Highlights From South Carolina: CNN Town Halls and Clyburn’s Endorsement Image Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at a community event in Georgetown. Credit... Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times Follow our live coverage of the 2020 South Carolina primary. There are three days to go before Saturday’s South Carolina primary and the Democratic candidates are campaigning hard, mostly around Charleston and the Lowcountry.

Representative James E. Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress and a political powerhouse in South Carolina, threw his support to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday.

After months of substantial leads in South Carolina polls, Mr. Biden is now in the fight of his political life there against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the rising front-runner, and Tom Steyer, the hedge fund billionaire whose heavy spending and direct appeals to black voters has made him a wild card.

Six candidates appeared at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network breakfast in North Charleston to make their pitches to the black voters who comprise a majority of the Democratic electorate in the state. The candidates then fanned out, making stops in Myrtle Beach and Georgetown. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts held get-out-the-vote events with the singer John Legend in Orangeburg and Charleston.

Four candidates were taking part in CNN town halls Wednesday night: Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, Mr. Biden, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Ms. Warren.

Feb. 27, 2020, 12:20 a.m. ET Feb. 27, 2020, 12:20 a.m. ET By Warren says she would stay in the race without a delegate majority. Elizabeth Warren reiterated on Tuesday that she would be open to staying in the presidential primary even if someone else had amassed an insurmountable plurality — but not a majority — of pledged delegates. That was the position of every other Democrat on the debate stage in Las Vegas last week besides Senator Bernie Sanders — who, as the current front-runner, appears to be the most likely candidate to wind up in the lead in such a situation. “You do know that that was Bernie’s position in 2016?” Ms. Warren said, pushing back on a Sanders supporter in the audience at a CNN town hall who had asked about the issue. She said Mr. Sanders’s “last play” in that race was to win over the party’s so-called superdelegates. Here is the video of the Warren exchange with the Sanders supporter over going to the convention a delegate plurality pic.twitter.com/P73LMdW3mV — Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) February 27, 2020 She said she would stick to the rules outlined by the Democratic National Committee. “Bernie had a big role in writing the rules. I didn’t,” Warren said. “I don’t see how come you get to change it just because you see an advantage.” Tyson Brody, an adviser to Mr. Sanders, responded to Ms. Warren’s remarks on Twitter. “So the plan isn’t to win then,” he wrote, before deleting the tweet. Read more

Feb. 26, 2020, 10:53 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 10:53 p.m. ET By Warren calls for moving Trump’s wall funds to battle coronavirus. Image Senator Elizabeth Warren at a get-out-the-vote rally on Wednesday at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg. Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times Senator Elizabeth Warren said during a CNN town hall program Wednesday night that she would introduce a proposal the next day to provide money for the government’s coronavirus response by stripping allocations from one of President Trump’s top priorities. “I’m going to be introducing a plan tomorrow to take every dime that the president is now spending on his racist wall at our southern border and divert it to work on the coronavirus,” she said in the opening minutes of her hourlong appearance. "'I'm going to be introducing a plan tomorrow to take every dime that the President is now spending on his racist wall at our southern border and divert it to work on the coronavirus," Elizabeth Warren says #CNNTownHall pic.twitter.com/I3WTbNlBzV — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 27, 2020 She went on to criticize the choice of Vice President Mike Pence by Mr. Trump to coordinate the government’s response, citing his response as governor of Indiana to a public health crisis involving an H.I.V. outbreak. For about two months in 2015, Mr. Pence opposed efforts to distribute clean needles to slow the spread of the virus. “We also need someone in the White House who is coordinating all of the working and all of the messaging and all of the information,” Ms. Warren said. “And we need someone who is not actively disqualified from doing that the way the vice president is.” Later in the program, Ms. Warren reiterated that she would be open to staying in the presidential primary even if someone else had amassed a plurality — but not a majority — of the delegates. That was the position of every other Democrat on the debate stage in Las Vegas last week besides Senator Bernie Sanders — who, as the current front-runner, appears to be the most likely candidate to wind up in the lead in such a situation. “You do know that that was Bernie’s position in 2016?” Ms. Warren pushed back on a Sanders supporter in the audience who had asked about the issue. She said Mr. Sanders’s “last play” in that race was to win over the party’s so-called superdelegates. Here is the video of the Warren exchange with the Sanders supporter over going to the convention a delegate plurality pic.twitter.com/P73LMdW3mV — Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) February 27, 2020 She said she would stick to the rules outlined by the Democratic National Committee. “Bernie had a big role in writing the rules. I didn’t,” Warren said. “I don’t see how come you get to change it just because you see an advantage.” Tyson Brody, an adviser to Mr. Sanders, responded to Ms. Warren’s remarks on Twitter. “So the plan isn’t to win then,” he wrote, before deleting the tweet. Read more

