Buttigieg Names His Favorite Beatles Song: Campaign Update
Yang Says He Would Pardon Trump: Campaign Update
(Bloomberg) -- The 2020 candidates have been asked a lot of questions over the last year, but there’s always a new one.
At a campaign event at Lincoln High School in Des Moines on Sunday, Pete Buttigieg was asked his favorite Beatles song, and he quickly came up with an answer that managed to keep on message.
“I feel at this time it has to be ‘Come Together,’” he said.
He’s not the only presidential candidate who has favored that song. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, whose exploratory bid for an independent campaign fizzled last year, ordered baristas in Washington to write the phrase on coffee cups during a fiscal dispute in 2012.
No word on which Fab Four song the rest of the field favors, but Bernie Sanders has been known to walk on stage to John Lennon’s “Power to the People.”
Yang Says He Would Pardon Trump (2:26 p.m.)
Picture this: President Andrew Yang declaring the “long, national nightmare over” and pardoning Donald Trump.
On ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday, the Venture for America founder said that he would consider following in the footsteps of Gerald Ford and pardon his predecessor.
“It’s a very, very nasty pattern that developing countries have fallen into where a new president ends up throwing the president before them in jail, and that pattern, unfortunately, makes it very hard for any party to govern sustainably moving forward with a sense of unity among their people,” Yang said.
Ford’s pardon was very unpopular and may have contributed to his loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Of course, Yang might not need to do it. Trump infamously tweeted in 2018 that he has the “absolute right” to pardon himself. And Trump’s lawyers even seemed to back up that idea in a confidential letter to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Warren Volunteers Have Their Own Child Care Plan (12 p.m.)
Elizabeth Warren has a plan for universal child care. Some of her volunteers in Iowa have a plan of their own.
Parents who want to attend caucus night in Iowa City on Monday night can go online to sign up for free child care provided by a group of Warren volunteers.
The sign-up form even provides a link to Warren’s website with a note about her universal child care plan.
The Warren campaign said they appreciated the effort.
“Accessibility and opportunity are important to our campaign, and we do everything we can to make sure everyone who wants to can volunteer and participate on caucus night,” said Warren’s Iowa communications director, Jason Noble.
COMING UP:
Some of the Democratic candidates will debate again in New Hampshire on Feb. 7.
The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses will be held Feb. 3. The New Hampshire primary is Feb. 11. Nevada holds its caucuses on Feb. 22 and South Carolina has a primary on Feb. 29.
CNN will host town halls featuring eight presidential candidates in New Hampshire on Feb. 5 and 6.
(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)
--With assistance from Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Teague Beckwith in Des Moines at rbeckwith3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert
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