Lincoln Dinner concludes
After more than two hours of speeches mainly centered on trans healthcare, the southern border and abortion, the Lincoln Dinner put on by Iowa’s Republicans, has concluded.
Thirteen speakers took to the podium to lay out their ideas about what is wrong with America and how they, as presidential hopefuls, had the answers to conservative gripes.
Few took direct jabs at each other and rather directed their criticisms at Democratic policies and boogeymen like the indoctrination of children and stripping of rights from parents.
The former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson mentioned the many lawsuits former president Donald Trump is facing and Will Hurd, a lesser-known candidate from Texas, said explicitly that Tump was running for president to stay out of prison. That comment was met with loud boos from the ballroom audience.
Trump, who spoke last and continues to dominate in the polls despite his numerous legal liabilities, pulled no punches when calling out his main opponent, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. He continuously mispronounced his name, called out his opposition to ethanol production and argued that the Florida governor was lagging behind in the polls.
“I wouldn’t take a chance on that one,” Trump said of DeSantis.
While, he made it a point to tell the Iowa audience about his policies on trans people in sports and tariffs he imposed on China, the former president made no mention of the litany of charges he is facing.
The only Republican candidate absent from the dinner was Chris Christie.
Read the rest of the Guardian’s coverage of the dinner here.
Updated
Most of the Republican speakers at tonight’s Lincoln Dinner did not take aim at any of their peers, but Donald Trump, who just left the podium to cheers, took several jabs at Ron DeSantis.
He continuously mispronounced his name, called out his opposition to ethanol production and argued that the Florida governor was lagging behind in the polls.
“I wouldn’t take a chance on that one,” Trump said of DeSantis.
Updated
Will Hurd, a former US representative from Texas and lesser-known candidate in the Republican race, left the stage to the sound of boos after he said that Donald Trump is running for president just to stay out prison.
Former Texas Rep. @WillHurd was up next.
— Taylor Popielarz (@TaylorPopielarz) July 29, 2023
He went after frontrunner @realDonaldTrump in blunt terms.
“Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.”
[Boos]
“I know the truth is hard. But if we elect Donald Trump, we are giving Joe Biden four more years in the White House…” pic.twitter.com/iQmeNsGF6W
Updated
At the podium now is former vice-president Mike Pence. He opens his speech by calling out what he sees as Joe Biden’s failing at the border and pro-choice stance.
“Joe Biden has been a disaster for America,” he tells the crowd.
In addition to standard conservative talking points on the national debt and national security, he also vowed to implement a ban on trans people in the military.
Updated
We’re approaching the halfway point of tonight’s Lincoln Dinner in Iowa. So far, six Republican candidate hopefuls have given their spiel on their plans for the nation. They are:
Nikki Haley
Asa Hutchinson
Ron DeSantis
Tim Scott
Perry Johnson
Doug Burgum
Each speaker has called out salient issues in today’s culture wars like abortion access, healthcare for transgender children and ethnic studies in schools.
Updated
Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, a potential Republican ticket frontrunner, just left the stage. He emphasized the policies that have allowed the state to “beat the left’s agenda”.
He also vowed to deploy the military to the southern border and use “deadly force” on cartels.
DeSantis’ assaults on transgender healthcare, abortion access and ethnic studies and LGBTQ+ education have been well-documented. In May, the Guardian published a story where wide minority groups warned of what the damage his presidency could do to the nation.
Updated
Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina was the first presidential hopeful to address the Lincoln Dinner audience.
She emphasized the nation’s $32tn debt as well as the economic struggles facing many American families. She also took an unsurprising aim at the Biden administration, claiming that a 2024 win for Biden will mean that Kamala Harris is really the one winning the election.
Updated
Iowa governor Kim Reynolds just stepped off of the Lincoln Dinner stage. During her speech she touted the state’s supermajority and passage of conservative education and abortion policies. She told the dinner audience:
We’re empowering parents and protecting life.”
Earlier this month state legislators voted to ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a time before most people know they are pregnant.
Read more on the decision here.
Updated
I’m Abené Clayton, reporting from the west coast.
The Lincoln Dinner, put on by Iowa’s Republican Party is underway.
All of the Republican candidates for president, except Chris Christie, will deliver speeches of up to 10min to the ballroom audience.
Up first were Jeff Kaufman a state representative and Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa.
I’ll be posting updates from the dinner here.
