(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys for Donald Trump have repeated their request for a delay of the $83 million judgment in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against the former president, arguing that the former columnist’s lawyers contradicted themselves in a recent court filing.
Defense lawyers Alina Habba — along with D. John Sauer, who was recently added to the Carroll case after arguing for presidential immunity in Trump’s federal election interference case — renewed Trump’s request that Judge Lewis Kaplan delay the judgment for 30 days after Kaplan resolves the post-trial motions, or that he permits Trump to post a reduced bond of $24.475 million.
“Remitting the $7.3 million award and the $65 million punitive award, as discussed above, would reduce the bond amount to $24.475 million, which would be more than sufficient to secure any minimal risk to Plaintiff,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in a filing over the weekend.
Last month, Kaplan declined Trump’s initial request for a reduced bond or a delay, but asked for a reply from Carroll’s lawyers. In a filing last week, her attorneys argued that the reasoning in Trump’s request relief “boils down to nothing more than ‘trust me.'”
Trump’s lawyers responded by arguing that Carroll’s concern about Trump’s limited finances is contradictory, highlighting that at trial her lawyers emphasized Trump’s wealth to convince the jury to reach a higher damages award.
“Plaintiff’s current position — that President Trump’s ability to satisfy a judgment of $83.3 million is in doubt — is ‘clearly inconsistent’ with her position barely one month ago that President Trump has $14 billion in assets and can thus easily satisfy an enormous punitive award,” defense lawyers wrote.
While Trump also owes $454 million in his civil fraud case, his defense lawyers argued that judgment is “unlikely to be upheld on appeal” and that the former president has many illiquid assets that could secure the judgment.
“Having accused President Trump of failing to provide evidence, Plaintiff relies heavily on double-hearsay, speculative news articles alleging facts outside the record to imply that President Trump’s financial situation is precarious — contradicting her own trial evidence,” defense lawyers wrote.
Trump in January was ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages to Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegation that he sexually abused her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.
(BISMARCK, N.D.) — It’s caucus day in North Dakota, where former President Donald Trump aims to maintain his large lead in the Republican race versus former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
Twenty-nine delegates are up for grabs in the GOP caucuses.
In the caucus, which is a party-run election different from a primary, voters will gather at 12 sites across the state from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. or 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., depending on the time zone (North Dakota has two).
Candidates have to get at least 20% to win any delegates and a candidate can win all of the delegates by reaching 60% of the vote.
Voters on Monday should be Republicans and bring acceptable ID like a driver’s license to participate.
Thirteen delegates are on the table in the Democratic primary, which is scheduled for April 6. There, President Joe Biden is expected to win as he faces no notable challengers.
Voting hours will vary by county.
State significance North Dakota’s primary is not anticipated to have major implications for either party in the general election as it reliably votes for Republicans up and down the ballot.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday essentially rendered moot a string of ongoing state-level challenges to former President Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, also known as the “insurrection clause.”
Both Colorado’s Supreme Court and Maine’s top election official had determined Trump should not be the Republican presidential primary ballot under Section 3 because of his conduct in the wake of his 2020 election loss and related to Jan. 6.
But the new U.S. Supreme Court opinion found that the state officials had no such authority to make that determination based on the 14th Amendment.
That paves the way for Trump to remain on every state’s ballot on his path to likely winning another GOP presidential nomination and appearing in November’s general election.
“Responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States,” the court’s majority opinion states.
While the justices were specifically ruling on the Colorado decision, which Trump appealed in January, their rationale appears to end the ongoing legal dispute nationwide.
Trump’s candidacy has been questioned or reviewed in states including California, Illinois, Virginia and more — with contradictory results.
Dozens of similar challenges have been considered by lower courts, election boards or secretaries of state over the past year and nearly all of them have been dismissed for reasons ranging from procedural inconsistencies, questions about whether the judicial branch had power to enforce the “insurrection clause” to disputes about the meaning of precise words in the text.
Last week, Illinois became the third state after Colorado and Maine in which an official determined Trump was ineligible for the 2024 primary ballot under Section 3. However, the judge stayed her decision pending appeal and noted that it would remain on pause if the U.S. Supreme Court issued a conflicting decision.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s three liberal-leaning justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — in a concurring opinion on Monday said while they agreed the Colorado decision couldn’t stand, they were at odds with the court’s majority over their determination that only Congress can enforce Section 3.
