Donald Trump Returns to Core Populist Nationalism in Last Pitch to New Hampshire Before Primaries in Packed Stadium

Associated Press

by MATTHEW BOYLE8 Feb 2016MANCHESTER, New Hampshire1,734

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Before a packed 4,000-strong crowd at Verizon Wireless Arena here Monday evening — hours before the polls open in the first-in-the-nation primary state — Donald J. Trump, billionaire and national GOP presidential frontrunner, made his final case to the set of voters who will decide his future.

“So we have something very, very special going on: We’re going to have a country that’s smart, we’re going to have a country that’s tough, that makes the proper decision, that makes the right deals,” Trump said after taking the stage to The Beatles hit “Revolution.” He continued:

Our trade deals are so bad. I have the greatest dealmakers in the world, the richest men, the richest women who are truly successful. The best people in the world, we have them in this country. We don’t use them. We use political hacks. These are political hacks, to negotiate with China, with Japan, with Russia, with Mexico—Mexico, Mexico is taking business away from us folks like you wouldn’t believe. What are we going to do with Mexico, folks? We’re going to build a wall. We’re going to build a wall. And this is going to be a real wall. This is going to be a wall that is going to stop the heroin and the drugs from coming to New Hampshire completely. This is going to stop.

Trump added that this is “sort of our final love fest” before the primaries tomorrow, and he implored everyone to vote. “You have to get out and you have to vote no matter what,” Trump said.

“I don’t care what happens, no matter what, this has been the most amazing experience — the most amazing experience of my life,” Trump added later. “And you people have made it that way. You people have made it that way.”

Trump, who came in second in last week’s Iowa GOP caucuses to the firebrand conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), has upended the entire political process during his entirely unconventional run for the presidency. Most expect Trump to win here handily, while others like Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) compete for second place. The question that remains is what margin of victory Trump will face, assuming he wins.

Tomorrow’s vote will determine much of what happens next. A big win by Trump — double digits or more — would send him barreling into the first-in-the-South primary state of South Carolina with incredible momentum. A smaller margin of victory could stunt Trump’s efforts to create an appearance of inevitability heading forward, and a loss, meanwhile, could be difficult to recover from.

Moments later, Trump brought his wife Melania, and shortly thereafter his daughter Ivanka, up on stage.

“We love you, New Hampshire,” Melania Trump said. “Together, we will make America great again!”

When Ivanka — who is expecting a child soon — joined him on stage, Trump said, “If she has the baby tonight in New Hampshire, that guarantees victory tomorrow. Please Ivanka, have the baby tonight!”

“I should be so lucky,” Ivanka Trump said. “New Hampshire, thank you so much. It has been amazing spending the last couple of hours here and obviously over the previous weeks I’ve been here quite a bit. My father has called so many times and said just the energy, the enthusiasm, the spirit of the crowds here are amazing. It really encourages us and keeps the momentum going.”

After thanking the local chief of police, who was in attendance, Trump turned back to the core messages of his campaign.

“A couple weeks ago, a politician — Nikki Haley — said in a speech, a rebuttal speech, referring to me, although my name wasn’t mentioned, although it was ultimately confirmed, that I’m angry, that I’m very angry,” Trump said. “And that the people that are with me are very angry. The people that are with me are really with me.”

He referenced polling that shows how loyal Trump’s supporters are as compared to other candidates’ supporters, before walking through how “We’re not angry people.” Trump said:

We don’t want to be angry. But I said right now, I will agree, me personally and a lot of the people that are with me, we are angry. Because we’re angry at incompetence. We’re angry at the Iran deal, where we give away $150 billion and get nothing. We’re angry at our trade deals, where China is making so much money that we’ve rebuilt their country, and then in the meantime our country and infrastructure of our country is going to hell. We’re angry when we make a Sergeant [Bowe] Bergdahl deal, who’s a dirty rotten traitor, where six people were killed looking for him and trying to bring him back. Six young great people killed looking for Sergeant Bergdahl and we make a swap knowing that he was a traitor. They had a colonel and a general talking to these people, and talking to the people that worked with them. They knew he was a traitor. They knew it and we made a deal.

After attacking Obamacare and the ineffective budget deals that feckless House GOP leaders have negotiated, he turned his fire on Common Core and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

“Bush loves Common Core,” Trump said. “He’s the only one that I know that loves Common Core, but that’s okay. We’re going to be bring education back locally. No more Common Core.”

“He’s also weak on immigration—remember they come as an ‘Act of Love,’?” Trump said, ribbing Bush some more.

