The Latest: Buttigieg says he'd loosen family planning funds
Columbia Basin Herald | UPDATED 4 years, 11 months AGO
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Latest on the 2020 presidential campaign (all times local):
12:15 p.m.
Pete Buttigieg says he’d immediately reverse restrictions on family planning funds for Planned Parenthood and would seek to overturn a federal ban on funding for abortion.
The former South Bend, Indiana mayor told Planned Parenthood supporters outside Las Vegas on Sunday that his health care plan would “support, reimburse and fund” abortion and family planning.
He says a growing number of state laws that target abortion providers are making it harder for poor women, people of color and those in rural areas to get health care.
Buttigieg also says the federal government should pay for needle exchange programs that give intravenous drug users clean needles to prevent the spread of diseases like HIV. He says too often, aggressive law enforcement hampers progress by public health authorities who try to limit the spread of diseases among drug users.
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9:15 a.m.
South Carolina’s leading congressional Democrat says he’s carefully watching efforts by several campaigns aiming to cut into former Vice President Joe Biden’s support in the state.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn told CNN on Sunday that California climate activist and billionaire Tom Steyer, who has been campaigning heavily to black voters, is doing “an incredible job.” Clyburn says Steyer has money and it “makes a difference.”
Clyburn also said former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg “is doing very good.”
Clyburn, who had previously said Buttigieg may have trouble with older black voters because he is gay, said Sunday, “We mature. And I think their political calculations are changing quite a bit.”
Clyburn‘s grandson is working for Buttigieg‘s South Carolina campaign.
Biden has led polling in the state, the first to feature a heavily black electorate. But recent surveys show his support in that demographic falling nationally.
Asked directly if South Carolina is Biden’s “firewall,” where success or failure could make or break his campaign in the states that follow, Clyburn said, “Well, I don’t know. We will see.”
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7:45 a.m.
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg says he’s proud of his marriage and his husband. He was addressing comments from conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh about whether voters would elect him because he’s been “kissing his husband” on stage after debates.
Buttigieg says America should have politics that welcomes everybody and that “I’m not going to be lectured on family values from the like of Rush Limbaugh, or anybody who supports Donald J. Trump as the moral as well as the political leader of the United States.”
Limbaugh said this past week that he envisioned Democrats concluding that “despite all the great ground that’s been covered, that America’s still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage president.”
Buttigieg said he came out as gay during a general election as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and received more support from voters than he did in his first race.
Buttigieg spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union’’ and ”Fox News Sunday.’’ He noted that while he loves his husband, that on stage, “we usually just go for a hug.”
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7:30 a.m.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar says her Democratic presidential campaign has raised $12 million over the past week, citing greater voter interest after her performance in New Hampshire.
The Minnesota senator tells ABC’s “This Week” that she is benefiting from a surge of people who have discovered her campaign after the New Hampshire debate on Feb. 7 and a better-than-expected third-place finish in the state’s primary.
She's billing the fundraising support as momentum that will allow her to be competitive on the airwaves heading into the Nevada caucus and Super Tuesday contests in early March.
Klobuchar says when she announced her candidacy, many people counted her out, but as voters get to know her, they relate to what her campaign is focused on. She says that campaign message is about “bringing back decency to the White House, and most importantly, having a president that can actually put herself in the shoes of other people in this country.”