Jeb Bush meets Republican field amid Trump momentum – as it happened

We’re closing up shop on today’s liveblog - stay tuned for our new liveblog, which will be tuned in to the Democratic presidential primary debate in Miami!

10 Mar 201620.20 EST

Summary

Christopher R Barron

Guardian US contributor Christopher Barron has been watching the Fox News town hall with John Kasich. He finds that he is a serious candidate ... its just too bad for him that we live in very unserious times.

Ohio Governor John Kasich kicked off the Fox News primetime Republican love fest with a town hall moderated by Greta Van Susteren and attended by largely undecided voters in Illinois. Governor Kasich is a serious man and a serious candidate, unfortunately for him the Republican primary electorate seems to prefer Trump’s vaudeville act or Cruz’s televangelism to his sober policy prescriptions.

Kasich got specific on policy (though often in his rambling, stream of consciousness style). He spoke fluently on education, taxes, trade, health care, the economy and foreign policy - where, interestingly enough, he struck an almost libertarian tone.

While others in the race have tried to take on front-runner Donald Trump head on, showing a willingness to get down in the dirt, Kasich has chosen a very different path - his entire campaign is focused on being the adult in the race.

This town hall was devoid of the red meat and ramped up rhetoric you find at a Trump or Cruz or Rubio rally these days. It is clear Kasich is banking on the Republican primary electorate coming to their collective senses at some point. It doesn’t, however, seem to be a smart bet at this point.

Whatever happens to Kasich in Ohio on Tuesday, watching the arc of his campaign does make me wonder how far Jeb could have gotten if he would have taken this path rather than getting drawn into the brawls with Trump.

A Republican congressman has joined the growing chorus of people who have - implicitly or otherwise - compared Donald Trump to a European fascist leader in the 1930s.

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Chris Stewart, of Utah, compared Trump to dictator Benito Mussolini during a forum at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, according to Buzzfeed.

“If some of you are, I’ll just tell you now, Donald Trump supporters, then we see the world differently,” Stewart said, “because I can’t imagine what someone is thinking.”

“I’m telling you, Donald Trump does not represent Republican ideals,” Stewart continued. “He’s our Mussolini.”

Stewart has endorsed Marco Rubio’s presidential bid.

Former Mexican president Vicente Fox says a Donald Trump presidency could lead Mexico and the US to a trade war that would hurt both countries, according to the Associated Press.

A day after Trump stretched his lead over GOP rivals with wins in Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii, Fox says that if he were to impose tariffs Mexico would have to react in kind.

Fox says: “We are going to lose everything in a trade war.”

He added Wednesday that it’s up to Hillary Clinton to “save” the United States from a Trump presidency. Fox also criticized Bernie Sanders as a proponent of the kind of “stupid” populism that has led to “demagogy” in some Latin American nations.

Nor does he like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who Fox said “denied their (Latino) origins”.

10 Mar 201619.26 EST

Scott Bixby

Ted Cruz just scored another major-ish endorsement

This morning, the Texas senator was greeted with the welcome addition of former Hewlett-Packard CEO and onetime Republican candidate for president Carly Fiorina to his roster of endorsers. This evening, Cruz has received the endorsement of another prominent female figure in the conservative movement: Meghan McCain, daughter of longtime US senator and Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

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“I was a huge Carly Fiorina fan and supporter,” McCain said on Neil Cavuto’s show on Fox News, stating that it was Fiorina’s endorsement of Cruz that moved her to support the Texas senator.

“I think her most notable moment was when Donald trump talked about her face, and she responded so eloquently during the debate,” she continued. “I think she has the capacity getting a lot of young conservative women taking a second look at Ted Cruz.”

“For me, honestly, I’ve been hesitant about Ted Cruz, and the Carly Fiorina endorsement has swayed my personal opinion,” McCain said.

Her father the senator has been less positive about Cruz, famously dismissing him as a “whacko bird.”

The Guardian’s Stuart Dredge spotted this... thing in Manhattan’s Union Square today:

9 Mar 201618.50 EST

Ben Jacobs

Donald Trump is winning not just with voters, but with former New York Yankee outfielders as well.

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This afternoon, former Yankee Johnny Damon announced his support for the Republican frontrunner. Damon, a former contestant on The Apprentice, defended Trump’s controversial views on immigration in an interview with the New York Daily News.

“Everyone is calling him a racist. He just wants people to come into this country legally and fill out the proper paperwork. That’s how I’m viewing it,” said the two-time all star.
On Tuesday, former Yankee outfielder Paul O’Neill announced his support for Trump while attending the candidate’s election night press conference in Jupiter, Florida.

Trump even mentioned the five time World Series champion by name in the course of his meandering monologue.

While elected officials have been loathe to associate themselves with Trump, the Republican frontrunner has long kept up ties to the world of sports. He has rolled the endorsements of a number of NASCAR drivers and famously is friends with New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady.

With the endorsements of Damon and O’Neill, the Republican frontrunner is now supported by as many former outfielders for the New York Yankees as sitting GOP governors.

9 Mar 201618.03 EST

Lucia Graves

It’s been a good season for candidates who can channel the anger of the electorate and we saw that again on Tuesday night, when exit polls continued to turn up in favor of Donald Trump, while Bernie Sanders pulled off a surprise victory in Michigan.

