win the nomination before the convention,” Kasich said. “Delegates are gonna think about two things: Who can win? I’m the only one who can win in a general election. And number two: Who can be president?” | |
| After playing a robocall of Mitt Romney encouraging Utah voters to vote for Ted Cruz and telling voters that “a vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump,” Kasich was unhappy. | |
| “How do you come out one week and say he’s got a great record and the next week...” Kasich trailed off. “I don’t get this - are we thinking about just the Republican nomination?” | |
| “There’s zero change I would be vice president for either of them - zero. Less than zero,” Kasich said, of serving on the ticket with either Ted Cruz or Donald Trump. | |
| 12.18am GMT | |
| 00:18 | |
| John Stoehr | |
| Here is John Kasich, first of the five interviewees, telling the truth about Libya, signaling a willingness to poke Hillary Clinton’s soft underbelly. He said that it was a mistake to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and pinned Libya’s current malaise firmly on the former secretary of state. | |
| “Any time you start getting in the middle of these kind of problems directly, which is what we did, you create problems,” he said. | |
| CNN’s Anderson Cooper appears to be stunned that a Republican candidate for the presidency would suggest a dictator be left in power. It was a softball question that turned into a line drive down the middle. | |
| 12.14am GMT | |
| 00:14 | |
| Scott Bixby | |
| John Kasich, on whether Donald Trump is ready to lead: | |
| That’s up to the people to decide. | |
| 12.13am GMT | |
| 00:13 | |
| “Under your presidency, would companies [like Airbnb] be forced out of Cuba?” | |
| “I don’t want to expand any more - I’d have to think about exactly what I’d do,” Kasich said. | |
| 12.12am GMT | |
| 00:12 | |
| Scott Bixby | |
| Cooper asked Kasich whether he would intervene with troops on the ground in the Libyan civil war to defeat Isis’s presence there. | |
| “We should have left Qaddafi stay there - he was cooperating with us, and by knocking him out we turned this into the Wild West,” Kasich said, criticizing Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. | |
| “Anytime you mess in a civil war, any time you start to get in the middle of these problems directly, which is what we did, you’re gonna create problems,” Kasich said, saying that he would not have intervened in the Libyan civil war. | |
| “To have a huge troop presence there, for a long time, I don’t think makes sense.” | |
| Updated | |
| at 12.14am GMT | |
| 12.08am GMT | 12.08am GMT |
| 00:08 | 00:08 |
| Scott Bixby | Scott Bixby |
| “Is experience in making deals - does it transfer to statesmanship?” Cooper asks, referring to Donald Trump, who has no political experience. | “Is experience in making deals - does it transfer to statesmanship?” Cooper asks, referring to Donald Trump, who has no political experience. |
| “Frankly, when you’re a politician, people wonder if you can transfer that experience to business - and I did,” Kasich said, emphasizing his history as a successful banker after he left Congress to work for the now-defunct investment bank Lehman Bros. | “Frankly, when you’re a politician, people wonder if you can transfer that experience to business - and I did,” Kasich said, emphasizing his history as a successful banker after he left Congress to work for the now-defunct investment bank Lehman Bros. |
| “I’m the only one that has the legislative, and the executive, and the business experience in the race,” Kasich concluded. | “I’m the only one that has the legislative, and the executive, and the business experience in the race,” Kasich concluded. |
| 12.05am GMT | 12.05am GMT |
| 00:05 | 00:05 |
| John Kasich joins Anderson Cooper on CNN town hall | John Kasich joins Anderson Cooper on CNN town hall |
| Scott Bixby | Scott Bixby |
| On the heels of the Ohio governor’s speech in front of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) conference in Washington, DC, anchor Anderson Cooper asked John Kasich whether Donald Trump is strong enough of an ally for Israel. | On the heels of the Ohio governor’s speech in front of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) conference in Washington, DC, anchor Anderson Cooper asked John Kasich whether Donald Trump is strong enough of an ally for Israel. |
| “Thirty-five years I’ve supported Israel - we’ve got to be clear to strengthen NATO... we’re providing them with the lethal defensive equipment that we need,” Kasich said. “We don’t want to ever put them in a position where they don’t have superiority.” | “Thirty-five years I’ve supported Israel - we’ve got to be clear to strengthen NATO... we’re providing them with the lethal defensive equipment that we need,” Kasich said. “We don’t want to ever put them in a position where they don’t have superiority.” |
