Democrats to spend $35M targeting voters of color in House races
Democrats announced that they are spending at least $35 million this election cycle to “persuade and mobilize” Latino, Black, Asian American, Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian voters to help the party win control of the House in November.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told NBC News that the planned 2024 spending would surpass the $30 million spent on those groups of voters in the 2022 midterm elections and other previous cycles.
The investment and work associated with the program “honors our commitment to the multiethnic coalition that our fragile democracy depends on,” Missayr Boker, the DCCC’s deputy executive director for campaigns, said in a news release. “While extremist Republicans continue to lie, cheat and suppress the vote of people of color in order to win elections, Democrats understand that democracy is strengthened when everyone’s voice is heard.”
GOP race ignores the elephant in the room
We are now six days from the Iowa caucuses, and the major back-and-forth in the Republican presidential campaign is about ... Haley.
That’s at least the situation over the airwaves, as DeSantis and Trump’s allies have released closing TV ads hitting Haley.
The DeSantis campaign released this ad in Iowa yesterday, per NBC News’ Dasha Burns: “Here’s what Wall Street-funded Nikki Haley just said in New Hampshire: ‘You know that Iowa starts it, you know that you [New Hampshire] correct it.’”
And here’s a new ad the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. is airing in New Hampshire, according to NBC News’ Jake Traylor: “Drug traffickers. Rapists. Poisoning our country. But Nikki Haley refused to call illegals ‘criminals.’”
It’s understandable why DeSantis is going after Haley, because the two are locked in a competitive contest for second place in Iowa.
We also get why Team Trump is targeting Haley, because she’s been gaining ground on the GOP front-runner in New Hampshire over the last couple of months.
Now, DeSantis did mention Trump in that Iowa ad — barely — with video of DeSantis saying, “Trump is focused on his issues.”
But that delicate Trump criticism sidesteps the big picture in this Republican presidential race: The former president holds a commanding lead and is the overall front-runner for the nomination, despite all of the legal challenges he continues to face.
Trump promotes false theory that Haley is ineligible to be president
Trump reposted an article on Truth Social yesterday that baselessly questioned Nikki Haley's eligibility to be president.
The article, published in the right-wing site Gateway Pundit, argues that Haley should not be eligible under the 12th Amendment because her parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth.
But Haley was born in South Carolina, making her a natural-born citizen and therefore eligible to be president.
Trump has vowed to end birthright citizenship if elected. In the past, he has also promoted false claims that Barack Obama and Ted Cruz were not eligible to be president.
Harvard Law School professor emeritus shot down the claim that Haley isn't eligible to be president in an email to NBC News:
“The birther claims against Nikki Haley are totally baseless as a legal and constitutional matter,” he wrote. "I can’t imagine what Trump hopes to gain by those claims unless it’s to play the race card against the former governor and UN ambassador as a woman of color — and to draw on the wellsprings of anti-immigrant prejudice by reminding everyone that Haley’s parents weren’t citizens when she was born in the USA.”
NBC News' Matt Dixon out with a book on Trump and DeSantis
NBC News Senior National Political Reporter Matt Dixon is out with a new book today: "Swamp Monsters: Trump vs. DeSantis―the Greatest Show on Earth (or at Least in Florida)." The book tells the wild inside story of how Trump made a star of DeSantis and then set out to destroy him, and how their struggle for supremacy has turned Florida into the crucible of the new GOP.
Read an excerpt here and watch Dixon on MSNBC's "Morning Joe":
White House criticizes Trump's stock market crash 'hope' comments
In an interview yesterday, Trump remarked that he "hopes" when the stock market crashes, it would be while Biden is still in office — talking about it as an inevitability.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates responded:
“Consumer sentiment is surging and inflation is falling. All the more reason to continue Bidenomics’ historically successful economic growth, job creation, and cost reduction momentum over the volatility of MAGAnomics — which economists warn would worsen inflation with tax giveaways to rich special interests. A commander in chief’s duty is to always put the American people first; never to hope that hard-working families suffer economic pain for their own political benefit. Republican officials should welcome the economic progress President Biden is delivering, instead of revealing twisted true colors that would shrink the American middle class in the name of their own cynical self-interests.”
Dean Phillips rips DNC over N.H. primary: 'Most egregious affront to democracy I’ve ever seen in my life'
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Rep. Dean Phillips told NBC News he has not reached out to the Democratic National Committee since it sent a letter to the New Hampshire Democratic Party on Friday criticizing the state for selecting delegates for what it called a “meaningless” unsanctioned presidential primary.
“I’ve made myself pretty clear about what they’re doing is the most egregious affront to democracy I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. “Don’t take my word for it. Take the Department of Justice here in New Hampshire that felt compelled to send a letter to one of the two major political parties in the United States of America, asking them to cease and desist from the unlawful suppression of American voters.”
He then compared Democrats' silence over calling the New Hampshire primary “meaningless” to Republicans' silence after the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol.
“I’m not going to now be quiet when I see my own party doing the same damn thing. They’re doing the same thing,” Phillips said. “And they’re doing it overtly thinking that they can delude the whole country into believing the nonsense that we’re protecting democracy.”
“I’m angry, because I don’t see this country paying attention to something that it should downright be paying attention to really carefully right now. It’s a crisis,” he added. “It is probably the most important crisis we are facing right now because both parties are wayward.”
DeSantis delivers State of the State address in Florida
Taking a brief detour from the presidential campaign trail to fulfill a day job obligation, DeSantis delivered his State of the State speech in Tallahassee this morning, peppered with many of the same themes he employs on the stump.
“We have put forth a blueprint for America’s revival that has instilled hope into the hearts of millions, that a new birth of freedom can emanate from this land once more,” he said in his closing remarks — a phrase the Florida governor often uses at events in early voting states.
DeSantis is expected to return to Iowa this evening to take part in a town hall on Fox News before resuming his regular campaign schedule ahead of tomorrow night’s debate at Drake University. The campaign has not announced any changes to the governor’s travel plans despite severe weather rocking Florida and a snowstorm plowing across the Hawkeye State.
Zero voters show up to a Dean Phillips event in New Hampshire
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Dean Phillips parked his “Government Repair Truck” outside the DoubleTree hotel here for an event dubbed “Coffee Conversations,” where he planned to talk to voters and give out free Dunkin’ coffee.
But no one showed up.
The problem: The temperature was below freezing and, according to the campaign, people were parking in a garage underground and entering through the hotel.
Phillips ended up pouring coffee for the staffers who were there.
“Sometimes if you build it, they don’t come,” he said.
Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers endorses Trump
Mike Rogers, Republicans’ leading U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan, announced that he is endorsing Trump.
“I have no doubt President Trump will be able to deliver for the American people on day one, but we must get to work now,” Rogers wrote in a Daily Caller op-ed detailing his endorsement of the former president, who narrowly lost in Michigan to Biden in 2020 after winning the state four years prior.
The endorsement marks an about-face for Rogers, a former law enforcement officer and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who previously criticized Trump and even briefly considered running against him for the White House.
Rogers is competing in a crowded Senate primary field in Michigan, facing off against Trump foe and former Rep. Peter Meijer, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig and businessman Sandy Pessler, among others.
Democrats running for the open seat vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow include Rep. Elissa Slotkin and actor Hill Harper.
Trump campaign cancels Iowa surrogate event because of weather
The winter storm in Iowa is continuing to upend today's schedule. The Trump campaign has now canceled an evening event in Boone that was set to feature former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker.
The Trump campaign was also forced to cancel two events with Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Iowa yesterday.