Trump then hit Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for his failure to be original, something New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie exposed as Rubio’s robotic nature. Trump said:

They’re politicians, all talk no action and getting re-elected. But you have some good politicians, but it’s mostly people who think about ‘How do I get re-elected?’ So I’m the only one. I’m self-funding. So when these guys see me — I know many of the guys — I’m looking at the room, I’m standing at the debate, I’m watching Marco sweating like a dog on my right. I’m watching Ted Cruz say, ‘No I would never say that about Donald,’ but he said something bad and they asked him ‘You said something bad, would say it again?’ and he said, ‘No,’ and I liked that he didn’t do that because we would have ended up in a big fight. It’s nice that he didn’t, honestly. Honestly, Marco was having a hard time — and I think he’s a nice guy. He’s a nice guy, but again and again and again after three times — I have a very good memory —so after three times, I said, ‘Wait he said that about three minutes ago.’ Then I said, ‘Wait, wait, wait, he said that two minutes ago.’ So after the fifth time I said, ‘What the hell’s going on?’

Trump hammered the permanent political class for looking out only for themselves and not for the American people. Trump walked through the way the crowd at the most recent debate was stacked with donor class figures, and not college kids, noting that “I know half the people out there” when he looked out upon the crowd.

“Sometimes you think the politicians are doing horrible, horrible deals — and they are horrible — but you think they’re really, really not smart people,” Trump said. “But they are actually smart people, but they’re working for themselves. They’re doing what their lobbyists who put up millions and millions and millions of dollars — I’m just talking about the honest stuff.”

Trump then shifted back to immigration, noting:

We’re accepting people and we’re accepting them in by the thousands, and you look at New Hampshire and the problems you have here with the drugs — people come into this country and you have absolutely no idea who they are, where they come from, are they ISIS? Maybe, maybe not. Somebody said, ‘Well ninety percent of them aren’t.’ Really? If we had 10 percent — look at what those two people did a couple months ago, radicalized people, they killed 14 people [in San Bernardino].

Trump walked through the Paris terrorist attacks and how he would defend the Second Amendment — arguing that an armed populous would have prevented the attacks from being as severe as they were, since gun control in France only allows the bad guys to have guns — then he shifted back to how there are criminal fugitive illegal aliens all throughout America right now.

“Right now, as we speak — it was released last week — we have 179,000 illegal criminal immigrants, illegal criminals, these are people who have been convicted of crimes, some very big crimes,” Trump said. “We have 179,000 people here that have committed crimes and shouldn’t be in the country. That’s bigger — 179,000 people is bigger, a lot bigger — than any city in New Hampshire. That’s a massive amount. So we’re going to do something about it.”

Trump harkened back to former President Dwight Eisenhower, who ran “Operation Wetback” and deported masses of illegal aliens back in the 1950s, saying, “I Like Ike.”

“I don’t want to put them in our jails,” Trump said. “Our jails are costing us a fortune. We’re bringing them back where they came from. And we’re going to be respected by those countries — we’re not respected at all by those countries — we’re bringing them back, and let that country put them in prison for the next 25 years, because we’re not going to do it. And they’re never, ever coming back to our country again. Never.”

The crowd roared.

Trump laid out how the rest of the GOP field has followed him on immigration and how other candidates are now talking about wanting to build a wall on the border. Without naming Cruz, Trump knocked him for copying him on the debate stage the other night, also saying there needs to be a wall on the border.

“My wife came up to me, Melania, and she said, ‘Darling did you hear that? That’s the first time I heard that from anybody else but you,’” Trump said. “We have to build a wall. Walls work. Just ask Israel. Walls work. They work. I don’t mean the little walls. I mean those walls. I mean serious walls. I mean Trump walls.”

He then laid out how the federal government, under President Barack Obama, has ordered Border Patrol not to enforce the law. Trump said:

I’ll tell you something, I met the Border Patrol people — they’re phenomenal — and the reason I met them is they called me. They said, ‘I want to meet you’ so I went to Laredo, Texas, and it was incredible. These people are incredible. They’re told to stand back. They’re told don’t touch anybody. They’re told to let people come in. They don’t want that. These are incredible men and women, there are people walking right in front of them and their incredible equipment, except for one thing: They’re told, ‘Don’t do anything.’ And when they do something, they say, ‘Give them a fine, let them go,’ and they go wherever they want, and that’s the end. You never see them again. We either have a country or we don’t. And just let me ask you one question about the wall: Who the hell is going to pay for the wall?”

“MEXICO!” the crowd shouted back at him.

“What?” Trump egged on the crowd.

“MEXICO!” the crowd yelled louder.

After mocking former Mexican president Felipe Calderon for saying Mexico won’t pay for the wall earlier on Monday, Trump said, “You know the wall’s just going to get bigger with that attitude.”

Trump wrapped his speech with a plea to New Hampshire to show up and vote for him because, “We don’t win anymore.”

“We don’t win on trade, we don’t win on anything,” Trump said. “We can’t beat ISIS with our military. Can you imagine Gen. George Patton, ‘We can’t beat ISIS?’ He would beat them by the time we walked out to the front row. We don’t beat ISIS. We’re going to start winning again. We’re going to win on every single level in our country. We’re going to win every single time we do something. We’re not going to make stupid deals anymore. We’re going to be led by smart people and have our smartest people representing us. Now I leave you with this. It’s so important. It’s so important. Tomorrow is going to be the beginning. I hear we have a lead, it doesn’t matter to me. Who the hell knows what the lead is? We have some snow, it looks like it’s going to stop. It’s so important; we have something so special going on. You have to go out, you have to vote, we have to celebrate tomorrow evening, we have to have a great victory. It’s so important, because we are going to make America great again.”

