Here's the latest from the 2024 campaign trail:
- The Iowa caucuses will kick off the 2024 presidential Republican primary process on Jan. 15.
- Vivek Ramaswamy returned to his rapid campaign pace after the holidays, holding six events in Iowa today.
- Nikki Haley this evening was back in New Hampshire, where recent polls show her closing the gap with GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
- Trump is once again planning counterprogramming against the next debate. He'll be taking part in a Fox News town hall on Jan. 10, the same day that CNN will be hosting its debate in Iowa.
Live coverage has ended. Please see the latest 2024 campaign news here.
DeSantis shrugs off question about whether Iowa will decide GOP race
DeSantis shrugged off the idea that victory in Iowa is the only pathway for his campaign’s long-term success in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham this evening.
“This is a race to get the majority of the delegates,” he told Ingraham in response to a question about whether Iowa will be a “deciding factor” for his campaign.
“We’ve done Iowa the way people who have done well in Iowa have done, which is be on the ground, create the organization,” DeSantis added before touting his tour of all of Iowa's 99 counties.
While DeSantis asserted that his presidential aspirations do not hinge on the state, his campaign has devoted outsize resources and time to it, betting big on the prospect of momentum from key local endorsers like Gov. Kim Reynolds and evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats. Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis’ bid with a big Iowa ground game, has ceased its door-knocking operations in Nevada and Super Tuesday states, including California, North Carolina and Texas.
Ramaswamy endorsed by former congressman known for racist remarks
Former Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, endorsed Ramaswamy in a video message this evening.
King once told The New York Times, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” He also drew condemnation from members of his own party over comments he once made about whether humans would exist if not for babies born as a result of rape and incest. King lost his House seat in 2020.
King has found common cause with Ramaswamy over their opposition to the potential use of eminent domain to build carbon capture pipelines on private land in Iowa.
“The strongest person we have to defend the Constitution and America’s destiny is Vivek Ramaswamy,” King said tonight in announcing his endorsement.
Groups plan to protest Democrats from the left at Chicago convention
A collection of Chicago-based abortion rights and LGBTQ rights advocates say they intend to stage demonstrations outside the Democratic National Convention this summer to air their disappointment at not seeing national legislation protecting abortion rights and LGBTQ rights.
“We are tired of politicians using our slogans as talking points and then failing to deliver,” said Linda Loew, a co-founder of the group Chicago for Abortion Rights. “Enough is enough. No delegate will arrive in or leave Chicago without hearing our voice.”
“It is not enough to be pro-choice in your heart. You need to take action,” said Lisa Battisfore, who heads a Chicago-based volunteer organization raising awareness about the “deceptive” practices of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.
Biden called on Congress to pass abortion rights legislation in 2022, but the measure stalled in the Senate, where it takes 60 votes to move most legislation and which was then divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats then gained a Senate seat in the 2022 midterms but lost control of the House.
Longtime Chicago activist Andy Thayer, who also organized protests at NATO in Chicago in 2012, filed the paperwork for permission to stage a protest during the DNC, as well as a march starting in downtown Chicago, a few miles from the convention site, the day before the convention officially begins.
“The fact of the matter is the Democrats have used our issues to gain electoral advantage and then given us the bare minimum,” Thayer said. “They need to have a very public commitment, not just something they roll out for a press conference, but something that they actually fight for in terms of national legislation along these lines.”
Many of the same groups say they will also protest outside the Republican National Convention, which takes place in Milwaukee just a month before Chicago's convention.
Ramaswamy calls on presidents to divest their holdings
Vivek Ramaswamy said he believes presidents shouldn’t be able to manage their own investments while in power.
“I’m different than Trump, and I’m different than pretty much every other president in either party, too,” Ramaswamy told a crowd of about 60 Iowans crammed into a bar this afternoon.
“I believe the right thing for the U.S. president to do is actually to divest from their own holdings and have their own investments managed separately with complete blindness to what they do or don’t own,” he said.
While he was in office, Trump used his position as president to benefit his family's business interests, from his hotel in Washington, D.C., to his golf courses and his daughter's clothing line.
Trump appeals Maine ruling that he’s ineligible for 2024 primary ballot
Trump today filed an appeal of the decision by Maine’s top election official that he is ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot.
