Donald Trump and his lawyers repeatedly clashed with the judge both inside and outside the courtroom.
A New York judge has ordered Donald Trump to pay a fine of nearly $355 million in a civil fraud case.
The bombshell ruling from Justice Arthur Engoron came on Friday after a civil trial in New York that was filled with drama, the BBC reported.
Trump and his lawyers repeatedly clashed with the judge both inside and outside the courtroom.
The former US President has also been banned from doing business in New York for the next three years.
The ruling stems from fraudulent business practices used by the Trump Organization to secure favourable loans.
Trump and his two sons — Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump — were found to have massively inflated the value of their properties by hundreds of millions of dollars to get better loans, the British news broadcaster reported.
Trump Jr and Eric Trump have been fined $4 million each. They have been also banned from doing business in New York for the next two years.
Trump’s team said that they will appeal the ruling, which the Trump Organization called a “gross miscarriage of justice”.
Even as the race lacked the usual suspense due to Trump’s dominant presence, his win in Nevada appeared almost predetermined….reports Asian Lite News
In a decisive triumph, former President Donald J Trump clinched victory in Nevada’s Republican caucuses, a result largely expected given his uncontested status as the sole major candidate on the ballot, The New York Times (NYT) reported.
Trump was declared the winner following the closure of caucus sites, marking his fourth consecutive success in the Republican nominating contests this year.
Even as the race lacked the usual suspense due to Trump’s dominant presence, his win in Nevada appeared almost predetermined. Notably, his primary rival, Nikki Haley, had chosen to forgo the caucuses months ago, participating instead in a primary election on Tuesday as mandated by state law. However, the results of that election showcased a significant preference for “None of These Candidates” over Haley, underscoring a clear rejection by Republican voters, the NYT report added.
Despite her victory in the primary, Haley’s underwhelming performance raised questions about the impact of her candidature. The Nevada Republican Party, led by a staunch Trump ally, had decided to allocate presidential delegates solely based on the caucuses, sidelining the primary results.
Nikki Haley, the first Indian-American to be become a member of the United States cabinet, seen with President Donald Trump. (File Photo: White House/IANS)
Trump’s symbolic triumph on Tuesday aligns with the strategic push by his supporters in Nevada, demonstrating his continued influence among Republicans in the state. This victory, though expected, remains a crucial acquisition, allowing Trump to accumulate delegates and build momentum as attention shifts to the upcoming South Carolina primary on February 24, where he faces another challenge from Haley.
The day unfolded with additional wins for Trump, including the US Virgin Islands caucuses, where he secured an overwhelming 73 percent of the vote, overshadowing Haley once again. Throughout, Trump’s campaign urged Haley to exit the race, citing his rising delegate count and commanding lead in polls as evidence of her diminishing chances, according to NYT.
Trump, during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, expressed bewilderment over Haley’s persistence in the race, asserting that it hurts both the party and the country. The ongoing campaign, according to Trump’s team, diverts valuable time and resources that could be better utilised against President Biden, who faces minimal opposition in the Democratic primary.
Despite the limited number of campaign events in Nevada, Trump’s focus remained on November, positioning the state as a battleground. He utilised his speeches to galvanise grassroots support and test messaging aimed at challenging Democrats’ traditional base, particularly the union workforce and Hispanic voters.
While Trump’s attention on issues like immigration and economic achievements appealed to his base, making inroads with Hispanic and Black Americans remains crucial for a potential electoral turnaround in Nevada. Nevertheless, Trump’s enduring popularity among Nevada Republicans, coupled with his past victories in the state, bodes well for his electoral prospects.
The chairman of Nevada’s Republican Party, Michael J McDonald, a fervent Trump ally, faced accusations that the caucus setup favoured Trump. His close ties to Trump and past involvement in baseless claims of voter fraud added to the controversy surrounding the caucus organisation.
