Scott Detrow

Former Vice President Joe Biden is defending his record on Social Security, amid increased criticism from the campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, which has repeatedly pointed to Biden's willingness as a U.S. senator to back spending freezes for Social Security and other entitlement programs.

The candidates' back-and-forth culminated — as most disputes in modern presidential campaigns do — in dueling Twitter posts Tuesday night.

How confident are Iowa Democrats in their choices, now two weeks out from the caucuses?

The response Renee Kleinpeter gave NPR when asked which candidates she has narrowed her choice down to could sum it up: four seconds of laughter.

"I'll go with anybody who could beat [President] Trump," she said after laughing. "I wish somebody could tell me."

Updated at 5:11 p.m. ET

Leading Democratic presidential candidates on Tuesday blasted President Trump's decision to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, casting it as a dangerous escalation in a volatile region.

Former Vice President Joe Biden delivered a speech in New York City in which he labeled the deadly strike as the latest in a series of "dangerously incompetent" steps taken by Trump.

Just days after ending his campaign for president, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro is endorsing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

The two will hold a rally together Tuesday evening in Brooklyn.

Updated at 2:06 p.m. ET

A three-month window that began with a heart attack ended as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' strongest fundraising quarter yet.

Sanders' campaign announced it raised $34.5 million in October, November and December — nearly $10 million more than he had raised in the previous quarter. According to the campaign, $18 million came in from 900,000 individual donations in December alone, as Sanders drew larger and larger crowds to rallies in early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire.

Updated at 10:05 a.m. ET

The former law professor in the 2020 field is the only presidential candidate to earn an A in a new scorecard, released on Wednesday by the grassroots progressive group Indivisible.

Updated at 3:25 p.m. ET

California Sen. Kamala Harris is dropping out of the presidential race, citing a lack of funds. She informed her campaign staff of the decision on a conference call and later sent an email to supporters, in which she wrote "my campaign for president simply doesn't have the financial resources we need to continue."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is making a last-minute entry into the crowded Democratic presidential primary.

A source with direct knowledge of his decision tells NPR that Patrick has been making calls to Massachusetts and national elected officials and supporters to brief them on his plans and that he plans to formally enter the race as soon as Wednesday night.

Patrick's decision is about as last minute as it gets for a candidate who still wants to compete in the key early primary states: New Hampshire's filing deadline is Friday.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been calling for President Trump's impeachment since the spring. California Sen. Kamala Harris wasn't too far behind her. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker's been pushing for it for months.

In fact, all six U.S. senators still running for president are backing the House's impeachment inquiry.

But now that the lawmakers may be getting what they want, many political operatives see it as a train wreck for their presidential campaigns.

Former Vice President Joe Biden appears to be ramping up his attacks on President Trump. Notably, he's also ramping up his defense of his own dealings in Ukraine.

Updated at 3:43 p.m. ET

Former Vice President Joe Biden called for President Trump's impeachment unless the White House complies with congressional requests for information about a call the president made to a Ukrainian leader.

"We have a president who believes there is no limit to his power," Biden said. "We have a president who believes he can do anything and get away with it. We have a president who believes he is above the law."

Updated at 1:50 p.m. ET

Friends, family, reporters and politicians gathered Saturday in downtown Washington, D.C., to remember journalist Cokie Roberts.

She was hailed as a "servant" of God and referred to as a "special singular soul" by those who delivered remarks.

Roberts died Tuesday at age 75 of complications from breast cancer. She had covered and commented on politics for NPR since 1978 and spent decades working for ABC News as well, including several years co-hosting the Sunday morning political show This Week.

Former Vice President Joe Biden plays up his Pennsylvania roots as much as anything and has heavily courted organized labor in his presidential campaign, but a key union in Biden's backyard is feeling neglected by the leading Democratic candidate.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are campaigning on "big structural change" and "political revolution." Former Vice President Joe Biden thinks voters will weigh the "soul of America" as they decide whom to support.

Sen. Kamala Harris is making a different bet.

The California senator's campaign is increasingly focused on economic challenges that, as she framed it at the Iowa State Fair this weekend, wake voters up in the middle of the night.

Before the first presidential debate last month, former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign signaled that he expected to be attacked by the candidates trailing him in the polls but that Biden would essentially ignore all incoming fire.

It was a classic front-runner approach. And it was punctured, hard and fast, by California Sen. Kamala Harris' attack on Biden's past opposition to federal busing policies.

Updated at 3:00 p.m. ET

President Trump has made undoing the Obama Administration's foreign policy record one of his top priorities. So it's no surprise that former Vice President Joe Biden — who played a key role in implementing now-abandoned agreements like the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, sees Trump's foreign policy as a disaster.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren spent most of the spring as the Democratic presidential hopeful on the rise.

Her poll numbers steadily ticked up, as she carved out a spot as a policy-focused candidate whose weekly plan rollouts set much of the broader campaign agenda.

The momentum translated to fundraising. Warren took in $19.1 million in April, May and June — more than three times what her campaign raised during the first quarter of 2019, according to her campaign Monday.

One of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders's most animated moments in Thursday night's Democratic debate came after California Rep. Eric Swalwell urged voters to "pass the torch" to a new generation of leaders.

Swalwell's critique was aimed at former Vice President Joe Biden. But despite the fact that Sanders has been increasingly critical of Biden's policy positions, the independent Senator tried to rush to his fellow septuagenarian's defense. "As part of Joe's generation, let me respond," he urged the moderators in the middle of a candidate free-for-all.

Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET Thursday

A former vice president, four senators, a representative, a former governor, a mayor and a pair of entrepreneurs walk onto a stage ... where 10 other candidates tried to get their messages across to voters on Wednesday night.

Millions of television viewers are getting their first extended look at the historically sprawling Democratic primary field over two nights in Miami this week.

Updated at 6:30 p.m. ET

The day after former Vice President Joe Biden recalled his "civil" and productive working relationships decades ago with two longtime segregationist and racist fellow lawmakers, fellow Democrats are pouncing.

At a New York City fundraiser Tuesday night, Biden told donors he has reached across the aisle throughout his career. "I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland," Biden said, according to a pool report. "He never called me 'boy'; he always called me 'son.' "

What will the first Democratic presidential debates look like at the end of this month?

We got our first glimpse Saturday in San Francisco.

First, we saw the visual of candidate after candidate — 11 in all, with 3 more to come Sunday — parading across the stage at the California Democratic Party's annual convention.

This weekend, 14 presidential candidates will converge on San Francisco for the California Democratic Party's annual convention.

It will be the largest gathering of presidential contenders so far, and the latest sign that California's days of bringing up the rear of the presidential primary calendar are long gone.

The past few presidential campaigns, environmental activists have "been left begging for there to be a single question at a campaign debate about climate change," longtime climate change activist and author Bill McKibben recently told NPR.

Updated at 6:05 p.m. ET

Eight Democratic presidential candidates faced the same basic question today in Houston: Why should women of color vote for them?

The first-ever She The People Presidential Forum — organized by and centered on questions from women of color — served as a repeated reminder of the key role that minority women play in Democratic politics.