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Feb. 26, 2020, 10:41 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 10:41 p.m. ET By Klobuchar says her debate targets were Sanders and Warren. Image Ms. Klobuchar addressed voters during a campaign event at Founders Hall in Charleston on Wednesday. Credit... Travis Dove for The New York Times Twenty-four hours after the chaotic Democratic debate in South Carolina — in which it seemed at times that everyone was shouting at everyone else — Senator Amy Klobuchar told a CNN audience who her two targets were: Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. “I felt the one differentiation I wanted to make on that debate was the difference between me as a leader of our party and my colleague Senator Sanders, and actually Senator Warren,” Ms. Klobuchar said Wednesday, making a case that she would have the longest coattails to help down-ballot Democrats running for Congress. “I think that we really need someone that can bring people with her and lead, and I am the only one with the track record up there.” The down-ballot argument is one Ms. Klobuchar makes during nearly every stump speech, town hall event, campaign rally or television appearance. But she had not mentioned both Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders as the targets for her criticism before. In her hourlong appearance on CNN, broadcast from Charleston, Ms. Klobuchar faced questions about her presidential campaign’s viability, including her ability to win support from black voters after just 2 percent of black voters caucused for her in Nevada, according to entrance polls. She said she would push to protect voting rights and create economic opportunity. She was also asked about her ability to rally the liberal wing of the party after making the contrasts with Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren. “Elizabeth and Bernie and I are all in leadership together — I bet you wish you were in those meetings — in the U.S. Senate,” she said. “We have worked together on many, many issues. I admire both of them.” Like the other candidates who appeared on CNN on Wednesday, Ms. Klobuchar was asked at the beginning of her town hall about the coronavirus, and particularly the announcement that President Trump had tapped Vice President Mike Pence to oversee the public health response. “I would think usually you might put a medical professional in charge,” Ms. Klobuchar said, before adding that perhaps entrusting the response to the vice president could help elevate the urgency. (President Barack Obama named Ron Klain, a Democratic operative, to coordinate the government’s response to the Ebola virus in 2014.) Returning to the subject of the debate, Ms. Klobuchar told the story of the viral photo of her standing in between a shouting Tom Steyer and an equally animated Joseph R. Biden Jr. Klobuchar talks about this famous photo, jokes that Steyer "was so heated he was moving into my little area." Said she was worried his flailing arms might knock her over.



Joked: "I thought to myself, well, if I fall over, and i'm hit, at least Steyer has deep pockets." pic.twitter.com/PaF5aVwPP2 — Nick Corasaniti (@NYTnickc) February 27, 2020 “That moment with those two, they were going at it, and what was somewhat amusing about it was Tom Steyer was so heated he was moving into my little area,” Ms. Klobuchar said. She said that she had a little stool for her 5-foot-4 frame on the debate stage, and that she worried briefly that Mr. Steyer’s gesticulating might knock her off her perch. “I thought to myself, ‘Well, if I fall over, and I’m hit, at least Steyer has deep pockets,’” she joked. “I can get something out of this.” Read more