Allowing Colorado to keep Trump off the ballot, they agreed, would “create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles. That is enough to resolve this case.”
Colorado and Maine are both Super Tuesday states, set to cast ballots and release their primary results on Tuesday.
The former president remained on both states’ primary ballots ahead of Election Day.
Colorado and Maine’s Secretary of State offices had both said they wouldn’t reprint ballots if the U.S. Supreme Court were to find Trump ineligible — they would simply not count votes for the former president.
More than 857,584 combined ballots have already been cast in both states’ primaries.
Trump, who denies all wrongdoing, quickly celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Monday as a “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!” while opponents to his qualification said they disagreed with the justices’ view.
“Colorado should be able to bar oath-breaking insurrectionists from our ballot,” the state’s Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said in a statement.
However, she acknowledged, “In accordance with this decision, Donald Trump is an eligible candidate on Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary.”
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of Donald Trump in a historic case challenging his eligibility to seek the Republican presidential nomination under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment due to his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The court was unanimous in reversing the unprecedented decision out of Colorado that would kick Trump off the ballot under the provision after a state trial court found he participated in “insurrection” on Jan. 6 through incitement.
“For the reasons given, responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States,” the Supreme Court opinion read. “The judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court therefore cannot stand. All nine Members of the Court agree with that result.”
On holding that only Congress had the power to enforce the provisions under Section 5 of the amendment, it said its decision would apply to federal offices nationwide.
“This case raises the question whether the States, in addition to Congress, may also enforce Section 3,” the decision read. “We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under theConstitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.”
The justices further said the idea that individual states can decide how the section is used with respect to federal offices is “simply implausible” and could result in an unworkable “patchwork” where a candidate could be ineligible in one state but not another.
“Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos — arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the Inauguration,” the decision read.
Trump quickly celebrated the ruling, writing on his social media platform it was a “BIG WIN” for the country.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said her state should be able to decide when it comes to presidential candidates.
“I am disappointed in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision stripping states of the authority to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment for federal candidates,” she said in a statement. “Colorado should be able to bar oath-breaking insurrectionists from our ballot.”
The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — in a concurring opinion, said while they agreed the Colorado decision couldn’t stand, they were at odds with the court’s majority over their determination that only Congress can enforce Section 3.
Allowing Colorado to keep Trump off the ballot, they agreed, would “create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles. That is enough to resolve this case.”
“Yet the majority goes further,” the liberal justices wrote. “They decide novel constitutional questions to insulate this Court and petitioner from future controversy.”
“The majority announces that a disqualification for insurrection can occur only when Congress enacts a particular kind of legislation pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment,” they continued. “In doing so, the majority shuts the door on other potential means of federal enforcement. We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative appointed by Trump, held a similar view in her own brief concurring opinion.
“I agree that States lack the power to enforce Section 3 against Presidential candidates,” she wrote. “That principle is sufficient to resolve this case, and I would decide no more than that. This suit was brought by Colorado voters under state law in state court. It does not require us to address the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced.”
But Barrett also sought to stress the court’s unanimous agreement, saying now is not the time for strident disagreement.
“The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election,” she wrote. “Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up. For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is projected to win Washington, D.C.’s Republican primary on Sunday, ABC News reports, her first primary win over former President Donald Trump, but one that does little to ameliorate the daunting task of actually leapfrogging him in the race for the GOP nomination.
The projected win will make Haley the first woman to ever win a Republican presidential primary or caucus.
According to research from the Rutgers University Center for American Women and Politics about major female presidential candidates, Republican candidate Margaret Chase Smith (1964) was the first woman to have her name placed into nomination for President but hadn’t won any primaries.
Elizabeth Dole ran as a Republican in 1999 but withdrew before the primaries.
Michele Bachmann ran as a Republican in 2012 but withdrew after the Iowa caucuses.
Carly Fiorina ran as a Republican in 2016 but withdrew after New Hampshire (and lost in Iowa and New Hampshire).
Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas highlighted this milestone on X, writing: “This makes Nikki Haley the first woman to win a Republican primary in U.S. history.”