Updated
At the Iowa Republican party’s 2023 Lincoln Dinner fundraiser, the super PAC backing Ron DeSantis has set up baseballs to throw at cans of Bud Light.
From the New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher:
In hospitality suite at Iowa GOP dinner, the DeSantis super PAC has set up baseballs to throw at Bud Light cans, per pic from NBD pic.twitter.com/dvuR45pshs
— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) July 28, 2023
Trump, DeSantis and top Republican candidates to share stage at Iowa event
Every major Republican presidential candidate will share a stage in the early voting state of Iowa tonight, as Donald Trump continues to dominate in the polls despite his numerous legal liabilities.
Most of the 13 candidates will appear at the Iowa Republican party’s 2023 Lincoln Dinner fundraiser, giving them an opportunity to address donors and local party leaders with less than six months left before the state’s crucial caucuses.
The lineup of confirmed speakers for tonight are:
Donald Trump
Ron DeSantis
Mike Pence
Nikki Haley
Tim Scott
Vivek Ramaswamy
Asa Hutchinson
Larry Elder
Perry Johnson
Doug Burgum
Francis Suarez
Ryan Binkley
Will Hurd
The event is scheduled to begin at 7pm ET. We will be following it live here on the blog.
Updated
Along with two new charges of obstruction of justice, there was another new count of retaining classified material. Special counsel Jack Smith describes a July 2021 incident in which Donald Trump bragged about a “plan of attack” against another country in an interview at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The former president then waved around the classified documents to his guests: a writer, publisher and two Trump staff members who all lacked security clearances “This is secret information,” he said, according to a recording cited in the documents, claiming that, “as president I could have declassified it” – but he had not.
The indictment says the document was returned to the federal government on 17 January 2022, which is the date Trump provided 15 boxes of records to the National Archives.
Trump now faces 40 criminal counts in the classified documents case alone. Ty Cobb, a former Trump White House lawyer, told CNN:
I think this original indictment was engineered to last a thousand years and now this superseding indictment will last an antiquity. This is such a tight case, the evidence is so overwhelming.
The new charges were made public hours after Trump said his lawyers met with justice department officials investigating his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, in a sign that another set of criminal charges could come soon.
Video from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida would play a significant role in the investigation because, prosecutors say, it shows his valet, Walt Nauta, moving boxes of documents in and out of a storage room – including a day before an FBI visit to the property – at Trump’s direction.
According to the indictment, Nauta met Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira at Mar-a-Lago on 25 June 2022. They went to a security guard booth where surveillance video is displayed on monitors and walked with a torch through a tunnel where the storage room was located, observing and pointing out surveillance cameras.
Two days later, according to the indictment, De Oliveira walked through a basement tunnel with a Trump employee to a small room known as an “audio closet”. The two men had a conversation supposed to “remain between the two of them”.
De Oliveira asked how many days the server retained footage. De Oliveira allegedly told the employee that “the boss” wanted the server deleted and asked: “What are we going to do?”
The indictment asserts that Trump called De Oliveira before and after the incident, and that Nauta and De Oliveira were also in contact.
Prosecutors further allege that, during a voluntary interview with the FBI last January, De Oliveira lied when he said he “never saw nothing” with regard to boxes at Mar-a-Lago.
De Oliveira was added to the indictment, charged with obstruction and false statements related to that FBI interview. This could impact the trial date, currently set for May next year, by which stage the Republican nomination may well have been decided.
A tunnel lit by torchlight. An attempt to delete incriminating camera footage. A “boss” whose orders must be obeyed. And all to no avail.
The latest criminal charges against Donald Trump, the former US president, conjure images of the hapless Watergate burglars or a mob movie with elements of farce.
But while they deepen Trump’s legal perils, analysts say, they will only harden his determination to regain the White House as his best chance of staying out of jail. Opinion polls show he remains the runaway frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024.
Trump, who left office in January 2021, pleaded not guilty in Miami last month to federal charges of unlawfully retaining classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and obstructing justice. Prosecutors allege that he put some of America’s most sensitive national security secrets at risk.
On Thursday they updated the indictment by accusing the former president of scheming with his valet, Walt Nauta, and a Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, to hide surveillance footage from federal investigators after they issued a subpoena for it.