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CRUZ FACES FIRESTORM OVER CANADIAN BIRTH AND CITIZENSHIP

BUSINESS INSIDER

APTed Cruz.

Top-tier presidential candidate and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has faced another round of questions over his White House eligibility over the past week, reviving a firestorm over the issue that first erupted two years ago.

Republican front-runner Donald Trump brought the subject to the forefront this week, after he insinuated in a Washington Post interview that Cruz's birth in Canada would be a "precarious" legal issue for Republicans if they nominated him.

"Republicans are going to have to ask themselves the question: 'Do we want a candidate who could be tied up in court for two years?' That'd be a big problem," Trump said, according to The Post. "It'd be a very precarious one for Republicans because he'd be running and the courts may take a long time to make a decision. You don't want to be running and have that kind of thing over your head."

Cruz first released his birth certificate to The Dallas Morning News in 2013. The day after, he said in a late-night statement that he would renounce his Canadian citizenship. Amid the latest firestorm, his campaign released his mother's birth certificate to the conservative website Breitbart on Friday.

Back in 2013, Trump said that Cruz was "perhaps not" eligible to run for president. Trump was once one of the most prominent people questioning the birthplace of President Barack Obama, who eventually released his long-form birth certificate in 2011.

But the questions about Cruz have little, if any, comparison to the conspiracy theories about Obama's birthplace. The "birtherism" that dogged Obama stemmed from the fact that his father was born in Kenya. But Obama's mother was born in Kansas and Obama himself was born in Honolulu, according to his birth certificate, though many conspiracy theorists are skeptical about the document.

Cruz's situation is quite different, in that he was actually born outside the US. He was born in Calgary, Alberta, to a father from Cuba and a mother from Wilmington, Delaware.

From the legal experts to who The Dallas Morning News and others have spoken in investigations over Cruz's eligibility, the US citizenship of Cruz's mother at the time should satisfy the constitutional requirement of being a "natural-born" citizen. The Constitution does not define what "natural born" means, but the expert consensus is that a person only has to be a US citizen at birth to meet that threshold.

Cruz once had dual citizenship. He said in 2013 that he would renounce his Canadian citizenship.

"Because my mother was a US citizen, born in Delaware, I was a US citizen by birth," he said in a 2013 statement. "When I was a kid, my Mom told me that I could choose to claim Canadian citizenship if I wanted. I got my US passport in high school. "

He continued:

Because I was a US citizen at birth, because I left Calgary when I was 4 and have lived my entire life since then in the US, and because I have never taken affirmative steps to claim Canadian citizenship, I assumed that was the end of the matter. Now the Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship. Assuming that is true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship. Nothing against Canada, but I'm an American by birth and as a US senator, I believe I should be only an American.

REUTERS/Jason Reed

There are a couple of high-profile precedents for presidential contenders who were born outside the US. Notably, George Romney was born in Mexico to Mormon missionary parents and ran for president in 1968.

His son, 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, defended both Cruz's and Obama's citizenship on Friday.

And in 2008, Sen. John McCain's (R-Arizona) "natural-born" status was also somewhat in question. McCain, the Republican Party's nominee that year,was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was a US territory at the time but has since been turned over to Panama. McCain's parents were both born in the US.

Both then-Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Democratic candidates at the time, sponsored aresolution firmly stating that McCain met the Constitution's requirement that presidents are "natural-born" citizens.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service also attempted to tackle the question of who is a "natural-born citizen" in a November 2011 report.

The report suggests that someone in Cruz's situation would be indeed be eligible to become president. Here are the key paragraphs (emphasis added):

The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term "natural born" citizen would mean a person who is entitled to US citizenship "by birth" or "at birth," either by being born "in" the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to US citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for US citizenship "at birth." Such term, however, would not include a person who was not a US citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an "alien" required to go through the legal process of "naturalization" to become a US citizen. [...]

The weight of more recent federal cases, as well as the majority of scholarship on the subject, also indicates that the term "natural born citizen" would most likely include, as well as native born citizens, those born abroad to US citizen-parents, at least one of whom had previously resided in the United States, or those born abroad to one US citizen parent who, prior to the birth, had met the requirements of federal law for physical presence in the country.

Although legal experts widely believe Cruz is eligible for the Oval Office, the courts have yet to rule on the issue and could theoretically complicate the senator's plans if a legal challenge were brought before them. If history is any indication, however, a serious challenge would be unlikely.

For his part, McCain actually suggestedthis past week that it's "worth looking into" whether Cruz is eligible to run for president.

"I think there is a question," McCain said. "I'm not a constitutional scholar on that, but I think it's worth looking into. I don't think it's illegitimate to look into it."

Cruz responded to McCain by alleging his remarks came from his desire to support Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), one of Cruz's rivals, for president.

