carolina, senator ted cruz holds a news conference to address legal claims made by donald trump. after that we hear from donald trump campaign in in walterboro, south carolina. leader, marco rubio is endorsed by south carolina governor nikki haley. on the next washington journal, james antle of the washington examiner on the impact of justice antonin scalia's death on the 2016% raise. todd harrison for the center of strategic studies analyzes the 2017 defense budget. after that, national urban league president marc morial looks at the role african-americans will play in the 2016 elections. washington journal, live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. weekend is the nevada democratic caucuses.

thursday, c-span's road to the white house coverage continues with presidential candidate hillary clinton. she is speaking to voters at a caucus rally in east las vegas, hosted by a local labor union. that is live at 11:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span's coverage of the presidential candidates continues this week with campaign events in south carolina and nevada. leading up to the south carolina gop primary and nevada democratic caucuses on saturday, every 20th. live coverage starts saturday, 7:30 p.m. eastern with candidates speeches and your reaction on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> senator ted cruz spoke at a news conference in seneca south carolina, to address his ongoing legal feud with fellow republican president candidate donald trump. this is 35 minutes.

donald's lawyer sent our campaign a cease-and-desist letter. this letter, i will say, having practiced law for many years, this letter is one of the most remarkable i have ever read. mr. trump's lawyers contend that advertisement you just saw is "an an attempt to materials lee mislead the public." he provides a bit more detail. is not "this attack ad only completely disingenuous, but replete with lies, false defamatory and destructive statements and downright fabrications." mr. trump's letter goes on to atantly represents to the public that mr. trump is

pro-choice, and nothing could be further from the truth." by letter concludes threatening that if we will not pull down the ad, that mr. trump will seek immediate legal action to prevent the continued broadcast of this ad. jointly liable to the fullest extent of the law for the damages resulting therefrom. youve to say to mr. trump, have been versioning frivolous lawsuits -- threatening frivolous lawsuits for your entire adult life. even in the annals of frivolous lawsuits, this takes the cake. so donald, i would encourage you, if you want to file a lawsuit challenging this ad, claiming it is definition, file the lawsuit.

it is a remarkable contention that an ad that plays video of donald trump speaking on national television is somehow defamation. words in that ad come from donald trump's own mouth. i understand if a candidate has a record like donald trump's, how he could consider anyone pointed to his actual record being defamation. but if donald trump files a lawsuit that he threatens in this letter, that lawsuit will be frivolous, and it will result in both donald trump and anywhere that signs his name to the pleadings being sanctioned in court for filing frivolous litigation. but before the lawsuit ends in sanctions for mr. trump, it will

be important to try the merits of the case. now, any first-year law student can tell you in a defamation case, truth is an absolute defense. which means the substance of the case will be whether or not donald trump has in fact been pro-choice. i would know. in the ad, we don't say donald is pro-choice. we simply play video of him saying he is very pro-choice, and he is pro-choice in every respect. if mr. trump follows through on his threat to file this defamation lawsuit, there are at least 4 data points that will be relevant in litigating this lawsuit. number one, the tim russert interview. his own words set on national television.

they are a matter of public record, and by definition, repeating someone's own words cannot be defamation. once again, what he said on national television is that he is very pro-choice, he would not ban partial-birth abortion, and he is pro-choice in every respect. a second data point that would surely be relevant is mr. tr ump's statement in august of 2015 that bhe believes his sister would "make a phenomenal supreme court justice." who is his sister? acorn -- a court of appeals judgg appointed bge bill clinton. she has an extreme left-wing record on abortion. as an applet judge, she struck down the new jersey law banning

partial-birth abortion. new jersey is a blue state. and yet, donald's sister concluded it was "irrational" to ban partial-birth abortion. that is a fringe legal opinion. that is on the extreme left of pro-choice world. and donald trump, not 10 or 20 years ago, but in august of wouldhought his sister "make a phenomenal supreme court justice." i think there are pro-choice democrats that might disagree. a third data point in any litigation where i would remind saidr. trump's lawyer "the ad blatantly represents to the public that mr. trump is

pro-choice. nothing could be further from the truth." 30 data point on whether it is true or not -- third data point on whether it is true or not that he has been pro-choice for the first 60 years of his life are the contributions to democrats. 's political contribution history is truly remarkable. this is a republican presidential candidate who has given money to jimmy carter, to joe biden, to hillary clinton, to tom daschle, to ted kennedy, , to chuck schumer, to anthony weiner, to john kerry. seeing a pro-abortion democrats that donald has not supported just once, but for

