Today's recap
Donald Trump has won an overwhelming victory in the US’s first election contest of 2024, easily fending off a winnowed field of Republicans in the Iowa caucuses. The former president won 51% of the vote in Iowa, a 30-point lead over Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor. Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, trailed in third place with 19%.
Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucuses was heralded as an early beginning to the battle for the White House itself. Using an acronym for Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America great again”, Joe Biden told followers: “Here’s the thing: this election was always going to be you and me versus extreme Maga Republicans. It was true yesterday and it’ll be true tomorrow.”
Nikki Haley has said she will not appear on the debate stage without Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Ron DeSantis has confirmed he will be attending this week’s GOP presidential debates in New Hampshire. Trump has not participated in any of the Republican primary debates so far.
E Jean Carroll and Donald Trump faced each other in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday in her defamation trial against the ex-president. The trial started with jury selection. Before selection started, Trump’s lead lawyer on this case, Alina Habba, told the judge that his team intends to call him as a witness.
The former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, a stalwart conservative willing to sharply criticize Donald Trump, has suspended his beleaguered bid for the White House the day after he came in sixth place in Monday’s Iowa caucuses.
Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden by eight percentage points among registered voters in Georgia, according to a new poll. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll also showed nearly 20% of voters weren’t ready to support either candidate.
The Senate will vote on a resolution that would freeze military aid to Israel unless the Biden administration looks into potential human rights abuses in Gaza. The measure, forced to the floor by Senator Bernie Sanders, has little chance of passing given the overwhelming support for security assistance to Israel in Congress. The chamber is expected to debate and vote tonight.
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The US supreme court has decided it will not hear a case centering on the debate over bathrooms for transgender students. The decision came on Tuesday despite an appeal from Indiana’s metropolitan school district of Martinsville.
– Guardian staff
Updated
Speaking on the Senate floor earlier, Republican senator Lindsay Graham said that Hamas has “militarized” schools and hospitals by operating amongst them.
Israel has blamed Hamas for using hospitals for military purposes, but has not provided definitive proof backing its claims that Hamas kept a “command center” under Gaza’s main al-Shifa hospital, which the Israeli Defense Forces raided in November. Two-thirds of Gaza’s hospitals have been closed amidst what Joe Biden has characterized as “indiscriminate bombings”, during a time of acute need.
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