SEE ALSO: TRUMP: Voters should be concerned about Ted Cruz's birthplace

EXCLUSIVE– Donald J. Trump First Candidate to Reply to the ‘Sessions Test’

AP

by BREITBART NEWS8 Feb 2016Washington D.C.0

On February 5th, Breitbart News exclusively reported thatSen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) issued a list of five questions that all candidates must answer if they wish to seek the Republican nomination. In recent years, Sessions has emerged as the intellectual thought leader of the nation-state conservative movement. Sessions has articulated how mass immigration combined with reckless trade deals is compressing wages and decimating America’s middle class.

Sessions’ questionnaire consisted of five straightforward questions addressing immigration, trade, and crime in the United States.

The first candidate to reply to Sessions’ questionnaire was GOP frontrunner Donald J. Trump. In his response, Trump declares, “After my inauguration, for the first time in decades, Americans will wake up in a country where their immigration laws are enforced.”

Trump’s full, unedited answers to the Sessions’ test are below:

Question 1: How would you vote (or how did you vote) on fast-track, and would you support or oppose advancing a final trade agreement which enters the United States into a new international commission with binding authority on future United States trade policy?

ANSWER: I was steadfastly opposed to giving Obama his Fast-Track powers, and would have absolutely voted against it. This is one of the strongest distinctions between me and the other candidates in this race.  The Congress, apparently under the magical spell of donors, gave massive new powers to a President who has repeatedly abused his authority.  The other candidates in this race actually fought on Obama’s side to give him more power to abuse.

As for creating a new international commission with authority over United States trade policy I am, again, steadfastly opposed.  No foreign power should be given any control over the United States.  Yet the other candidates who supported Fast Track allowed President Obama to do just that.  It’s not too late to save our sovereignty: when I win the nomination, I will put America back in charge.

Question 2: If the vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership were held today, and you had a vote to cast in Congress, would you vote for it or against it?

ANSWER: I have strongly and consistently opposed the TPP.  For decades, I have warned about how our terrible trade deals are killing the middle class.  We are getting taken to the cleaners.  My message on trade has been consistent from the beginning, and if politicians had listened to me years ago we would have saved millions of jobs, rebuilt our crumbling infrastructure, and saved trillions of dollars.

My candidacy is the only way to stop this terrible deal that will send our manufacturing – including our auto manufacturing – overseas.

TPP allows foreign countries to cheat by manipulating their currency, making it impossible for American companies to fairly compete.  Yet other candidates in this race have voted in favor of the currency manipulation that is killing our middle class.

What our incompetent leaders don’t understand is that the United States holds all the cards.  Other countries need access to our markets.  Yet we refuse to use that leverage, and we negotiate one terrible job-killing deal after another.  We buy from other countries, but they refuse to buy from us.

Under my Administration, we are bringing these jobs back to America.  No more one-sided deals.

Stopping the TPP is a matter of economic security and national security.  When I am the nominee, I will stop Obamatrade in its tracks and bring millions of new voters into our party — putting new states in play in the general election.

Question 3: Upon entering office, will you promptly and unconditionally terminate and rescind all of President Obama’s illegal executive amnesties – which provide work permits and entitlements to illegal aliens – including President Obama’s first executive amnesty in 2012, which remains in effect?

ANSWER: I will immediately cancel both of President Obama’s illegal executive amnesties, and all other unconstitutional executive orders.  After my inauguration, for the first time in decades, Americans will wake up in a country where their immigration laws are enforced.

Question 4: A supermajority of GOP voters say immigration is too high. Every year, on autopilot, we let in another one million immigrants on green cards, 700,000 foreign guest workers, half a million foreign students, and 100,000 refugees and asylees. Historical precedent would be to reduce record-breaking immigration, rather than continuing to surge it beyond all historical precedent. Will you support legislation to reduce immigration numbers, and will you oppose legislation that would add to the number?

ANSWER: I will support legislation to reduce the numbers, and will oppose legislation to increase the numbers.  I have laid out a detailed plan to accomplish this goal on my website www.DonaldJTrump.com.  My suggested reforms include a requirement to give all open jobs to Americans first — instead of importing foreign replacements.  This plan will appeal to voters from all walks of life by making it easier for workers in this country to find jobs and support their families.  It will also help minority workers, youth, and previous immigrants who face intense job competition from waves of incoming foreign workers.

I also proposed a temporary timeout on Muslim immigration until we can figure out what is going on and get our security situation under control.

Question 5: Today, law enforcement are under increasing scrutiny and face excessive criticism from the political elites and the media, and are being targeted by criminals and terrorists. Meanwhile, since 2011, the federal prison population has declined by over 20,000, and is on track to be at its lowest level since 2005. Since 2009, the total state prison population has dropped every year, and is over 56,000 lower than it was then. These circumstances may have contributed to a nationwide spike in crime. The FBI recently reported an overall increase in violent crime and a 17 percent increase in homicides in the nation’s 50 largest cities. At the same time, the CDC reports that heroin and opioid drug overdoses have reached an all-time record high. Do you support efforts by President Obama and some Republicans in Congress to reduce penalties for drug-trafficking and further reduce the federal prison population, or do you think government should do more to keep drug traffickers off the streets?

