Hadriana Lowenkron | Bloomberg News (TNS)

Nikki Haley signaled she may decline to endorse Donald Trump in an election rematch with President Joe Biden, saying she no longer considers herself bound by a pledge to the Republican National Committee to support the party’s 2024 nominee.

“I think I’ll make what decision I want to make,” Haley said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” for broadcast Sunday. “But that’s not something I’m thinking about.”

Haley said “the RNC is now not the same RNC” — her latest attack on the organization since Trump said he’d nominate his daughter-in-law Lara Trump to co-lead it with Michael Whatley, the North Carolina state party chairman who has supported Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election.

Haley is keeping up attacks on the GOP front-runner in the buildup to Super Tuesday on March 5, when more than a dozen states hold presidential nominating contests. Trump swept the first four contests and leads Haley by 64 percentage points in the nomination race, according to the RealClearPolitics average of national polls.

Haley has said she’ll stay in the race at least until Super Tuesday. She has been urging voters to reject Trump’s “chaos” and lamenting her party’s drift away from small government and free markets at recent campaign rallies.

On Sunday, Haley left open the possibility of staying in until the Republican convention in July, saying donations as well as votes will determine whether she “stays competitive.”

“If the people want to see me go forward, they’ll show it,” she said. “They’ll show it in their votes. They’ll show it in their donations.”

Related Articles

6 in 10 US adults doubt mental capability of Biden and Trump, poll finds

Small but notable chunk of early GOP voters say they wouldn’t vote for Trump in November

Supreme Court restores Trump to ballot, rejecting state attempts to ban him over Capitol attack

Nikki Haley wins the District of Columbia’s Republican primary and gets her first 2024 victory

Super Tuesday’s dominance highlights how presidential selection process can exclude many US voters

Some donors, including billionaire Ken Griffin and the Charles Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity Action, have dropped their support for Haley. She picked up endorsements from Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins on Friday, her first by sitting U.S. senators.

Haley has spoken out against the use of any RNC money to pay for Trump’s legal defenses, saying it would make the RNC “his legal slush fund.” The RNC raised $87 million in 2023 and ended the year with $8 million cash on hand — far less than the Democratic National Committee’s $120 million in fundraising and $20 million on hand.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By JOSH BOAK and AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A poll finds that a significant share of U.S. adults doubt the mental capabilities of 81-year-old President Joe Biden and 77-year-old Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican front-runner in what could be a rematch of the 2020 election.

More than 6 in 10 (63%) say they’re not very or not at all confident in Biden’s mental capability to serve effectively as president, turning his coming State of the Union address into something of a real-time audition for a second term. A similar but slightly smaller share (57%) say that Trump lacks the memory and acuity for the job.

The findings from a new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research point to a tough presidential election in which issues such as age and mental competence could be more prevalent than in any other political contest in modern times.

People’s views of Biden’s memory and acuity have soured since January 2022, when about half of those polled expressed similar concerns. (That survey didn’t ask a similar question about Trump.)

In a major risk for Biden, independents are much more likely to say that they lack confidence in his mental abilities (80%) compared with Trump’s (56%). And Democrats are generally more concerned about Biden’s mental capabilities than Republicans are with Trump’s, raising the stakes of Biden’s upcoming speech to a joint session of Congress on Thursday.

Going into the big event, just 38% of U.S. adults approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, while 61% disapprove. Democrats (74%) are much likelier than independents (20%) and Republicans (6%) to favor his performance. But there’s broad discontent on the way Biden is handling a variety of issues, including the economy, immigration and foreign policy.

About 4 in 10 Americans approve of the way Biden is handling each of these issues: health care, climate change, abortion policy and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. But people are less satisfied by Biden’s handling of immigration (29%), the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians (31%) and the economy (34%) — all of which are likely to come up in the speech before a joint session of Congress.

Nearly 6 in 10 (57%) Americans think the national economy is somewhat or much worse off than before Biden took office in 2021. Only 3 in 10 adults say it’s better under his leadership. Still, people are more optimistic about the state of their own bank accounts: 54% say their personal finances are good.