Feb. 26, 2020, 10:19 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 10:19 p.m. ET By Biden hits Sanders on guns and democratic socialism. Image Mr. Biden at a community event in Georgetown. Credit... Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times CHARLESTON — Joseph R. Biden Jr. came out swinging at one of his chief rivals, Bernie Sanders, at a televised town hall event on Wednesday, swiping at him over everything from his record on guns to the damage that he suggested Mr. Sanders would do to Democrats running in down-ballot races. Mr. Sanders identifies as a democratic socialist, and Mr. Biden was asked on the CNN program if he “would support a socialist at the top of the ticket.” “We have moved in a direction that in fact, the progressive — now ‘progressive’ means ‘Bernie,’” said Mr. Biden, who is a relative centrist but added that throughout his career he had been considered a “liberal liberal.” “It means democratic socialism or whatever the phrase is,” Mr. Biden said. “I think Bernie is a decent, honorable man who means what he says.” But, he suggested, Mr. Sanders is also a candidate who would endanger the Democratic House majority and jeopardize more seats in the Senate should he be the party’s nominee. His remarks come as Mr. Sanders has appeared to gain ground here in South Carolina, a state Mr. Biden has considered his electoral firewall, after the Vermont senator soundly defeated Mr. Biden in the first three nominating contests. “It’s not a criticism of him as a man, it’s a criticism of whether or not you think you’re going to be able to help elect a Democratic senator here against Lindsey Graham, which I’m going to help do,” he said of the South Carolina Senate race this year. His remarks about Mr. Sanders on Wednesday amounted to some of his most sustained criticism of his rival to date, part of an energetic performance in which Mr. Biden was by turns punchy — when discussing politics — and emotional, such as when he discussed grief or cancer. He questioned whether Democratic Senate candidates in a red-leaning states would believe it was in their political interest to have “a self-proclaimed socialist at the top of the ticket.” And as he often does, Mr. Biden expressed confidence that if he is the presidential nominee, he would help Democrats who are running in a wide range of competitive contests. He noted his efforts to do just that by campaigning in districts and states across the country in 2018, when his party recaptured the House of Representatives. “Did anybody ask Bernie to come in?” he said. “It doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. It means it’s going to be hard holding on to the United States Congress and the United States Senate.” Mr. Sanders did, in fact, campaign for many candidates in the midterm elections. Mr. Biden has repeatedly said he will support whoever the Democratic nominee is, though he did not reiterate that point in his answers on Wednesday. He also repeated criticisms he has been making about Mr. Sanders for weeks over his record on gun control. Previously, Mr. Biden has acknowledged that Mr. Sanders has changed his views on gun control — but on Wednesday he said Mr. Sanders’s past votes on the subject remain important. Mr. Sanders voted in 2005 for a law that gave immunity to gun manufacturers in wrongful death lawsuits. Confronted with that record at the debate on Tuesday night, he called it a “bad vote.” Mr. Biden pressed the point on Wednesday. “He’s gone after every corporation in the world — I don’t disagree on all of it with him,” Mr. Biden said. “But I have not seen him go after the gun manufacturers.” Joe Biden on Bernie Sanders' gun legislation record: "He goes after every corporation in the world. But I have not seen him go after the gun manufacturers" #CNNTownHall pic.twitter.com/TDaExUd69k — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 27, 2020 He went on to suggest that in previous elections, Mr. Sanders made political calculations about how much to discuss gun control. Mr. Biden was also pushed to defend some of his own record, including his support for the 1994 crime bill. He repeated a claim he has made before — that the crime bill “did not put more people in jail like it’s argued.” Many experts have linked the measure to an acceleration in mass incarceration. Asked if he would support the measure today, he said that times have changed — but that such a standard should not apply to Mr. Sanders’s votes on guns. “It was the right bill then,” he said. “Unlike voting to give exemptions to the gun manufacturers, never a right vote under any circumstances. Being against the Brady bill was never right under any circumstances. It was right at the time.” (Read more about Mr. Biden’s record on the crime bill and criminal justice here, here and here.) Read more