It was left to others to dwell on the irony of Trump, who spent much of the 2016 campaign savaging rival Hillary Clinton for deleting emails from a computer server as secretary of state, now standing accused of trying to delete security footage at his home.
The US is expected to announce a new military aid package to Taiwan worth $345m, according to US officials, a move that is likely to anger China.
The package includes man-portable air defense systems, or Manpads, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles, AP reported, citing sources.
Congress authorized up to $1bn worth of Presidential Drawdown Authority weapons aid for Taiwan in the 2023 budget.
The latest package would be in addition to nearly $19bn in military sales of F-16s and other weapons systems that the US has approved to Taiwan.
Ron DeSantis suggests he would pardon Trump if elected
Florida governor Ron DeSantis indicated he would consider pardoning Donald Trump if he is elected president, a day after the former president was indicted on additional charges.
In an interview on the Megyn Kelly show, DeSantis was asked if he would commit to pardoning Trump on any federal charges. He replied:
Well, what I’ve said is very simple. I’m going to do what’s right for the country. I don’t think it would be good for the country to have an almost 80-year-old former president go to prison. It doesn’t seem like it would be a good thing.
And I look at like, you know, Ford pardoned Nixon, took some heat for it, but at the end of the day, it’s like, do we want to move forward as a country? Or do we want to be mired in these past controversies?
DeSantis previously said that, if elected, he would consider pardoning people involved in the January 6 insurrection, including Trump.
DeSantis, asked whether he’d pardon Trump on any federal charges against him, says in part:
— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) July 28, 2023
“I'm going to do what's right for the country. I don't think it would be good for the country to have an almost 80 year old former president go to prison…”
pic.twitter.com/PCqEjpp2CY
Updated
Republican representative John James of Michigan weighed in on the debate over Florida’s controversial new curriculum standards for Black history, which include the contention that some Black people benefited from being enslaved.
James criticized Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor also running for the GOP presidential nomination, for supporting the new standards that require Florida teachers to tell middle school students people enslaved in the US developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit”.
Posting to Twitter, James said DeSantis should “put the shovel down” if he found himself “in a deep hole”, and that the Florida governor was “now so far from the Party of Lincoln that your [Education] board is re-writing history”.
It comes after DeSantis accused his GOP rival and the only Black Republican in the US Senate, Tim Scott, of laundering Democratic talking points after the South Carolina senator said slavery was “devastating”.
Addressing DeSantis, James wrote:
There are only five black Republicans in Congress and you’re attacking two of them
.@RonDeSantis, #1: slavery was not CTE! Nothing about that 400 years of evil was a “net benefit” to my ancestors. #2: there are only five black Republicans in Congress and you’re attacking two of them.
— John James (@JohnJamesMI) July 28, 2023
My brother in Christ… 🤦🏾♂️ if you find yourself in a deep hole put the shovel… https://t.co/9DGZw4BI0o
Democrat congressman Dean Phillips weighs primary run against Biden
Dean Phillips, a moderate Democrat congressman representing Minnesota, is considering a potential 2024 primary challenge against Joe Biden, according to multiple reports.
Phillips will meet with Democrat donors next week in New York about a potential long-shot primary challenge. The news was first reported by Politico, then Phillips confirmed his meeting to CNN.
Phillips has said publicly he does not believe Biden should run for reelection. In an interview last year, he said the country “would be well served by a new generation of compelling, well-prepared, dynamic Democrats to step up”.
Politico writes:
Phillips, who’s in his third term representing suburban Minneapolis, has drawn attention from contributors by both denouncing the “No Labels” attempt to field a third-party ticket and calling for a contested Democratic primary next year. A former executive, he’s also the sort of pro-business social moderate with private sector experience who corporate leaders usually pine for in a presidential candidate.
Phillips, 54, is highly unlikely to mount a primary challenge unless Biden’s health worsens or his political standing drops precipitously, I’m told, and does not want to further weaken the president.
Congress has a lot on its plate when it gets back to work in September.
Among its most important tasks is agreeing on a number of funding bills, ahead of a 30 September deadline after which the US government could shut down if the legislation is not passed.
But Republicans are also openly mulling whether to impeach Joe Biden over allegations of corruption. It’s possible the effort would succeed in the House, where the GOP has a majority, but there is almost no chance at this point of the Democratic-controlled Senate voting to convict the president.
