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      Haley wins surprise Vermont victory as Biden and Trump dominate Super Tuesday

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      Joe Biden and Donald Trump largely cruised to easy victories on Super Tuesday. In early results, Biden and Trump captured wins in their respective primaries in California, Virginia, North Carolina, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Colorado and Minnesota. Biden also won the Democratic caucus in Iowa and Vermont, but lost American Samoa, while Nikki Haley won the Republican primary in Vermont – her second victory of 2024.The United States has not witnessed a primary campaign season with so little competitive tension since political primaries began to dominate the nomination process in the 1970s. Neither the current president nor the former president secured the nomination of their respective parties, but both are likely to do so within the next two weeks.Both candidates took shots at each other in statements and speeches on Tuesday evening. Biden said Trump was focused on “revenge and retribution” and “determined to destroy democracy”.“Tonight’s results leave the American people with a clear choice: are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” Biden said.In a victory speech at Mar-a-Lago, Trump praised his wins, stating that “never been anything like this” and again attacked migrants, falsely claiming that US cities are “being overrun by migrant crime”. The former president has frequently derided migrants and made baseless and racist comments that they are dangerous.Biden sweeps, but with warning signsBiden requires 1,968 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. Going into Super Tuesday, he held 206. Primaries and caucuses today offered another 1,420. Assuming Biden continues to sweep through primary contests, the earliest he could secure the nomination on the first ballot would be 19 March with results from Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.Democratic candidates can win delegates with 15% or more of the vote in a congressional district. California’s 424 Democratic delegates were the richest haul of the evening.View image in fullscreenVotes for write-in candidates typically take days to tabulate, but observers have been acutely watching for “uncommitted” or “none of the above” protest votes to register displeasure with the Biden administration’s policy on the Israel-Hamas war. The campaign has gained more ground after a strong showing in Michigan last week.William Galvin, secretary of state for Massachusetts, told reporters today that if enough voters selected “no preference”, a delegate may be assigned to that option.Trump marches on, but party rifts visibleTrump entered Super Tuesday with 273 delegates, requiring 1,215 needed to win the nomination outright at the Republican National Convention. Super Tuesday offered 865 delegates, but Nikki Haley’s continued campaign has prevented Trump from claiming all of them. With tonight’s results, the earliest Trump could secure the nomination is also 19 March with Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.View image in fullscreenTrump gained a late-game reprieve in Colorado when the US supreme court unanimously ruled on Monday that states cannot unilaterally kick a presidential candidate off the ballot using the 14th amendment and was expected to win Colorado.Haley won the District of Columbia primary on Sunday, becoming the first woman to win a Republican presidential primary in history. Only about 2,000 people voted in the primary but she did score her first state win on Tuesday with Vermont.Notable state races hold more upsetsCalifornia voters have been focused on the state’s highly-contested down ballot race to fill the seat held by Dianne Feinstein, the late US senator. California places the top two candidates from the primary in a runoff.Adam Schiff, the centrist Democratic congressman and longtime Trump antagonist, was declared the first place winner. He will face off with Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, in November.But voters in California were unenthusiastic and analysts projected the state could see its lowest voter turnout in history.“I’m not excited about any of the issues, I just needed to take a walk today so I decided to drop off my ballot,” said Daniel, a 50-year-old voter who declined to share his last name.Texas held state and federal legislative primaries Tuesday, presenting Texan voters with a Republican grudge match over state politics. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has been on a revenge tour to punish legislators who voted for his impeachment on corruption allegations last year, issuing a long list of endorsed challengers to incumbents.About half of a slate of endorsed challengers have either claimed victory or are taking incumbents to a runoff, including a challenger to the powerful Texas speaker of the house, Dade Phelan. Late returns suggested Phelan will face Trump-backed challenger David Covey.Four claimed open seats and seven challengers won primaries outright, while seven others will go on to runoffs. One of those runoffs will feature Katrina Pearson, Trump’s former spokeswoman, who is neck-and-neck with Justin Holland, a state representative, in the suburban Dallas district.View image in fullscreenTed Cruz, the US senator, secured the Republican nomination with no major GOP competitors. Democratic representative Colin Allred beat out Roland Gutierrez, who has emerged as a national gun control advocate following the Uvalde shooting, to face Cruz in November.Alabama voters in a newly-redrawn second congressional district pushed Democrats Anthony Daniels and Shomari Figures to a runoff while Republicans Dick Brewbaker and Caroleene Dobson also face a runoff. The US supreme court forced Alabama to redraw its congressional map last year, declaring it a racial gerrymander that illegally diminished the political power of Black voters. As a result, two white Republican congressmen – Jerry Carl and Barry Moore – faced each other for a single seat after their districts were redrawn. Moore beat out incumbent Carl in the first district.More than 6,000 voters in the second district received postcards with incorrect voting information ahead of the primary, which a county official attributed to a software error.Notably Tom Parker, chief justice of Alabama’s supreme court, who issued a religiously-inflected ruling on the personhood of frozen embryos last month, was not on the ballot tonight. Alabama bars judges over the age of 70 from running for re-election; his term ends in 2025. The winner of the Republican nomination to succeed Parker is Sarah Stewart, an associate justice on the Alabama supreme court who was part of the court’s majority ruling on the embryo case.In North Carolina, the Republican state legislature redrew congressional maps last year after winning a majority on the state supreme court. As a result, the current delegation of 14 congresspeople will likely change from a 7-7 split to a 10-4 Republican majority and the most competitive seats have attracted sharp primary contests, particularly the 13th district.North Carolina’s first congressional district in the state’s coastal north-east has historically held a Democratic, mostly-Black majority. Lawmakers redrew it to be much more competitive for a Republican candidate. Representative Don Davis beat the 2022 Republican nominee, businesswoman and perennial candidate Sandy Smith, by four points. Smith this year lost the Republican primary to challenger Laurie Buckhout. .Meanwhile Mark Robinson, the lieutenant governor, has won the Republican nomination for governor, to succeed North Carolina’s term-limited Democratic governor, Roy Cooper. Robinson, North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor, has a history of sexist and inflammatory comments, particularly about Jews.Robinson’s opponent in November will be Democrat Josh Stein, the North Carolina attorney general who would be the state’s first Jewish governor. More

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      Super Tuesday key takeaways: protest vote, low turnout and far-right machinations