decades, devoting his own money to helping elect and reelect those candidates. now, for anyone in south carolina who cares about conservative supreme court justices, we know as a fact that donald trump does not care about conservative supreme court justices. why do we know that? because nobody who cared about conservative supreme court justices would make revisions to these democrats. that is fundamentally incompatible. you cannot be funding the democrats that are fighting for liberal judicial activists on the court and claim that you actively care about having conservative supreme court justices. the people of south carolina should know if donald trump ever became president, we would see justices consistent with his lifelong panel of he has

supported. consistent with his statement that his sister, a radical pro-abortion judge, would make a phenomenal supreme court justice. and indeed, i would note the dai ly caller reported in between 1989-2010, donald gave $314,300 to democratic groups and candidates. even in donald's world, that is not chump change. if you look at the 2006 election cycle, that is when the democrats took over congress. donald and his son together donated $77,200 to the democrats. versus only $24,250 to republicans. donald's excuse for this, he's a businessman, he has to buy influence. he was putting his money overwhelmingly on the democratic side of the ledger.

share--ed, a large "a large share of trump's donations to democrats were given to committees dedicated specifically to gaining majority control of congress." that is not buying access. that is not being a businessman and playing the game. that is helping fund the democratic takeover of congress. so if the people of south carolina think it was a good thing that harry reid and nancy pelosi became majority leader and speaker of the house, you can think don't you -- can thank donald trump for helping fund the political effort to make that happened. i would note that donald had been unsuccessful in helping democrats get majorities in both houses, we would have never had obamacare. donald trump is a direct cause of obamacare passing. because if either house had

remained in republican control, it never would have passed. and donald helped fund the democratic takeover of both houses of congress. nobody would help fund turning the senate over to the y reid in putting har charge. and a fourth piece of evidence that would be very relevant in any defamation action mr. trump might file is his comments not a , ar ago, not five years ago not 20 years ago, his comment four days ago on the debate stage where mr. trump said that planned parenthood "does do wonderful things." planned parenthood is the

nation's largest abortion clinic. they are responsible for the deaths of millions of unborn hildren. being pro-life and supporting planned parenthood is ncompatible. one thing i look forward to is opposing donald trump. i may not use outside counsel. i may take the deposition myself. whether in a deposition or court of law, getting donald trump under oath, you aren't penalty of perjury, answering these

questions. i will point out it didn't work ut very well for bill clinton. anyone who points to his record is somehow lying. this lawsuit is the very definition of frivolous. donald has had a long career of using great wealth and power trying to bully others and threatening frivolous lawsuits has been one tool he used.

i will note in addition that both donald trump and marco rubio have followed parallel strategies in this campaign built on two elements -- number 1 -- whenever anyone points to their actual record, the responsive both donald trump and marco rubio is to yell the word liar. whenever anyone does as this ad does and plays the actual words of donald trump on national television, his responses to yell liar. whenever anyone does as i did at the debate to point out donald still supports funding of lanned parenthood, his responses to yell liar. when donald continued and send when that i support that, i said -- to which donald responded by repeating on the stage in a republican primary that he thinks planned parenthood does onderful things. i would ask each of you in the media, have you ever once in a republican presidential campaign seen a republican candidate for president praising planned parenthood on a national debate stage?

mind you, he had just called me a liar for saying that was his record stop marco rubio does the same thing. marco rubio is behaving like donald trump. at the debate i made three points -- number one, that marco supports granting citizenship to the 12 million people here illegally. it's a fact he said on the debate stage that he currently supports it and he acknowledged this may not the majority view in my party, but i, marco rubio, supported. he said on meet the press with chuck todd where he said he would grant citizenship to illegal aliens with criminal convictions.

the first point i made about immigration is a fact. it is his own record, his own words. the second observation is in florida, he supported granting in-state tuition to illegal aliens. that is a fact. there's no gray area, no interpretation, it is a egislative fact. the third point i made, is marco went on univision in spanish and said on his first day in office, he would not resend president obama's illegal ads. he said this on national television. this bizarre notion that words said on national television don't exist.

marco's response was exactly the same -- to yell liar, liar i'm a iar. indeed, to respond how would ted know what i said on univision, he doesn't even speak spanish. as the debate demonstrated, that was another false thing. but he did not answer the substance of anything i aid. the fact were true and ccurate. instead, marco and donald, their strategy is to simply yell liar, liar, liar. i will say it has been even more unfortunate that both donald and marco, in addition to yelling liar when everyone points to their actual record makes true tatements about their policy positions, the second strategy both donald and marco have relied upon is utter

abrications. yesterday, donald trump retweeted his own social media director who claimed senator tom coburn had said i was dishonest. i understand this amplified the attack donald is making. he's been screaming liar anytime someone points to his own record, so it was great to be able to point to someone else someone saying the same thing. there's just one minor detail -- the quote was a complete fake. within a few hours, tom coburn went on the record and said the quote was a "utter abrication." in response, donald deleted his tweet. his social to me -- a social media director deleted his

