Trump may sue Cruz; Carson says he’d pick replacement for Scalia

Three Republican presidential candidates - Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio - will take part in a town hall meeting with South Carolina voters tonight in Greenville.

The event started at 8 on CNN. You can join us for coverage on Twitter at @Ohio_Politics during the town hall.

On Thursday night, another town hall in Columbia, S.C., will feature Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Donald Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

—-

ELECTION 2016

Republicans:Kasich pledges to stay postitive in South Carolina

Strategy:Tough road ahead for John Kasich in the South

What you need to know:In-depth biography, where he stands on issues, quiz, photos and more

—-

Wednesday was a busy day on the campaign trail. From Ben Carson saying he’d nominate a Supreme Court Justice if he was in Obama’s place to South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley endorsing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Here’s a look at some of the day’s developments from the Associated Press:

10:15 p.m.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz says President Barack Obama should not travel to Cuba next month.

The White House is planning to make the announcement about the visit as early as Thursday.

But asked about reports of the president’s plans on Wednesday night during a town hall in South Carolina broadcast on CNN, the Republican candidate for president said Obama shouldn’t make the trip “as long as the Castros are in power.”

Cruz’s father was born in Cuba, where he was arrested and jailed before fleeing to the United States in the 1950. “My father has seen firsthand the evil and oppression in Cuba,” Cruz said.

Cruz is also speaking out against any plans of closing the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying he fears Obama will do so before leaving office next year.

———

9:55 p.m.

Bernie Sanders is repurposing his well-received “America” television ad for the upcoming Democratic contests in Nevada and South Carolina.

The gauzy ad featuring the music of Simon and Garfunkel was first released during the Iowa caucuses. The people featured in the original spot were overwhelmingly white, leading top Hillary Clinton ally David Brock to say the ad presented a “bizarre” image of America.

Nevada and South Carolina are more racially diverse and the new ads feature more minorities, as well as scenes from locations in both states.

The changes come as Sanders tries to boost his appeal with black and Hispanic voters. Clinton’s campaign is hoping to offset Sanders’ strength with young voters by drawing big vote totals among minorities.

The new Sanders’ ads are airing in the Reno, Nevada, and Greenville, South Carolina, areas, according to Kantar Media’s CMAG data.

———

9:30 p.m.

Marco Rubio says a significant portion of minority families in America feel they’re being treated differently.

The son of Cuban immigrants says he was a victim of racism as a 7-year-old, during a mass migration of Cubans in 1980. Rubio said older kids in his Nevada neighborhood told him to get on a boat and go back to his country.

Rubio said during Wednesday’s CNN presidential town hall, “That disturbed me as a young child.”

Rubio would become the nation’s first Hispanic-American president if elected. He noted he was endorsed Wednesday by South Carolina’s Indian-American governor and will campaign Thursday alongside the state’s African-American senator.

He said, “That says a lot about the Republican Party.”

—-

8:45 p.m.

Republican Donald Trump says that, if he’s elected president, any person he nominates for Supreme Court justice will have to pledge to uphold a landmark gun rights case.

Trump was answering questions on a televised town hall on MSNBC when he was asked whether he would make upholding the Heller decision a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees.

The 2008 case determined that Americans have the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

Trump responded: “I give that commitment right now. Absolutely. “

He added that he’s been “very strong” on defending the Second Amendment and that both he and his sons are members of the National Rifle Association.

—-

8:20 p.m.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson says he would probably nominate a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia if he was now in the White House.

“Why not do it?” Carson asks at a town hall broadcast by CNN from Greenville, South Carolina.

He’ll be followed later Wednesday night by fellow Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. South Carolina’s GOP primary is on Saturday.

Carson says he would have litmus tests for the candidates for the high court. But rather than ask potential nominees about where they stand on an issue such as abortion, “I would look back at what they’ve done throughout their lives.”

Carson says that’s a better way to learn about a candidate for the court, rather than in interviews for which candidates have prepared in advance.

Several of Carson’s fellow Republican candidates for president have said the choice to replace Scalia should be made by the next president, and not by President Barack Obama.

___

7:34 p.m.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz says he has been “saved and redeemed by the blood of Jesus” and that informs how he’s running for president.

Cruz spoke Wednesday evening in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at an event organized by the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Cruz has been defending his trustworthiness against accusations from Donald Trump and Marco Rubio that he is a liar and engaging in dirty campaign tricks. Cruz has denied the claims. He said Wednesday that his religious faith informs every decision he makes, including how he runs his campaign.