The Nevada caucuses, marred by allegations of bias and controversies, culminated in Trump’s expected triumph, solidifying his position as a formidable force within the Republican Party as the focus now shifts to future primary battles, the NYT reported. (ANI)
The ruling is a major blow to Trump’s key defence thus far in the federal election subversion case brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith….reports Asian Lite News
In a major setback to Donald Trump, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the former US President is not immune from prosecution in the January 6 election subversion case, CNN reported.
Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution for alleged crimes he committed during his presidency to reverse the 2020 election results, a federal appeals court said on Tuesday.
The ruling is a major blow to Trump’s key defence thus far in the federal election subversion case brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith.
The former president had argued that the conduct special counsel Jack Smith charged him over was “part of his official duties as president and therefore shield him from criminal liability”.
“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defences of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution,” the court stated.
The ruling from the three-judge panel was unanimous. The three-judge panel who issued the ruling Tuesday includes two judges, J Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, who were appointed by Joe Biden and one, Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was appointed by George HW Bush, as reported by CNN.
However, Trump’s team could appeal the ruling directly to the US Supreme Court, or first ask for ‘en banc review’ at the appeals court, meaning the case would be heard again, but this time by the full DC Circuit.
The court stated that if charges are proven, Trump’s efforts to usurp the 2020 presidential election would be an “unprecedented assault on the structure of our government.”
“It would be a striking paradox if the President, who alone is vested with the constitutional duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with impunity,” the ruling stated.
The judges also rejected Trump’s claim that his criminal indictment would have a “chilling effect” on future presidents.
Trump faces four counts from Smith’s election subversion charges, including conspiring to defraud the United States and to obstruct an official proceeding. The former president has pleaded not guilty.
Trump has argued that he was working to “ensure election integrity” as part of his official capacity as president, and therefore he is immune from criminal prosecution for trying to overturn the election results.
His lawyers have also asserted that because Trump was acquitted by the Senate during impeachment proceedings, he is protected by double jeopardy and cannot be charged by the Justice Department for the same conduct.
The district judge overseeing Trump’s criminal case in DC rejected Trump’s immunity arguments in December, writing that being president does not “confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.” Trump quickly appealed that decision to the DC Circuit, which agreed to expedite its review of the matter, CNN reported.
The appeals court found that Trump is not protected from criminal prosecution under the separation of powers clause. (ANI)
Trump has spent more than he has earned through his donations or self-financing schemes….reports T N Ashok
Former President Donald Trump is literally roughing it out in the 2024 presidential race, despite being a front runner for the GOP nomination, as he is facing a cash crunch with legal fees draining him out and as he tries desperately to lock down the Republican nomination spending monies to eliminate Nikki Haley from the competition.
Trump has spent more than he has earned through his donations or self-financing schemes.
As a potential 2024 Trump-Biden general election rematch looms large, President Joe Biden appears money-flush.
Trump’s campaign and super PAC both spent more than they raised in their most recent finance reports, while Biden built up more reserves, media reports claimed.
Campaign finance records filed Wednesday show the main super PAC supporting Trump’s campaign, MAGA Inc., spent more than it raised in the last six months of 2023 – primarily by transferring back $30 million to Save America, the main vehicle for paying the former president’s prodigious legal fees.
Similarly, Trump’s official campaign blew through more cash than it took in over the last three months of the year, NBC reported after perusing the campaign records of both candidates. .
That suggests that Trump’s recent threats to blackball Republican donors who don’t give money to him are about more than just loyalty: He also needs the money, media reports said.
President Biden’s campaign in comparison ended the year with $46 million in cash, far more than the $33 million Trump’s campaign held before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Flash to the Future, the main super PAC backing Biden, held a little bit more in the bank than MAGA Inc., $24 million to $23.3 million, at the end of the year.
Democrats claimed on Wednesday night that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are stockpiling money for campaign purposes, rather than legal fights like Trump, and are in an advantageous position.