Feb. 26, 2020, 10:00 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 10:00 p.m. ET By Sanders bashes the media (and defends press freedoms). GOLDSBORO, N.C. — Even as Bernie Sanders came to the defense of The New York Times, which was sued by President Trump’s re-election campaign on Wednesday, he spent much of the day bashing the news media’s political coverage. Pointing to the reporters who were covering him at a rally in Myrtle Beach, S.C., he said the news media, “which determines what you see and read,” was owned by the “corporate media.” And when asked at a forum in Goldsboro why poverty was not a bigger focus in the presidential campaign, Mr. Sanders blamed the country’s news organizations. “Do you know how many times the media has asked me, what am I going to do about poverty?” he said. “I don’t think they’ve ever asked. I’m followed by all this media. They will not ask me about income and wealth inequality.” Instead, he said, “They will ask me about some dumb statement I may have made the other day or something or what do I think of this or that.” Still, Mr. Sanders defended The Times in a statement Wednesday addressing the Trump campaign’s libel lawsuit, which alleged that an Op-Ed in the newspaper in March had falsely asserted there was a “quid pro quo” between Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. Mr. Trump is “trying to dismantle the right to a free press in the First Amendment by suing The New York Times for publishing an opinion column about his dangerous relationship with Russia,” Mr. Sanders said in the statement. And at one point while campaigning on Wednesday, Mr. Sanders seemed to stop himself. “They are good people,” Mr. Sanders said, referring to journalists and drawing a contrast with Mr. Trump. “These people try hard. They are not ‘enemies of the people.’” But he quickly resumed his diatribe. “They have been educated in their jobs to think that politics is, if I attack you or you attack me, that’s a big deal or if I slip on a banana peel, that becomes a big story.” Read more

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Feb. 26, 2020, 8:21 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 8:21 p.m. ET By Bloomberg seems more at ease in a town hall format. Image Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York during the Democratic debate in Charleston on Tuesday. Credit... Erin Schaff/The New York Times Michael R. Bloomberg watched the beginning of President Trump’s news conference on the coronavirus outbreak backstage at a CNN “town hall” in Charleston, S.C., on Wednesday. Minutes later, addressing the audience in the first such televised event of his presidential campaign, he took aim at Mr. Trump for both his handling of the virus threat and his reaction to a mass shooting in Milwaukee on Wednesday. “The bottom line is, we are not ready for this kind of thing,” Mr. Bloomberg said of the public health threat. “The president is not ready for this kind of thing.” (Mr. Trump on Wednesday named Vice President Mike Pence to oversee the government’s response to the coronavirus, even as he played down the threat of a widespread domestic outbreak.) Mr. Bloomberg appeared to relish the town hall format, seizing the chance to speak in greater detail about some of the causes he has put his vast personal fortune toward — without interjections or challenges from his opponents. “They talk over each other again and again. I found that difficult,” Mr. Bloomberg said of the primary debates. “I didn’t grow up where you step on people, and that’s what they do all the time.” Appearing more at ease than he had in his recent debate appearances, Mr. Bloomberg invoked his experience presiding over New York City in the aftermath of Sept. 11, Hurricane Sandy and the swine flu outbreak. “Pulling people together, making them feel that they’re part of the solution, is what management is all about — it’s what I do,” he said. “New York is a microcosm of the country, and we’ve gone through a lot of this stuff already.” The multibillionaire addressed a range of issues, fielding questions on climate change, gun control, and the controversial stop-and-frisk policing policy during his tenure in New York, for which he again apologized. “I made a mistake,” he said. He criticized the Democratic race’s front-runner, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, on gun control, suggesting that Mr. Sanders, who voted in favor of a 2005 bill to shield gun manufacturers from liability lawsuits, was beholden to the gun lobby. But he also reiterated that he planned to throw financial support and his “main campaign offices” behind whoever the Democratic nominee might be. “I’ve always thought it’s ridiculous to say, ‘I will always support the candidate no matter who it is’, because that’s how we got Donald Trump,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “Having said that, it’s easy for me to say I’ll support any of the Democratic candidates,” he added. “Because the alternative is Donald Trump, and that we don’t want that.” "It's easy for me to make the commitment that I will support any of the Democratic candidates if they get the nomination," says Michael Bloomberg. "But it's easy to do it because the alternative is Donald Trump and that we don't want" #CNNTownHall https://t.co/wTLdt4cmJk pic.twitter.com/21adslB1ZD — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 27, 2020 Asked about sexual harassment in the workplace, Mr. Bloomberg denounced forced arbitration and said his company had never required it. He went on to praise the #MeToo movement, though in 2018 he cast doubt on harassment allegations against Charlie Rose, the television anchor who broadcast his talk show from the Bloomberg L.P. offices. “Most of the nondisclosure agreements every company has have to do with severance,” Mr. Bloomberg said, repeating that his lawyers had released three women from agreements they had reached with his company in past years, adding that he didn’t know if they would speak out, and saying that the company would never use such agreements again. “We’ve changed our policy so we no longer use nondisclosure agreements in the company, anywhere in the world, going forward,” he said. Read more