tweet. then donald went on a national tv broadcast and repeated the fabrication after he deleted tweet, after tom coburn said it was a utter fabrication, donald sat on national tv repeating things that are simply made up, that have no basis in truth, that are tter fabrications. that is a new level for presidential politics, and i would note the rubio campaign is oing the same thing. they are, right now, in the closing time of a campaign, not focused on a positive policy agenda, not focused on a substantive differentiation between his record in my record, not focused

on any accomplishments that mr. rubio has, but instead, devoting all their energy to screaming liar and focusing on two fabrications -- number one, the fake facebook post that was allegedly put up retracting trey gowdy's post. the facebook post was fake. we did not design it. we had nothing to do with it. yet the rubio campaign has over and over claimed we did. with zero evidence. falsely attributing misconduct to us with no basis whatsoever other than it did he narrative they would like to drive. and secondly, the rubio campaign is talking about the suppose it push polls that have been going out. i have no idea if there have been push polls or not but our campaign has had nothing to do at that.

what is a push poll? a push poll is a poll not onducted to measure public opinion, not conducted to determine where are the candidates in which messages are resonating. as a typical poll. a push poll goes out very widely and designed to push negative messages to reach lots of oters. often, push polls are pushing information that is nasty and false. i don't know whether there have an push polls in this campaign, but i know our campaign had nothing to do with it. and yet, marco, his campaign sent out 500,000 robo calls with a major campaign surrogate of his.

accusing our campaign of being behind the push polls. he was asked today what evidence e had. he had no evidence for that, no basis, whatsoever. it is unfortunate -- his campaign has not gotten the traction he wants. i recognize the rubio campaign is disappointed with the third-place finish in iowa and a fifth-place finish in new ampshire, and the consultants running his campaign have apparently made the decision that they are one hope of doing well is to make false attacks with no basis whatsoever -- i will note the one person we know who has done a push poll is senator marco rubio. when you send 500,000 robo calls , you are not trying to measure public opinion, you're trying to push a message. what message was the rubio campaign trying to push?

that the cruz campaign was unethically driving these push oll. they have no basis for it. it is an entirely made up fabrication. let's be clear -- how do we know it's marco rubio? the call ends with this was paid for by marco rubio for president. that's how someone responds pointing to evidence. ethics matter. when you have donald trump and marco rubio repeatedly putting forth fabrication, just trying to throw mud and attack, i get

that candidates want to tell voters that everyone is dirty and everyone is unethical, but that's not true. their strategy of screaming liar whenever anyone points to their record and relying on fabrications is not indicative of candidates running an honest campaign. with that, i'm happy to answer questions. >> [inaudible] mr. cruz: from the beating of this campaign, we have taken the high road. many of you have been on the road with us for a year. you have seen attack after attack and i do not respond in kind and i'm not going to. i'm not insulting anybody here. i'm responding with simple fact. mr. trump has sent me a

cease-and-desist letter saying stop telling the voters my ecord. that is objectively legally frivolous. i will point to substance, policy and record and say that should be the bread-and-butter of politics. the insults and falsehoods and fabrications have no business in politics. it is incumbent on all less to speak the truth. i cannot change and impact what i do. my record and the record of donald trump, marco rubio any other campaigners. >> [inaudible] that a reality tv show is not the presidency, do you agree with the president? mr. cruz: i think a great many

south carolinians are concerned that donald trump is not prepared to be commander-in-chief. that he does not have the basic judgment and temperament to keep this country safe. as we have seen the rise of radical islamic terrorism, that has become the most important determination the voters must make. when donald trump, at one of the prior debates, evidence he did not know what the nuclear triad was, that is a real problem for someone who wants to be commander-in-chief for someone who has no idea about the basic to defend yourselves from nuclear aggression. likewise, justice scalia up a passing this weekend elevated the stakes of this election, that the people of south carolina are asking a very simple question of who do i

trust to nominate principled constitutionalist supreme court ustices. there's a reason donald trump is attacking this. nobody looking at donald trump's record could believe for a moment that donald would appoint principled, conservative ustices. i'll tell you why i know that. because if you look over the past decades, any time a republican nominate a judge with a proven conservative record on the ench, you had a nasty, not - knockdown drag-out battle. the democrats care about court and will invest all their energy defeating a proven conservative. it is why republican presidents have decided the court didn't matter that much and they would go with a stealth candidate with no record because they are not willing to invest the political capital. the democrats are always willing

to invest everything they have in confirming far left-wing justices. if donald ever became president, we know for a fact he would not invest any political capital in confirming a conservative justice because he's been supporting left-wing democrats, writing them checks, many of whose core missions was reventing conservatives from getting to the court. no one who cares about conservative justices could rite those checks. i would note the stakes -- we are one liberal justice away from losing our fundamental rights, one justice away from losing our religious liberty, one justice away from the second amendment being written out of he bill of rights. for the people of south carolina, a vote for donald trump is a vote to erase the