ANSWER: The way our cops are being treated is terrible, and our spineless politicians are not defending them.  Some politicians are mute, others are throwing fuel on the fire.

Policing saves lives, especially in our poorest communities.  Policing makes schools safe, increases property values, encourages investment and job growth.  We must stop attacks on police.  I have been the only candidate with a clear message on this issue.  As for drug traffickers, they are wreaking havoc on our communities and I oppose efforts to reduce penalties for drug traffickers: we must do more to keep traffickers out of our neighborhoods.

I have been pro-law enforcement all of my life.  The American people are crying out for safer communities, and I will bring this message of supporting law enforcement and safe communities to a general election.

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BREAKING: CLINTON CAMP MELTDOWN

Clinton weighs staff shake-up after New Hampshire

www.politico.com

The talk of shake-up echoes what happened in 2008 – when Hillary Clinton was on the verge of sacking her campaign manager and several top communications officials – before her surprise win here bailed out her beleaguered staff. | Getty

'The Clintons are not happy, and have been letting all of us know that,' one Democrat says.

By Glenn Thrush and Annie Karni

02/08/16 02:04 PM EST

Updated 02/08/16 02:18 PM EST

Hillary and Bill Clinton are so dissatisfied with their campaign’s messaging and digital operations they are considering staffing and strategy changes after what’s expected to be a loss in Tuesday’s primary here, according to a half-dozen people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Clintons -- stung by her narrow victory in Iowa -- had been planning to reassess staffing at the campaign’s Brooklyn headquarters after the first four primaries, but the Clintons have become increasingly caustic in their criticism of aides and demanded the reassessment sooner, a source told POLITICO.

The talk of shake-up echoes what happened in 2008 – when Clinton was on the verge of sacking her campaign manager and several top communications officials – before her surprise win here bailed out her beleaguered staff. Over time, however she slowly layered over top officials, essentially hiring old hands – like Hillaryland stalwart Maggie Williams and pollster Geoff Garin – to run the campaign while the previous staff were quietly relegated to subsidiary positions.

It’s not clear if that will happen again, but several people close to the situation said Clinton would be loathe to fire anyone outright and more inclined to add new staff.

“The Clintons are not happy, and have been letting all of us know that,” said one Democratic official who speaks regularly to both. “The idea is that we need a more forward-looking message, for the primary – but also for the general election too… There’s no sense of panic, but there is an urgency to fix these problems right now.”

Ultimately, the disorganization is the candidate’s own decision-making, which lurches from hands-off delegation in times of success to hands-around-the-throat micromanagement when things go south.

At the heart of problem this time, staffers, donors and Clinton-allied operatives say, was the Clinton’s decision not to appoint a single empowered chief strategist – a role the forceful but controversial Mark Penn played in 2008 – and disperse decision-making responsibility to a sprawling team with fuzzy lines of authority.

“There’s nobody sitting in the middle of this empowered to create a message and implement it,” said one former Obama 2008 aide. “They are kind of rudderless… occasionally Hillary grabs the rudder, but until recently she was not that interested in [working on messaging]… Look, she going to be the nominee, but she’s not going to get any style points and if she isn’t careful she is going to be a wounded nominee. And they better worked this shit out fast because who ever the Republicans pick is going to be 29 times tougher than Bernie.”

The focus of their dissatisfaction in recent days is the campaign’s top pollster and strategist Joel Benenson, whom one Clinton insider described as being “on thin ice,” as the former first couple vented its frustrations about messaging following Clinton’s uncomfortably close 0.25 percent win in last week’s caucuses. Benenson, multiple staffers and operatives say, has been equally frustrated with the Clintons’ habit of tapping a rolling cast of about a dozen outside advisers – who often have the candidate’s ear outside the official channels of communication.

The result is a muddled all-the-above messaging strategy that emphasizes different messages – and mountains of arcane policy proposals – in stark contrast to Bernie Sanders’ punchy and relentless messaging on income inequality.

“He’s a good pollster, and they promised him a lot more authority… but, you know, we are talking abut the Clintons,” said one veteran operative who acts as a surrogate with the campaign.

In President Obama’s two successful campaigns, access to the candidate was carefully monitored by campaign manager David Plouffe and other top advisers to ensure that the messaging and communications teams had coherent and cohesive short- and long-term plans. So far Clinton ’16 – which is supposed to be modeled on the Obama efforts – has functioned sloppily, with the Clintons absorbing off-the-books advice – even strategy memos – from family friends and advisers like Sidney Blumenthal, branding expert Roy Spence, current Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and even Penn, who speaks exclusively to the former president, according to multiple sources.