“While Donald Trump lights money on fire paying the tab on his various expenses, Team Biden-Harris, powered by grassroots donors, is hard at work talking to the voters who will decide this election and building the campaign infrastructure to win in November,” Biden’s campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo said in a statement.
Though Trump’s legal troubles make him a martyr before his republican supporters , he is also down in cash for the campaigns paying his legal fees through his various outfits. Trump is rallying GOP voters to his cause without a shred of evidence accusing Biden of using the Justice Department to target him and hamstring his campaign.
Trump that way is banking on the allegations he faces as a key part of his strategy to defeat Biden in November. They have also proved to be an aid in fundraising and in dispatching Republican opponents. The day Trump’s mug shot was released in August, following his arrest in the Georgia election interference case, he raised $4.2 million online, according to a fundraising report filed Wednesday by WinRed, the GOP’s main online fundraising platform. It was the most Trump raised online in a single day last year.
Trump hopes his legal woes will energize the GOP faithfuls for the general election and help him to persuade persuadable voters to oust Biden. Trump continues to be a master of small-dollar fundraising. While 18 per cent of Biden’s fourth-quarter haul came from donors who have given the maximum amount to his campaign, only 6 per cent of Trump’s cash came from donors who have given the $6,600 limit, reports said .
That means Trump is well-positioned to go back to the well for more contributions from donors who can still legally give. Spokespeople for Trump and MAGA Inc. did not respond to requests for comment on their campaign finance filings Wednesday night.
Both Trump and Biden have enlarged their operations during the last quarter of the year as they transitioned from the start-up size of nascent campaigns into more robust general election machines. Trump had 78 people on payroll and Biden had 74 people, according to their campaign disclosures.
Inside Trump’s numbers: MAGA Inc., which as a super PAC can legally take in donations of unlimited size, raised $47.8 million from July 1 through Dec. 31, including $10 million in contributions from Timothy Mellon, who has also been a supporter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential ambitions, and more than $5 million from former Trump administration Cabinet official Linda McMahon.
But the super PAC spent 55.4 million over the same period, leaving it with $23.3 million in the bank at the end of the year. The $30 million it spent on transfers to Save America – and, ultimately, Trump’s lawyers – is nearly 50 per cent more than the $20.4 million it paid for ads in the final six months of 2023, according to an NBC News analysis of Wednesday’s campaign finance reports.
Trump’s campaign took in $19.1 million from October through December – less than 60 per cent of the Biden campaign’s $33 million haul – and shelled out $23.6 million.
The campaign spent $97,000 of that for facility rentals and catering at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. But the big-ticket items were $7.6 million for advertising, $3.7 million for legal consulting, $1.7 million apiece for air travel and staging events, and $1.6 million for payroll, according to the NBC News analysis.
Since the disclosures of campaign expenditure cover till the end of last year, it’s rather difficult to know how much Trump has raised and spent in the month. But he has added a series of high-dollar fundraising events to his calendar in recent days, including one this week near his Palm Beach home, and one at his Mar-a-Lago resort next month, according to an invitee.
Inside Biden’s numbers: Without a serious primary challenger, Biden has been able to focus his money on communicating to voters about himself and Trump. Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who is running a long-shot bid for the party’s presidential nomination, lent his campaign $4 million last quarter and raised another $1 million from donors.
Biden spent $19.3 million over the final quarter of the year, with about $12 million of the total going toward making and placing ads. Add to it the $2 million for text message outreach to voters, and communications dominated Biden’s expenditures.
Aside from those costs, his biggest outlays were for payroll and payroll taxes, which amounted to about $3 million combined. As an advantage of incumbency, Biden has been able to coordinate fundraising with his national party throughout the campaign season. The Democratic National Committee recently reported that it had $21 million on hand at the start of this year, and big donors have been piling money into state Democratic Party accounts via the Biden campaign fundraising operation, too.
