“Donald Trump, embroiled in a long-running legal battle with former students of his defunct Trump University, has been accused in recently filed court papers of threatening to financially ruin the woman who is a lead plaintiff in the suit,” Yahoo News reports.
“Trump’s comments, according to the filings, came in a secret deposition he gave just two months ago, on Dec. 10 — the same day he was making international headlines over his pledge to ban Muslim immigrants from the country.”
Alan Abromowitz: “These trends suggest that Donald Trump should be considered a solid favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination. Since 1996, no candidate leading by such a wide margin in national polls after the New Hampshire primary has failed to win a major party nomination. The only caveat here is that Trump is a very unusual Republican frontrunner. No Republican frontrunner since Barry Goldwater in 1964 has generated anything approaching the level of resistance among Republican Party leaders and elected officials that Trump has generated.”
“So far, however, their resistance has had little impact on GOP voters, partly because the party ‘establishment’ has been unable to unite behind a single alternative to Trump and partly because many of these party leaders and elected officials dislike Ted Cruz even more than they dislike Donald Trump. The results of the South Carolina primary on Saturday and the Nevada caucuses three days later should provide further evidence about whether Trump’s march to the GOP nomination will continue unimpeded or suffer a serious setback. Based on the most recent polling in both states, the former seems much more likely than the latter.”
A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds that 72% of Democrats now believe Sen. Bernie Sanders could win the general election, a 21 percentage point increase from the last time the survey was conducted in December.
“Clinton’s campaign has argued that as voters learned more about his record, Sanders will begin to lose support. Instead, it seems that as Sanders has gotten more scrutiny, support for him has only grown. While Clinton continues to be the Democratic candidate who’s most well-liked within her own party, Sanders is gaining on her.”
Rick Klein: “Usually Trump needs creativity – and a certain amount of gall – to shamelessly change the subject at just the right moment. With one answer to a reporter aboard his plane, the pope did the hard work for Trump. Sure, having perhaps the world’s most prominent religious leader say you’re ‘not Christian,’ just days before a primary dominated by religious voters, may not seem helpful. But Trump has shown there’s no public feud he can’t win.”
“It’s hard to imagine evangelicals who might have supported Trump suddenly abandon him because the leader of the Catholic Church raises questions about his values and compassion. And – in classic Trump style – he used the episode to display indignation and anger. His hardline anti-immigration message gets some late airing, blocking out questions about, say, his positions on abortion and the war in Iraq.”
Hillary Clinton was interviewed by Scott Pelley on CBS News:
PELLEY: You know, in ’76, Jimmy Carter famously said, “I will not lie to you.”
CLINTON: Well, I have to tell you I have tried in every way I know how literally from my years as a young lawyer all the way through my time as secretary of state to level with the American people.
PELLEY: You talk about leveling with the American people. Have you always told the truth?
CLINTON: I’ve always tried to. Always. Always.
PELLEY: Some people are gonna call that wiggle room that you just gave yourself.
CLINTON: Well, no, I’ve always tried —
PELLEY: I mean, Jimmy Carter said, “I will never lie to you.”
CLINTON: Well, but, you know, you’re asking me to say, “Have I ever?” I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever will. I’m gonna do the best I can to level with the American people.
Optimus calculates that the air time Donald Trump’s Monday press conference received from cable news networks was worth more than $1 million in paid media.
“Listen, that’s between Donald and the pope… I’m not going to get in the middle of that. I’ll leave it to the two of them to work it out.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz, quoted by the Dallas Morning News, on Donald Trump’s dispute with Pope Francis.
“But the general public doesn’t share the insider view. In the Quinnipiac poll, a full 78 percent of Republicans believe Donald Trump “would have a good chance” of winning in November. Among Democrats, 69 percent believe the same thing about Bernie Sanders.”