The victories for Trump and Sanders come after a week when both men’s chances were being played down. Sanders’ campaign had been all but left for dead after he failed to make significant inroads with minority voters on Super Tuesday. Trump faced attacks from the party establishment (most notably Mitt Romney) and scorn from the media establishment for his habit of asking people to raise their hands and pledge allegiance to him at rallies, something Cruz quickly seized upon. “We’ve had seven years of a president who thinks he’s an emperor,” he quipped.

For a fleeting moment on Tuesday, it looked like Trump’s star might finally be fading. After all, on Saturday he only won by a few percentage points in Louisiana and Kentucky, while Cruz won handily in Maine and Kansas. But winning by less is still, to put it in Trump terms, #winning. And Tuesday’s results suggest the weekend was merely an ebb in the candidate’s current.

9 Mar 201617.39 EST

Fight Night in Miami: A preview of the Democratic debate

Scott Bixby

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders are meeting tonight for their fourth one-on-one debate, and their second in less than a week. Coming on the heels of an embarrassing defeat in Michigan for Clinton (and a correlative win for Sanders) and less than a week before major primaries in Ohio and Florida, tonight’s debate will feature a resurgent Sanders and a defensive Clinton - a dynamic we haven’t seen on the debate stage since after Clinton’s massive win in South Carolina.

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Before we get to the knock-down-drag-out, here’s a quick run-through of the whos, whats, wheres, whens and whys of tonight’s debate:

• Who’s going to be there? Aside from Clinton and Sanders, the event will be hosted by anchors Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos, of Univision, and Karen Tumulty, of the Washington Post. The audience will largely be composed of Florida voters, with a sizable contingent of students from Miami Dade Community College.
• What’s the topic? Most of the Democratic primary debate moderators have taken an ecumenical approach to questioning the candidates, picking and choosing from current events, foreign policy, economic issues, social services and dumb questions from YouTube celebrities. With Univision as the debate’s co-sponsor, expect a fair number of questions around issues relating to Latinos, including immigration and social programs. With the college student contingent present in the audience, the cost of higher education and student-loan debt will likely make an appearance as well.
• Where is the debate being held? The Miami debate will be held at Miami Dade Community College, “the nation’s largest campus-based institution of higher learning and the most diverse.”
• When is the debate? The debate will begin at 9 p.m. EST, although since it’s being broadcast on CNN, it could drag the intro out for 47 minutes until a candidate actually takes the stage. (Sorry for calling you out, Anderson Cooper, but some of us have kids to babysit.)
• How can I watch it? The debate will be simulcast from Univision, CNN and the Washington Post’s website. Fusion will also hold a livestream of the debate.

This is what we call “poor advance work.”

Marco Rubio is big into the clickbait-y email subject lines:

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Granted, he continues that “If we hand the conservative movement over to Donald Trump by making him the Republican nominee, we will lose,” but the beleaguered Florida senator got your attention, right?

9 Mar 201616.40 EST

Brady Campaign: Bernie Sanders' vote on crooked gun dealers "unforgivable"

Scott Bixby

One of the nation’s most influential gun-control advocacy organizations has come out strongly against Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, calling his vote in 2006 to keep law enforcement from shutting down gun dealers who operate illegally “unforgivable.”

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“This is one of the most dangerous and potentially deadly pieces of special interest legislation to ever come before Congress,” said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in a statement.

“And where was Bernie Sanders when it came to a vote? Right where the corporate gun lobby wanted him. Sanders voted to effectively tie the hands of law enforcement and shield gun dealers who knowingly sold weapons illegally and irresponsibly. Most gun dealers operate on the up and up, but the few ‘bad apples’ who flood our nation’s streets with crime guns need to be stopped, not granted a license to kill.”

The statement refers to H.R. 5092, a bill to soften punishments for firearm retailers and dealers that was introduced during Sanders’ final term in the House of Representatives before he became a US senator. The bill passed the House, but died in the senate.

“The Brady Campaign is calling on senator Sanders to renounce his shameful vote for this dangerous bill during tonight’s Democratic debate,” Gross continued in the statements. “His vote to protect irresponsible gun dealers, his repeated votes for gun industry special legal protections, and his five votes against the Brady Bill further affirm that, for Americans who have had enough of gun violence, Bernie Sanders is on the wrong side of the issue.”

The reigning Dalai Lama, leader of Tibetan Buddhists and winner of the Nobel peace prize, may have learned a few things from Pope Francis after the pontiff’s public feud with billionaire Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.

Namely: Don’t do it.

“Oh, that’s your business!” the Dalai Lama told ABC News in an interview today, after he was asked “if you have any views on the presidential candidate in this country who is making the most noise, Donald Trump.”

“Firstly, I have no right or option to vote,” the Dalai Lama said, pointing out that he is only in the United States for a short visit. He did say that “sometimes I feel, oh, too much personal criticism” on the campaign trail.

“Serious discussion about policy matters, that’s useful,” the Dalai Lama said. “But sometimes, little bits of personal criticism in these things - that looks a little bit cheap. That’s my view.”

“Silly!” he said of the state of the Republican primary shaking his head.