Nineteen delegates were up for grabs. Early voting was on Friday and Saturday, and absentee mail-in ballots had to have been received by Saturday.
Democrats will hold their own presidential primary in the city on June 4, where President Joe Biden faces only nominal opposition.
State significance
Washington, D.C.’s primary is not anticipated to have major implications for either party and the district has reliably voted for Democrats over the years.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court says it will release one or more opinions on Monday — a day before the Super Tuesday primaries — in an announcement widely expected to resolve a dispute over states’ ability to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The court had not previously been scheduled for a public sitting, when traditionally decisions in cases argued during the term would be read aloud and handed down. The justices will not take the bench, according to the high court’s website.
Opinions released on Monday will be done electronically, the court said.
Last month, the justices heard expedited oral arguments in Trump’s appeal of a Colorado State Supreme Court decision that would ban the former president from the 2024 ballot for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
A majority of the justices at the time appeared highly skeptical that an individual state has the authority to deny a candidate for federal office from the ballot as an “insurrectionist,” as Colorado did.
A decision in Trump v. Anderson would come one day before Colorado voters head to the polls. While Trump’s name is already on the ballot there, the ruling could determine whether votes for Trump could be counted and would bring clarity to the high court’s view on a 150-year-old constitutional provision and attempts to enforce it against Trump nationwide.
(SELMA, Ala.) — Vice President Kamala Harris spoke on Sunday afternoon in Selma, Alabama, to mark the 59th anniversary of a milestone moment in the civil rights movement — “Bloody Sunday.”
At the top of her remarks, however, Harris addressed something else: She called on the Israelis to, in her words, do more for the people in Gaza who are “dying of malnutrition and dehydration” amid the Israeli military’s bombardment as it targets Hamas in the wake of Hamas’ terror attack.
“The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses,” she said. “They must open new border crossings. They must not impose any unnecessary restrictions on the delivery of aid. They must ensure humanitarian personnel, cities and convoys are not targeted, and they must work to restore basic services and promote order in Gaza so more food, water and fuel can reach those in need.”
Citing “the immense scale of suffering in Gaza,” Harris also called for Israel and Hamas to agree to a much-negotiated proposal in which there would be a four- to six-week cease-fire in exchange for Hamas releasing vulnerable hostages.
U.S. officials said this weekend that Israel has agreed to that deal and “the onus right now is on Hamas.”
Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack sparked the war, more than 28,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Harris and President Joe Biden have sought to balance their support for Israel’s campaign against Hamas — which the vice president did again on Sunday, saying the threat from Hamas “must be eliminated” — with concern for civilians being killed. Progressives have increasingly spoken out against the administration for not pressuring Israel to end the war.
The U.N. says that more than 570,000 people in Gaza are on the brink of experiencing famine levels of hunger due to the continuing conflict.
Israeli officials insist they take steps to curb civilian deaths and have pushed back on the widespread humanitarian concerns for those in the Palestinian territory.
Ophir Falk, an adviser to Israel’s prime minister, said in an interview with ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge that Israel “is enabling thousands of trucks to get into Gaza.”
He also challenged the U.N. warnings of famine but Harris, in her remarks on Sunday, said, “People in Gaza are starving.”
“The conditions are inhumane and our common humanity compels us to act,” she said.
Marking civil rights
In addition to her speech, the vice president also participated in the annual crossing jubilee of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, originally named after a Confederate general, where Alabama state troopers infamously attacked Black demonstrators as they marched for voting rights on March 7, 1965.
The brutality stunned many across the country and galvanized support for the landmark Voting Rights Act.
Harris’ visit on Sunday also comes in an election year as she and President Joe Biden seek to cement their standing with Black voters and tout their continued focus on voting rights, which has largely been stalled in Congress — drawing some progressive criticism.
Senate Democrats last month reintroduced a major proposal to strengthen voting rights, named in honor of the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, who was beaten to the point of a skull fracture while marching across the bridge in Selma 59 years ago.
Harris once again called on Congress to act, as she did two years ago in Selma, also on the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.”
Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., whose district includes Selma, Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Rev. Al Sharpton also attended Sunday’s bridge crossing along with second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Selma is also working to expand its high-speed fiber broadband access, which local officials told ABC News is important for empowering residents.