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      The sleepy US presidential primary continued on, with more than a dozen states turning out to cast ballots on Super Tuesday.President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump dominated yet again, all but ending the primary season, though some states still have to go to the polls. Voters have stayed home or tuned out, waiting until later in the year to show their enthusiasm.Biden faced his biggest challenge so far from an ongoing protest vote against his stance on the Israel-Gaza war. Trump lost one state to Republican challenger Nikki Haley, whose campaign is on its last legs.Across the states, far-right candidates won in key primaries, setting up a race in North Carolina between a man who has made repeated antisemitic comments and a man who could be the state’s first Jewish governor.Here’s what we learned from Super Tuesday.The protest vote continuesPerhaps the biggest threat to Biden in the Democratic primary is coming from no one – or, rather, from a concerted effort by anti-war Democrats to issue a protest by urging voters to cast ballots for uncommitted or no preference options.The ad hoc organizing came after Michigan’s uncommitted campaign pulled in more than 100,000 votes, a message to Biden that his base in the swing state was at risk. Since then, the Vice-President Kamala Harris called for an immediate, temporary ceasefire, which organizers say needs to be permanent, but is a sign the tactic is working.“They’re feeling the pressure, and we want them to feel that pressure. We want them to know that this is unacceptable,” said Khalid Omar, a Minneapolis uncommitted voter who helped organize the movement there.Several states saw sizable showings for uncommitted: at the time of writing late on Tuesday evening, in Minnesota, about 20% of voters chose “uncommitted”. Massachusetts saw about 9% of votes go to a “no preference” options. In North Carolina, about 12% of voters picked “no preference”.Imam Hassan Jama, a Minneapolis community leader, voted for, campaigned for and endorsed Biden in 2020, but didn’t vote for him on Tuesday because he is disappointed at Biden’s inaction on a ceasefire in Gaza. He instead voted “uncommitted” and worked to get others to do the same.“Hopefully we’ll send a strong message from Minnesota to White House,” he said. “And if they don’t listen, November is coming.”While Biden, his allies and Democratic parties have sought to make the election solely about Trump v Biden, the Biden campaign acknowledged the movement on Tuesday, with campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt telling the New York Times that “the president hears the voters participating in the uncommitted campaigns. He shares their goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace – and he’s working tirelessly to that end.”Other states still waiting to vote are now organizing around uncommitted options, like Washington state, where the largest labor union endorsed the concept. Some states don’t have an uncommitted option or the ability to write in or leave blank.The anti-war movement isn’t going away; the uncommitted drumbeat, as it morphs and grows, keeps the calls for a ceasefire in the headlines, forcing Biden to contend with his biggest liability among Democrats.Biden and Trump is inevitableDespite the hopes of many voters this election year, it’s going to be Trump and Biden redux in November – unless something non-electoral happens, like a prison sentence or health crisis.The insurgent campaign to hold Biden accountable for Gaza is the only hurdle left for the president this primary season: the candidates who tried to oust the incumbent have not gained enough ground to credibly stay in the race.View image in fullscreenTrump and Biden have been acting like it’s the general election already for months, aiming their campaigns at each other mostly rather than on primary contenders. And the contrasts between the two men feel much the same as 2020.In his victory speech at Mar-a-Lago, Trump leaned into nativist comments again, calling the US-Mexico border “the worst invasion” and saying that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”.Biden, meanwhile, said Trump is “driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people” and is “determined to destroy our democracy, rip away fundamental freedoms like the ability for women to make their own healthcare decisions, and pass another round of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy.”What will last candidates standing doSome Super Tuesday states had a couple handfuls of random names on their ballots, despite the lack of competition in both parties’ primaries. Those also-ran candidates with national campaigns need to decide soon whether they’ll stay in the running.Marianne Williamson, the self-help author, previously suspended her campaign, then un-suspended it after a better-than-expected showing in Michigan, but has garnered usually low single digits.Dean Phillips, the Minnesota congressman, lost his home state not only to Biden, but to the uncommitted campaign. Phillips has alluded to a forthcoming exit from the race, pointing out all the people he’s lost to on the campaign trail so far and saying people asking him to drop out could be nicer about it.In the past month, Phillips had to lay off much of his staff after he wasn’t able to fundraise much because he is challenging a sitting president, he said on X in February. He did, however, win his first county, the rural Oklahoma panhandle’s Cimarron county, winning 11 votes out of 21 on Tuesday.On the right, Nikki Haley is the last non-Trump Republican standing. She won Vermont on Super Tuesday, Trump’s only loss that day and Haley’s second victory, after Washington DC. She previously lost her home state of South Carolina. She doesn’t have a path to the nomination anymore, but hasn’t dropped out yet. She may after Tuesday’s results sink in.Haley said many times that she’s not interested in a third-party bid, though Phillips once floated the idea of running with Haley as a “unity ticket”.Dropout announcements could come in the next few days from either side of the ticket.Low turnoutBecause of the lack of competition and lagging enthusiasm for Trump and Biden, voters don’t seem excited to head to the polls this primary season.Turnout has fallen below past races, though in some states, uncommitted campaigns newly energized those voters who might have stayed home.Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon told reporters on Tuesday that a few factors affect turnout.“One is candidates that inspire strong feelings, and the other is perceptions of competitiveness,” he said. “I think it’s safe to say, I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground here, that we have a lot of number one, and not so much of number two.”In California, officials were concerned about low turnout, with few voters saying they believed their vote would be important in this primary.Only about 8% of California’s 22 million voters had returned their mail-in ballots a week before voting day, Politico reported. The numbers fall even more for younger voters between the ages of 18 and 34, a subset that typically boosts progressive candidates and priorities. Only 2% in that age group had turned in their ballots during that same time period.View image in fullscreenBut the lower turnout in the presidential primaries doesn’t tell us anything about what could happen in November’s general election. Presidential general elections bring the highest turnout of any US elections.“Over the last many years, there has been virtually no connection, virtually none, between early in the year primary turnout and general election turnout,” Simon said.Far-right machinations in the statesAn explosive ruling by Alabama’s supreme court last month set off a chain of political reactions across the country, as Republicans fearing a backlash quickly uttered delicately-worded statements praising the virtues of in vitro fertilization while attempting to defend their pro-life political credentials. Lawmakers in several states – including Alabama – began crafting legislation to protect IVF.But Alabama’s Republican voters chose not to closely challenge the abortion politics of their state’s highest jurists on Tuesday. Their chosen successor to Tom Parker, Alabama’s retiring chief justice, is Sarah Stewart, an associate state supreme court justice who voted with the majority in its ruling last month declaring frozen embryos as “children” for purposes of legal protection.In North Carolina, Lt. Gov Mark Robinson captured about two-thirds of the Republican primary vote on Tuesday to win the nomination for governor. If elected, he would be North Carolina’s first Black governor. But Robinson has made a litany of inflammatory public comments about race, gender, sexual orientation and religion, with repeated and particular attacks on Jews. He described the movie Black Panther as “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic Marxists” that was “only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets”.He has compared gay people to “maggots” and – as of Tuesday evening – still has a 2014 Facebook post up quoting Hitler’s comments about having “pride in one’s own race”. His commentary elicits comparisons to EW Jackson in Virginia and more recently Herschel Walker in Georgia, notable as Black conservatives courting the far right with political extremism.Robinson’s opponent in November will be Josh Stein, the North Carolina attorney general. The Democratic nominee would be North Carolina’s first Jewish governor. More

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      Super Tuesday 2024 live: millions of voters head to polls in the US as Haley suggests she could stay in the race