Because there is a primary campaign on the GOP side, Trump has not been able to use the Republican National Committee — which ended the year with $8 million in the bank — as an arm of his campaign in the same way. The RNC is officially neutral in the primary campaign, although party Chair Ronna McDaniel has recently called on the GOP to unite around Trump, whom she described as the “eventual nominee.”
Out of 150 missile attacks so far on US bases in the Middle East, this is the first time the militants broke through Pentagon’s defence shield killing military personnel….writes T. N. Ashok
Republicans in Congress are pressuring President Joe Biden to “strike back” at Iran to retaliate against the drone attack on Tower 22 in Jordan in which three US troops were killed and over 34 personnel injured.
Out of 150 missile attacks so far on US bases in the Middle East, this is the first time the militants broke through Pentagon’s defence shield killing military personnel.
The Republican response comes a day after the front running 2024 GOP candidate former President Donald Trump criticised Biden’s “foreign policy of weakness and surrender” to Iran, citing the unfreezing of $6 billion of oil revenues of the Islamic state last year as one of the instances.
Trump alleged the funds were being misused for military purposes while Biden asserted there were checks and balances against that.
Even as President Biden and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin vowed to hit back at a time and place of their choosing, an inevitable US response to the attack has raised the spectre of the middle east war escalating further.
Tensions in the region are already growing as the Israel-Hamas war prolongs without any solution to achieving a ceasefire or return of the remaining hostages.
Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday vowed action during an appearance at the Pentagon before a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
“The president and I will not tolerate attacks on US forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the U.S. and our troops,” Austin was quoted by the media as saying.
President Biden has also pledged to respond. But GOP lawmakers are sure to be critical of the president as a rematch of Biden and former President Donald Trump appears imminent in the 2024 election. And nothing less than a direct strike on Iran would appease some Republicans in Congress, says report from US News and World Report.
Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said that the “tragedy was avoidable.”
“For years now Biden has emboldened Iran – sending them billions & tolerating their aggression against our troops,” he posted on social media.
“America must show strength,” Scalise said.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was more direct, mocking Biden: “I am calling on the Biden Administration to strike targets of significance inside Iran, not only as reprisal for the killing of our forces, but as deterrence against future aggression.”
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas talked in a similar vein. “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East,” Cotton said. “Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander-in-chief.”
Senator John Cornyn of Texas originally posted: “Target Tehran” before clarifying that he was not calling on the Biden administration to bomb Iranian civilians.
Trump’s absolute dominance in the Iowa primary, narrow win in New Hampshire, seems to have instilled an aura of invincibility around his primary campaign. …writes TN Ashok
Nikki Haley, the fiercest challenger to ex-president Donald Trump in the GOP 2024 primary, banks on the most unlikeliest of ally, Democrats, who might flip, to vote for her on her home turf South Carolina, to stop Trump’s bull run in the presidential race.
Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador appointed by Trump himself, will try to slow down Trump’s seemingly inevitable march toward the GOP nomination. Haley is banking on a bloc of home state voters she’s never needed to court before, the Democrats, media reports said.
Trump’s absolute dominance in the Iowa primary, narrow win in New Hampshire, seems to have instilled an aura of invincibility around his primary campaign. Haley hopes to pierce that and salvage an sense of viability past South Carolina, and she is planning to expand her coalition beyond anti-Trump Republicans and independent-minded voters – a task that would almost certainly include at least small pockets of Democrats not sold on re-electing President Joe Biden or those willing to switch sides to try to stop Trump from getting the GOP nomination, NBC reported.
The political maths is being made more complicated by the incentive for Biden and Democrats to generate a “monster turnout” after making South Carolina the party’s first sanctioned nominating contest, and there is less evidence of any cross voting in the Palmetto State.
“Democrats do not vote in Republican primaries here, just like Republicans won’t vote in Democratic primaries,” said former South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson. “We tried and tried and tried, I spent money doing it. We found there was not much there.”
