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Ben Carson is standing by his view that a Muslim should not be president of the United States, telling The Hill in an interview that whoever takes the White House should be “sworn in on a stack Bibles, not a Koran.”
Said Carson: “I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country. Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of your public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution.”
Sarah Palin defended the arrest and suspension of Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old Muslim student from Texas, after he brought a homemade clock to school, MSNBC reports.
Palin said the initial reports about Mohamed and his clock were “fishy,” and concluded with “Right. That’s a clock, and I’m the Queen of England.”
Gov. John Kasich is clarifing his recent comment about Latinos, saying they “occupy jobs from top to bottom,” Politico reports.
The GOP presidential hopeful’s clarification comes after he stirred controversy with a comment that critics said reduced Latino immigrants to a stereotype of hotel maids.
Said Kasich: “To be clear, I believe that, from top to bottom, Hispanics play a critical role in America, not only today, but going forward.”
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Donald Trump dismissed critics who have accused him of failing to stand up for Muslim Americans after a controversial town hall exchange last week, the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “I have friends that are Muslims. They are great people, they are amazing people…but we certainly do have a problem. I mean, you have a problem throughout the world. You have radicals that are doing things. I mean, it wasn’t people from Sweden that blew up the World Trade Center.”
“If you agree I’m huggable and the American people agree I’m huggable then I’m going to be the 45th president of the United States. I don’t think there’s going to be any doubt about that.”
— Gov. Chris Christie, in a CNN interview.
Contrary to reports suggesting Vice President Joe Biden’s wife remains an obstacle to his potential presidential run, sources tell NBC News that Jill Biden is fully behind him for another bid.
“And that looks more likely by the day. Sources have indicated that Biden’s been meeting with Democratic leaders during his travels around the nation over the past week to tell them he wants to do it and thinks there’s room for him to make a credible bid if he does.”
Donald Trump refused to tell NBC News say if he would be comfortable with a Muslim president.
Said Trump: “Would I be comfortable? I don’t know if we have to address it right now. But I think it is certainly something that could happen. Some people have said it already happened, frankly — but of course you won’t agree with that.”
Donald Trump told ABC News that Carly Fiorina was responsible for “one of the worst deals made in business history” while CEO of Hewlett Packard and that “she destroyed the company that she was at before then.”
Said Trump: “I mean she’s been terrible. And, you know, she’s got a good pitter patter, but if you listen to her for more than five minutes straight, you get a headache.”
Ben Carson told NBC News he would not support a Muslim as President of the United States.
Said Carson: “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”
He also said that Islam, as a religion, is incompatible with the Constitution.
A new NBC News/Survey Monkey poll finds Donald Trump continues to lead the crowded GOP presidential field with 29%, followed by Ben Carson at 14%, Carly Fiorina at 11%, Jeb Bush at 8%, Ted Cruz at 7% and Marco Rubio at 7%. No other candidates gets more than 3% support.
Interestingly, nearly a third of Republican voters now say that they expect Trump will be the eventual nominee.
A new CNN/ORC poll finds Trump leading with 24%, followed by Fiorina at 15%, Carson at 14%, Rubio at 11%, Bush at 9%, Cruz at 6% and Mike Huckabee at 6%.
“I’m one of you. Just remember that. I brought my Bible. See? I’m better than you thought.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Politico, speaking to an evangelical audience in Iowa.
“The national political parties are urging wealthy backers to give them 10 times more money than was allowed in the last presidential election, taking advantage of looser restrictions to pursue million-dollar donors with zeal,” the Washington Post reports.
“Under the new plans, which have not been disclosed publicly, the top donation tier for the Republican National Committee has soared to $1.34 million per couple this election cycle. Democratic contributors, meanwhile, are being hit up for even more — about $1.6 million per couple — to support the party’s convention and a separate joint fundraising effort between the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign.”
“When gloomy Republican Party leaders regrouped after President Obama’s 2012 re-election, they were intent on enhancing the party’s chances of winning back the White House. The result: new rules to head off a prolonged and divisive nomination fight, and to make certain the Republican standard-bearer is not pulled too far to the right before Election Day,” the New York Times reports.
“But as the sprawling class of 2016 Republican presidential candidates tumbled out of their chaotic second debate last week, it was increasingly clear that those rule changes — from limiting the number of debates to adjusting how delegates are allocated — had failed to bring to the nominating process the order and speed that party leaders had craved.”
“In front of several hundred evangelical Christians on Saturday, Trump took a dig at Senator McCain for a well-known incident in which Mr. McCain took away a microphone from a woman to correct her after she said that Barack Obama was an Arab,” the Washington Post reports.
“Mr. Trump compared that episode to his own response on Thursday, when a man accused Mr. Obama of being a Muslim and not an American. Mr. Trump was widely criticized for not correcting the man, but he told the Iowa crowd that if he had, he would have been attacked for violating the man’s right to free speech.”
Janelle Ross: “When a businessman-turned-entertainer finances an extended effort to prove that the president of the United States is not an American-born, U.S. citizen and is therefore constitutionally ineligible for his job — and when those claims are regurgitated uncritically and to the contradiction of all documentary evidence by television networks, blogs and professional bloviators — that question asked at Trump’s New Hampshire rally is precisely what you can expect to get.”
“The misinformation campaign around Obama, his place of birth, his citizenship, his loyalties, his faith and the crimes and threats to national security that Obama is supposedly unwilling to tamp out — it all began years ago. Donald Trump has been one of its leading voices, and no part of that question at his New Hampshire event — heard or unheard — should have come as a true surprise. And despite it all, we engage in another meaningless exercise in mass outrage — that will likely lead to another bump in the polls for Trump.”
Dan Balz: “If you only watched the three-hour, 11-candidate Republican debate on CNN last week, you missed something valuable. In some ways, the preliminary forum proved to be, if not better television, a more enlightening window into the state of the GOP.”
“The main debate was as much about personalities and personal attacks, though it included substantive disagreements about religious liberty vs. the rule of law, immigration and Russian aggression. The undercard forum, after some inevitable talk about Trump, evolved into a spirited and sometimes bluntly argued conversation that highlighted different shades of conservatism and competing ideas about how Republicans should govern and campaign.”
Just published: Under This Roof: The White House and the Presidency — 21 Presidents, 21 Rooms, 21 Inside Stories by Paul Brandus.
“I know how to do this because, yes, I am a Bush. I happened to see two really good presidents develop relationships with other countries.”
— Jeb Bush, quoted by CNN, on why he’d be a good leader on foreign policy.
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.
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