Maine removes Trump from 2024 ballot as California declines to act: Live

Maine’s top elections official has disqualified Trump from appearing on the state’s 2024 ballots.

It’s the second state to do so, and his campaign is teeing up an appeal.

Trump also is expected to appeal to the US Supreme Court, after a filing from Colorado’s GOP asked the justices to review the case and reverse a Colorado decision barring Trump from next year’s ballot.

The nation’s highest court could soon consider whether the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination for president is ineligible for the presidency for launching an insurrection, an unprecedented question at the heart of more than a dozen lawsuits across the country.

Donald Trump has shared a graphic naming “revenge” and “dictatorship” as among his biggest goals if he wins the presidency in 2024.

In a poll published on Tuesday, The Daily Mail asked 1,000 American voters to sum up in one word what they thought Mr Trump and Joe Biden wanted from a second term in office.

The top entry in Mr Biden’s word cloud was “nothing”, followed by “economy” and “peace”. But for Mr Trump, it was “revenge” – alongside “power”, “dictatorship”, “America”, and “economy” again.

Mr Trump quickly shared the graphic on his Truth Social page without any further comment, raising the question of whether he endorses such terms.

Apologies if you’ve deliberately been avoiding this story…

Here’s Adam Kinzinger getting very descriptive about it all:

Mr Covington failed to win the welterweight title from Leon Edwards at UFC 296 in Las Vegas on 17 December, after losing on points.

Mike Bedigan has the story.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was asked Wednesday by a New Hampshire voter about the reason for the Civil War, and she didn’t mention slavery in her response — leading the voter to say he was “astonished” by her omission.

Asked during a town hall in Berlin, New Hampshire, what she believed had caused the war — the first shots of which were fired in her home state of South Carolina — Haley talked about the role of government, replying that it involved “the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do.”

She then turned the question back to the man who had asked it, who replied that he was not the one running for president and wished instead to know her answer.

After Haley went into a lengthier explanation about the role of government, individual freedom and capitalism, the questioner seemed to admonish Haley, saying, “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word slavery.”

“What do you want me to say about slavery?” Haley asked, before abruptly moving on to the next question.

Ms Dingell criticized the former president on CNN on Tuesday over Christmas Day messages he made on the Truth Social platform. Mr Trump had claimed that his political opponents “are looking to destroy our once great USA”, adding “may they rot in hell”.

Ms Dingell called Mr Trump’s message “one of the most pathetic Christmas greetings I’ve heard – when a former President of the United States who wants to return tells people on Christmas Day that they can ‘rot in hell’”.

She added that Mr Trump was adding to the “divisiveness” and “division” across the United States.

The former president then began his response by calling her a “LOSER” on Truth Social.

Maine’s GOP has pledged to challenge a decision that finds Donald Trump constutionally ineligible for the presidency.

“We will be taking this to court and will fight to the Supreme Court if necessary,” the group said in a statement.

“And we reserve our right as a private organization to use another system – if that’s what it takes to keep a Democrat Hack Secretary of State from infringing on the Rights of Maine voters.”

On Wednesday, Colorado Republicans appealed that state’s supreme court ruling on Trump’s eligibility to the US Supreme Court.

Plaintiffs in that case have asked the nation’s highest court to expedite a review of the case, which they argued “involves issues of exceptional national importance” and should be quickly resolved ahead of a crucial deadline for ballot preparation ahead of the 5 March primary election.

Prosecutors with the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith have asked the judge overseeing the 2020 election subversion case against Donald Trump to prohibit the ex-president from raising “politicised claims” and “irrelevant issues” when the case goes to trial before a Washington, DC jury next year.

In the 20-page filing submitted before US District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Wednesday, Senior Assistant Special Counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom say that Mr Trump “has made clear his intent to introduce evidence and make arguments that are improper—whether because they have no bearing on his guilt or innocence, are otherwise irrelevant, or are substantially more prejudicial than probative” and ask that such evidence or arguments be excluded from presentation to a jury.

Although the 5 March 2024 start date for Mr Trump’s trial has been stayed while the DC Circuit Court of Appeals considers the ex-president’s appeal of Judge Chutkan’s rejection of his claims of presidential immunity, the prosecutors under Mr Smith have continued filing documents with the court to enable a speedy trial should the stay be lifted.

Maine’s top elections official has disqualified Trump from appearing on the state’s 2024 ballots.

It’s the second state to do so, and his campaign is teeing up an appeal.

Trump also is expected to appeal to the US Supreme Court, after a filing from Colorado’s GOP asked the justices to review the case and reverse a Colorado decision barring Trump from next year’s ballot.

The nation’s highest court could soon consider whether the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination for president is ineligible for the presidency for launching an insurrection, an unprecedented question at the heart of more than a dozen lawsuits across the US

Trump’s campaign and allies in Congress and in media are furious with a decision from Maine’s top elections official to disqualify him from 2024 ballots, a decision based on challenges to his eligibility under Section 3 of the 14th Amendemnt, which bars candidates who engaged in insurrection from running for office.

Third-ranking House Republican Elise Stefanik called the decision “illegal” and “corrupt”. RNC chair Ronna McDaniel called it “election interference”. Donald Trump Jr broadly swiped at “radical leftist/marxists in charge” who “don’t care about rules, decency, decorum, or anything other than power.”

The decision was also opposed by Republican Senator Susan Collins – who was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump of incitement of insurrection during his second impeachment trial.

“Maine voters should decide who wins the election – not a Secretary of State chosen by the Legislature,” she said. “The Secretary of State’s decision would deny thousands of Mainers the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice, and it should be overturned.”