Many respondents to the survey were deeply pessimistic about their likely choices in November because of age and the risk of cognitive decline.

Paul Miller, himself 84, said Biden is just too old — and so is Trump.

“He doesn’t seem to have the mental whatever to be a president,” Miller said of Biden. He added that Trump is “too old, too, and half crazy.”

The retiree from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, said he voted for Trump in 2020 but he wouldn’t do so again.

“I don’t think I’m going to vote for either one of them,” he said. “I hope somebody else is available.”

Related Articles

Haley casts doubt on GOP nominee pledge after Trump’s power play

Small but notable chunk of early GOP voters say they wouldn’t vote for Trump in November

Supreme Court restores Trump to ballot, rejecting state attempts to ban him over Capitol attack

Nikki Haley wins the District of Columbia’s Republican primary and gets her first 2024 victory

Super Tuesday’s dominance highlights how presidential selection process can exclude many US voters

The president faces added pressure about his age after unflattering descriptions of him contained in a special counsel’s report that did not recommend criminal prosecution of Biden for his mishandling of classified records, unlike Trump who was indicted for keeping classified material in his Florida home. The report said that Biden’s memory was “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor” and had “significant limitations.”

Biden has tried to deflect concerns by joking about his age and taking jabs at Trump’s own gaffes. Yet the president’s age is a liability that has overshadowed his policy achievements on infrastructure, manufacturing and addressing climate change.

About one-third of Democrats said they’re not very or not at all confident in Biden’s mental capability in the new survey, up from 14% in January 2022. Only 40% of Democrats said they’re extremely or very confident in Biden’s mental abilities, with approximately 3 in 10 saying they’re “somewhat” confident.

Republicans are generally more comfortable with Trump’s mental capabilities than Democrats are with Biden’s. In the survey, 59% of Republicans are extremely or very confident that Trump has the mental abilities to be president. An additional 20% are somewhat confident, and 20% are not very or not at all confident.

But if there is one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree upon, it’s that the other party’s likely nominee is not mentally up to the task. About 9 in 10 Republicans say Biden lacks the mental capability to serve as president, while a similar share of Democrats say that about Trump.

Part of Biden’s problem is that his policies have yet to break through the daily clutter of life.

Sharon Gallagher, 66, worries about inflation. She voted for Biden in 2020, but believes he has not done enough for the economy. She also feels Trump is a bit too quick to anger. The Sarasota, Florida, resident said she doesn’t have the bandwidth to really judge their policies.

“I don’t pay enough attention to politics to even know,” Gallagher said. “I have grandchildren living with me and I have children’s shows on all day.”

Justin Tjernlund, 40, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, said Biden “seems like he’s mostly still there,” but even if he was in decline he has “a whole army of people to help him do the job.” Trjenlund said he voted for Trump in 2020 and plans to do so again because the Republican is “interesting” and “refreshing.”

Still, because of both candidates’ ages, Greg Olivo, 62, said he plans to focus on Vice President Kamala Harris and whomever Trump, if he’s the nominee, picks for a running mate.

“Keep a close eye on the vice president,” said the machinist from Valley City, Ohio, who voted for Biden in 2020 and would do so again. “Because that person will probably be the president in four years, one way or another.”

The poll of 1,102 adults was conducted Feb. 22-26, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

Associated Press polling reporter Linley Sanders contributed.

By SOPHIA TAREEN (Associated Press)

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Two attorneys for then-President Donald Trump orchestrated a plan for fake electors to file paperwork falsely saying the Republican won Wisconsin in a strategy to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory there and in other swing states, according to a lawsuit settlement reached Monday that makes public months of texts and emails.

Under their agreements, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis turned over more than 1,400 pages of documents, emails and text messages, along with photos and video, offering a detailed account of the scheme’s origins in Wisconsin. The communications show how they, with coordination from Trump campaign officials, replicated the strategy in six other states including Georgia, where Chesebro has already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the 2020 election.