Feb. 26, 2020, 5:51 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 5:51 p.m. ET By Obama denounces a Republican super PAC’s deceptive anti-Biden ad. Former President Barack Obama is calling on television networks to stop airing a pro-Trump super PAC’s deceptive ad against Joseph R. Biden Jr. The ad, from the Committee to Defend the President, uses audio of Mr. Obama reading an excerpt from his memoir “Dreams From My Father.” In that passage, a barber describes “black committeemen” in Chicago seeking black voters’ support while not actually helping them. The text on the screen mentions Mr. Biden’s support for the 1994 crime bill and his past work with segregationist senators. The implication is that Mr. Obama is denouncing Mr. Biden. But in reality, the passage has nothing to do with Mr. Biden and is in the words of a person Mr. Obama met, not Mr. Obama himself. Lawyers for Mr. Obama sent a cease-and-desist letter to the super PAC on Wednesday. Mr. Obama’s spokeswoman, Katie Hill, said in a statement: President Obama has several friends in this race, including, of course, his own esteemed vice president. He has said he has no plans to endorse in the primary because he believes that in order for Democrats to be successful this fall, voters must choose their nominee. But this despicable ad is straight out of the Republican disinformation playbook, and it’s clearly designed to suppress turnout among minority voters in South Carolina by taking President Obama’s voice out of context and twisting his words to mislead viewers. In the interest of truth in advertising, we are calling on TV stations to take this ad down and stop playing into the hands of bad actors who seek to sow division and confusion among the electorate. Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Mr. Biden, cast the ad as evidence that the president is afraid of running against him — something Mr. Biden has long argued. “Donald Trump and his allies are absolutely terrified that Joe Biden will defeat him in November,” Mr. Bates said. “This latest intervention in the Democratic primary is one of the most desperate yet, a despicable torrent of misinformation by the president’s lackeys.” Read more

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Feb. 26, 2020, 4:09 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 4:09 p.m. ET Elizabeth Warren through a different lens. Image Elizabeth Warren held a “get out the vote” rally featuring John Legend at South Carolina State University, a historically black university in Orangeburg. Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Feb. 26, 2020, 3:19 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 3:19 p.m. ET By Biden lashes Sanders on health care and guns. GEORGETOWN — Joseph R. Biden Jr. laced into Bernie Sanders’s health care platform on Wednesday afternoon with particular vigor, dismissing the senator’s plan to pay for his sweeping “Medicare for all” proposal and casting it as politically untenable and impractical. “As my mother would say, God bless her soul, God bless Bernie,” Mr. Biden said, claiming that while Mr. Sanders had finally shared more details about how he would fund Medicare for all, he had so far failed to be straightforward about the tax implications for working people. “I think we ought to level with you all,” Mr. Biden said. The former vice president wasn’t “picking on” Mr. Sanders or other supporters of Medicare for all, he said, but he believes there should be “a little bit of honesty” about “what things are going to cost, who’s going to pay for it.” As he did on the debate stage on Tuesday, Mr. Biden also criticized Mr. Sanders for his past votes on issues like background checks for gun purchases. “He says it’s because he’s from Vermont,” Mr. Biden said. “I’m from Delaware, one of the largest gun-owning states in the nation. You’ve got to decide what you’re for.” The sharpened criticism of Mr. Sanders comes after the senator outperformed Mr. Biden in each of the first three nominating contests, and as he poses a potentially significant threat to his standing in South Carolina, a state Mr. Biden has said he expects to win. Read more