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      Voters in more than a dozen states head to the polls on Tuesday for what is the biggest day of the presidential primaries of the 2024 election cycle.Polls are now open in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia for voters to cast their ballots in the Republican presidential primary on Tuesday. All those states except Alaska are also holding their Democratic primary contests as well. In Iowa, where Democratic caucuses were held by mail since January, the results are expected this evening. (Republicans held their Iowa caucuses in January, when Trump easily won the first voting state.)First polls will close at 7pm Eastern time. Here’s what to expect tonight, so you can plan your evening. Meanwhile, here’s a recap of the latest developments:
      Nikki Haley once again rejected a third-party presidential bid, as she insisted she would stay in the race “as long as we’re competitive”.
      “I don’t know why everybody is so adamant that they have to follow Trump’s lead to get me out of this race. You know, all of these people deserve to vote. Sixteen states want to have their voices heard,” she told Fox News.
      Joe Biden aimed to shore up his standing among Black voters as he warned what would happen if Democrats lose the White House.
      Biden is reportedly eager for a “much more aggressive approach” to the 2024 contest for the White House that would revolve going for Donald Trump’s jugular.”
      Donald Trumphas predicted he will sweep “every state” on Super Tuesday and said he is fully focused on the November election against his presumed opponent, Joe Biden.
      Trump voiced support for the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza, and claimed the Hamas attacks of 7 October on Israel would have never happened if he had been president at the time.
      Taylor Swift has urged her fans to vote on Super Tuesday in a post on her Instagram Story.
      Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming has decided not to run for Senate Republican leader to succeed Mitch McConnell, and instead will run for the No. 2 position of whip.
      Only in the past few years have Democrats known success in Arizona’s Senate races, and Republicans are hoping to undo that in November.In a statement, Montana senator and head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee Steve Daines said Kyrsten Sinema’s decision to bow out will boost the prospects of Kari Lake, who the party is backing for the seat.“An open seat in Arizona creates a unique opportunity for Republicans to build a lasting Senate majority this November. With recent polling showing Kyrsten Sinema pulling far more Republican voters than Democrat voters, her decision to retire improves Kari Lake’s opportunity to flip this seat,” Daines said.Turnout has lagged in Minnesota’s primary compared to previous years, at least so far. About 88,000 people had returned early ballots as of Tuesday morning, out of 200,000 who had received them, the state’s secretary of state, Steve Simon, told reporters.Nationally, many states have seen lower turnout this presidential primary season as Trump and Biden have dominated the nominating contests, leaving voters feeling like their vote won’t play much of a role at this point.“There are at least a couple of factors that explain turnout,” Simon said. “One is candidates that inspire strong feelings, and the other is perceptions of competitiveness. I think it’s safe to say, I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground here, that we have a lot of number one, and not so much of number two.”But the lower turnout in the presidential primaries doesn’t tell us anything about what could happen in November’s general election. Presidential general elections bring the highest turnout of any US elections.“Over the last many years, there has been virtually no connection, virtually none, between early in the year primary turnout and general election turnout,” Simon said.Nationally, many states have seen lower turnout this presidential primary season as Trump and Biden have dominated the nominating contests, leaving voters feeling like their vote won’t play much of a role at this point.“There are at least a couple of factors that explain turnout,” Simon said. “One is candidates that inspire strong feelings, and the other is perceptions of competitiveness. I think it’s safe to say, I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground here, that we have a lot of number one, and not so much of number two.”But the lower turnout in the presidential primaries doesn’t tell us anything about what could happen in November’s general election. Presidential general elections bring the highest turnout of any US elections.“Over the last many years, there has been virtually no connection, virtually none, between early in the year primary turnout and general election turnout,” Simon said.Hello US politics live blog readers, Super Tuesday is all go at the voting booths and the results will start coming in this evening. We’ll be here to bring you all the news and the context, as it happens.Here’s where things stand:
      Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and his wife, Nadine Menendez, have been charged with obstruction of justice in a new, 18-count indictment unsealed on Tuesday related to a years-long bribery scheme linked to Egypt and Qatar.
      Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, ex-Democratic Party and now independent US Senator, has announced she will retire at the end of her term this year. Her exit clears the way for a likely matchup between Republican Kari Lake and Democratic Ruben Gallego in one of the most closely watched 2024 Senate races.
      Nikki Haley, the last rival to Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, once again rejected a third-party presidential bid, as she insisted she would stay in the Republican race “as long as we’re competitive.” She told Fox News on Super Tuesday: “All of these people deserve to vote. Sixteen states want to have their voices heard.”
      Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming has decided not to run for Senate Republican leader to succeed Mitch McConnell, and instead will run for the No. 2 position of whip, according to multiple reports. Barrasso, 71, is relatively popular with the Republican right. He endorsed Donald Trump in January and has the closes relationship with the former president of the “three Johns”.
      Barasso’s decision not to run means the race is now effectively between senators John Thune of South Dakota and John Cornyn of Texas, although Barrasso’s departure could pave the way for another Trump ally to throw their hat in the ring, such as Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who met with Trump on Monday night amid speculation that he could launch a bid for Senate leader.
      Polls are open and voting is under way in some states as millions head to the ballot box on this Super Tuesday, the largest day for voting for both Democrats and Republicans before the November presidential election. Voters involved today are in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. The territory of American Samoa will be caucusing.
      The Guardian US Super Tuesday live blogging team’s Léonie Chao-Fong is now handing over for the rest of the day and evening to Chris Stein and Maanvi Singh.Senator Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, have been charged with obstruction of justice in a new, 18-count indictment unsealed on Tuesday related to a years-long bribery scheme linked to Egypt and Qatar.Menendez has pleaded not guilty to earlier charges of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from businessmen to impede law enforcement probes they faced, and illegally acting as an agent of the Egyptian government.In the new indictment, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Menendez’s former lawyers had told them in meetings last year that Menendez had not been aware of mortgage or car payments that two businessmen had made for his wife, and that he thought the payments were loans, Reuters reported.In countless campaign appearances during his futile pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination, Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, celebrated his state as “the place woke goes to die”.Now, by virtue of a federal appeals court ruling that skewers a centerpiece of his anti-diversity and inclusion agenda, Florida resembles a place where anti-woke legislation goes to die.In a scathing ruling released late on Monday, a three-judge panel of the 11th circuit appeals court in Atlanta blasted DeSantis’s 2022 Stop Woke Act – which banned employers from providing mandatory workplace diversity training, or from teaching that any person is inherently racist or sexist – as “the greatest first amendment sin”.The judges upheld a lower court’s ruling that the law violated employers’ constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression. They were also critical of DeSantis for “exceeding the bounds” of the US constitution by imposing political ideology through legislation.The panel said the state could not be selective by only banning discussion of particular concepts it found “offensive” while allowing others.Donald Trump is seeking a new trial in the defamation case brought by E Jean Carroll, claiming that the judge in the case improperly restricted his testimony.In January, Trump was ordered to pay $83.3m in damages to Carroll for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegation that he raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.Trump’s testimony lasted less than five minutes as the judge in this case, Lewis Kaplan, significantly limited what the ex-president could say in court.In a court filing on Tuesday, Trump’s defense attorneys Alina Habba and John Sauer argued “the Court’s restrictions on President Trump’s testimony were erroneous and prejudicial” because Trump was not allowed to explain “his own mental state” when he made the defamatory statements about Carroll. They continued:
      This Court’s erroneous decision to dramatically limit the scope of President Trump’s testimony almost certainly influenced the jury’s verdict, and thus a new trial is warranted.
      Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent, has announced she will retire at the end of her term this year.“I love Arizona and I am so proud of what we’ve delivered,” she said in a video posted to social media.
      Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year.
      The now independent senator won her seat in 2018 as a Democrat. She was the first non-Republican to win a Senate seat for Arizona since 1994. She’d go on in December 2022 to announce her leave from the Democratic party to become an independent.Her exit clears the way for a likely matchup between Republican Kari Lake and Democratic Ruben Gallego in one of the most closely watched 2024 Senate races.Joe Biden claimed he has been leading in recent public opinion polls not noticed by the media.The president was asked about his message for Democrats who are concerned about his poll numbers as he boarded Air Force One in Hagerstown, Maryland. Biden replied:
      The last five polls I’m winning. Five in a row, five. You guys only look at the New York Times.
      A spokesperson for the Biden campaign did not immediately provide a full list of polls referenced by Biden, the Washington Post reported.Biden was also asked about the chances of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, to which he said:
      It’s in the hands of Hamas right now. Israelis have been cooperating. There’s been a rational offer. We will know in a couple of days what’s gonna happen. We need a ceasefire.
      Although many Democrats have sharply criticized Joe Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza, several primary voters who cast ballots in Arlington, Virginia, said they felt the president has done as much as he can to bring about a ceasefire.“I think he’s been between a rock and hard place,” said John Schuster, 66. “I’m a supporter of the state of Israel, but not of the way Israel has prosecuted the war.”Looking ahead to the general election against Donald Trump, Schuster said:
      I see no reason whatsoever to vote against Biden on that issue [of the war in Gaza] because the alternatives will all be worse.
      Russell Krueger, 77, condemned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the situation in Gaza, where more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.On the question how Biden has navigated the war, Krueger said”:
      I would have liked a little bit more verbal outreach, but I suspect he’s done most of what he can do … I would have given up on Netanyahu a little before this.
      Asked about Kamala Harris’ recent call for an immediate temporary ceasefire in Gaza, Krueger took her comments as a sign that the administration is “definitely moving in the right direction”. He added:
      I think that they will probably come out much more forcefully at the State of the Union address this Thursday.
      One Virginia Democrat said he had planned to cast a primary ballot for “uncommitted” on Tuesday, but he ended up voting for Marianne Williamson because “uncommitted” did not appear on Virginia’s primary ballot.David Bacheler, 67, criticized Joe Biden as a “horrible” president, arguing that the nation’s welfare had been materially damaged since he took office.“This country needs to change. It’s going in a very bad direction,” Bacheler said after voting at Clarendon United Methodist Church in Arlington.
      Everything’s blown up. Look at all the mess we’ve got in the Middle East now. It wasn’t like that a few years ago.
      Bacheler said he believes the country was better off when Donald Trump was president, and he is currently leaning toward supporting him over Biden in the general election.“He knows how to handle the economy better,” Bacheler said.
      I’m still undecided, but I’m leaning toward Trump.
      Two self-identified Democrats said they cast primary ballots for Nikki Haley this afternoon at Clarendon United Methodist Church in Arlington, Virginia.Virginia holds open primaries, so voters do not necessarily have to participate in the primary of the party with which they are registered.Although both said they planned to vote for Joe Biden in the general election, they chose to participate in the Republican primary as a means of protesting Donald Trump‘s candidacy.“There’s no greater imperative in the world than stopping Donald Trump,” said John Schuster, 66.
      It’ll be the end of democracy and the world order if he becomes president.
      Schuster acknowledged he did not align with Haley on most policy matters, but he appreciates how her enduring presence in the Republican primary appears to have gotten under Trump’s skin.“It’s a vote against Trump. Nikki Haley is very conservative. I disagree with her on everything, except for on the issue of democracy and Russia,” Schuster said.
      Anything to irritate [Trump] and slow him down is what I’m doing.
      Voters in more than a dozen states head to the polls on Tuesday for what is the biggest day of the presidential primaries of the 2024 election cycle.Polls are now open in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia for voters to cast their ballots in the Republican presidential primary on Tuesday. All those states except Alaska are also holding their Democratic primary contests as well. In Iowa, where Democratic caucuses were held by mail since January, the results are expected this evening. (Republicans held their Iowa caucuses in January, when Trump easily won the first voting state.)First polls will close at 7pm Eastern time. Here’s what to expect tonight, so you can plan your evening. Meanwhile, here’s a recap of the latest developments:
      Nikki Haley once again rejected a third-party presidential bid, as she insisted she would stay in the race “as long as we’re competitive”.
      “I don’t know why everybody is so adamant that they have to follow Trump’s lead to get me out of this race. You know, all of these people deserve to vote. Sixteen states want to have their voices heard,” she told Fox News.
      Joe Biden aimed to shore up his standing among Black voters as he warned what would happen if Democrats lose the White House.
      Biden is reportedly eager for a “much more aggressive approach” to the 2024 contest for the White House that would revolve going for Donald Trump’s jugular.”
      Donald Trumphas predicted he will sweep “every state” on Super Tuesday and said he is fully focused on the November election against his presumed opponent, Joe Biden.
      Trump voiced support for the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza, and claimed the Hamas attacks of 7 October on Israel would have never happened if he had been president at the time.
      Taylor Swift has urged her fans to vote on Super Tuesday in a post on her Instagram Story.
      Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming has decided not to run for Senate Republican leader to succeed Mitch McConnell, and instead will run for the No. 2 position of whip.
      Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former Trump press secretary turned Arkansas governor, has said she is confident that her former boss will win the GOP nomination and take back the White House in the November general election.Sanders, speaking to reporters as she cast her ballot at a Little Rock community center with her husband, Bryan Sanders, said:
      This is a head to head matchup at this point between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and he’s the clear favorite, has all the momentum, and I feel really good about him winning again in November.
      She went on to say that she was not surprised by the US supreme court’s ruling restoring Trump to primary ballots, adding that the 9-0 decision was “very telling” and “should be a signal to stop trying to use our courts for political purposes.”Reaching for racist rhetoric bizarre even for him, Donald Trump compared undocumented migrants to the US to Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer and cannibal famously played by Sir Anthony Hopkins in the Oscar-winning 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs.“They’re rough people, in many cases from jails, prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums,” the former president and probable Republican presidential nominee claimed in an interview with Right Side Broadcasting Network on Monday.
      You know, insane asylums, that’s Silence of the Lambs stuff. Hannibal Lecter, anybody know Hannibal Lecter?
      To laughter from the audience at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump added:
      We don’t want ’em in this country.
      Trump has made such statements before, including in his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland last month. As framed to Right Side, they were the latest piece of extremist and dehumanizing invective from a candidate seeking to make immigration a core issue of the 2024 presidential campaign.Trump has a long history of such racist statements, having launched his successful 2016 presidential campaign by describing Mexicans crossing the southern border as rapists and drug dealers.Joe Biden took to the radio airwaves on Super Tuesday as he aims to shore up his standing among Black voters, a critical constituency for Democrats in the November general election.In an interview aired this morning, Biden promoted his achievements for Black voters, such as increased funding for historically Black colleges and universities and key investments in infrastructure to benefit Black communities, AP reported.The president also criticized Donald Trump and warned what would happen if the Democrats lose the White House in another interview.“Think of the alternative, folks. If we lose this election, you’re going to be back with Donald Trump,” said Biden.
      The way he talks about, the way he acted, the way he has dealt with the African-American community, I think, has been shameful.
      Donald Trump has claimed that the Hamas attacks of 7 October on Israel would have never happened if he had been president at the time.Trump, in an interview with Fox, was asked whether he supported the way the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is fighting in Gaza. Trump said:
      You’ve gotta finish the problem. You had a horrible invasion [that] took place. It would have never happened if I was president.
      Texas’s plans to arrest people who enter the US illegally and order them to leave the country is headed to the supreme court in a legal showdown over the federal government’s authority over immigration.An order issued on Monday by Justice Samuel Alito puts the new Texas law on hold for at least next week while the high court considers what opponents have called the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since an Arizona law more than a decade ago.The law, known as Senate Bill 4, had been set to take effect on Saturday under a decision by the conservative-leaning fifth US circuit court of appeals. Alito’s order pushed that date back until 13 March and came just hours after the justice department asked the supreme court to intervene.The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed the law in December as part of a series of escalating measures on the border that have tested the boundaries of how far a state can go to keep people from entering the country.The law would allow state officers to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally. People who are arrested could then agree to a Texas judge’s order to leave the country or face a misdemeanor charge for entering the US illegally. Those who do not leave after being ordered to do so could be arrested again and charged with a more serious felony.Donald Trump has predicted he will sweep “every state” on Super Tuesday and said he is fully focused on the November election against his presumed opponent, Joe Biden.“My focus is really at this point, it’s on Biden,” Trump said on Fox News.
      We should win almost every state today, I think every state. … But we [should’] really look at Biden. More