Cruz frequently extols supporters in his stump speech to “awaken the body of Christ” to save the country.

Cruz’s win in the Iowa caucuses was fueled by evangelical Christian support, a group of voters he is also aggressively courting in South Carolina ahead of its Saturday primary.

___

6:17 p.m.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is campaigning alongside Marco Rubio for the first time since endorsing his presidential bid.

The Republican governor campaigned alongside Rubio during a Wednesday evening event in suburban Columbia just hours after news her endorsement was announced.

She said there were a lot of good people running for president, but her job was to find one who could do the job best. She credited Rubio’s fight, passion and conviction.

And she said she wanted to find a candidate who would prove to her immigrant parents they made a good decision by coming to America.

Haley said, “Ladies and gentlemen, if we elect Marco Rubio, every day will be a great day in America.”

Rubio’s Republican rival, Jeb Bush, described Haley as “the most meaningful endorsement there is” in South Carolina.

___

5:33 p.m.

Donald Trump says he worries the Republican-led Senate may cave to President Barack Obama and appoint a new Supreme Court justice.

At a rally in Walterboro, South Carolina, Trump says he’s “hearing these little cracks” that suggest the GOP might not hold its ground in opposing any nomination before the election to fill the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia, who died unexpectedly last week.

Trump says Obama wants to nominate a justice who will be “very negative” on the Second Amendment and gun policy.

He says the Senate’s GOP leadership “gave Obama everything” on the budget as well as the health care overhaul law.

Trump says if he can win in South Carolina on Saturday, he can “run the table” in the rest of the GOP nominating contest.

___

4:43 p.m.

John Kasich is spending the day of South Carolina’s Republican primary campaigning and raising money in Massachusetts.

Kasich’s campaign says he may return to South Carolina on Saturday evening to await the primary results after earlier events in Massachusetts, but the schedule is not finalized.

Saturday’s events include a fundraiser in Boston and a town hall meeting in Worcester.

Massachusetts is one of just a few northern states holding its primary on Super Tuesday on March 1. The Bay State, alongside Vermont and Minnesota, are seen as more favorable territory for Kasich than South Carolina and a string of Southern states voting on March 1.

___

3:42 p.m.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush is getting an earful of advice — much of it about Donald Trump — during a campaign appearance in South Carolina.

One man in the town hall audience of about 300 people told Bush his presidential “campaign has been co-opted by the P.T. Barnum of our time.”

Another man at the same event told Bush, “I’m afraid that your message isn’t resonating,” suggesting Bush turn the other cheek to Trump’s continual taunting.

Bush calls Trump “a bully,” and suggests the best approach is to “punch him back in the nose.”

The former Florida governor is struggling for a strong finish in Saturday’s South Carolina primary. Gov. Nikki Haley is poised to endorse rival Marco Rubio.

___

3:19 p.m.

GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush says he is “disappointed” that South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is endorsing rival Marco Rubio just three days before voters in the state cast ballots for the Republican nominee.

Speaking to reporters after a campaign event in Summerville, S.C., Bush said of Haley: “She’s a very good governor and should I win the nomination, there’ll be a role for her in the campaign.”

Haley’s endorsement of Rubio was confirmed by a person close to the Republican governor with direct knowledge of her decision. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the endorsement ahead of a Rubio event Wednesday night, where she’s expected to make it official.

Bush has struggled to keep his campaign afloat, calling in help from brother George W. Bush, the former president, and his mother, Barbara Bush. Jeb Bush’s brother and father won big primaries in the state in 2000 and 1988.

___

2:40 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is praising President Obama and pledging to continue many of his policies as she campaigns in his hometown of Chicago.

The former secretary of state told several hundred people at a Wednesday rally a few miles from Obama’s home that she is “unapologetic” about her loyalty to the president. She called his two terms in office “impressive,” saying he got the economy back on track, passed his signature health care bill and saved the auto industry from collapse.

Clinton says “I will build on the progress that President Obama has made.”

Clinton also stressed her own ties to Chicago, reminding the crowd she was born in the city and raised in its suburbs and recalling previous visits, including a meeting with Obama where he asked her to be his Secretary of State.

Clinton was joined on stage by the mothers of several young black people from Chicago who were killed by the gun violence that has ravaged many of the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods. Also with her: the mother of Sandra Bland, a suburban Chicago woman who was found dead in a Texas jail cell after a 2014 traffic stop.

Both Clinton and rival Bernie Sanders are trying to appeal to minority voters as the contest moves to Nevada and South Carolina.

___

2:30 p.m.