“To be able to circulate factual information quickly, succinctly, that creates a more educated community,” Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. said in an interview.
Selma University’s president, Stanford Angion, echoed that, saying, “I’m excited because digital equity and being able to reach people in real time is really going to be significant, I think, in increasing voter participation.”
Harris, the nation’s first Black vice president, is a key figure in the administration’s efforts to pass more voting rights legislation — which that hasn’t moved out of the Senate because it lacks the support of 10 Republicans to overcome the body’s filibuster rule.
Democrats say the bill would restore a provision requiring states and municipalities with a history of voter discrimination to obtain federal “preclearance” before changing voting laws.
Conservatives oppose what they call federal intrusion into state-run elections.
Biden and Harris have made democracy and individual rights key parts of their campaign message while seeking to draw a contrast with former President Donald Trump, who has been hammering the White House over inflation, immigration and foreign policy.
The Biden-Harris campaign has fired back, arguing Trump, who looks likely to soon clinch the 2024 Republican nomination, is an anti-democratic candidate and pointing to his role in ending Roe v. Wade’s gaurantees to abortion access.
Perkins, the Selma mayor, called out the scrutiny of diversity and inclusion efforts and new restrictions on ballot access.
“This is really a dangerous time. And this is a very disenfranchising moment for us,” he said. “I don’t know that people really fully understand how critical this is. But it is something that we really need to be paying attention to.”
The vice president’s appearance in Selma comes a day after a New York Times and Siena College poll continued to show trouble for Biden in a hypothetical rematch with Trump, the latest in a long string of poor polling for him — but his campaign threw cold water on that.
“Polling continues to be at odds with how Americans vote, and consistently overestimates Donald Trump while underestimating President Biden,” Biden-Harris communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement.
In addition to spearheading voting rights for the Biden administration, Harris has become its main messenger on abortion rights wake of the Supreme Court reversing Roe two years ago could raise the issue given the relevancy in Alabama after the state Supreme Court upended access to in vitro fertilization by ruling that embroys are children under the law.
Harris launched a “reproductive rights tour” on the 51st anniversary of the Roe decision in battleground Wisconsin, where First Lady Jill Biden was on Sunday to promote the “Women for Biden-Harris” program and warn against Trump by name.
Alabama is one of 16 states and territories that will vote on Super Tuesday. It’s also the home state of Sen. Katie Britt, who will deliver the State of the Union response for Republicans on Thursday.
Biden also traveled to Selma last year to mark the anniversary and cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and tweeted about the anniversary on Sunday.
“Fifty-nine years ago, brave Americans sought to cross a bridge named after a Klansman in Selma, Alabama, to reach the other side of justice,” Biden wrote. “Today and every day, we honor that legacy by fighting to protect the right to vote and uphold the integrity of our elections.”
While there have been calls over the years to rename the site, the late Congressman Lewis co-authored an article with Sewell in The Selma Times-Journal in 2015 in favor of keeping the name.
“Keeping the name of the bridge is not an endorsement of the man who bares its name but rather an acknowledgment that the name of the bridge today is synonymous with the Voting Rights Movement which changed the face of this nation and the world,” they said.
ABC News’ Tesfaye Negussie and Dhanika Pineda contributed to this report.
(SELMA, Ala.) — Vice President Kamala Harris will speak on Sunday afternoon in Selma, Alabama, to mark the 59th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” a milestone moment in the civil rights movement.
She’ll participate in the annual crossing jubilee of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, originally named after a Confederate general, where Alabama state troopers infamously attacked Black demonstrators as they marched for voting rights on March 7, 1965.
The brutality stunned many across the country and galvanized support for the landmark Voting Rights Act.
Harris’ visit on Sunday also comes in an election year as she and President Joe Biden seek to cement their standing with Black voters and tout their continued focus on voting rights, which has largely been stalled in Congress — drawing some progressive criticism that the White House could do more on its own.
Senate Democrats last month reintroduced a major proposal to strengthen voting rights, named in honor of the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, who was beaten to the point of a skull fracture while marching across the bridge in Selma 59 years ago.
Harris is expected to once again call on Congress to act, as she did two years ago in Selma, also on the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.”