Biden appears to be taking the threat in stride. In a speech earlier today, he turned the impeachment push into a laugh line:
President Biden: “The Washington Post suggested Republicans may have to find something else to criticize me for, now that inflation is coming down. Maybe they’ll decide to impeach me because it’s coming down. I don't know. I love that one.” pic.twitter.com/IFwNVCo7DY
— The Recount (@therecount) July 28, 2023
Updated
Congress is on recess for the next few weeks, which is likely a relief for the Senate pages who recently got screamed at by a House Republican. The Associated Press has the story:
A freshman Republican congressman from Wisconsin yelled and cursed at high school-aged Senate pages during a late-night tour of the Capitol this week, eliciting a bipartisan rebuke from Senate leaders.
Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin’s third district, used a profanity to describe the young pages as lazy and another to order them off the floor of the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday night, according to PunchBowl News. The pages were lying down to take photos, according to the publication.
In a statement responding to the report, Van Orden doubled down.
“I have long said our nation’s Capitol is a symbol of the sacrifice our servicemen and women have made for this country and should never be treated like a frat house common room,” Van Orden said.
Fortunately for Samuel Alito, legislation to force the supreme court to adopt an ethics code appears to lack the votes for enactment.
A week ago, the Senate judiciary committee approved the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, which, in addition to mandating the justices outline their ethics rules, would create a mechanism to investigate violations of the code, force justices to explain publicly why they are recusing themselves from cases and improve requirements for transparency and disclosure.
But while Democrats were able to get the bill through the judiciary committee with a simple majority, it appears to have no Republican supporters, as a hearing on the proposal made clear, nixing its chances of clearing the 60-vote majority needed to pass most legislation in the Senate. There have also been no indications that the GOP, which controls the House, would consider the bill.
Conservative justice Alito says Congress has no authority to impose ethics code on supreme court
Conservative supreme court justice Samuel Alito told the Wall Street Journal that he does not believe Congress has the authority to impose a code of ethics on the nation’s highest court.
His comments came amid a push by Senate Democrats to pass legislation forcing the nation’s highest court to adopt an ethics regulations in response to a series of media reports revealing entanglements between the justices and parties with interests in their cases.
“I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” Alito told the Journal’s editorial board, which typically takes conservative positions, in an interview. “No provision in the constitution gives them the authority to regulate the supreme court – period.”
He added that “Congress did not create the supreme court” but demurred when asked if his colleagues agreed. “I don’t know that any of my colleagues have spoken about it publicly, so I don’t think I should say. But I think it is something we have all thought about.”
Alito also reflected on mounting criticism of the court’s legitimacy from the left, after the six-justice conservative majority overturned Roe v Wade, expanded the ability for people to carry concealed weapons, allowed businesses to turn away LGBTQ+ people and banned race-conscious college admissions in recent decisions. He wondered if something comparable to the “massive resistance” seen in Virginia beginning in the 1950s to court rulings ordering desegregation might emerge in opposition to the supreme court today.
“If we’re viewed as illegitimate, then disregard of our decisions becomes more acceptable and more popular. So you can have a revival of the massive resistance that occurred in the South after Brown,” he said, referring to the landmark school desegregation case.
Updated
From Georgia, the Guardian’s Justin Glawe brings us a story that illustrates how Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election are affecting voting even in the smallest communities:
A rural Georgia elections office run by Republicans who promote falsehoods about the 2020 election approved a motion on Monday to institute automatic hand recounts for all future elections.
The decision will require elections staff in Spalding county to hand-count each ballot, then compare those vote totals with totals reached by voting tabulation machines provided by the secretary of state. Hand counts slow certification of election results and are less reliable than tabulations carried out by machines.
In introducing the measure, Republican board member James Newland cited false claims about widespread voter fraud.
After Texas’s Republican governor deployed razor wire and buoys to keep migrants from crossing into the state from Mexico, the Guardian’s Erum Salam spoke to a Democratic state senator about what the new border policy means. Here’s what he had to say:
The rightwing governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, is conducting a border policy that is “criminal” and “inhumane” by deploying razor wire and a huge floating buoy in the Rio Grande, a top Texas Democrat has told the Guardian.
Abbott has earned widespread condemnation from civil rights groups and immigration activists for his actions on the border and been accused of pushing a policy that is racist and inflammatory. The US Department of Justice has sued over the issue – though Abbott is currently defying the federal government and not changing tack.
