Category: USA

The decision is set to significantly reshape the Republican field just seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses, notably strengthening the organizational power of the Indian-origin leader….reports Asian Lite News

The influential network associated with billionaire Charles Koch has announced the endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley in the GOP primary, CNN reported.

The decision is expected to dramatically reshape the Republican field – roughly seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses – as the support will substantially increase the organisational strength of the Indian-origin leader.

Americans for Prosperity Action will be throwing its weight by deploying vast resources and a standing army of conservative activists on behalf of the former South Carolina governor, according to CNN.

The endorsement marks the latest sign that powerful Republican donors are coalescing behind the candidacy of the former US ambassador to the United Nations. She has seen prominent figures join her campaign in recent weeks, particularly after South Carolina Senator Tim Scott exited the race

Earlier this year, AFP Action – a political arm of Koch’s network – pledged to back a single contender in the GOP presidential primary for the first time in its history.

“When we announced our decision to engage in our first ever Republican presidential primary, we made it clear that we’d be looking for a candidate who can turn the page on our political dysfunction – and win. It’s clear that candidate is Nikki Haley,” Siedel said Tuesday.

“We can’t keep looking to the politicians of the past to fix the problems of today. Nikki Haley represents a new generation of leadership and offers a bold, positive vision for our future. AFP Action is proud to be endorsing her and we will be doing everything we can to help make her the next President of the United States,” CNN quoted Siedel as saying.

Seidel did not disclose a budget on behalf of Haley, but the network has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in previous election cycles, rivalling the financial might of the Republican National Committee.

“AFP Action’s members know that there is too much at stake in this election to sit on the sidelines. This is a choice between freedom and socialism, individual liberty and big government, fiscal responsibility and spiralling debt. We have a country to save, and I’m grateful to have AFP Action by our side,” Haley said in a statement to CNN.

The effort will begin with a multimillion-dollar ad campaign in support of Haley launching this week in all early and several Super Tuesday states, and the group touted its data capabilities – including a contact database with millions of voters – and its extensive grassroots reach.

In addition to attempting to stir doubts about Trump among the GOP faithful, network officials have said part of their 2024 strategy is to bring a broader range of voters – those who reliably vote in general elections but not Republican primaries – into the GOP primary process to help alter the outcome of early contests.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to be the frontrunner in Republican primaries in both national and early state polling, with Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis each jockeying to emerge as the main Trump alternative, according to CNN.

During his White House tenure, Trump often sparred with Koch officials, who sharply criticized his administration’s trade and hardline immigration policies. But the network supported the Trump administration on other priorities, including a tax cut bill he signed into law in late 2017 and a criminal justice overhaul. The network also backed his nominees to the US Supreme Court. (ANI)

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Trump said that the threats to the judge and his law clerk did not “justify” limiting his constitutional right to defend himself….reports Asian Lite News

Former President Donald Trump pleaded with a New York appeals court to continue to pause the gag order against him in his $250 million civil fraud trial.

Trump said that the threats to the judge and his law clerk did not “justify” limiting his constitutional right to defend himself.

Lawyers for the New York attorney general’s office and the court last week urged the appeals court to reinforce the gag order on Trump following “serious and credible” threats that have inundated Judge Arthur Engoron’s chambers since the trial began in October, media reports said.

Trump’s attorneys filed a plea on Monday before the appeals court — consisting of two judges appointed by Barack Obama and one by Joe Biden — that the former president never threatened the judge or his principal law clerk and he can’t be held responsible for others actions.

They invoked the first amendment of right to free speech arguing Trump had the right to criticize and call out his perception of bias by the judge and his law clerk without retribution. It is “essential” to maintain public confidence in the trial, they argued.

“At base, the disturbing behaviour engaged in by anonymous, third-party actors towards the judge and Principal Law Clerk publicly presiding over an extremely polarizing and high-profile trial merits appropriate security measures,” Trump’s attorneys wrote as reported by CNN.

“However, it does not justify the wholesale abrogation of Petitioners’ First Amendment rights in a proceeding of immense stakes to Petitioners, which has been compromised by the introduction of partisan bias on the bench, ” the report quoted Trump’s legal team as saying.

Monday’s filing is the first in a series of hundreds of messages harassing Judge Engoron and a law clerk that were made public last week. Engoron’s clerk has received 20-30 calls per day to her personal cell phone and 30-50 messages daily on social media platforms and two personal email addresses, according to court papers.

A New York appeals court judge had earlier this month temporarily lifted the gag order imposed on Trump and his attorneys that blocked them from making public statements about the judge’s staff, specifically the principal law clerk who he consults with on the bench.