Amy Walter: “What Rubio needs more than anything, however, is a solid victory over his “establishment” rivals Jeb Bush and John Kasich. A solid showing in South Carolina by Rubio would put intense pressure on both, but especially Bush, to drop out. Should Rubio fail to get past Bush by a significant margin it would suggest that: 1. endorsements are meaningless these days; and 2. Rubio has deeper, more fundamental problems than just Bush and Kasich standing in his way.”
Tim Alberta: “To be clear: Rubio’s expectations are rightfully high here not just because he has these three influential state Republicans in his corner, but because his campaign has deep roots in South Carolina and always viewed it as Rubio’s best chance to score an early-state victory.”
New York Times: “A victory for Mrs. Clinton would not be as remarkable a feat as it would be for Mr. Sanders, given her history in Nevada and months of hard preparatory work. But a loss could raise concerns among Democrats about her viability.”
“Mrs. Clinton’s aides have appeared to brace for the worst here, playing down expectations and shifting their attention to the South Carolina primary the following weekend and on the 11 states that hold contests on Super Tuesday, March 1.”
Amy Walter: “How she performs in Nevada is also going to set the table, and the narrative, for the South Carolina primary on February 27th. And, already, there are signs that her firewall has some serious cracks.”
Politico: How Bernie Sanders surged in Nevada
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll in South Carolina finds Donald Trump leading the GOP field with 28%, followed by Ted Cruz at 23%, Marco Rubio at 15%, Jeb Bush at 13%, John Kasich at 9% and Ben Carson at 9%.
Last month, Trump held a 16-point lead over Cruz.
A new tracking poll from South Carolina House Republicans finds Trump ahead at 34%, followed by Cruz at 18%, Rubio at 16%, Bush at 15%, Kasich at 9% and Carson at 5%.
Vice President Joe Biden believes Donald Trump could end up clinching the Republican nomination, while adding that he “would be surprised” if Trump got elected, Politico reports.
Said Biden: “I think it is very possible he could be nominated and depending on how this all plays out. I would take him seriously in terms of being able to win because he’s appealing to fear.”
Politico: “Donors, who poured millions into his campaign and super PAC, have stopped giving – one refusing a direct request to raise $1 million this week. Bush himself is hitting the phones, pleading for patience with his most influential supporters. And even some of his confidants are suddenly dejected after a dispiriting week capped off by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley rejecting Bush in favor of Marco Rubio.
“The Bush team had been banking on a strong week, believing their candidate’s first solid debate performance last weekend would move the numbers in South Carolina. They thought bringing in George W. Bush on Monday night would generate more enthusiasm and positive earned media than it did. They held out hope that the former president could convince Haley, who’d hedged on backing Rubio after his slip in New Hampshire, to support a fellow governor. But none of it panned out.”
“For months, Donald Trump has claimed that he opposed the Iraq War before the invasion began — as an example of his great judgment on foreign policy issues,” BuzzFeed reports.
“But in a 2002 interview with Howard Stern, Donald Trump said he supported an Iraq invasion.”
Washington Post: “The race has resembled a three-man contest more than ever during the final push before voters head to the polls here Saturday. Trump is heavily favored to win, and Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida are furiously vying for second-place.”
“Trump, Cruz and Rubio have directed most of their fire at each other this week, trading the kind of petty insults and underhanded tactics that have come to define South Carolina’s primary. With each day, the sniping has escalated.”
“In his most audacious attack yet on a revered public figure, Donald Trump veered into risky political territory as he denounced Pope Francis, seeking to galvanize Republicans who worry about border security and appeal to evangelical voters who regard Francis as too liberal,” the New York Times reports.
“Following the pontiff’s remarkable contention that Mr. Trump ‘is not Christian‘ in proposing deportations and a wall with Mexico, the candidate said Francis’s criticisms were ‘disgraceful’ and ‘unbelievable,’ and charged that the Mexican government had hoodwinked the pope into criticizing him.”
Politico: Pope attack could help Trump in South Carolina
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.