Allegations have also surfaced of border officers being instructed to withhold water in extreme heat, and push children “back into the water to go to Mexico” from a leaked email sent from a state trooper in the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas.
Abigail Spanberger, a third-term Democrat congresswoman representing Virginia, has told multiple people she will run for governor in 2025, according to a Politico report.
Spanberger and one of her top aides has told several Democrats that she is planning to bid for the governor’s mansion that Republican governor Glenn Youngkin will vacate in 2025, the report says, citing sources.
That decision could have major implications for Richmond and for Washington, where she would open up a critical battleground seat if she opts not to run for reelection next year.
Youngkin won the seat in 2021 in what was a shock defeat for the Democrats. The battle in Virginia was seen as a litmus test of Biden’s presidency one year after he won the White House.
A voting rights group in Florida filed a lawsuit against the rightwing governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, saying his administration created a maze of bureaucratic and sometimes violent obstacles to discourage formerly incarcerated citizens from exercising their right to vote.
Florida voters in 2018 overwhelmingly passed a constitutional referendum, called amendment 4, that lifted the state’s lifetime voting ban for people with felony convictions.
Yet what ensued in the years since 2018 was an aggressive campaign, led by DeSantis, to sow confusion and fear among formerly incarcerated people. The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), which championed amendment 4, said state officials have continued to disenfranchise 1.4 million Florida residents – roughly a quarter of the state’s eligible Black voters.
“Who is the public supposed to rely on to determine voter eligibility?” said the FRRC’s executive director, Desmond Meade.
We’re saying that it is the responsibility of the state. The law says it is the responsibility of the state.
DeSantis appears to disagree. The lawsuit, resubmitted on Friday by the FRRC, comes a year after the Florida governor ordered the arrests of dozens of people who participated in the 2020 election, including people who had been issued voter registration cards from the Florida department of state.
Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday to implement military justice reforms aimed at strengthening how the military handles serious military crimes, including sexual assault cases.
The change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice transfers key decision-making authorities on the prosecution of sexual assault and other violent crimes outside the military chain of command and to independent military attorneys.
The order officially implements changes passed by Congress in 2022 aimed at strengthening protections for service members, who were often at the mercy of their commanders to decide whether to take their assault claims seriously.
AP reports:
Members of Congress, frustrated with the growing number of sexual assaults in the military, fought with defense leaders for several years over the issue. They argued that commanders at times were willing to ignore charges or incidents in their units to protect those accused of offenses and that using independent lawyers would beef up prosecutions. Military leaders balked, saying it could erode commanders’ authority.
In a call with reporters previewing the executive order, senior administration officials said it was the most sweeping change to the military legal code since it was created in 1950. An official said:
These changes follow decades tireless efforts by survivors, advocates and members of Congress to strengthen the military justice systems response to gender-based violence.
Today, I signed an Executive Order strengthening how our military handles sexual assault and serious offenses.
— President Biden (@POTUS) July 28, 2023
Ending gender-based violence has been a priority for me throughout my career.
This represents a turning point for survivors of gender-based violence in the military. pic.twitter.com/zJ0ixMn3xZ
Updated
The day so far
Washington is reacting in a completely predictable fashion to the new charges brought against Donald Trump yesterday over the government secrets discovered at Mar-a-Lago. While his detractors say he should end his presidential campaign over the allegations, which one former Trump White House lawyer called “tight”, the former president remains defiant, and Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy gave no indication that his crucial support was wavering.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Trump remains the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, and polls are beginning to show a pronounced drop in support for Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and an uptick in voters interested in first-time candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Mitch McConnell does not plan to step down as the leader of the Senate Republicans, at least not in this Congress, a spokesperson said, despite this week’s health scare.
A former federal prosecutor told CNN the new charges against Trump may be an indication special counsel Jack Smith does not believe the Mar-a-Lago case will be resolved before next year’s election.
Updated
A spokesperson for Mitch McConnell’s office said he will stay as the Senate Republican leader through the 2024 election, Reuters reports.
“He plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do,” the spokesperson said, referring to GOP senators. McConnell’s current term representing Kentucky in the Senate runs through 2026, and the spokesperson did not address his plans beyond the current Congress, which ends in the first days of January 2025.
