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Donald Trump wants a boycott of Starbucks’ holiday coffee cups

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Welcome to Trail Guide, your daily host through the wilds of the 2016 presidential campaign. It's Monday, Nov. 9, and this is what we're watching:

  • Donald Trump : Skip the Starbucks since the coffee maker skipped "Merry Christmas" on its holiday cups
  • RNC Chairman Reince Priebus laments reporters' scrutiny of Ben Carson
  • Jeb Bush   would kill baby Hitler 
  • League of Conservation Voters throws its support behind  Hillary Rodham Clinton  
  • Fox Business Network and the Wall Street Journal host a presidential debate on Tuesday in Milwaukee;  analyze the candidates  with this Times graphic 

Donald Trump wants coffee drinkers to boycott Starbucks over its holiday cups

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Springfield on Nov. 9, 2015.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Springfield on Nov. 9, 2015.

(Seth Perlman / AP)

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump stopped in Illinois' capital on Monday for a raucous rally where he congratulated himself for strong ratings as host of "Saturday Night Live" and called for a boycott of Starbucks over its holiday cups.

The hourlong event attracted thousands, including fans who wore the TV personality’s face on neckties, hecklers he chided from the stage and those who simply came to see the political theater.

The developer drew loud cheers when he called for a boycott of Starbucks after the coffee company dropped the words “Merry Christmas” from its annual holiday cups.

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John Kasich on the presidency

"This is not 'American Idol.' This is a chance for somebody to grab hold of the United States of America, to rebuild our defense, to balance our budget, to cut taxes."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, during a campaign stop Monday in Chicago

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Jeb Bush: No mercy for baby Hitler

Jeb Bush was unequivocal. Given the chance to go back in time and kill baby Hitler, he’d do it.

“Hell yeah, I would,” Bush told a reporter on a video posted at the Huffington Post.

The question stemmed from one the New York Times Magazine asked its readers. In a poll, a plurality said they would do the same as Jeb Bush.

“No, look,” Bush said. “You gotta step up, man. That would be key.”

It’s hard to imagine a candidate running for president saying they would do otherwise. But Bush cautioned that the dangers of traveling in time to alter history are well established.

“The problem with going back in history and doing that, as we know ... from the series – what was the name of the Michael J. Fox series? – "Back to the Future," it could have a dangerous effect on everything else.”

“But I’d do it,” Bush said. “I mean, Hitler.”

Bernie Sanders has something to say about endorsements

The Vermonter tells CNN there is a reason his colleagues in the Senate are endorsing his rival.

Fox moderators vow to focus on platforms in GOP debate

After the outcry among candidates during the last Republican debate, the moderators for the next forum on Tuesday vowed to focus on issues, not candidate infighting.

Fox Business Network anchors Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo said they will try to help viewers and voters understand the candidates’ platforms.

"My goal is to make myself invisible,” Cavuto told Politico. "That I’m not the issue … that we’re not the issue. The answers to what we’re raising become the issue."

The debate also serves as a chance for the network FBN to gain on rival CNBC, which hosted the debate last month that drew ire from the Republican presidential hopefuls for how moderators approached the candidates.

"CNBC never asked the real questions, never covered the real issues," Fox Business asserted in a recent promotional ad.

Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker will also join Tuesday’s debate panel. The three will question the eight GOP candidates who qualified for the main debate: Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Rand Paul.

During the debate, candidates will be given more time than in past forums to respond to questions and rebut opponents. They will get 90 seconds for an answer and 60 seconds for a rebuttal.

"I don’t think you can be prepared for a comment that may come from one of the candidates that you weren’t expecting. You can’t prepare for a live situation in that regards,” Bartiromo said. "What you can prepare for is ensuring you know the issues, that you’ve got the right questions and you’ve got the right follow up and you know exactly where they stand on the important issues."

League of Conservation Voters moves swiftly to endorse Clinton

The League of Conservation Voters Action Fund usually waits until at least voting has begun to make an endorsement. Not this year.

The group on Monday announced that it has already made up its mind, and is going with Hillary Rodham Clinton. The news comes even as Clinton has not exactly wowed environmental activists this campaign: Her rivals began speaking out against the Keystone XL pipeline while she sidestepped the issue for months. Her clean-energy plan is less aggressive than that of her Democratic competitors. Her position on fracking is vague.

But the League is less concerned with lofty campaign promises than with stopping a GOP nominee who will likely call for scaling back President Obama's landmark climate programs. All the Democrats vow to protect the programs, but the League is most confident Clinton can win.

RNC chair: Media have 'crazy' obession on Ben Carson

A day before the next Republican presidential debate, the party's chairman reignited attacks on the media over what he claimed was overzealous and unwarranted scrutiny of the GOP contenders.

“This is a totally crazy obsession over incredible detail from 30 or 40 years ago,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Monday on NBC's "Today" show in response to the recent media focus on one of the party's leading candidates, Ben Carson.

Last week, Carson questioned the media’s scrutiny of his biography, “Gifted Hands,” and his his since-disputed claim that the U.S. Military Academy at West Point offered him a scholarship, though he never applied. He said reporters’ coverage amounted to a “witch hunt.”

He also claimed that President Obama never received such vetting as a candidate or during his time in the White House.

"There is a desperation on behalf of some to try to find a way to tarnish me," Carson said Friday in a Florida news conference.

Priebus also accused journalists of lopsided coverage of democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“We wish the media would be just as obsessed or half as obsessed with Hillary Clinton’s lies of many years,” he said.

Regarding the presidential debates, Priebus said the RNC welcomes questions but wants moderators to be fair.

On Oct. 30, the RNC suspended its partnership with NBC News after claiming that the moderators at the Oct. 28 GOP debate on CNBC asked questions to “spark infighting,” among the candidates, Priebus said. NBC was scheduled to host a Feb. 26 debate.

As for the future of GOP debates on NBC, CNBC's parent network, Priebus said NBC must face consequences after the mediators’ performance in the debate two weeks ago.

Bernie Sanders in Vegas

Bernie Sanders took his Democratic presidential campaign to the racially diverse outskirts of Las Vegas on Sunday, telling a large crowd gathered at a soccer stadium in North Las Vegas about the struggles of his immigrant father and pledging to dismantle what he termed "the excessively wasteful $18-million deportation regime."

In a speech that appeared tailored to Latino residents on the city’s northeast side, Sanders vowed to stop large-scale deportations and close privately owned immigrant detention centers. He was introduced by two young Latino activists — one of whom told the story of her father’s deportation — as well as a 10-piece mariachi band.

On Monday, Sanders will speak at a national gathering of immigration activists.

Sanders' explicit appeals to Nevada’s growing Latino electorate are not accidental.

The senator from Vermont would need to capture large numbers of Latino and African American votes to best Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton in Nevada’s Feb. 20 caucus.

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Sound bite of the weekend -- Ben Carson edition

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks during the Black Republican Caucus of South Florida event in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. on Nov. 6, 2015.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks during the Black Republican Caucus of South Florida event in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. on Nov. 6, 2015.

(Alan Diaz / AP)
I'm getting special scrutiny. Because, you know, there are a lot of people very threatened … they're worried. There is no question about it.
Ben Carson, a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, talking about the controversy surrounding elements of his biography.

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