Feb. 26, 2020, 2:37 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 2:37 p.m. ET By John Legend lends Elizabeth Warren star power in South Carolina. Image John Legend with Elizabeth Warren at a “get out the vote” rally in South Carolina State University in Orangeburg. Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times ORANGEBURG — The Grammy Award-winning recording artist John Legend rallied for Elizabeth Warren at South Carolina State University on Wednesday, lending his star power to a candidate who needs a spark before Saturday’s primary. Mr. Legend, whose real name is John Stephens, gave an impassioned speech in support of Ms. Warren, saying he did not intend to publicly support a presidential candidate until he was so moved by Ms. Warren’s candidacy. “The reason she ran is to give this democracy back to its rightful owners — that’s you,” he said. To the large group of college students at the historically black university, Mr. Legend highlighted Ms. Warren’s plans to correct racial inequities. However, in a slight nod to the challenges Ms. Warren faces in the state, he implored the students to change the course of her candidacy. “Elizabeth Warren needs you,” he said. “This country needs you. Everyone is watching South Carolina. Everyone is asking what will South Carolina do.” “You have the power to send a message that will resound across this nation,” he added. Mr. Legend performed immediately after Ms. Warren’s speech, bringing the crowd to its feet. He offered two of his biggest songs: “Ordinary People” and “All of Me.” Read more

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Feb. 26, 2020, 12:57 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 12:57 p.m. ET By Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Klobuchar’s prosecutorial record remains a liability. Image Amy Klobuchar at the ministers’ breakfast in North Charleston, S.C. Credit... Travis Dove for The New York Times During her eight-year tenure as the chief prosecutor in Minneapolis, Amy Klobuchar earned a tough-on-crime reputation by seeking stiffer sentences, tougher plea deals and more trials, and she vowed to call out judges for “letting offenders off the hook too easily.” Those tactics served her well during her political rise, as Ms. Klobuchar parlayed her record into a Senate seat and now a run for the Democratic presidential nomination. But that record has also come under attack from civil rights activists who say she pursued policies that shored up her support in white suburbs at the cost of unfairly targeting minorities and declining to prosecute police shootings. “There is an entire community that suffered under her leadership, and she has refused to accept accountability for the harm that she caused,” said Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer and former president of the Minneapolis N.A.A.C.P. In recent weeks, the candidate has found herself forced to answer questions about the case of Myon Burrell, who was 16 when her office prosecuted him in the death of an 11-year-old girl, Tyesha Edwards, in 2002. Now she also faces questions about her office’s choice in 2001 to push to add two days to the sentence handed down against a legal immigrant — the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony, which would result in his likely deportation. Read more about Ms. Klobuchar’s record as a prosecutor: Read more

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Feb. 26, 2020, 12:37 p.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 12:37 p.m. ET By Sanders stays on message after debate. Image Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally in North Charleston, S.C. Credit... Erin Schaff/The New York Times NORTH CHARLESTON — After a debate during which he came under sustained attack from his rivals but emerged relatively unscathed yet again, how did Bernie Sanders feel? Was he riding high? Was he triumphant? By all appearances, he was neither, delivering largely the same stump speech he has for decades at a rally in North Charleston on Wednesday. Before an enthusiastic but largely white crowd, Mr. Sanders laced into President Trump — as he often does. “My view is that people all across the political spectrum understand we cannot continue to have a president who is a pathological liar, we cannot continue having a president who is running a corrupt administration,” he said. As he often does, he knocked the establishment for asking whether he could defeat Mr. Trump in the general election in November, and cited recent polls showing him ahead. He said he was “bringing people together” unlike Mr. Trump, who he said was trying to “divide us all up.” He took a quick shot at Joseph R. Biden Jr. for a voting record that he said would not excite voters as he could. He pledged to expand the electorate and said that in order to beat Mr. Trump, “we are going to need the largest voter turnout in the history of the United States.” Three days before the South Carolina primary, Mr. Sanders offered the same message he had before the nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. One of the few differences with his speech: He was able to mention those three states as victories, offering them up as proof of the strength of his grass-roots movement. Read more