| “I want to make sure that they’re strong and the strongest in the region,” Kasich said. “I’m told today that there is some progress with the Palestinians on keeping some of the violence in check. My whole point, Anderson, in regard to Israel and the Middle East is stability. It’s a matter of getting through each day with a lid on things.” | “I want to make sure that they’re strong and the strongest in the region,” Kasich said. “I’m told today that there is some progress with the Palestinians on keeping some of the violence in check. My whole point, Anderson, in regard to Israel and the Middle East is stability. It’s a matter of getting through each day with a lid on things.” |
| “It’s easy to make a lot of statements - but when you have a lot of experience in this matter, which I have... you learn to choose your words carefully, and I think today that I was very strong in that speech.” | “It’s easy to make a lot of statements - but when you have a lot of experience in this matter, which I have... you learn to choose your words carefully, and I think today that I was very strong in that speech.” |
| Updated | Updated |
| at 12.08am GMT | at 12.08am GMT |
| 11.49pm GMT | 11.49pm GMT |
| 23:49 | 23:49 |
| Welcome to the Guardian's 'final five' live blog | Welcome to the Guardian's 'final five' live blog |
| Scott Bixby | Scott Bixby |
| Good evening, and welcome to the Guardian’s live blog of CNN’s “Final Five” presidential forum, a first-of-its-kind town hall event where the five remaining presidential candidates from both major political parties will join CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer on the same stage – albeit, not at the same time. | Good evening, and welcome to the Guardian’s live blog of CNN’s “Final Five” presidential forum, a first-of-its-kind town hall event where the five remaining presidential candidates from both major political parties will join CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer on the same stage – albeit, not at the same time. |
| Four of the candidates – former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Texas senator Ted Cruz, Ohio governor John Kasich and New York businessman Donald Trump – will be live in-studio, with Vermont senator Bernie Sanders joining the broadcast via satellite from Salt Lake City. | Four of the candidates – former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Texas senator Ted Cruz, Ohio governor John Kasich and New York businessman Donald Trump – will be live in-studio, with Vermont senator Bernie Sanders joining the broadcast via satellite from Salt Lake City. |
| Coming on the heels of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) conference meeting in Washington DC, where each of the four candidates planning to appear in-studio spoke today, the town hall will likely feature a wide range of foreign-policy questioning, particularly of candidates who used the speech to poke at their unnamed rivals. Clinton, for example, implicitly compared Trump’s candidacy to the rise of Adolf Hitler, while Cruz mentioned in an aside that candidates who have pledged neutrality on the issue of Israel weren’t true allies of the Jewish state. | Coming on the heels of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) conference meeting in Washington DC, where each of the four candidates planning to appear in-studio spoke today, the town hall will likely feature a wide range of foreign-policy questioning, particularly of candidates who used the speech to poke at their unnamed rivals. Clinton, for example, implicitly compared Trump’s candidacy to the rise of Adolf Hitler, while Cruz mentioned in an aside that candidates who have pledged neutrality on the issue of Israel weren’t true allies of the Jewish state. |
| As for nuts and bolts of tonight’s event: | As for nuts and bolts of tonight’s event: |
| In addition to myself – Scott Bixby – tonight’s live blog will feature contributions from Ben Jacobs and John Stoehr. | In addition to myself – Scott Bixby – tonight’s live blog will feature contributions from Ben Jacobs and John Stoehr. |
| To catch up with today’s political news before the town hall event, be sure to check out the Guardian’s minute-by-minute coverage of today’s campaign events in our liveblog: | To catch up with today’s political news before the town hall event, be sure to check out the Guardian’s minute-by-minute coverage of today’s campaign events in our liveblog: |
| Related: Ted Cruz promises to 'defeat radical Islamic terrorism' at Aipac conference - live | Related: Ted Cruz promises to 'defeat radical Islamic terrorism' at Aipac conference - live |
| Updated | Updated |
| at 12.01am GMT | at 12.01am GMT |