Trump and his lawyers have argued that the law clerk is biased against Trump based on political donations she made to some organizations that support the New York attorney general, Letitia James who sued Trump for $250 million for punitive damages in the civil fraud trials case.

They alleged she was “co-judging” the case based on frequent consultations she had with the judge.

The appeals court judge then ruled he would lift the gag order to allow a fuller panel of judges to weigh in given the constitutional issues at play, reports said.

The prosecuting lawyers submitted filings last week urging the appeals court to put the gag order back in place saying since it was lifted on November 16 the number of harassing messages increased and half of them the clerk received were anti-Semitic. Trump’s attorneys said Trump can’t be blamed for others’ comments.

“However, none of the contemptible dross reflected in those messages can be attributed to President Trump or his counsel. Nor have President Trump or his counsel ever made a statement referencing the Principal Law Clerk’s religion, appearance, or private activities,” they told the appeals court.

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Gift said Trump’s pledge “flies in the face of clear polling showing that most Americans, including many Republicans, aren’t interested in ‘repeal and replace'”…reports Asian Lite News

Former US President Donald Trump’s attack on his predecessor Obama’s “healthcare insurance policy” could backfire spectacularly with voters as it is very popular with the urban middle classes in America.

Obamacare or Affordable Care Act (ACA) as it is known, sought to bring down the cost of healthcare for urban middle classes in cities by subsidising the programme taxing the rich.

Trump, the frontrunner in the Republican primaries, in a post on Truth Social criticised former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy, which was established as the ACA in 2010 and offers US citizens discounts on government-sponsored health insurance plans, calling it “out of control”.

“The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare,” Trump wrote.

“I’m seriously looking at alternatives. We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for six years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up,” Trump said.

The hardliner Republican had been consistent in opposing the healthcare policy, pledging to repeal it during his 2016 Presidential campaign. In 2017, a Senate vote to repeal and replace the law failed and in 2021, the Supreme Court rejected Trump administration backed by Republicans to invalidate Obamacare.

According to latest polling by KFF Health Tracking in May 2023, 59 per cent of US adults have a favourable opinion about the policy when it is described as the “Affordable Care Act or Obamacare,” while 40 per cent view the act unfavourably, suggesting Trump could fail to drum up support by attacking it, Newsweek said in an analysis of Trump’s various campaigns for 2024 presidency.

KFF data also shows the proportion of people enrolled in the ACA is high in key battleground states like Georgia and North Carolina. Differing stances on Obamacare could swing voters in the 2024 election, and Thomas Gift, a politics professor at University College London, told Newsweek that Trump will “need swing states to retake the White House”.

Reacting to Trump’s post on Truth Social, President Joe Biden’s campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa suggested the Biden administration may focus on Obamacare as part of the re-election campaign.

He said on X: “Donald Trump is right back to talking about repealing the Affordable Care Act.”

In a statement issued to Semafor, he said, “40 million people — more than one in 10 Americans — have health insurance today because of the Affordable Care Act and Trump wants to rip it away if he returns to power.”

“He was one vote away from getting it done when he was president — and we should take him at his word that he’ll try to do it again.”

It is notable that while Trump used the term “Obamacare,” Moussa’s response used the term “Affordable Care Act”. Polling has indicated that favourability depends to some extent on which term is used, even though they refer to exactly the same policy, reports said.

For example, a poll by Gallup in 2013 found that when respondents were asked if they favoured the ACA, with no mention of Obamacare, 45 per cent approved of it and 49 per cent disapproved. Asked if they favoured Obamacare, with no mention of the ACA, 38 per cent approved of it and 54 per cent disapproved.

Robert Shrum, a former Democrat political consultant and professor of political science, wanted Democrats to protect “Obamacare from renewed Trump’s pledge to repeal it” and said it’s one of the factors that will drive the 2024 presidential election.

Gift said Trump’s pledge “flies in the face of clear polling showing that most Americans, including many Republicans, aren’t interested in ‘repeal and replace'”.

The former President seems to have warped himself into a time machine back to 2012 where that was a smart Republican talking point. No longer. Especially if Trump is trying to set himself up for the general election — and he should, given his near lock on the GOP nomination — it’s an odd pivot for a candidate who’s going to need swing votes to retake the White House, Gift was quoted as saying.

Re-litigating Obamacare only appeals to a small sliver of the hard right who Trump already has in his back pocket.

According to the latest figures this year, more than 40 million Americans rely on the ACA.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden vowed to expand and strengthen it. In 2021, he signed two executive orders aimed at restoring healthcare policies that were weakened during the Trump administration regarding the ACA, Medicaid and protections to women’s reproductive health.

Earlier this month, he celebrated the number of Americans enrolling for ACA plans.

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