In recent days, Hillary Clinton has tasked her campaign manager Robbie Mook – an expert at field organizing who commands the nearly unanimous loyalty of his staff – to expand his role from primary-and-caucus-state ground game logistics to messaging, with an additional emphasis on beefing up the campaign’s underperforming digital operation, which is seen as a key to challenging Sanders’ primacy with Democrats under 30.

The pressure on Mook comes at a time of what was arguably his greatest triumph: The 35-year-old campaign manager ran, what was by all accounts, a first-rate ground operation in the caucuses that maximized Clinton’s voter turnout in rural areas and among older voters — an effort that was barely able to beat back the overwhelming support the Vermont socialist senator got on Iowa’s college campuses and among the state’s cadre of progressive voters.

Moreover, several staffers told POLITICO Mook’s data and analytics operation was so well run, he was able to tell Clinton herself that she had won — even as the networks were declaring the race too close to call. “Get over to the hotel now!” he told the former secretary of state, according one aide who was at campaign headquarters on caucus night. “We need to beat Bernie!” — a mad rush to declare victory before Sanders took the stage to declare the contest a draw. Eight years ago, Mook played the same role when he ordered then Sen. Clinton to declare victory in the Indiana primary over Barack Obama — despite network projections that she might lose the state.

As the new year began, Clinton operatives were eager to take credit for the lack of internal drama; many credited Mook and the loyalty he inspires among his staffers with creating a leak-proof and seemingly functional team -- there had been no stories chronicling the internal turmoil, split factions, public spats and overhauls that defined Clinton’s dysfunctional 2008 campaign team.

But from the beginning, there have been deeper issues simmering within the cheerfully-decorated Brooklyn headquarters -- and much of that had to do with a disconnect between the candidate and her campaign. Over the summer while her campaign was bogged down in the email controversy, Clinton was deeply frustrated with her own staff, and vice versa. The candidate blamed her team for not getting her out of the mess quickly, and her team blamed Clinton for being stubbornly unwilling to take the advice of campaign chairman John Podesta and others to apologize, turn over her server, and move on. The entire experience made her a deeply vulnerable frontrunner out of the gate, and underscored a lack of trust between Clinton and her operatives, many of whom were former Obama staffers that she didn't consider part of her inner circle of trust.

Her advisers were also frustrated by having to play roles they hadn’t been hired for and were ill-suited for. From the beginning, Benenson was frustrated that he was forced to split his time between defending his boss on emails and defining a path for her candidacy. Clinton, meanwhile, longed for a chief strategist in the Mark Penn mold who could take on a more expansive role than playing pollster.

Insiders said the problem remains her message. “The message is, she’s fighting. She’s fighting for you,” said one ally. “We have to drive that.”

Follow @politico

Glenn Thrush is POLITICO's chief political correspondent.

COMMENTS

TRUMP +21 7NEWS/UMass Lowell Poll NH Tracking Poll day 8

www.whdh.com

MANCHESTER, N.H. (WHDH) -

This time tomorrow, some of the voting places in New Hampshire will already be open.And our final tracking poll gives us a last look at where the candidates stand right now.

Watch 7News: mobile / desktop

The Republicans are the big story...Because we know who's on top, but that's about all we know. The Democratic race is much easier to predict:

Bernie Sanders is now beating Hillary Clinton by 16 points- 56% to 40%, after he lost a point overnight, and she kept what she had.

Undecided is up to 4%, an increase of two points since yesterday.

Related: Sanders returns to N.H., Clinton heads to Michigan in final days of campaigning

The tracking poll shows Sanders is too far ahead of Clinton for her to catch him by Tuesday.

All she can do now is try to cut the margin her loss..

But the Republican race is more complicated, and the outcome is a mystery.

Donald Trump stays in the top spot, with 34%, after dropping two points overnight..

Related: Trump seeks to reverse fortunes in New Hampshire

Then, a tie for second--at 13%--after Marco Rubio lost a point, and there was no change in Ted Cruz's support. 

John Kasich and Jeb Bush also are now tied, at 10%. Kasich gained one point...While Bush held steady.

In the back of the GOP pack:

Chris Christie gained a point, and is now at 5%; Carly Fiorina stays at four, and Ben Carson is stuck on three.

And look at this number:  Nine percent of Republican primary voters are undecided the day before polls open.

The tracking poll gives you the picture: Donald Trump, alone on top.   Then the cluster of Rubio, Cruz, Kasich, and Bush.

All four of them are in the hunt for second and third place.

Who'll decide the Republican race?

The voters who are still undecided..

There are enough of them to make one candidate Tuesday night say "I love New Hampshire," while others will say something I can't repeat onT.V. 

(Copyright (c) 2016 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

COMMENTS

The Classiest Debate Moment That No-One Noticed – Never Leave A Good Man Down…

Posted by sundance

Few people will talk about this, and fewer will even want to acknowledge it, but what Donald Trump did before the debate even began shows the measure of a real man’s worth.

At the beginning of the ABC debate, each of the candidates were being introduced in a specific order.  The first name called to the stage was Chris Christie.  The applause was loud and lingered through the time when Martha Raddatz called the second candidate Ben Carson.