Haley says she does not “have to win” her home state of South Carolina but needs “momentum”. In both New Hampshire and Iowa, Haley faced criticism from opponents that she was targeting Democrats to offset her disadvantage with Republican primary voters, an idea her campaign has rejected. Officials have not, however, disputed that they are trying to expand the Republican base.
“The Republican Party has to be a story of addition again, not subtraction. Trump lost races we should have won in 2018, 2020 and 2022,” Haley spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said. “If Republicans want to start winning again, we have to start bringing in new voters, including conservatives, independents and Democrats who are fed up with Joe Biden.”
Some Republicans feel there are still three weeks between the Democrats’ primary on Saturday and the Republicans’ February 24 primary that creates a unique opportunity for Haley to pick up voters who might not ordinarily vote in a GOP primary.
In South Carolina, people can vote to take part in either party’s primary. So if a voter does not cast a ballot in the Democratic primary, Haley’s team will have three weeks to crunch the numbers and come up with a plan to target the exact set of voters who have yet to vote in the state, NBC said.
“Haley should absolutely look to turn out every voter possible in the primary, and with the democratic Presidential Primary being held three weeks prior, there should be ample time to identify those who did not vote in the primary and encourage them to vote in the Republican Primary,” said Alex Stroman, a former executive director of the South Carolina GOP.
He said South Carolina not requiring party registration “gives us the best candidates to win general elections.” Haley needs to juice turnout among those independents, moderates and true Republicans to improve on her results in New Hampshire and launch her into Michigan and then Super Tuesday states,” Stroman said referring to the March 5 round of primaries in 16 states.
Jay Parmley, executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said they have heard from some Democrats planning to vote for Haley. “Yeah, we have heard that is happening. It might be smart for Haley, but it’s stupid for Democrats to vote in the Republican primary,” he said.
“She is just as bad as Donald Trump. My call to Democrats is, ‘If you didn’t vote for her as governor, why you would vote for her as the nominee.?”
“We are doing everything we can to talk to Democrats and get them to vote. Now we have some saying they may vote for Haley to try and stop Trump,” Parmley added. “That’s just stupid’.”
Haley has portrayed herself as the eager beaver politician ready to take head on the establishment in both political parties, an opportunity she has in her home state. Both the Biden and Trump camps have signalled to Haley to drop out so that they can turn their focus to a general election matchup they view as already set. On the night of the New Hampshire primary, Biden said in a statement that it is “now clear” that Trump will win the GOP nomination.
Democratic strategists say they expect many of their party’s voters to cast ballots for Biden on Saturday, making them ineligible to participate in the Republican primary three weeks later. Moreover, there’s little love lost between Haley and Democrats in the state she governed from the political right.
“There is no major effort by Democrats to vote for Nikki Haley. She was not good for us when she was governor. So there’s no need to think she would be good for us as president,” said Clay Middleton, a long-time Democratic operative who is serving as a senior adviser to the Biden campaign in South Carolina.
‘Our goal as a campaign is to make sure that we contact voters and show them, remind them, what the president has done for South Carolinians and for African Americans, in particular, and show that appreciation by voting on February 3.”
Middleton noted that Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and “a slew” of top surrogates have visited the state in recent weeks, a group that includes Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, a South Carolina native, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. Biden spoke at a ‘First in the Nation’ dinner Saturday in Columbia, which highlighted his decision to make South Carolina’s primary the opening contest on the party’s calendar.
Littlejohn leaked the information to two news outlets, deleted the documents from his IRS-assigned laptop before returning it…reports Asian Lute News
The man who stole and leaked former US President Donald Trump’s and thousands of others’ tax records has been sentenced to five years in prison, CNN reported on Tuesday.
It reported that 38-year-old Charles Littlejohn pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized disclosure of income tax returns. According to his plea agreement, he stole Trump’s tax returns along with the tax data of “thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people” while working for a consulting firm with contracts with the Internal Revenue Service.
