Former Obama advisor David Axelrod said on CNN Saturday night that Joe Biden’s big South Carolina win is a blow against one of the rationales for Michael Bloomberg getting in the race.

Bloomberg was not on the ballot in South Carolina tonight and is banking on doing well on Super Tuesday next week.

After Biden won, former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe endorsed Biden live on CNN and said other candidates should think about dropping out. After he spoke, Anderson Cooper asked Axelrod if there’s a path ahead for Bloomberg.

“The whole rationale of his candidacy was he wanted to represent that center-left wing of the party and he felt Biden was going to falter. That plan has gone awry now,” Axelrod said.

He continued:

“Biden hasn’t faltered, and as long as Biden is competitive in this race as he apparently will be now, where’s the path for Bloomberg here? My guess is he’ll go through Super Tuesday, but I don’t think he has television ads scheduled after Tuesday, and I think he and his team are gonna have to have a hard discussion if Biden’s momentum continues on Tuesday.”

You can watch above, via CNN.

Although most of the options nominated weren’t dipping sauces at all (turns out, even true democracy is flawed), Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce has been elected the best dipping sauce by our readers after two rounds of voting. Sweet Baby Ray’s took home 1,039 votes, almost half the total at 43%.

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CNN’s Van Jones issued a mea culpa of sorts on Saturday night after Joe Biden’s decisive victory in South Carolina.

“Joe Biden stood with the first black president and black voters stood with Joe Biden,” Jones said. “This is his night.”

Jones continued, “He had a strategy a lot of us doubted — I doubted it very, very loudly — that he could have a firewall where African-Americans would stand with him while everybody else ran away from him. He was correct. He was vindicated tonight. He proved that loyalty matters.”

Jones said Biden’s win shows that here are now two candidates who’ve proven they can create multiracial coalitions — Biden and Bernie Sanders.

“Joe Biden vindicated himself,” Jones concluded. “This strategy was pummeled by everybody, including me. He was right, I was wrong.”

You can watch above, via CNN.

An ex-advisor to former President Barack Obama believes — after former Vice President Joe Biden’s apparent blowout victory in South Carolina on Saturday night — that the Democratic presidential race is now down to two.

Speaking on MSNBC, David Plouffe posited that despite the presence of seven notable candidates in the field, the 2020 race is now a one-on-one showdown.

“I think this is a two-person race right now,” Plouffe said. “There’s only two people I think are going to accept our party’s nomination. It’s either Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden.”

Plouffe cast this definitive judgment despite the fact that former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has yet to officially appear on the ballot — and, come Tuesday, analysts will finally have some indication of how his unprecedented spending translates at the ballot box. But the ex-Obama advisor regards Bloomberg only as a Biden spoiler, and not a legitimate threat to win the Democratic nomination.

“Biden is going to be, I think, really harmed on Tuesday because Bloomberg is going to take votes and delegates,” Plouffe said. “Not all of that would have gone to Biden, but I think it’s fair to say a lot of them would.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.

President Donald Trump said Mike Bloomberg should exit the 2020 race in a tweet following Joe Biden’s win in the South Carolina primary.

“Sleepy Joe Biden’s victory in the South Carolina Democrat Primary should be the end of Mini Mike Bloomberg’s Joke of a campaign,” Trump wrote in a tweet.

He concluded with some strategic advice for Democrats: “After the worst debate performance in the history of presidential debates, Mini Mike now has Biden split up his very few voters, taking many away!”

Sleepy Joe Biden’s victory in the South Carolina Democrat Primary should be the end of Mini Mike Bloomberg’s Joke of a campaign. After the worst debate performance in the history of presidential debates, Mini Mike now has Biden split up his very few voters, taking many away!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 1, 2020

(To be clear, Bloomberg was not on the ballot in South Carolina.)

Biden won the South Carolina primary on Saturday night, his first win of the 2020 election cycle after losing the first three states of the primary contest. South Carolina has been cast as Biden’s chance for a comeback, and a commanding win in the state certainly bodes well (ish) for his campaign going into Super Tuesday. Bloomberg, as Trump’s surprisingly astute analysis points out, is poised to play a spoiler in the states that vote this Tuesday, threatening to gobble up a sizable portion of Biden’s much-needed support from moderate voters.

14 states — including California, Texas, and Massachusetts — will vote on Tuesday.

Former Virginia Governor and former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe endorsed Joe Biden live on CNN minutes after Biden’s decisive South Carolina primary victory.