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      What’s next in the US primary election: key dates

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      The 2024 election will see US voters choose the next president and determine which party holds the House and Senate.Voting in the primary elections kicked off in Iowa on 15 January, where Republican voters handed Trump a landslide victory over Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. In New Hampshire, Trump again beat Haley; meanwhile in the Democratic race, Joe Biden won the primary – despite his name not being on the ballot.Haley lost to “none of the candidates” in Nevada’s 7 February primary. Trump was the only major candidate in Republican caucuses on 8 February, taking 99.1% of the vote.Biden won the South Carolina primary, easily sweeping past his opponents. Haley lost to Trump in the Republican primary in her home of South Carolina on 24 February.Biden easily won the Michigan primary on 27 February – but shed support over Gaza, with 100,000 “uncommitted” votes cast. Trump defeated Haley easily in Michigan, with 68% of the vote.Next up is Super Tuesday on 5 March. Voters in 16 US states and one US territory will head to the polls to cast ballots in presidential primaries. Follow live Super Tuesday updates here.States have different rules, but the primary elections determine how many delegates are awarded to each presidential candidate. Those delegates then vote at the Republican and Democratic conventions in the summer to officially choose the party’s nominee. On 5 November, the country will cast its vote for a presidential candidate as well as in other races, such as Senate, House and state-level positions.Super Tuesday: read more
      Live Super Tuesday updates as 16 US states vote
      Key issues in the 2024 US election
      Who’s running for president?
      In a uniquely American fashion, there are ever-changing rules and party maneuvers in both how people vote, and when. After the 2020 election, which culminated in political violence and lengthy court battles, this year’s election is difficult to predict. For now, here’s the schedule of key events to watch. More

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      The Biden administration has a chance to deliver student debt relief. It must act | Astra Taylor and Eleni Schirmer