Littlejohn leaked the information to two news outlets, deleted the documents from his IRS-assigned laptop before returning it and covered the rest of his digital tracks by deleting places where he initially stored the information.
CNN reported that Judge Ana Reyes highlighted the gravity of the crime, saying multiple times that it amounted to an attack against the US and its legal foundation.
“What you did in attacking the sitting president of the United States was an attack on our constitutional democracy,” Reyes said. “We’re talking about someone who…pulled off the biggest heist in IRS history.”
The judge compared Littlejohn’s actions to those of the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, noting that, “your actions were also a threat to our democracy.”
“It engenders the same fear that January 6 does,” Reyes added.
Prosecutors said Littlejohn went through great lengths to steal the tax records undetected, exploiting system loopholes, downloading data to an Apple iPod and uploading the information on a private website he later deleted.
CNN reported that Reyes was also critical of the Justice Department’s decision to only bring one count against Littlejohn.
“The fact that he did what he did and he’s facing one felony count, I have no words for,” the judge said. Prosecutors argued that the one count covers the multitude of Littlejohn’s thefts and leaks.
“A free press and public engagement with the media are critical to any healthy democracy, but stealing and leaking private, personal tax information strips individuals of the legal protection of their most sensitive data,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing recommending Littlejohn be sentenced to the maximum of five years in prison.
“I acted out of a sincere misguided belief,” Littlejohn said in court Monday, adding that he was serving the country and that people had a right to the tax information.
“We as a country make the best decisions when we are all properly informed,” Littlejohn said, CNN reported.
Littlejohn added that he was “aware of the potential consequences” of his actions and knew he would one day be here, in federal court, facing those consequences.
“My actions undermine the fragile faith,” in government institutions in the US, Littlejohn said. (ANI)
The resolution by had been expected to be discussed at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting in Las Vegas next week…reports Asian Lite News
The Republican National Committee has pulled a resolution to consider declaring Donald Trump the party’s “presumptive 2024 nominee” before he formally clinches the requisite number of delegates, a person familiar with the decision said Thursday.
News of the withdrawal came shortly after Trump posted on his Truth Social site that, while he “greatly” appreciated the notion, he felt, “for the sake of PARTY UNITY, that they should NOT go forward with this plan, but that I should do it the ‘Old Fashioned’ way, and finish the process off AT THE BALLOT BOX.”
The measure, according to a draft obtained, had said it “declares President Trump as our presumptive 2024 nominee for the office of President of the United States and from this moment forward moves into full general election mode welcoming supporters of all candidates as valued members of Team Trump 2024.”
The withdrawal was confirmed by a person familiar with the decision who was not authorized to publicly discuss the proposal and spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday night.
If approved, the measure would have further solidified Trump’s control of the party and its operation at a time when former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is still competing against Trump for the GOP nomination.
Nikki Haley, the first Indian-American to be become a member of the United States cabinet, seen with President Donald Trump. (File Photo: White House/IANS)
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel had earlier signaled her approval for the resolution. On Tuesday, after Haley finished second to Trump in New Hampshire, McDaniel said that while she felt the former ambassador had “run a great campaign,” Republicans “need to unite around our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump.”
The resolution had been expected to be discussed at the RNC’s winter meeting in Las Vegas next week, even though only two states have voted and the former president had nowhere near the requisite number of delegates to secure the nomination.
Haley’s camp said Thursday that it wasn’t up to the RNC to decide who the GOP nominee would be.
“Who cares what the RNC says? We’ll let millions of Republican voters across the country decide who should be our party’s nominee, not a bunch of Washington insiders,” said campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas.
The AP has a policy to not refer to any candidate as the “presumptive nominee” until he or she has captured the number of delegates needed to win a majority vote at the national party conventions this summer. The earliest that could happen is March.
But there were no party rules prohibiting the RNC from making such a move. If it had been adopted, it could have given the Republican Party a jump-start on planning a general election matchup with Democratic President Joe Biden, who has begun framing his reelection campaign as a 2020 rematch against Trump.