Dr. Carson did not hear his name called (easy to understand why when you listen to the video) and stood in the entry-way.  The moderators, with their backs to the candidates, didn’t notice his absence and called the third name on the list, Ted Cruz.

Ted walked past Dr. Carson and onto the stage.  Carson remained in the awkward, and embarrassing position, ‘no-mans-land’, on-camera but out of sight of the live audience.

What happened next shows the remarkable character of Donald Trump.

The fourth name called was Donald Trump, but by then the back-stage crew and candidates were aware of Dr. Carsons’ position.  Trump slowly approached, and then realized the embarrassing position of a fellow candidate hanging in the wind.

Trump showed his leadership by standing right next to his friend, and not walking onto the stage.

The other names continued to be called, and proceeded as mentioned.  But not Donald Trump, he remained with his colleague thereby reducing the internal anxiety felt by Carson.

It would have been very easy for Trump to walk by Ben, just like all the other candidates did.  But instead he chose to wait, and remove the embarrassment factor by infinite magnitudes.

Then, like a boss, when Dr. Carson was called to the stage, Trump waited and allowed Ben to get the audience response and appreciation.  It takes a lot of courage to make split second decisions like this, and it shows a remarkable insight into the man’s character.

Watch.

People often mistake Donald Trump’s self-confidence for arrogance or even narcissism. But there is not a narcissist on the planet who would have put themselves into a position like that to assist a competing colleague.

Senior Senate Staffer Reveals the Marco Rubio Story You’ve Never Heard

The Associated Press

by JULIA HAHN6 Feb 2016Washington D.C.4444

On today’s program of Breitbart News Daily, Donald Trump’s Senior Policy Adviser, Stephen Miller, shared his never-before publicly discussed insights intoSen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)’s duplicitous conduct during his push to get the Gang of Eight bill through the Senate.

At that time, Miller served as the communications director for the man who organized opposition to the bill, SenatorSen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Miller recalled how throughout the Gang of Eight push, Sen. Rubio “directly deceived” immigration law enforcement and the American people.

Miller recounted one story in particular about Rubio’s treatment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) union president Chris Crane, who represents thousands of ICE officers. At the time, Crane slammed Rubio for having “directly misled law enforcement.” In his Congressional testimony, Crane said, “Never before have I seen such contempt for law enforcement officers as what I’ve seen from the Gang of Eight.”

For the first time ever, Stephen Miller explained exactly what Rubio did to Chris Crane and how he had deceived the nation’s ICE officers.

During the Gang of Eight press conference to introduce the bill, Crane had attempted to ask a question. Miller explains that Rubio watched as Chuck Schumer repeatedly refused to allow Crane to ask his question, and Rubio eventually oversaw Crane being removed from the press conference by Capitol Hill security. Miller said that Rubio:

… refused to meet with ICE officers throughout the process [of crafting the bill], even as he was meeting with open border special interests. At the very end, he [Rubio] had an optics-only meeting with [Chris Crane] the representative for ICE officers, in which he made a series of promises, every single one of which he broke and violated directly … When that same ICE officer and Marine went to a press conference to ask a question, Rubio — through his silence — was complicit in Schumer blocking [Crane] from asking a question and allowing him to suffer the indignity of being forced out of a press conference room — a man who had served his country in uniform, as a U.S. Marine — all to spare Rubio from the discomfort of being publicly questioned about why he had broken his promises.

Rubio saw them [Capitol Hill security] take Chris Crane and remove him from the room and said nothing. When he [Rubio] had a chance to show an iota of independence, one scrap of independence from Chuck Schumer, and side with an American Marine and ICE officer — Rubio chose to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm with Chuck Schumer, as an American Marine was forced to suffer the indignity of being removed from Marco Rubio’s Gang of Eight press conference. That’s the story I want to tell today.

Miller’s retelling of the event is as follows:

I would love to tell a story for the first time to your incredible listening audience that I think gives some important insight into Mr. Rubio that I’ve never had a chance to tell before…

I want everyone to step into a time machine and go back to 2013 and remember what it was like. Remember the 24/7 media frenzy. Remember the promises: enforcement first, no welfare, no food stamps, we’re going to have the strongest, toughest border security ever, and, of course, no amnesty– all of these claims, by the way, which are still on Mr. Rubio’s website…

And of course all of those claims were bogus: it gave welfare, it gave food stamps, there was no border security, there was no ‘border security first’… But one of the things that we noticed early on in the process was that Mr. Rubio’s Gang of Eight was meeting with all of the open borders special interests in America: whether it be the Chamber of Commerce, whether it be certain tech corporations, whether it be anti-enforcement groups like La Raza, etc. etc. or the White House, which had an office in the Senate to help push through the Gang of Eight bill, a fact that Mr. Rubio never mentions in his many interviews on Fox and elsewhere promoting the bill. So we said, ‘Let’s get in touch with immigration law enforcement and see if maybe Mr. Rubio would be willing to meet with them.’