Over in the Senate, the fallout continues from Mitch McConnell’s health scare earlier this week. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports one Republican senator said – albeit anonymously – that McConnell should step down as the party’s leader in the chamber:
Mitch McConnell, the 81-year-old Republican leader in the US Senate who suffered a public health scare this week, should step down from the role he has filled since 2007, an unnamed GOP senator said.
McConnell, from Kentucky, remains “intellectually sharp” on “a whole host of issues including baseball”, the anonymous senator told NBC News.
But they added: “People think that he’s not hearing well. I think that he is just not processing.”
At a news conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, McConnell stopped talking mid-sentence, standing mutely for 23 seconds until he was led away from reporters.
He returned to say: “I’m fine.”
McCarthy downplays concerns over new Trump charges
CNN managed to track down Republican speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy at the Capitol to ask him if he was concerned about the new charges against Donald Trump.
The short version of the speaker’s answer, as you will see from the clip below, is that he is not:
Speaker McCarthy weighs in for first time on new charges filed against Trump alleging obstruction in docs probe. Asked if he had concerns with that and Trump allegedly seeking deletion of surveillance video.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 28, 2023
"What concerns me," he says, is Biden's mishandling of classified docs pic.twitter.com/LJc0N6dYNU
McCarthy’s comments are not much of a surprise. While he hasn’t formally made an endorsement in the 2024 presidential campaign, he has long striven to stay on the good side of the former president, who has many allies among House Republicans.
Updated
Speaking of Ron DeSantis, his support for controversial new standards regarding teaching about slavery in Florida have become fodder for a rival on the Republican campaign trail, the Associated Press reports:
The South Carolina senator Tim Scott criticized Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor also running for the Republican presidential nomination, for supporting new standards that require Florida teachers to tell middle school students people enslaved in the US developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit”.
“What slavery was really about was separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives,” Scott, the only Black Republican in the US Senate, told reporters on Thursday after a town hall event in Ankeny, Iowa.
“It was just devastating. So I would hope that every person in our country – and certainly running for president – would appreciate that.
That said, polls give little indication that the prosecutions of Donald Trump are affecting his standing among Republicans.
Glance at aggregator FiveThirtyEight and you’ll see the former president remains the campaign’s frontrunner, as he has for months, including before he was first indicted by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump leads the race with 52.4% support, a big improvement from the 43.4% support he was receiving at the start of the year.
Despite all his money and endorsements, Florida governor Ron DeSantis remains in a distant second place with 15.5% support, and if you look closely, you can see a sharp drop in his poll numbers in the most recent surveys. If there is anything new on this graph, it’s the apparent momentum of first-time candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who looks to be heading into a solid third place.
As an example, an Ohio Northern University poll that wrapped up on Wednesday shows him in second place among Republican voters in that state, beating DeSantis:
2024 Ohio Republican Primary:
— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) July 28, 2023
Trump 64%
Ramaswamy 12%
DeSantis 9%
Pence 6%
Haley 3%
Christie 2%
Hutchinson 1%
Ohio Northern University, 7/17-26https://t.co/sn585Hp39P
Despite his bluster, Donald Trump appears to be in serious legal trouble, and all indications point to it getting worse.
He has already been indicted by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg for allegedly falsifying business records in the state, and by special counsel Jack Smith on federal charges related to stashing classified government materials at Mar-a-Lago.
But with both Smith and other prosecutors continuing to investigate Trump, don’t be surprised if he finds himself the target of more indictments in the weeks and months to come. To keep track of them all, The Guardian’s Joan E Greve and Andrew Witherspoon have put together this handy explainer:
Trump again says he will not drop out of 2024 race despite new charges
In an interview with conservative radio host John Fredericks today, Donald Trump reiterated that he would stay in the presidential race despite the expanding indictment against him over the Mar-a-Lago documents:
President Trump says indictments will never stop his campaign for POTUS!
— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) July 28, 2023
Watch @jfradioshow exclusive interview with #PresidentTrump LIVE NOW!
Watch LIVE➡ https://t.co/aeKhZCtVbe
Watch #AmericanSunrise with @edhenry @mrsflorida2016 & @TBatesNews 👇: https://t.co/SGNOcrAlVc pic.twitter.com/HBN8nRayWK
The new charges announced yesterday concern an attempt by Trump to delete surveillance footage of boxes of classified documents being moved out of a room at Mar-a-Lago. In today’s interview, Trump denied any wrongdoing, saying “These were security tapes. We handed them over to them”, according to Reuters.