There was also precedent for the committee to declare a candidate the presumptive nominee before winning the 1,215 requisite delegates to clinch the nomination. Then-RNC Chair Reince Priebus did so with Trump in May 2016.
Despite losing both the Iowa and New Hampshire contests to Trump, Haley has argued that her performance — outlasting all the other Trump rivals — shows the strength of her candidacy.
Trump currently has 32 delegates to Haley’s 17. There is one delegate left to be assigned after the New Hampshire contest.
During a rally Wednesday night in her home state of South Carolina, Haley — the former governor — noted that her campaign had brought in more than $1 million since her second-place finish in New Hampshire. Trump followed up with a remark that appeared aimed at intimidating her donors.
“Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp,” Trump wrote, using the nickname he has crafted for Haley and the abbreviation for his “Make America Great Again” slogan. “We don’t want them, and will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL!”
Haley’s campaign said Thursday that it raised an additional $1.2 million “after Trump’s unhinged pledge to ‘permanently bar’ any individual who contributed to Haley’s campaign.”
“Donald Trump’s threats highlight the stark choice in this election: personal vendettas or real conservative leadership,” said Haley spokesperson AnnMarie Graham-Barnes. “Trump’s scheme blew up in his face. The contributions to the Haley campaign are pouring in — proof that people are sick of the drama and are rallying behind Nikki’s vision for a strong and proud America.”
Trump’s dismissal of any Haley donors had no effect on T.J. Petrizzo, a former top Capitol Hill staffer and now lobbyist who supports Haley.
“That’s something out of a ‘Godfather’ movie. Never betray the family? Come on,” he added. “You’ve got to play this through.”
Petrizzo said he understands that some Republicans may be ready to pivot to a head-to-head contest between Trump and Biden, but he notes that there is a lot of time left before a general election.
“I’ve heard a lot of elected officials in the Republican Party, including the RNC chair, say, ‘We need to rally around a candidate.’ That this is going to be our candidate. ‘It was chosen by Iowa and New Hampshire, so we must go ahead and rally around Trump,’” Petrizzo said. “Well, there’s 285 days until the election. There’s plenty of time on the clock.”
With vote counting ongoing, it was unclear if Trump had secured the knockout victory to put his sole remaining challenger Nikki Haley out of the contest…reports Asian Lite News
Donald Trump won the key New Hampshire primary Tuesday, moving him ever closer to locking in the Republican presidential nomination and securing an extraordinary White House rematch with Joe Biden.
With vote counting ongoing, it was unclear if Trump had secured the knockout victory to put his sole remaining challenger Nikki Haley out of the contest.
In a speech following the vote, the former UN ambassador during Trump’s frequently chaotic presidency said the race was “far from over” and told supporters that Democrats “want” to run against her former boss.
“They know Trump is the only Republican in the country who Joe Biden can defeat,” Haley, 52, warned.
With strong turnout in the northeastern state, Haley had hoped for a major upset. But US broadcasters quickly projected her defeat as first tallies came in.
Donald Trump was already the runaway leader in national Republican polling, despite two impeachments as president, and four criminal trials hanging over him since leaving office.
While Haley repeatedly questioned the 77-year-old’s mental fitness and warned another Trump presidency would bring “chaos,” polls indicate her efforts in New Hampshire created little more than a speed bump.
“I think it’s a two-person race now between Trump and Biden,” Keith Nahigian, a veteran of six presidential campaigns and former member of Trump’s transition team said.
New Hampshire was markedly more Haley-friendly than states she will subsequently face, should she stay in the race, and continuing into February will be a tough sell without a win or at least a narrow loss.
Her next must-win stop will be her home state South Carolina. Trump won a crushing victory in the first Republican contest in Iowa last week, with Haley a distant third.
What was once a crowded field of 14 candidates narrowed to a one-on-one match-up on Sunday after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out, following his second-place Iowa finish.