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      Last week, the Washington Post reported that President Biden recently pressed Jeff Zients, his chief of staff, on the issue of student debt cancellation, telling him “to make sure his team was making the relief as expansive as possible”.That’s good news for tens of millions of borrowers. But expansive relief will not be delivered if the administration fails to learn the lessons from round one of the cancellation battle: speed and conviction matter.When the supreme court struck down President Biden’s attempt to cancel student debt last summer, his administration got to work to make plans for future cancellation. Today, the window for cancellation is open once again. Biden’s Plan B has a fighting chance – but only if the president moves fast.Last month the administration concluded a five-month long regulatory process to hammer out the legal parameters for cancellation using the Higher Education Act – a different legal authority than Biden used the first time around. In the last session of this process, a session which was only undertaken thanks to pressure from activists and progressive elected officials, rulemakers cracked open a critical window for debt cancellation.This session established “economic hardship” as grounds for cancellation. Once again, Biden’s Plan B has a fighting chance – but only if the president seizes the moment and walks through it.Why is the new provision on economic hardship such a game-changer? As we know all too well from our work in the debt abolition movement, the vast majority of student borrowers experience economic hardship, struggling to make basic living expenses. In fact, we consider student loans themselves to be an indicator of economic hardship, a kind of regressive and financially debilitating tax on anyone who isn’t wealthy enough to pay for tuition outright.These new guidelines recognize this. They open space for Biden to deliver on promised relief. Our fear, however, is that the administration will move slowly and cautiously, and, by doing so, enable their Republican adversaries to slam the window shut and claim another victory.Moving slowly – a result of prioritizing means-tested relief, rather than cancellation for all – was one of the reasons that Biden’s prior debt relief plan met a bad end. Consider how the Department of Education took 51 days to put their extremely simple application for relief online. Every day they delayed implementing relief bought time for billionaire-backed lawsuits to move through a court system stacked with conservative judges eager to make partisan rulings.It has now been six months since Biden announced his Plan B and already too much time has been wasted on regulatory machinations that some experts argued weren’t even necessary to begin with. Looking ahead, cancellation must be issued in the boldest, fastest manner possible, to give people relief and to register the results in time for the upcoming elections.If the administration decides, once again, to route cancellation through an application or to otherwise “target” relief, instead of universally applying it, we will find ourselves in a groundhog day scenario: waiting for the administration to ready their process to administer relief while further lawsuits are prepared by the conservative right’s battalion of highly paid lawyers.Last summer, both of us helped launch a first-of-its kind online tool that helps borrowers create and send legal appeals for the Department of Education to cancel their debt. The Student Debt Release Tool builds from the Department of Education’s legal authority to cancel student debt as part of the Higher Education Act of 1965 – a tried and true authority that has been used many times to eliminate people’s federal loans. Within weeks of the launch of the Student Debt Release Tool, tens of thousands of borrowers submitted appeals, flooding the Department of Education, and rumored to have shut down the agency’s email servers at least once.The information in the Release Tool clearly demonstrates how student debt creates hardship, and why cancellation is the urgent and just response. In these appeals, borrowers recount their brushes with homelessness and turns to sex work, their mounting medical bills, their children’s grumbling stomachs when the cupboards yet again fall empty, the anxiety and depression that ensues.The Release Tool also shows that the Department of Education already has the information it needs to act, and should start doing so now.Beyond a canned reply, however, borrowers have received no meaningful response to their appeals from the Department of Education, leading debtors to seek help elsewhere. Over the past three months, groups of student borrowers in New York, Boston, Seattle, Philadelphia, Georgia, Indianapolis and Missouri have been virtually marching into their congressional representative’s offices – asking them to send letters to the Department of Education urging the secretary to use the powers vested in him by the Higher Education Act to cancel student debt without delay, or excessive administrative procedures that risk thwarting the actual delivery of relief.Although President Biden insists that he is doing everything he can to cancel student debt, the tens of millions of debtors desperate for relief, and the tens of thousands of unanswered Release Tool appeals, suggest otherwise.Since President Biden’s initial plan to cancel debt was announced, the stakes have only become higher. As part of debt ceiling negotiations, President Biden turned student loan payments back on, leading the interest on over $1.6tn dollars of federal student loan debt to once again pile up. Although Biden has attempted to reform one of the most faulty income-driven repayment programs, too many borrowers have found their payments erroneously increasing, rather than the purported goal of lowering monthly bills.And while the Biden administration proudly struts its efforts to cancel student debt on social media, in reality only 10% of eligible borrowers have received even partial relief. The majority are waiting, desperately, on a promise unfulfilled. A sense of being gas-lit looms.There is, of course, no way for Biden to wholly protect against bad-faith litigation or to avoid anti-democratic decrees issued by Trump-appointed judges. But the Biden administration should show it is willing to fight. Don’t tell voters you are doing everything you can on debt cancellation, President Biden. Show us.
      Astra Taylor is a writer, organizer and documentary maker and a co-founder of the Debt Collective
      Eleni Schirmer, a writer and postdoctoral fellow at the Concordia University Social Justice Centre in Montreal, is part of the Debt Collective More

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      ‘The worst in modern history’: Super Tuesday won’t hold surprises but warnings abound for Trump and Biden

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      Microphone in hand, Nikki Haley was delivering a well-rehearsed stump speech when a primal cry came from the audience. “He cannot win a general election!” yelled a man, referring to Donald Trump and the ex-president’s chance against Joe Biden. “It is madness!”Haley supporters at a campaign rally in a tiny Washington hotel on Friday signaled their agreement. But they are in a distinct minority within the Republican party as the biggest day of this year’s primary election campaign approaches.Fifteen states and one territory will vote in contests known as Super Tuesday, when more than a third of delegates will be assigned to July’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee. Past results and opinion polls suggest that, by Tuesday night, Trump will have in effect wrapped up the Republican nomination against Haley, his sole remaining challenger.On the Democratic side, incumbent Biden has swept aside token challenges by Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota and the self-help author Marianne Williamson and is cruising to the nomination. The lopsided contests and lack of suspense are making Super Tuesday, one of the most celebrated rituals of the American election season, look not so super this time.Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, said: “It never mattered less. I don’t know any political event that’s got more attention for being less relevant. The decision has been made. The choice is clear. You know who the two nominees are and 70% of Americans would rather it not be so.”Trump is poised to take the latest giant stride in a dramatic political comeback. He was written off by many after his 2020 election defeat, the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol and the barrage of 91 criminal charges against him. Yet he has seen off a dozen challengers and easily won the first eight Republican nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, the US Virgin Islands, South Carolina, Michigan, Missouri and Idaho.The former Republican president has done it despite – or perhaps because of – a campaign based on retribution against his enemies and the promise of a second term even more radically rightwing than his first. Trump’s scattergun rhetoric, promising to be a dictator on “day one” and claiming that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”, has been rewarded with primary win after primary win.View image in fullscreenCharlie Sykes, a contributor and columnist for the MSNBC network, said: “We’ve learned once again that the Republican party just can’t quit Donald Trump, that there is no red line, that there’s no going back. Nikki Haley and earlier Chris Christie gave speeches that would have been well within the mainstream of the Republican party as recently as 2015 but now they sound like they’re being beamed in from another country.“Part of the reason that so many people take crazy pills is you look at Donald Trump and he has become more extreme, more deranged and more unhinged and yet nothing seems to matter. His authoritarian agenda couldn’t be clearer and yet Republicans who once thought of themselves as the party of liberty and the constitutional order are just falling into line behind him.”Still, there have also been warning signs for Trump. The 77-year-old has repeatedly won less convincingly than opinion polls suggested he would. In the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, the Associated Press’s AP VoteCast found that college graduates backed former South Carolina governor Haley over Trump. She has been running him close in the suburbs, a perennial weakness for the former president.Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “Trump is supposed to win all these races, is supposed to be the dominant figure in the party. The fact that, depending on the state and the day, there’s still 20, 30, 40% Republicans who are saying no, I’m going to pass on this, and independent voters who are coming out to cast a vote against him, is not the unified-Republican-party theory of the case that there will be absolute fealty to him.“I’m not saying that any of them in the race could have put together a sufficient coalition against him but, if you don’t go after him, you’ll never get it. If you don’t speak truth about him, you’ll never defeat him.”Anti-Trump sentiment was palpable at Haley’s rally of more than a hundred people in Washington, the capital, an overwhelmingly Democratic city where there are only about 23,000 registered Republicans. The former South Carolina governor argued for a return to normality after the Trump and Biden years, which she asserted had emboldened foreign foes, run up trillions of dollars in debt and left the American dream in jeopardy.Wearing a grey Nike tracksuit sweater with I Pick Nikki and I Voted stickers, Joe Neal, 28, said: “I’m not going to support a seditionist. I’m not going to support someone who supported terrorism, as far as I’m concerned. I certainly agree with some of the former president’s policies but he cannot get my vote this time around.”Asked whether Haley is likely to drop out after Super Tuesday, Neal, an e-commerce business owner, added: “Typically, yes, but this is not a typical year. You’re running against someone who, quite frankly, could be in prison one day and that’s just the reality.”Haley has taken in significant campaign money, including $12m last month, and vowed to fight on. But she has seen some of her financial support waver recently. The organisation Americans for Prosperity, backed by the Koch brothers, announced it would stop spending on her behalf after she lost her home state of South Carolina.Donors could be tempted to pull the plug after Super Tuesday, where the map heavily favours Trump. Polls show him to be an overwhelming favourite in California and Texas, as well as in states such as Alabama, Maine and Minnesota. His campaign projects that he will win at least 773 delegates on the night and formally clinch the nomination a week or two later.Biden, for his part, is assured of the Democratic nomination when party loyalists vote for delegates to August’s Democratic national convention in Chicago. But the 81-year-old also has plenty of political headaches. Polls show deep voter concerns about his age as well as rising prices and an influx of people crossing the southern border.Some Democrats are unhappy with his steadfast support of Israel in its conflict with Hamas in Gaza. An organised attempt to vote “uncommitted” in the Michigan primary to protest Biden’s handling of the war garnered more than 100,000 votes, a significant protest, although the 13% share was only slightly higher than that option got in the last primary under a Democratic president.Last week, a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found Biden trailing Trump in seven swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin – when voters were asked who they would support in a hypothetical general election. On average, Trump was leading by 48% to 43%. On Saturday, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that the share of voters who strongly disapprove of Biden was at its highest in his presidency, at 47%.Luntz, who had a long track record of advising Republican campaigns before Trump seized control of the party, said: “With every passing week, Joe Biden gets weaker and weaker as more and more voters come to decide that he’s simply too darn old. And so you see this gap between Trump and Biden widening.“The gap is widening because Biden is collapsing. With the economy getting stronger and conditions on the ground getting better, Joe Biden is still getting weaker. That’s a three-alarm fire in America. The lights are flashing, the people are screaming but Joe Biden doesn’t hear them.”Super Tuesday is not only about the presidential election. Among the most notable down-ballot races is the one in California to succeed the late Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein. Vying to replace her are Democratic representatives Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey, a former baseball star.Most pundits will be studying the results for clues about a presidential race that is sure to be close and decided in a handful of swing states.Asked what he had learned from the primaries so far, Luntz said: “That Donald Trump has lost suburban women that used to vote Republican, that Joe Biden has lost Latinos and a fair number of union members that used to vote Democrat, that there is going to be some serious and significant shifting of certain demographic and geographic voters. And that this election is going to be the worst in modern history.” More