There had been some reporting McAuliffe would officially endorse Biden if he pulled off the big win tonight.

McAuliffe told Anderson Cooper Biden has the best chance of not just beating Donald Trump, but with helping out downballot races.

Cooper asked how tonight changes the race and McAullife straight-up said, “I’m hoping, tomorrow actually, some of the candidates decide to get out. If you do have a pathway, let’s not wait ’til Super Tuesday.”

He hedged when pressed for who he’s specifically talking to, but he said “Pete and Amy and Tom Steyer and others” need to make the decision for themselves.

Cooper asked about Mike Bloomberg and McAullife said he’ll need to really think things over too.

You can watch above, via CNN.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has won the South Carolina primary, his first win of the 2020 election cycle.

Biden had fared poorly in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and just last week eked out a second place finish in Nevada. There had been a lot of discussion about Biden’s campaign flailing with no sign of recovery.

South Carolina could potentially mark a comeback moment. Congressman James Clyburn — an influential SC Democrat who threw his support behind Biden — said today if South Carolina reshapes the race with a Biden victory there should be some immediate campaign “retooling.”

The next big test for the Democratic race is just three days from now on Super Tuesday, when 14 states — including California, Texas, and Massachusetts — will get to decide.

Conservative pundit Glenn Beck said at CPAC Saturday that the “revolution” of Bernie Sanders will end in “another Holocaust.”

“You can tell by the people he surrounds himself with,” Beck said of Sanders, who is Jewish, in a clip flagged by Media Matters. “Have you looked at that? The self-proclaimed communist. The founders and leaders of Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street. Yes, the modern versions of the Weather Underground terrorist organization are all on his campaign staff.”

“These are not grassroot groups of Democrats, they are Marxist revolutionaries who believe in nothing short of the complete overthrow of the United States and destruction of the Constitution and the free market system,” he said.

Beck — who as one reporter pointed out “invented the big lie of George Soros as teenage agent of the Nazis” — proceeded to lament the use of the term “Bernie bros” to describe Sanders supporters:

“And, please, let us stop calling them Bernie bros. Because they are not my brother. They are not something that is funny. They are Bernie Bolsheviks. They are Bernie Brownshirts. That’s what they are. And their revolution will result in death and misery. Another Holodomor. Or another Holocaust. Or whatever we call the next great socialist atrocity.”

Watch below, via Media Matters:

President Donald Trump Friday night at a rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, stated that the Democrats are “politicizing the Coronavirus.”

“Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus. Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs — you see how’s President Trump doing?…oh, not good, not good.”

“They cannot even count the votes in Iowa. No, they can’t. They can’t count their votes,” Trump stated.

Trump continued, “One of my people came up to me and said, Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia – that did not work out too well. They could not do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over again…They lost. It is all turning. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.”

“But, you know we did something that has been pretty amazing. We have 15 people in this massive country, and because of the fact that we went early, we could’ve had a lot more than that.”

The commander-in-chief then exclaimed that the US is “doing so great,” adding that the Republican Party has never been more unified before.

“So, a statistic that we want to talk about. Go ahead. Say, USA. It’s ok, the USA,” which Trump stated, followed by chanting erupting.

“So, a number that nobody heard of, I was shocked to hear of it, 35,000 people on average die each year from the flu –did anyone know that?” Trump floated.
“That is a lot of people. It can go to 100,000. It can be 27,000. Usually, a minimum of 27. Goes up to 100,000 people a year.”

“And so far, we have lost nobody to Coronavirus in the United States. Nobody. And it doesn’t mean we won’t. We are totally prepared. It does not mean we won’t. You hear 35 and 40,000 people, and we have nobody, and you wonder the press is in hysteria mode,” Trump stated.

Watch above, via CSPAN.

President Donald Trump went on a tear against the Democratic field at his South Carolina rally tonight, literally polling his audience on which of them would be easiest to beat in November.

He messed around a bit prior to taking the informal poll, musing about whether it would be legal for him to encourage his supporters to vote for the winner in the primary tomorrow.

The poll didn’t include most of the candidates, like Tom Steyer (“because he’s a loser”), “Mini Mike” Bloomberg, and Elizabeth Warren — so basically Trump asked the audience whether it would be easier for him to beat “Crazy Bernie” or “Sleepy Joe.”

Trump polled the audience and heard more cheering for Sanders as the better opponent.