“While there, she will deliver remarks honoring the legacy of the civil rights movement and the Biden-Harris administration’s continued work to achieve justice for all and encourage Americans to continue the fight for fundamental freedoms,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last week.
Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., whose district includes Selma, Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Rev. Al Sharpton are expected to attend Sunday’s bridge crossing along with second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Selma is also working to expand its high-speed fiber broadband access, which local officials told ABC News is important for empowering residents.
“To be able to circulate factual information quickly, succinctly, that creates a more educated community,” Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. said in an interview.
Selma University’s president, Stanford Angion, echoed that, saying, “I’m excited because digital equity and being able to reach people in real time is really going to be significant, I think, in increasing voter participation.”
Harris, the nation’s first Black vice president, is a key figure in the administration’s efforts to enact more voting rights legislation — which hasn’t moved out of the Senate because it lacks the support of 10 Republicans to overcome the body’s filibuster rule.
Democrats say the bill would restore a provision requiring states and municipalities with a history of voter discrimination to obtain federal “preclearance” before changing voting laws.
Conservatives oppose what they call federal intrusion into state-run elections.
Biden and Harris have made democracy and individual rights key parts of their campaign message while seeking to draw a contrast with former President Donald Trump, who has been hammering the White House over high inflation, immigration and foreign policy.
The Biden-Harris campaign has fired back, arguing Trump, who looks likely to soon clinch the 2024 Republican nomination, is an anti-democratic candidate while pointing to his role in ending Roe v. Wade’s guarantee to abortion access.
Perkins, the Selma mayor, called out the Republican-led scrutiny of diversity and inclusion efforts and new restrictions on ballot access.
“This is really a dangerous time. And this is a very disenfranchising moment for us,” he said. “I don’t know that people really fully understand how critical this is. But it is something that we really need to be paying attention to.”
The vice president’s appearance in Selma comes a day after a New York Times and Siena College poll continued to show trouble for Biden in a hypothetical rematch with Trump, the latest in a long string of poor polling for him — but his campaign threw cold water on that.
“Polling continues to be at odds with how Americans vote, and consistently overestimates Donald Trump while underestimating President Biden,” Biden-Harris communications director Michael Tyler argued in a statement.
In addition to spearheading voting rights for the Biden administration, Harris has become its main messenger on abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court reversing Roe two years ago. She could raise the issue in Alabama after the state Supreme Court upended access to in vitro fertilization by ruling last month that embryos are children under the law.
Local lawmakers, including many Republicans, are pushing to protect IVF access despite the court ruling.
Harris launched a “reproductive rights tour” on the 51st anniversary of the Roe decision in battleground Wisconsin, where first lady Jill Biden is on Sunday to promote the “Women for Biden-Harris” program and warn against Trump by name.
Alabama is one of 16 states and territories that will vote on Super Tuesday. It’s also the home state of Sen. Katie Britt, who will deliver the State of the Union response for Republicans on Thursday.
Biden, who made a commemorative trip to Selma last year, posted on social media about the 59th anniversary on Sunday.
“Fifty-nine years ago, brave Americans sought to cross a bridge named after a Klansman in Selma, Alabama, to reach the other side of justice,” he wrote. “Today and every day, we honor that legacy by fighting to protect the right to vote and uphold the integrity of our elections.”
While there have been calls over the years to rename the site, the late Congressman Lewis co-authored an article with Sewell in The Selma Times-Journal in 2015 in favor of keeping the name.
That “is not an endorsement of the man who bares its name but rather an acknowledgment that the name of the bridge today is synonymous with the Voting Rights Movement which changed the face of this nation and the world,” they wrote.
ABC News’ Tesfaye Negussie and Dhanika Pineda contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Chef and humanitarian José Andrés, whose nonprofit World Central Kitchen has been sending significant aid into Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war, on Sunday pushed back on criticism that airdrops into the Palestinian territory are wrong because they are hypocritical and insufficient compared to broader solutions.
“We need to bring food into Gaza any way we can,” Andrés told ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, calling the situation there “desperate.”
According to the U.N., more than 570,000 people in Gaza are on the brink of experiencing famine levels of hunger due to the continuing conflict.