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      US tells Israel credible aid plan needed before any military operation in Gaza and urges Hamas to accept ceasefire deal – live

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      A temporary ceasefire is essential to a deal to release more of the hostages still held by Hamas since they were snatched during the attack by the Islamist group that controls Gaza on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to the White House.This news is still emerging over the wires and we’ll bring you details as they unfold. The White House just said there will be additional air drops of US aid over Gaza, which is besieged by Israel and where the north of the territory is almost cut off from aid entirely.Reuters is reporting that the White House stated that the US calls on Hamas to accept terms of a ceasefire and hostage release deal now. More as we get it.An updated summary of the day’s key news from myself and my colleagues.The big politics news: The supreme court overturned a Colorado ruling that barred Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, issuing a decision that judges nationwide will likely cite to allow him to compete in the remaining Republican primaries, and the November general election. However, the court’s three liberal justices and one conservative worried that the authors of the majority opinion went further than necessary, though for different reasons. In remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump thanked the court for their ruling, while also encouraging them to find him immune from prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. That matter has yet to be decided.Here’s what else happened today:
      The US called on Hamas to accept the terms of a temporary ceasefire and hostage release deal currently being negotiated in Cairo. Israel has “provisionally accepted a six-week phased hostage and ceasefire deal,” per reports.
      A day after she called for an “immediate ceasefire,” vice president Kamala Harris had a closed-door meeting with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet member and prominent centrist rival of right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The White House said in a statement they “discussed the situation in Rafah and the need for a credible and implementable humanitarian plan prior to contemplating any major military operation there given the risks to civilians.”
      As half a million Palestinians are facing starvation in what aid workers call an “all man-made” famine in Gaza, the US state department said on Monday it supported the United Nations doing a review into an aid-related incident in Gaza last week where dozens of people were killed.
      Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former finance chief, pleaded guilty to perjury in New York City, in a deal that will send the 76-year-old to jail but will not force him to testify against the Trump family, his employers for half a century.
      Trump’s allies in Congress, including House speaker Mike Johnson and potential vice-presidential pick Elise Stefanik were also pleased with the supreme court’s ruling. But the justices did not absolve Trump of the charge that he was involved in an insurrection, noted Neal Katyal, who used to argued before the supreme court on behalf of Barack Obama.
      The White House has released a statement of what vice president Kamala Harris discussed in her closed-door meeting with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet and a rival of right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.The key news line: “The vice-president and Minister Gantz discussed the situation in Rafah and the need for a credible and implementable humanitarian plan prior to contemplating any major military operation there given the risks to civilians.“She urged Israel to take additional measures in cooperation with the United States and international partners to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and ensure its safe distribution to those in need.”Relatedly, the US state department on Monday said it supports the United Nations doing a review into an aid-related incident in Gaza last week where dozens of people were killed, Reuters reported.‘Spending his golden years in jail:’ analysis on Trump finance chief’s plea deal This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live politics coverage from our west coast bureau in Los Angeles.Earlier today, the former chief financial officers of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to perjury charges related to his testimony in Trump’s recent civil fraud trial.Norm Eisen of the Defend Democracy Project argued that Weisselberg’s guilty plea “further strengthens the 2016 campaign corruption and coverup criminal case being brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg” and that “his plea and the associated jail time is a stark reminder to those witnesses in Trump’s orbit of the price for lying in his service” and would likely serve “as a deterrent to other Trump allies who will take the stand during the DA’s case against him.’Jake Offenhartz and Michael R. Sisak of the Associated Press emphasized a different aspect of the plea deal in their reporting, noting that the deal sends Weisselberg, who is 76, “back to jail, but does not require that he testify at Trump’s hush-money criminal trial.”They write:
      In pleading guilty, Weisselberg found himself caught again between the law and his loyalty to Trump, whose family employed him for nearly 50 years and sent him into retirement with a $2 million severance. His plea to perjury is further evidence that, rather than testify truthfully in a way that might harm his old boss, he was willing to again spend a chunk of his golden years in jail.
      Donald Trump’s speech at Mar-a-Lago after the supreme court’s ruling this morning allowing him to stay on the ballot was nothing more than “unhinged, confused ramblings focused only on himself”, in the words of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.Spokesman Ammar Moussa came out swinging against the former president in a statement:
      Today’s chaotic musings from Trump only remind the American people why they voted him out of office four years ago. While Trump rants and raves from his country club, President Biden is focused on what actually matters – delivering results for the American people, from lowering prescription drug costs to capping insulin prices and building an economy that works for the middle class. Trump thinks this election is about him and his power – not the American people – and that’s why he’s going to lose again.
      The Biden campaign has its own problems, particularly the president’s worrying poll numbers. A closely watched survey by the New York Times and Siena College released over the weekend showed voters remain skeptical of Biden, particularly over his ability to continue doing the job into his 80s:Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, when something like 15 states vote in presidential primaries. It’s supposed to be exciting, but probably won’t be, the Guardian’s David Smith reports:Microphone in hand, Nikki Haley was delivering a well-rehearsed stump speech when a primal cry came from the audience. “He cannot win a general election!” yelled a man, referring to Donald Trump and the ex-president’s chance against Joe Biden. “It is madness!”Haley supporters at a campaign rally in a tiny Washington hotel on Friday signaled their agreement. But they are in a distinct minority within the Republican party as the biggest day of this year’s primary election campaign approaches.Fifteen states and one territory will vote in contests known as Super Tuesday, when more than a third of delegates will be assigned to July’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee. Past results and opinion polls suggest that, by Tuesday night, Trump will have in effect wrapped up the Republican nomination against Haley, his sole remaining challenger.On the Democratic side, incumbent Biden has swept aside token challenges by Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota and the self-help author Marianne Williamson and is cruising to the nomination. The lopsided contests and lack of suspense are making Super Tuesday, one of the most celebrated rituals of the American election season, look not so super this time.Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, said: “It never mattered less. I don’t know any political event that’s got more attention for being less relevant. The decision has been made. The choice is clear. You know who the two nominees are and 70% of Americans would rather it not be so.”Over the weekend, the United States airdropped food into Gaza, but the World Food Programme warned that may not be enough to prevent famine in the enclave. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum:The deaths of more than 100 people when Israeli forces opened fire near an aid convoy in Gaza was a tragedy that should have been foreseen and could have been prevented, the World Food Programme country director for Palestine has said.Matthew Hollingworth also said an aid corridor into northern Gaza was needed urgently to prevent a “man-made” famine there after Palestinians were starved of food at terrifying speed and scale.“To have a situation today with half a million people facing famine in just five months is extraordinary at that scale,” he said. “There’s nowhere else in the world today with this many people at risk of famine. Nowhere. And it’s all man-made.”From the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Julian Borger, here’s the latest on the negotiations aimed at achieving a temporary ceasefire in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and the release of hostages taken by Hamas:Israel has provisionally accepted a six-week phased hostage and ceasefire deal which would begin with the release of wounded, elderly and female hostages, but it was still unclear on Saturday whether Hamas would accept it, US officials have claimed.Talks took place in Doha, the Qatari capital, on Saturday and were expected to move to Cairo on Sunday as the scale of looming starvation pushed the US to start air-dropping food into the enclave.The US said an extended ceasefire was the most direct route to getting large-scale aid deliveries into Gaza, and suggested that agreement was close. “The path to a ceasefire right now, literally at this hour, is straightforward,” a senior US official said. “And there’s a deal on the table. There’s a framework deal. The Israelis have more or less accepted it. And there will be a six-week ceasefire in Gaza starting today, if Hamas agrees to release the default defined category of vulnerable hostages: the sick the wounded, elderly and women. “We’re working around the clock to see if we can get this in place here over the coming week,” the official said. He said Israel had “basically” accepted the deal, but did not specify whether it still had reservations or what those were.Kamala Harris took some reporters’ questions in Washington, DC, moments ago as she headed for her meeting with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet member and prominent centrist rival of right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Asked by reporters about her pending message to Gantz, she said they would discuss getting the hostage deal done, getting more aid in to Gaza and “getting that six-week cease-fire”, the pool report said.“The president has been an extraordinary leader in getting us to this point that we have the six-week deal,” she said, adding, in response to a question about whether there is any difference between her and Joe Biden’s stance on these issues right now: “The president and I have been aligned and consistent from the very beginning.”The White House has just issued an additional statement that talks with Gantz will focus on a deal to bring remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza to safety, and more progress in delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.Here’s what Harris just posted on X/Twitter a day after marking the civil rights anniversary, Bloody Sunday, in Alabama.Hamas and Egyptian mediators said on Monday they were pressing on with talks on securing a ceasefire in Gaza, despite an Israeli decision not to send a delegation, Reuters reports.The ceasefire talks, which began on Sunday in Cairo, are billed as a final hurdle to establish the first extended ceasefire of the five-month-old war, in time for the Ramadan Muslim fasting month which is expected to begin on Sunday.Israel has declined to comment publicly on the Cairo talks, including its decision not to attend. A source told Reuters Israel would stay away because Hamas refused a request to list which hostages are still alive, information the Palestinian militants say they will provide only once terms are agreed.