So we got in touch with one of the most incredible men that deals with immigration… his name is Chris Crane.

Miller explained that when Crane was finally able to secure a meeting with Mr. Rubio, “Crane had wanted to bring along [a staffer from Sen. Sessions office] who could provide some additional legislative support in the meeting… [however] Rubio’s office, of course, vetoed that completely… The meeting, as Chris Crane described it to me, was fairly horrifying.”

Crane said that he said to Rubio, ‘Well, you know, under your bill criminal aliens get legalized.’

And Rubio would say [in response], ‘Oh no, no, no, that’s the not the case at all.’

And then [Crane] said, ‘Well, under your bill, there isn’t any resources or support for ICE.’

[To which] Rubio said, ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’ll put that in there. We’ll give you, ICE, whatever you need. You’ll get it, you’ll get it, you’ll get it.’

And so Crane said that he obtained a commitment from Rubio to put stuff in the bill that Crane felt that ICE officers needed.

And instead what happened was– only a period of hours later– instead of doing anything that he had promised Chris Crane– a marine, ICE officer– that he would do. In the dead of night, Rubio and the Gang of Eight introduced a bill delivering everything they wanted for the special interests. Now a short time after that Marco Rubio, Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Gang of Eight held a press conference. I decided to go and Chris Crane decided to go to watch the press conference and see what was happening. And so they did this magisterial roll out. All of the supporters of the Gang of Eight bill were up there and the Senators were up there and everyone was slapping each other on the back, and it was ‘Morning in America’ is here again.

Chris Crane, who had just been deceived directly by Mr. Rubio, decided that he wanted to ask a question at the press conference. As a citizen, as a marine, as an ICE officer, as a representative of 7,000 other ICE officers, agents and frontline personnel, he said, ‘I’d like to ask a question at the press conference.’ And I was standing next to him at the time. I believe Chuck Schumer was the one who was at the podium taking questions and Rubio was right next to him.

You know how it is at these scrums, someone shouts their question out, and then someone calls [on them]. And so Chris Crane tried and tried and tried, and everybody could hear him asking: ‘Will you take a question from law enforcement? Will you take a question from law enforcement?’

And Mr. Schumer was up there and Mr. Rubio was up there and they wouldn’t take the question. And everyone in the room… was aware that Chris Crane was trying to ask a question and Schumer wouldn’t call on him….

And I was looking at Mr. Rubio and he looked right at Chris Crane. He saw him there. He had just met with him a few days before, and he saw Schumer refusing to take his question. And instead of stepping up and saying, ‘Of course, we will take a question from a marine, from an ICE officer, and I will happily answer it’– Rubio stood there stone-faced and silent as Schumer refused, refused, refused to take Chris Crane’s question. And then Capitol Hill security came to remove Chris Crane from the venue for having the temerity to ask a question…

Rubio had the chance to step in and say, ‘You don’t need to remove an ICE officer, and marine, from our press conference. Of course, we’ll take his question.’

No, Rubio saw them take Chris Crane and remove him from the room and said nothing. Then later on when he was asked about it in subsequent media interviews he said, ‘Oh that’s unfortunate, they shouldn’t have done it.’ But when he had a chance to show an iota of independence– one scrap of independence from Chuck Schumer and side with an American marine and ICE officer– Rubio chose to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm with Chuck Schumer as an American marine was forced to suffer the indignity of being removed from Marco Rubio’s Gang of Eight press conference. That’s the story I want to tell today…”

Miller concluded:

You have to ask yourself when you’re thinking about who you choose as a Commander-in-chief, how you’d feel about somebody who’s willing to give the Chamber of Commerce everything they want, and willing to give La Raza everything they want … someone who’s willing to give Larry Ellison everything he wants, someone who’s willing to give Microsoft everything they want, and Mark Zuckerberg everything [he wants], but someone who is not even willing to have an honest meeting with ICE officers? You have to ask yourself what game was he playing? What was the goal? What could compel somebody to do that?

Because remember, he had all the leverage. He could have said to Chuck Schumer anytime he wanted to, ‘Mr. Schumer, unless Chris Crane gets what he wants, I’m walking away.’

Remember what Rubio always says when he’s asked about his involvement in the Gang of Eight. He says, ‘Well, I just wanted to get the best bill I could get out of the Senate.’ […] But as this story proves, that statement is materially false because at any point if he had said to Schumer, ‘I’m walking away… unless you give ICE what they want…’ If he had done that, Schumer would have had no choice, but to make those changes. So the fact that he didn’t do that is proof that every time Rubio says, ‘I tried to get the best bill out of the Senate,’ the unfinished part of that sentence is: ‘I tried to get donors and open borders interest groups the best bill for them that I could get out of the Senate.’ And Chris Crane would have been an impediment to delivering for these donors and interest groups.’

Read More Stories About:

Big Government, 2016 Presidential Race,Immigration, Jeff Sessions, Mark Zuckerberg, Chuck Schumer, gang of eight,La Raza, Larry Ellison, Stephen Miller, Chris Crane