No Republican has ever won both opening contests and not ultimately secured the party’s nomination. Donald Trump did little actual campaigning in New Hampshire. However, his message — a mixture of personal grievance and right-wing culture war firing his base — has delivered seemingly insurmountable polling leads.
One of Trump’s complaints has been his false claim that Democrats are allowed to vote in the Republican contest in New Hampshire. However, independents are allowed to vote and Haley had hoped they would revolt against Trump, seeing her as the moderate alternative.
She spent the week hammering the message, backed by polling, that most Americans do not want to see a Trump-Biden rematch. “Nikki Haley’s supporters will surely feel that Tuesday night in New Hampshire was a reasonably good night. But once the relative shine of the Granite State result wears off… all but the most ardent Haley supporters will be looking through a glass darkly,” said Aron Solomon, a political analyst for legal marketing agency Amplify.
New Hampshire Democrats also voted for their standard-bearer Tuesday, defying a national party order to hold the primary later. Biden did not file candidate paperwork after a row between national and state party officials.
Broadcasters projected that Biden won as a “write-in” candidate, even though it was not an official Democratic Party primary following the row. Biden marked the day by campaigning alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in Virginia at a rally for abortion rights.
The Iowa results are just the first in what will be a months-long effort for Trump to secure the GOP nomination a third consecutive time…reports Asian Lite News
Donald Trump won the Iowa caucuses Monday, a crucial victory at the outset of the Republican primary that reinforces the former president’s bond with his party’s voters even as he faces extraordinary legal challenges that could complicate his bid to return to the White House.
The magnitude of Trump’s success is still coming into focus, but the former president’s supporters endured a historic and life-threatening cold snap to participate in caucus meetings that unfolded in schools, churches and community centers across the state.
The results are just the first in what will be a months-long effort for Trump to secure the GOP nomination a third consecutive time. But they send an unmistakable message to the Republican Party that the nomination is Trump’s to lose and crystalize the challenge facing his GOP opponents.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are Trump’s most prominent primary rivals. They are aiming for a second-place finish in Iowa that would give them at least some momentum heading into future races. Both are already pivoting their focus, with Haley poised to compete vigorously in New Hampshire, where she hopes to be more successful with the state’s independent voters heading into the Jan. 23 primary. DeSantis, meanwhile, is heading straight to South Carolina, a conservative stronghold where the Feb. 24 contest could prove pivotal, before then going to New Hampshire.
Iowa is an uneven predictor of who will ultimately lead Republicans into the general election. George W. Bush’s 2000 victory was the last time a Republican candidate won in Iowa and went on to become the party’s standard-bearer.
Trump has spent much of the past year crafting a far more professional organization in Iowa than the relatively haphazard effort he oversaw in 2016, when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz carried the caucuses. His team paid special attention to building a sophisticated digital and data operation to regularly engage with potential supporters and ensure they knew how to participate in the caucuses.
For months, the former president predicated a commanding Iowa victory with a 30- or 40-point blowout that he argued would render the rest of the primary essentially unnecessary. His aides have privately focused on meeting or beating Bob Dole’s nearly 13-point win in 1988, the largest margin of victory ever in a contested Iowa Republican caucus.
The former president campaigned in Iowa sporadically and largely abandoned the state’s tradition of intimate appearances in living rooms and small community venues. He instead relied on larger campaign rallies where he more often listed grievances over the past, most notably his lie that the 2020 election was stolen, rather than articulating a detailed vision of the nation’s future.
The challenges confronting Trump will intensify in the weeks ahead as he balances the demands of a campaign against multiple legal threats. He has said he will return this week to a New York City courtroom where a jury is poised to consider whether he should pay additional damages to a columnist who last year won a $5 million jury award against Trump for sex abuse and defamation. The US Supreme Court is weighing whether states have the ability to block Trump from the ballot for his role in sparking the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol. And he’s facing criminal trials in Washington and Atlanta for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