While Andrés said the broader goal should be to simply allow a “daily, constant and massive” flow of trucks into Gaza, “I don’t think we need to be criticizing that Jordan, America are doing airdrops. If anything, we should be applauding any initiative that brings food into Gaza.”
He was responding to a recent statement from an official with the anti-poverty group Oxfam opposing the airdrops.
The Oxfam statement this weekend said the airdrops “mostly serve to relieve the guilty consciences of senior US officials whose policies are contributing to the ongoing atrocities and risk of famine in Gaza.”
Andrés dismissed that on Sunday, saying, “This is probably written by somebody that doesn’t have — who has a lot of time on his hands.”
Three U.S. Air Force cargo planes dropped 66 bundles containing about 38,000 meals into Gaza on Saturday in a joint operation with the Jordanian Air Force.
This comes as the Biden administration — which is supporting Israel in its military campaign against Hamas after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack — is continuing to push for more support to reach civilians in Gaza.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says that more than 100 people were killed late last week in a chaotic scene as they surged around a convoy of aid trucks in northern Gaza amid Israeli military gunfire. (Israel insists its forces only opened fire when people got too close to one of their tanks.)
“This is the perfect example that shows you that really people are in need of food and water, they are desperate,” Andrés said on “This Week.” “Mothers, fathers they want to feed their children. So, what you saw there is exactly the example of their desperation.”
World Central Kitchen has provided more food aid to Gaza than any other nongovernmental organization, delivering more than 350,000 meals a day.
“The men and women of World Central Kitchen, they don’t follow a plan, they always adapt,” Andrés told Karl, adding, “We had more than 62, 63 kitchens functioning every day. Each one with its bakery, making bread from scratch. We’ve been able to bring thousands of kitchens that allow us to cook without the need to be cutting trees. It’s just simple logistics.”
“The north is where the main need is right now,” he said of Gaza.
The Palestinians “are surrounded by the sea and by three big walls. They have nowhere to go,” he said.
Andrés also called for more pathways for aid to be opened — not just by air and by truck convoys but by sea, which is something U.S. officials have said they are considering.
“I hope it’s going to happen soon, where we can be bringing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of meals,” Andrés said.
(WASHINGTON) — Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley hedged on Sunday on whether or not she would make good on her pledge to support the eventual Republican presidential nominee if she does not win the GOP primary over rival Donald Trump.
Haley signed the so-called loyalty pledge last year in order to participate in party debates. Trump, who did not debate, refused.
Since then, Haley has become increasingly critical of the former president and in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday wouldn’t definitively say whether or not she would endorse Trump if he wins the GOP nomination.
“If you talk about an endorsement, you’re talking about a loss. I don’t think like that. When you’re in a race, you don’t think about losing. You think about continuing to go forward. What I can tell you is: I don’t think Donald Trump or Joe Biden should be president,” Haley said on “Meet the Press” when asked if she’d support the former president.
When pressed by moderator Kristen Welker specifically on the pledge she signed, Haley suggested she signed the vow simply to make the debate stage and that the Republican National Committee, which is in the midst of a leadership change, isn’t the same body it was when the promise was crafted.
“The RNC pledge — I mean, at the time of the debate, we had to take it to where, ‘Would you support the nominee?’ And in order to get on that debate stage, you said ‘yes.’ The RNC is now not the same RNC,” Haley said.
“I think I’ll make what decision I want to make,” she said when asked if she felt she was still “bound” by her pledge.
“But that’s not something I’m thinking about,” she added, noting she plans on competing in multiple primaries being held this week on Super Tuesday.
“I don’t look at what ifs,” she said.
Trump has trounced Haley in every early primary so far and is expected to continue doing so, though she has argued that the notable minority she is winning — more than 40% in some states — shows many voters want a Trump alternative.
Polling indicates she’s unlikely to win many, if any, primary states to come.
Haley has previously been bullish that she will stay in the race through Super Tuesday, though she has been more speculative about what’s in store for her beyond that day.
While she has become more ambivalent about ultimately backing Trump if he wins the nomination, she wouldn’t be the first Trump rival to harshly criticize him and then support his White House bid.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said during the 2016 Republican National Convention that conservatives should “vote your conscience” — without endorsing Trump — but then said later that year that he had changed his mind “after many months of careful consideration.”