      Talks in Cairo continue for the second day regardless of whether the occupation’s delegation is present in Egypt,” a Hamas official told Reuters on Monday.
      Two Egyptian security sources said mediators were in touch with the Israelis, allowing negotiations to continue despite the delegation’s absence.A Palestinian source close to the talks said the discussions remained “uneasy”, with Israel sticking to its demand for only a temporary truce to free hostages, while Hamas was seeking assurances war would not start up again.Late on Monday, officials from Hamas, Egypt and Qatar began a second round of talks for the day, a Hamas source said.Washington, which is both Israel’s closest ally and a sponsor of the talks, says a deal remains close, with an agreement already effectively approved by Israel and only awaiting acceptance from Hamas.A temporary ceasefire is essential to a deal to release more of the hostages still held by Hamas since they were snatched during the attack by the Islamist group that controls Gaza on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to the White House.This news is still emerging over the wires and we’ll bring you details as they unfold. The White House just said there will be additional air drops of US aid over Gaza, which is besieged by Israel and where the north of the territory is almost cut off from aid entirely.Reuters is reporting that the White House stated that the US calls on Hamas to accept terms of a ceasefire and hostage release deal now. More as we get it.US vice president Kamala Harris is due to meet in Washington later this afternoon with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz, a centrist and key rival to the hard right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.The meeting is due to take place at 3pm ET and comes a day after Harris, who was in Alabama for the Bloody Sunday anniversary, urged an “immediate ceasefire” and bluntly called out Israel for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.Gantz is defying Netanyahu’s wishes in his visit to the US and sit-downs with leaders. He also plans to meet up with secretary of state Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan.Joe Biden has been at Camp David since the weekend, hunkered down as he prepares this Thursday’s mega-high stakes State of the Union address.The supreme court overturned a Colorado ruling that barred Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, issuing a decision that judges nationwide will likely cite to allow him to compete in the remaining Republican primaries, and the November general election. However, the court’s three liberal justices and one conservative worried that the authors of the majority opinion went further than necessary, though for different reasons. In remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump thanked the court for their ruling, while also encouraging them to find him immune from prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. That matter has yet to be decided.Here’s what else is going today:
      Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former finance chief, pleaded guilty to perjury in New York City.
      Trump’s allies in Congress, including House speaker Mike Johnson and potential vice-presidential pick Elise Stefanik were also pleased with the supreme court’s ruling.
      The justices did not absolve Trump of the charge that he was involved in an insurrection, noted Neal Katyal, who used to argued before the supreme court on behalf of Barack Obama.
      But Donald Trump’s business with the supreme court isn’t finished, and the former president made a point of mentioning that in his speech.The justices have agreed to take up his argument that he is immune from prosecution for allegedly trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, and a ruling in his favor could deal a death blow to special counsel Jack Smith’s case against him.At Mar-a-Lago, Trump said he hoped the high court would once again rule in his favor:
      And while we’re on the subject, and another thing that will be coming up very soon, will be immunity for a president, and not immunity for me, but for any president. If a president doesn’t have full immunity, you really don’t have a president, because nobody that is serving in that office will have the courage to make, in many cases, what would be the right decision, or it could be the wrong decision. It could be in some cases the wrong decision, but they have to make decisions and they have to make them free of all terror that can be rained upon them when they leave office or even before they leave office, and some decisions are very tough.
      I can tell you that as a president that some decisions to make are very tough. I took out ISIS and I took out some very big people from the standpoint of a different part of the world, two of the leading terrorists, probably the two leading terrorists ever, that we’ve ever seen in this world. And those are big decisions. I don’t want to be prosecuted for it.
      The charges against Trump don’t deal with his decisions to kill America’s enemies, but rather his multi-pronged strategy to block Joe Biden from taking office.Donald Trump is now delivering a meandering speech at Mar-a-Lago, where he has cheered the supreme court ruling allowing him to stay on presidential ballots, while also issuing familiar denunciations of the criminal cases against him.At the start of his remarks, the former president thanked the supreme court, saying the decision was “very well crafted. And I think it will go a long way toward bringing our country together, which our country needs. And … they worked hard.”Donald Trump is expected to soon deliver remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after the supreme court this morning overturned a Colorado ruling that removed him from the presidential ballot.The court’s unanimous decision is expected to allow him to remain on primary and general election ballots nationwide and thwart a legal campaign to remove him over his participation in the January 6 insurrection.We’ll let you know what Trump says.As expected, Donald Trump’s former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg has admitted to committing perjury in New York City. It’s unclear what that will mean for the former president’s upcoming trial on charges related to paying hush money, but one thing that is clear is that Weisselberg is likely headed back to jail.Here’s more on all that, from the Guardian’s Callum Jones:
      Allen Weisselberg, a longtime lieutenant to Donald Trump, faces five months in jail after reaching an agreement with prosecutors in New York to plead guilty to perjury in the former US president’s recent civil fraud trial charges.
      As the former chief financial officer in the Trump Organization, Weisselberg was key in helping Trump record his net worth. A defendant in the fraud trial, Weisselberg was accused of helping to inflate Trump’s net worth on government financial documents, misleading lenders.
      That trial ended with a judge imposing a huge financial penalty of more than $450m including interest on Trump. Weisselberg, 76, was ordered to pay $1.1m and permanently banned from serving in the financial control function of any New York business.
      Weisselberg also faces five months in jail after pleading guilty to perjury.
      On the witness stand in October, Weisselberg was evasive, often saying he did not recall the real estate valuations that were at the center of the trial.
      Donald Trump’s many Republican allies in Congress welcomed the supreme court’s ruling allowing him to continue his run for president.Here’s speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a leader of the failed effort to get the supreme court to block Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020:
      Today, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed what we all knew: the Colorado Supreme Court engaged in a purely partisan attack against the frontrunner for the Republican presidential primary. States engaging in the same activist, undemocratic behaviors should take notice and leave it to the American people to decide who will be president.
      And New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a member of House Republican leadership who is also seen as a potential running mate for Trump:
      Today’s unanimous 9-0 Supreme Court decision is a victory for the American people, the Constitution, and our Republic. As I have said since the start, extreme Democrats will shred the Constitution in order to prevent the American people from exercising their constitutional right to vote for President Donald Trump. This dangerous attempt by the radical Left to suppress votes was fundamentally unAmerican and why I was proud to sign on to the amicus brief to the Supreme Court. We the people decide elections, not unelected radical leftists.
      Finally, Jim Jordan, the Ohio congressman and chair of the House judiciary committee who has used the committee’s powers to pursue Joe Biden and his officials:
      Big win for common sense and democracy!
      From the Guardian’s Sam Levine, here’s more on what the supreme court’s decision today will mean for Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House:Donald Trump was wrongly removed from Colorado’s primary ballot last year, the US supreme court has ruled, clearing the way for Trump to appear on the ballot in all 50 states.The court’s unanimous decision overturns a 4-3 ruling from the Colorado supreme court that said the former president could not run because he had engaged in insurrection during the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The Colorado decision was a novel interpretation of section 3 of the 14th amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding office.“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion. Congress, the court said, had to enact the procedures for disqualification under Section 3.“State-by-state resolution of the question whether Section 3 bars a particular candidate for President from serving would be quite unlikely to yield a uniform answer consistent with the basic principle that the President … represent[s] all the voters in the Nation,” the court added.Colorado’s presidential primary is Tuesday and Trump had been allowed to appear on the ballot while the case was pending. Maine and a judge in Illinois had also excluded Trump from the ballot – decisions that are now likely to quickly be reversed.A few points about the supreme court’s decision allowing Donald Trump to continue running for president, from the Neal Katyal, a former justice department official who argued supreme court cases on behalf of Barack Obama: More