second amendment from the bill of rights. i would note donald's response for this is to scream liar because that is his response for verything. in this instance, i'm not basing this on a specific statement he has made. he claims he will not, but i am basing it on his lifelong record and reasonable inferences anyone an drop. -- can draw. he says i support the second amendment. he did not support the second amendment when he supported bill clinton's assault weapons ban. but even if you take donald at face value, that he has had a transformation, there is no reason whatsoever to think he would spend the political capital needed to appoint a onservative. which means the only reasonable inference is donald would go for

the stealth candidates other republican candidates have and they have turned out to be disasters on the court over and over and over. >> you mentioned ethics, but donald trump has called yours into question. inaudible] >> that's a result of the fact that both of those campaigns, the only thing they can do is engage in insulting attacks. with regard to iowa, a national cable news network reported on television that carson was uspending campaigning. let's be clear -- that is what they said on television. their national anchors set it was highly significant and ighly unusual.

their defense is they point to a tweet from an individual reporter that day which was to he contrary. no offense to the many good reporters here, but on election day, our campaign was not sitting with bated breath following every campaign. we did have the television on and that is what we were watching was the tv news roadcasting. nobody saw this tweet from the reporter that in the aftermath, the news network's relying on to say they corrected the record. what we saw is what they put on tv and here's the important piece. what that network reported was true and accurate. in fact, mr. carson did not go on to south carolina, he went home to florida.

the first public event he did in either south carolina or new hampshire was the day before the new hampshire primaries. what they reported was true and accurate, and passing on a public news report that is true and accurate is not remotely unethical. i would note that it is particularly rich that the rubio campaign is attacking us on this, given there have been public reports the rubio campaign was doing the exact same thing. it was not unethical for the ubio campaign anymore than staffers on my campaign. all of this is the product of candidates who don't want to talk about their own records. if you are a republican

candidate and you have a liberal record, if you're record does not match the platform you are running on for president, the last thing you want to talk about is your own record. what you do instead is try to change the topic and engage in insults and attacks. you try to go to the mud and make it personal because actually talking about the record is precisely what you don't want to do. or example, one of mr. rubio's supporters was asked on a tv news program to name anything he has accomplished and he could not do so. part of the reason he could not do so is because he did not want to answer truthfully the biggest accomplishment he has had is passing the rubio-schumer amnesty bill through the senate. ot even close. dwarfs everything else he has done. i would note the biggest accomplishment i have had in the

senate is defeating the rubio-schumer amnesty bill in the house and preventing it from passing into law. i understand why his surrogates do not want to talk about hat. his record of joining with barack obama and pushing for amnesty is inconsistent with what they are saying on the record and on the campaign. but, campaigns ought to be about issues and substance and records and that is what our campaign has been about. >> [inaudible] would you vote to confirm him? mr. cruz: i would not. i have been very clear that the senate should not confirm any nominee in a lame-duck session. it has been 80 years since the senate confirmed a supreme court nominee nominated during an election year. particularly when the court

hangs in the balance, it makes no sense whatsoever to give barack obama the power to jam through a judge in the final election year. voting for a candidate for the d.c. circuit is very different from confirming someone to the .s. supreme court. and i believe we should make 2016 a referendum on the supreme court. if the democrats want to jam in a liberal activist to undermine the second amendment and take away our religious liberties, we should make that an issue for the american people. in just a few months, the american people are going to get to vote and i will tell you, i cannot wait to stand on that debate stage with hillary clinton or bernie sanders and make the case that their vision of the constitution is fundamentally inconsistent with the vision of the american people.

>> [inaudible] mr. cruz: those are the president's talking points. i understand their standard -- no, no, no. that is only republican nominees. we should not confirm a justice during election year, particularly with a lawless president who has undermined the constitution at every stage and we had an election, let the people decide. that ought to be something folks in the press would stand for. letting the people decide. the people decided in 2014 they wanted a republican senate because of the lawlessness of president obama. elections have consequences. e have a republican senate and any republican senate would be foolish to confirm a left-wing democratic nominee in an election year which has not happened for a

nomination made in an election year in 80 years and now is no time to start. this rsday ahead of weekend's south carolina republican primary, c-span's road to the white house coverage continues with jeb bush at a town hall in columbia, south carolina. see it live starting at 11: 45 a.m. eastern on c-span. kasich io governor john holds a town hall in clemson, south carolina. 2:00 p.m. eastern also here on c-span. >> during campaign 2016 c-span takes you on the road to the

white house as we follow the candidates on c-span, c-span adio and c-span.org. republican presidential donald strump spoke in walterboro, south carolina. his remarks are about 25 minutes. donald trump: thank you very much. thank you. [applause]