You can watch above, via C-SPAN.

CNN’s Van Jones ripped into former Vice President Joe Biden‘s run for the White House Friday, blasting the campaign as “a dead man walking.”

Jones added that the campaign should be fundraising large sums of money due to Biden’s name recognition – but instead, the former VP is “broke.”

CNN anchor John Berman began the segment by outlining the spending of presidential campaigns going into Super Tuesday.

“I do. I happen to know this. Let’s put that up on the screen right now so people can see, ad spending in Super Tuesday states. Michael Bloomberg, I can’t read the numbers, but it’s a lot…$161 million. Then Joe Biden is at $450,000,” Berman stated.

Berman then stated told viewers to compare the spending of Senator Bernie Sanders to Biden ahead of Super Tuesday.

“Forget Michael Bloomberg for a second. Look at the difference between Bernie Sanders at $15 million and Joe Biden at $450,000. So the answer he’s just not spending for Super Tuesday. That’s not part of his — he can’t spend. So they have to go with a different strategy. And that strategy is win in South Carolina.”

“Because, Van, I think this gets to your point about how he might try to capitalize on the South Carolina ballots. If you put up the map of the Super Tuesday states, you will see that some of the state’s voting included North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia. They all have more than 25% of the expected electorate will be African-American,” Berman floated to Jones.

Jones then responds, exclaiming that the Biden campaign was assumed to be a frontrunner at this point in the race.

“The idea was, in the way this calendar was put together, I think there was an assumption that he [Biden] would be a very dominant front-runner and basically get this thing wrapped up. So you got Iowa and New Hampshire, and then you get Nevada and South Carolina. Then you go basically through the south except for, you know, California and some of the big states.”

“So the problem that you have, though, is that there’s a weakness in the Biden campaign that is obvious. It’s not just a weakness of the candidate. People will say, ‘Oh, he’s maybe a little bit slower, little bit this, little bit that,'” the former CNN host stated.

Jones continued, “No. The problem is a former Vice President, two-term Vice President, Obama’s guy, should be just sucking in money. He’s broke. That shows a lack of enthusiasm not just at the grassroots level, where he needed that, but also at the top. And so it’s very, very hard to understand the rationale in the Biden candidacy as a campaign. He doesn’t have the grassroots enthusiasm. He’s not filling stadiums like Bernie Sanders. He’s not vacuuming in money from the top, he doesn’t have a grassroots operation.”

Jones then likened Biden’s campaign for the White House to the effort feeling like “a dead man walking,” adding “maybe something reverses.”

“It just felt like a dead man walking campaign for a long time. But it could come back. If he does something extraordinary tomorrow night, he blows it out. And all of a sudden, there’s like, ‘Oh, Joe’s back.’ Maybe something reverses. But it’s a weird strategy,” Jones concluded.

Watch above, via CNN.

President Donald Trump is rallying in South Carolina tonight ahead of Saturday’s big primary race.

After poor showings in the last few states, Joe Biden may end up winning the Palmetto State. Bernie Sanders is currently the Democratic frontrunner.

Trump has taunted the Democrats over the contentious primary race, singling out “Mini Mike” Bloomberg in particular:

Mini Mike is getting slammed. His debates were, perhaps, the worst in presidential debating history. A total phony who disavowed “Stop & Frisk” after swearing by it for years, and even recently. He horribly overused it, & then dropped when running as a Dem. A total phony!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2020

The president will be campaigning tonight amid growing concerns about the spread of coronavirus. Trump designated Vice President Mike Pence to lead the coronavirus response.

You can watch the rally live above, via WLTX.

Saul Loeb / Getty Images

You may remember the House Judiciary Committee’s ongoing efforts to get former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify given his knowledge of events detailed in the Mueller report.

A federal judge last November ruled that McGahn must testify and rejected the idea of “absolute immunity,” though it was expected at the time the DOJ would appeal.

And now, a federal appeals court has ruled that McGahn cannot be compelled to testify. Per the Washington Post:

Former White House counsel Donald McGahn can defy a congressional subpoena, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled Friday in a decision siding with President Trump, who had blocked top advisers from testifying as part of the impeachment proceedings.

The 2-1 ruling by a three-judge panel, if it stands, means Trump’s former lawyer cannot be compelled to appear on Capitol Hill, and comes after Democrats lost their bid to call additional witnesses during Trump’s Senate trial.

You can read the full ruling here, via CNN.

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