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      Hamas negotiators under pressure to produce list of hostages to be released

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      Egyptian and Qatari officials are putting pressure on Hamas negotiators in Cairo to produce a list of hostages to be released as the first step in a phased ceasefire agreement with Israel, according to officials familiar with the talks.Israel has not sent a delegation to the second day of talks in Cairo, demanding that Hamas present a list of 40 elderly, sick and female hostages who would be the first to be released as part of a truce that would initially last six weeks, beginning with the month of Ramadan, the officials say.Hamas is meanwhile demanding that large-scale humanitarian aid should be allowed into Gaza and that Palestinians displaced from their homes in the north of the coastal strip should be allowed to return.US officials have said that Israel had “more or less” accepted the six-week ceasefire deal, which White House national security spokesperson John Kirby confirmed would involve a six-week truce and begin with the release of sick, elderly and women hostages.Diplomatic sources in Washington said it was unclear what was stopping Hamas from producing a list identifying the first 40 hostages, noting that uncertainty about lists and identities had dogged the last successful hostage negotiations in November. They suggested it could reflect problems of communication between Hamas units inside and outside Gaza, that some hostages could be held by other groups including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or that elements of Hamas were withholding the information as a way of obstructing a deal.Washington does not believe the absence of an Israeli delegation was necessarily bad news for a ceasefire hopes, as Israeli negotiators could arrive within a couple of hours if agreement was reached on a list. Egypt and Qatar have assured Joe Biden’s administration that they were putting pressure on the Hamas representatives in Cairo to come up with the identities of the hostages involved.The US is also stepping up pressure on Israel to open new land routes, as well as new sea corridors, to allow a far greater flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza to prevent a famine that UN agencies have warned is imminent. The US vice-president, Kamala Harris, said on Sunday that Israel must “significantly increase the flow of aid”. She added there were “no excuses” for the delay.Biden used similar language in a tweet on Monday, saying: “The aid flowing into Gaza is nowhere near enough – and nowhere fast enough.” Unlike Harris, however, he did not name Israel as the responsible party.At the White House, Kirby said truck deliveries into Gaza had been slowed by opposition from some members of Israel’s cabinet.“Israel bears a responsibility here to do more,” Kirby said.View image in fullscreenIsrael meanwhile stepped up its allegations against the UN relief agency for Palestinians (Unrwa), saying that Unrwa in Gaza had employed over 450 “military operatives” from Hamas and other armed groups, and that Israel had shared this intelligence with the UN.“Over 450 Unrwa employees are military operatives in terror groups in Gaza,” Israeli military spokesperson R Adm Daniel Hagari said on Monday evening. “This is no mere coincidence. This is systematic.”“We sent the information that I am sharing now, as well as further intelligence, to our international partners, including the UN,” he said.A preliminary report by the UN office of internal oversight services (OIOS) into alleged Unrwa-Hamas links delivered to the secretary-general last week, said the investigators had received no evidence from Israel since the initial allegations in January that a dozen Unrwa employees had taken part in the 7 October Hamas attack. But the OIOS said it expected to receive information from Israel shortly.Pramila Patten, the UN special envoy on sexual violence in conflict reported on Monday that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualised torture,” and other cruel and inhumane treatment of women during the 7 October attack. In her report, Patten, who visited Israel with a nine-person team in the first half of February, added there were also “reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing.” As the talks were under way in Cairo, a top Israeli minister, Benny Gantz, arrived in Washington for talks with Harris, the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to the undisguised irritation of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu invited his longstanding political rival into a coalition government after the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, but that has done little to improve the tense relations between the two men.US officials acknowledged that Gantz’s meetings in Washington, enhancing his own status as a would-be prime minister, was likely to inflame those tensions further. Netanyahu has yet to be invited to the White House since he returned to office at the end of 2022, at the head of the most rightwing coalition in Israeli history.Gantz is said to have asked for the visit to Washington, rather than having been invited, but US officials said they welcomed an opportunity to talk to a member of the five-man Israeli war cabinet.“We’re going to discuss a number of things in terms of the priorities that, certainly, we have, which includes getting a hostage deal done, getting aid in, and then getting that six-week ceasefire,” Harris told reporters before meeting Gantz.The Biden administration is pushing for more crossing points into Gaza to be opened for humanitarian relief, especially Erez in the north. US officials say that a sea route would take at least a week to arrange, if at all, so opening Erez and other access points to the north is seen by aid organisations as an urgent priority.“The disparity in conditions in the north and south [of Gaza] is clear evidence that aid restrictions in the north are costing lives,” warned Adele Khodr, the regional director of the UN children’s relief organisation, Unicef. Unicef says 16% of children in the north are acutely malnourished, compared with 5% in the south of the strip.The White House is seeking to help resolve rifts within the Israeli coalition, suggesting Netanyahu should seek a compromise over his coalition’s bitterly contested judicial overhaul, introduced early last year. After unprecedented street protests over the measures, in which demonstrators said they feared for Israel’s democratic future, the US president went even further, telling reporters in March 2023: “I hope he walks away from it.”Netanyahu has faced significant pressure to step down for nearly a decade over his ongoing trials for corruption charges, which he denies, as well as for instigating the judicial overhaul, which has been suspended since the outbreak of war.It is widely believed in Israel that Netanyahu is slow-walking ceasefire talks, as well as talking up threats of an Israeli offensive on Rafah and Lebanon, because he believes he stands a better chance of beating the charges if he remains in office, and elections are unlikely while Israel is still at war.Earlier this year, Israel’s centrist opposition leader, Yair Lapid, met the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Berlin, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris.Polling suggests Netanyahu’s coalition of far-right and religious parties would incur massive losses if an election was held now, and centrist and leftwing Israeli parties are looking for ways to force an early contest. Gantz’s party is currently likely to win the most votes.Lapid said in a post on X after last week’s local elections that the successful contests showed that holding national elections during the war would pose “no problem”. More