Feb. 26, 2020, 11:56 a.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 11:56 a.m. ET By Biden campaign tries to explain his ‘arrest’ abroad. An official with Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign said on Tuesday that he had been separated from black colleagues during a trip to South Africa in the 1970s, an explanation that amounts to his team’s first attempt to clarify comments that Mr. Biden has repeatedly made about having been arrested while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison. Mr. Biden’s assertion, which was rebutted by a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has drawn skepticism in recent days as Mr. Biden’s campaign declined to answer questions about his remarks. But after the Democratic debate on Tuesday, Kate Bedingfield, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden, said he had been referring to an episode in which he was separated from black colleagues in Johannesburg while on a congressional delegation trip to South Africa several decades ago. “He was separated from his party at the airport,” Ms. Bedingfield said, a point she reiterated when a reporter noted that a separation did not did not constitute an arrest. As recently as this month, Mr. Biden told an audience in South Carolina: “I had the great honor of meeting” Mr. Mandela, and “I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him.” Here is the full story on the campaign’s explanation by my colleague Katie Glueck. Read more

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Feb. 26, 2020, 11:28 a.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 11:28 a.m. ET By Pelosi says she is ‘comfortable’ with Sanders as a potential nominee. Image Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Capitol in Washington. Credit... Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times WASHINGTON — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday that she was “comfortable” with Bernie Sanders at the top of the Democratic ticket in November, and did not believe his candidacy would jeopardize her majority. Ms. Pelosi spoke in a brief hallway interview after her caucus had its weekly meeting, amid growing concern among moderate Democrats — many of them in swing districts won by President Trump — about a Sanders nomination. One such moderate, Representative Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, told reporters on Wednesday that he had endorsed Joseph R. Biden Jr., and suggested that by selecting Mr. Sanders, Democrats would fritter away their chance to wrest the presidency from Mr. Trump. “Why we would risk this extraordinary opportunity by nominating somebody who has a tendency to divide our own side is beyond me,” he said. Ms. Pelosi has scheduled a briefing on Thursday at which officials from the Democratic National Committee will brief Democratic lawmakers on the delegate selection process. Members of Congress are “superdelegates,” who are entitled to support whomever they want at the party convention, but new rules this year effectively bar them from participating in the first ballot. Read more

Feb. 26, 2020, 11:03 a.m. ET Feb. 26, 2020, 11:03 a.m. ET By Boston Globe endorses Warren ahead of Super Tuesday. Image Elizabeth Warren arrived for an event in Charleston, S.C. Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times The Boston Globe editorial board announced on Wednesday that it would endorse Elizabeth Warren, its home-state senator, in the Democratic primary, less than a week before Massachusetts voters go to the polls on Super Tuesday. In an editorial published early Wednesday morning, The Globe called Ms. Warren “a leader with the qualifications, the track record, and the tenacity to defend the principles of democracy, bring fairness to an economy that is excluding too many Americans, and advance a progressive agenda.” “She would fight the corruption and corporate influence that distort our politics, lift up working families, and combat gun violence and climate change,” the editorial said, adding that her “diagnosis of what ails the democratic process is sound” and that she is “fearless and brilliant on her feet.” The newspaper endorsement gives Ms. Warren a timely boost in a state that is all but a must-win for her campaign. The Globe’s editorial board also endorsed William F. Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, in the Republican primary. Read more