“[T]he Secretary’s Ruling was the product of a process infected by bias and pervasive lack of due process; is arbitrary, capricious, and characterized by abuse of discretion,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in their appeal to the Maine Superior Court.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, ruled last week that the former president is constitutionally barred from appearing on the state’s primary ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, citing his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump’s lawyers, however, said in their filing that Section 3 does not apply to the former president and that Bellows, a Democratic former state senator, has no authority to enforce it anyway. They also say she should have recused herself, arguing she is too partisan to weigh the case fairly.
Supreme Court urged to take up Trump eligibility issue in Colorado
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and plaintiffs challenging Trump's eligibility for the state primary ballot both filed court papers today urging the Supreme Court to take up the issue.
The court filings came in response to the Colorado Republican Party's appeal of a state Supreme Court ruling that said Trump was not eligible to appear on the ballot, although that decision remains on hold.
Typically, if both sides ask the Supreme Court to take up a case it increases the chances of the court’s stepping in.
Trump is expected to file his own appeal but has yet to do so.
Ramaswamy expects 'to be in the top three' in Iowa
DUBUQUE, Iowa — Ramaswamy told NBC News’ Maura Barrett on the sidelines of a campaign event that he expects "to be in the top three" in the first presidential contest, adding he thinks he has “a good shot” at winning the Iowa caucuses.
“We don’t need to win the Iowa caucus for me to have a full and clear path going all the way in the long distance, but I think it is to significantly exceed the expectations that have been set for us as I expect we will,” he added.
The Republican presidential candidate has been running in fourth place in Iowa in most polls, including last month's NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll. That survey had Ramaswamy at 5%, behind Trump's 51%, DeSantis' 19% and Haley's 16%.
RFK Jr. hires anti-vaccine activist as campaign communications director
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-shot presidential campaign has a new communications director — prominent anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree. In a letter to supporters, Bigtree called the appointment “my greatest opportunity to date.”
In speeches and interviews, Kennedy has credited the anti-vaccine movement with powering his candidacy and vowed as president to halt research into infectious diseases and use the power of the attorney general to threaten editors of medical journals over publishing research on Covid treatments and vaccines.
Bigtree is the executive director of the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), the country’s second best-funded anti-vaccine organization, after Children’s Health Defense, the group from which Kennedy stepped down as chairman in April so he could run for president. The pandemic was a boon for both organizations. In addition, Bigtree hosts The HighWire, an anti-vaccine and conspiracism internet show.
Bigtree did not respond to an emailed request for comment. In a note announcing his new role, Bigtree released a letter rife with misinformation alleging that the Covid vaccine was responsible for widespread injury and death. Bigtree called for his supporters to “stop the globalist’s New World Order” and unite across the political spectrum under the banner of “medical freedom.” Bigtree also solicited $1,000 donations from supporters to join a “health think tank,” funds which he said would go toward creating television ads.
Trump-Haley ad war in New Hampshire cost millions over the holidays
Iowa’s Jan. 15 caucuses are up first, but the most expensive ad outlay over the holidays came in New Hampshire.
That’s where the pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., went up with an attack ad accusing Haley of flip-flopping on the gas tax as South Carolina governor. The Haley super PAC, SFA Inc., quickly went up with its own response saying Trump is afraid of her.
Both super PACs have spent about $1 million keeping those ads in heavy rotation in the expensive Boston media market, which covers most of New Hampshire, since Saturday, Dec. 23, according to AdImpact. For more on the ad battle in Iowa, read here.
DeSantis spokesman mocks Trump's decision not to appear at upcoming Iowa debate
The communications director for DeSantis, Andrew Romeo, roasted Trump on X over the former president's decision not to attend the upcoming Iowa presidential debate on CNN.
"We understand Donald Trump is scared to get on the stage because he’d have to finally explain why he didn’t build the wall, added nearly $8 trillion to the debt, and turned the country over to Fauci," Romeo wrote. "But even Gavin Newsom had the courage to stand on the stage to debate his own failed record against Ron Desantis. If it would make the debate more inviting, we would gladly agree to make it a seated format where the former president would be more comfortable."
Instead of the Jan. 10 debate, Trump will attend a solo town hall hosted by Fox News on the same night. The former president has not participated in any of the GOP primary debates.
