Here’s the latest from the 2024 campaign trail:
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- A winter storm forced the campaigns of entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former President Donald Trump to cancel their events in Iowa. Ramaswamy was still set to hold several events later in the day.
- Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson were able to continue with their campaigning in the state less than a week out from the kickoff Republican caucuses.
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis delivered his State of the State address in Tallahassee before he headed to Des Moines for a Fox News town hall.
- Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will hold a town hall in New Hampshire, where two new polls paint very different pictures of the race.
Christie blasts Lloyd Austin over concealing hospitalization
ROCHESTER, N.H. — Christie told audience members at a town hall event here tonight that the single most important issue in this race is character while adding that the White House was “tying themselves in knots” trying to explain how Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was battling prostate cancer and did not tell the commander in chief.
“The entire time the president of the United States didn’t know. Nobody told him. I mean, how the hell does that happen?” Christie said.
He also criticized Austin’s character, saying: “What’s the character of the secretary of defense if he doesn’t pick up the phone himself and call the president, the man who gave him the job, and said: 'Oh, by the way, Mr. President, bad news. I have prostate cancer. I need to go in for surgery. Here’s how I propose to handle it. Is that OK with you?'
"I mean, that seems to be pretty basic, right?” Christie added. “This applies to our party, too,” he said before proceeding to talk about Trump’s Christmas message in which he called for various people who are “looking to destroy our once great USA” to “rot in hell.”
Ramaswamy conducts town hall via FaceTime as bad weather interrupts his travel
A day riddled with canceled events and logistical hurdles for Ramaswamy's campaign featured another blip when the 38-year-old entrepreneur beamed into his third town hall of the day via FaceTime from an iPad.
The event, originally dubbed a “rally” by the campaign, was conducted virtually as 20 Iowans passed around the iPad, asking Ramaswamy questions as a staffer held a microphone up to the device.
“Apoorva and I were together in the last event that went over,” said Ramaswamy, explaining his delays as a brutal winter storm rocks Iowa, slowing down travel on the roads.“We’re driving very slowly and carefully in the snow to stay safe. But thank you for your patience for having me this way.”
Ramaswamy spent yesterday criticizing his GOP rival, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, for canceling an event in Iowa amid the winter storm. Ramaswamy posted on his X account, “We’re not gonna let a little snow stop us. I’m no snowflake,” before proceeding to cancel three of his seven events.
Voter voices: Anti-Trump N.H. Republicans weigh Haley vs. Christie
ROCHESTER, N.H. — Greg Leach, 49, a Republican voter who attended a Christie town hall Tuesday night, told NBC News he plans to vote for Haley.
“My heart wants to vote for Gov. Christie, but my brain tells me to vote for Nikki Haley,” Leach said. He said his decision is based on current polling numbers. He views Haley as being “within close striking distance of Trump.”
“I want to vote for Christie, but I feel like right now my vote would be wasted and, in a sense, a vote for Trump,” Leach said.
Leach has never voted for Trump and does not want him to be in office “ever again.”
Sandy Keans, 81, an independent who also attended the town hall, plans to vote for Christie.
“I think he’s the most commonsense, does things like I would do them,” she said.
Keans said she is not interested in voting for Haley: “I think she caters her answers to whoever is in the room. It doesn’t seem to be a consistent message.”
No. 3 GOP senator, John Barrasso, endorses Trump
John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican senator, endorsed Trump for president today, becoming the highest-ranking GOP senator to back the former president before the Iowa caucuses Monday.
“President Trump and a new conservative led Senate partnership will restore American greatness,” Barrasso said in a statement. Barrasso’s superiors, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, have not endorsed anyone in the GOP primaries.
Barrasso, already speaking of Trump as the presumptive nominee, said he made the endorsement “because hard working Americans simply can’t afford another four years of Joe Biden.”
Ramaswamy pledges to cut funding for NPR
When a voter asked him what he would do about National Public Radio, Ramaswamy was unequivocal.
“Well, I think the use of federal money to engage in one-sided partisanship is an abandonment of their purpose,” he said. “When I’m talking about zero-based budgeting, I really mean zero-based budgeting.”
“It’s effectively state media,” he said.
According to NPR's financial reports, the stations receive funding from a broad mix of sources, including federal grants but also corporate sponsorships, universities and individual donors.
GOP candidates say supporters are too fired up for cold to keep them home
Temperatures for the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on Monday are set to be the coldest in the contest’s modern history, with a forecast high temperature of around 0 degrees in Des Moines, according to the National Weather Service.
But Republican presidential candidates aren’t worried, uniformly saying they think their supporters are uniquely motivated to come out and vote the night of Jan. 15. And state party leaders also don’t think the frigid temperatures will affect turnout.
DeSantis responds to Trump's saying he hopes the economy crashes the year
DeSantis responded to comments Trump made last night in a TV interview in which he said hopes the economy crashes “during this next 12 months.”
DeSantis told reporters today after his Fox News town hall that he “does not want to see the economy crash.”
“I don’t want the economy to crash because people’s livelihoods depend on their 401(k)s. People’s jobs — if the economy crashes, people get thrown out of work, businesses would go under. I don’t want to see that happening. I want people to do well,” he said.
Trump voluntarily appeared in court just six days before the Iowa caucuses in an effort to convince more Republican voters that he is a victim.
Protesters rush the stage at DeSantis town hall on Fox News
A handful of protesters interrupted DeSantis’ town hall on Fox News this evening in Des Moines, chanting “no oil money” and carrying a banner with the same message.
DeSantis seemed unfazed, saying, “You live and you learn with these people. That was a mistake. You guys didn’t get that one right.” Security escorted the protesters out of the room.
Earlier this evening, DeSantis said he would back fracking nationwide. “We’re going to frack in this country. It’s important. And it’s the way you get to be energy independent and energy dominant,” he said.
DeSantis predicts appeals court will rule against Trump on immunity claim
In a Fox News town hall event tonight, DeSantis predicted that Trump is headed toward another legal setback.
DeSantis said he expects the appeals court that heard arguments today in Trump's effort to dismiss the federal election interference case on presidential immunity grounds will rule against the former president.
"I think the D.C. Circuit will rule against him. I mean, it’s a liberal circuit," DeSantis said. The three-judge panel that heard arguments today included one Republican appointee.
When asked if he thought Trump was immune from prosecution because he was president at the time, DeSantis said, "You know, I’m not exactly sure, because I think it’s kind of a novel issue."
DeSantis then pivoted to argue that it is just another way the election will be all about Trump if he’s the nominee. It “lets Democrats off the hook,” DeSantis said.