On CNN, a former federal prosecutor said the new charges against Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago case indicate special counsel Jack Smith does not believe the matter will be resolved before the 2024 presidential election.
The case is currently set for trial in May 2024, but Renato Mariotti told the network it’s likely to be pushed back:
"This is not something you do if you're trying to get this done quickly before the [2024] election."
— The Recount (@therecount) July 28, 2023
— Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti says superseding indictment in the classified docs case against Donald Trump shows Jack Smith doesn't think he will get a speedy trial pic.twitter.com/336N1fHTHP
John Bolton reiterates call for Trump to end White House campaign
Donald Trump’s one-time national security adviser John Bolton is now among his many Republican foes. This morning, Bolton reiterated his call for the former president to end his White House campaign after the new charges against him:
I called for Trump to end his presidential candidacy after the first Federal indictment and do so again now after the second one. It is more "obstruction of justice as a way of life": Trump's pure selfishness and self-interest - not regard for principle or country. America will…
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) July 28, 2023
Updated
As the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell and Maanvi Singh report, special counsel Jack Smith has both leveled new charges against Trump, and indicted a third person over the secret government materials found at Mar-a-Lago:
Federal prosecutors on Thursday expanded the indictment against Donald Trump for retaining national security documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them, unveiling new charges against him and an employee over an attempt to destroy surveillance footage.
The new charges – filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Florida – were outlined in a superseding indictment that named Mar-a-Lago club maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira as the third co-defendant in the case. Trump’s valet Walt Nauta was previously indicted for obstruction with the former president last month.
Trump’s legal exposure in the classified documents case grew after he was accused of attempting to destroy evidence and inducing someone else to destroy evidence, as well as an additional count under the Espionage Act for retaining a classified document about US plans to attack Iran that he discussed on tape at his Bedminster club in New Jersey.
Former Trump lawyer says evidence 'overwhelming' in Mar-a-Lago case
A former lawyer for Donald Trump who represented him in an earlier special counsel investigation has warned that the evidence revealed by Jack Smith in the Mar-a-Lago case is “overwhelming”.
Ty Cobb represented Trump during a period early in his presidency when he was being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller for alleged ties to Russia, which ultimately did not amount to the type of scandal the then-president’s detractors hoped would sink his administration.
But Cobb told CNN today that the charges in the Mar-a-Lago case brought by Smith, who was named a special counsel last year, are different. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports on why:
A former Trump White House lawyer said the evidence against the former president over his handling of classified documents was now “overwhelming” and would “last an antiquity”, after new charges were filed in the case on Thursday.
“I think this original indictment was engineered to last a thousand years and now this superseding indictment will last an antiquity,” Ty Cobb told CNN. “This is such a tight case, the evidence is so overwhelming.”
In June, the special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump on 37 counts regarding his handling of classified records after leaving the White House.
On Thursday, in a superseding indictment filed in a Florida court, four more charges were outlined. A second Trump staffer, the Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira, was charged, alongside Walt Nauta, Trump’s valet. Nauta previously pleaded not guilty.
Trump legal peril increases with new charges
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Donald Trump is squarely in the cross hairs of federal prosecutors, who yesterday added new charges to the indictment brought against him in June for allegedly hiding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. It is also possible that today, special counsel Jack Smith will unveil a new indictment against the former president related to his actions on January 6. Last week, Trump said he had received a letter formally telling him he was a target in the investigation and yesterday, his lawyers attended a meeting at Smith’s offices – both signs that an indictment could be near.
No former president has faced the sort of legal problems Trump is in, but there are also no signs yet that they’ve dented his standing among Republicans. He continues to lead polls among the party’s presidential candidates, and plans to spend this weekend rallying supporters in Erie, Pennsylvania. We’ll see if Washington has anything to say about the ongoing investigations against him today.
Here’s what else is happening:
Congress has left town for its summer break, but only after the Senate passed a version of a crucial defense funding bill without the contentious provisions over abortion, transgender care and other culture ware issues that the House inserted in its version. This legislation must pass, and expect a big fight over it when lawmakers get back to work in September.
All the main Republican candidates, including Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott and Mike Pence will this evening speak at the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner.
Joe Biden is heading up to Maine to promote his economic record, before flying to Delaware for a weekend on the beach.