Marco Rubio has a new outside group in his corner, and it is backed by a Miami donor who says he will spend more than $1 million on the 2016 presidential race.

The super political action committee, called Values Are Vital, recently put $133,000 into pro-Rubio mailings in the next-to-vote primary states of South Carolina and Nevada. One postcard portrays Rubio rivals John Kasich and Jeb Bush as “liberals.”

The group’s chief donor, Ronald Firman, tells The Associated Press that he does not personally know Rubio, a Florida senator, but is “convinced he can win against the Democrats.” Firman says Rubio has the best mix of foreign policy and economic credentials and proposals of any GOP candidate.

Firman, a 53-year-old in commercial real estate, and Las Vegas attorney Martin Burns formed Values Are Vital two years ago to help their childhood friend Paige Kreegel in a special election for a Florida congressional seat. The pair spent more than $1.5 million; Kreegel lost.

___

1:27 p.m.

John Kasich says he disagrees with Apple’s CEO that the government overreached in ordering the company to help the FBI hack an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in San Bernardino, California.

The Ohio governor told reporters Wednesday, “I don’t think it’s an example of government overreach to say that, you know, we had terrorists here on our soil and we’ve got to understand more detail about who they may have been communicating with.”

Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, murdered 14 people Dec. 2 before the couple was killed by police. The phone was recovered from their vehicle in the aftermath of the attack.

Apple CEO Tim Cook says helping authorities unlock the shooter’s phone could undermine encryption for millions of other users.

Kasich said if he was president he would resolve the problem quietly, adding “some of these things just shouldn’t be talked about” in public.

___

1:10 p.m.

John Kasich predicts he’ll fare “better than squat” in South Carolina’s Republican primary.

The Ohio governor said before a campaign rally Wednesday in Bluffton, South Carolina, that he hopes to beat expectations during the South’s first presidential primary Saturday.

Kasich told reporters: “I don’t think people expected me to do squat. And I think we’ll do better than squat, but we’ll see.”

Kasich finished second in New Hampshire last week, but headed to South Carolina with less money and fewer campaign staff and volunteers in the state than his nearest rivals.

About 200 people turned out to hear Kasich in Bluffton, and he implored them to spread the word by calling friends.

___

12:51 p.m.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz says he would not vote to approve a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court who he had previously supported for a federal appeals court post.

The Republican presidential candidate said at a news conference Wednesday that he would not vote to confirm U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Sri Srinivasan if he were nominated by President Obama. Srinivasan was approved on a unanimous 97-0 vote by the Senate for the federal court post in Washington D.C. in 2013.

Cruz says the Senate should not confirm any nominee in a presidential election year. Cruz says it is “very different” voting for a judge to serve on the federal appeals court and the Supreme Court.

Cruz says he wants to make the presidential election a referendum on which candidate would make the best appointments to the Supreme Court.

___

12:42 p.m.

Donald Trump says the GOP lost the 2012 presidential election when Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan his running mate.

Trump says the problem is the way Ryan’s budget dealt with Social Security and Medicare.

Trump told several hundred people at a Sun City retirement community in Bluffton, South Carolina, Wednesday that Ryan represents cutting entitlements. Trump pledged that he would not cut the programs to assist seniors.

He recalled a Democratic-leaning group’s 2012 ad that showed a stand-in for Ryan pushing an elderly woman off a cliff. Trump said “that was the end of that campaign, by the way, when they chose Ryan.”

The Ryan budget would slash spending for safety-net programs for the poor, remake Medicare , cut personal and corporate taxes and push down the deficit.

Ryan’s office had no immediate comment on Trump’s remarks.

___

12:36 p.m.

Jeb Bush is getting more family support on the trail ahead of South Carolina’s Feb. 20 primary. The Bush campaign says Barbara Bush will be in Clemson on Thursday for a rally with her son.

The former first lady campaigned with the former Florida governor in New Hampshire earlier this year.

On Monday, former President George W. Bush appeared with his brother in North Charleston.

___

12:16 p.m.

Ted Cruz says if Donald Trump sues him as threatened over a campaign ad, the lawsuit would be dismissed as frivolous.

Cruz lashed out at Trump at a news conference Wednesday in South Carolina, three days before the state’s primary.

Cruz says the ad, which includes footage of Trump declaring his support for abortion rights, can’t be defamatory because it includes comments Trump himself made on national TV. Trump has since said his position has changed and he is anti-abortion.

Speaking directly to Trump, Cruz says. “you have been threatening frivolous lawsuits for your entire adult life. Even in the annals of frivolous lawsuits, this takes the cake.”

About the Author