The agreements settle a civil lawsuit brought by Democrats in 2022 against the two attorneys and 10 Republicans in Wisconsin who posed as fake electors. The Republicans settled in December.

“Our democracy demands better than this,” said Scott Thompson, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who helped negotiate the agreements. “That is why this lawsuit … consistently sought transparency, accountability and deterrence. We can’t let this happen again.”

There is no admission of wrongdoing or liability in the agreements in which Chesebro and Troupis promise to never participate in similar efforts involving future presidential campaigns. Troupis must also pay an undisclosed amount to the plaintiffs.

Phone and text messages left Monday for Troupis and Chesebro weren’t immediately returned.

Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome.

The documents show how Chesebro and Troupis, Trump’s attorney in Wisconsin, used arcane laws in rationalizing and drafting the false certificates for the fake electors. They also reveal how the two strategized ways to delay deadlines for certifying electoral votes and sway public opinion, including floating ideas on conservative talk radio.

In November 2020, as they were awaiting a decision from the then-conservative leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court on Trump’s effort to invalidate thousands of votes in the state, Chesebro suggested to Troupis that they contact conservative radio hosts in Milwaukee and Madison: “Mostly to maximize the chance that SCOW (Supreme Court of Wisconsin) justices hear about this quickly and prejudge the case?”

He ended with a winking emoji.

The fake elector efforts are central to an August federal indictment filed against Trump alleging he tried to overturn results of the 2020 election. Federal prosecutors, investigating his conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, have also said the scheme originated in Wisconsin. Trump also faces charges in Georgia and has denied wrongdoing.

Michigan and Nevada have criminally charged fake electors, but there’s no known criminal investigation in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has suggested he’s relying on federal investigators while also not ruling out a state probe. Attorneys who negotiated the settlement said information in the documents has already been provided to Kaul’s office.

Monday’s agreements were announced by Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, Law Forward and the Madison-based Stafford Rosenbaum law firm.

According to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, the documents show how Troupis, an attorney who has represented the Republican Party of Wisconsin and is a former judge, was deeply involved in the origins of the effort.

Trump lost Wisconsin to Biden, a Democrat, by fewer than 21,000 votes.

At Troupis’ urging, Chesebro drafted memos in the final months of 2020 detailing how to prepare the fake elector certificates and how they should be signed. The documents include a 10-minute video of the fake electors who cheer and take photos as they cast and sign ballots for Trump at the Wisconsin State Capitol.

There are no direct communications with Trump in the documents, but there are exchanges with top campaign aides and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

A day after Chesebro shares a Dec. 6 memo on strategies, Troupis follows up via text: “I have sent it to the White House this afternoon. The real decision makers.”

There’s a brief mention of a Dec. 16 afternoon meeting with Trump in the Oval Office that both men attended with others. Three days later, Chesebro refers to Trump’s social media post summoning followers to Washington on Jan. 6, saying “Be there, will be wild!”

“Wow. Based on three days ago, I think we have a unique understanding of this,” Chesebro texts Troupis.

Trump campaign officials did offer their assessment of each state’s progress on the fake elector plan.

“Wisconsin appears to be the most organized state so far,” concludes a Dec. 11, 2020, email from Trump campaign associate general counsel Joshua Findlay to Chesebro.

“This all came out of Wisconsin and expanded to other states,” said attorney Mary McCord with Georgetown’s institute, who helped negotiate the settlement. “That was a significant part of the narrative that led to the violence on Jan 6.”

After the deadly attack at the Capitol, the attorneys discussed falsely deflecting blame from Trump supporters to members of the anti-fascist movement, among others.

“It’d be nice if Trump surrogates could get across that without antifa’s role in the actual breaking in … the scene at the Capitol would have been entirely peaceful. And that Trump could not (have) reasonably foreseen this,” Chesebro wrote in a text to Troupis.

He added, “The President can put this behind him if he invites Biden and (Vice President Kamala) Harris over for coffee on inauguration morning and attends the (virtual) inauguration.”

Government and outside investigationshave uniformly found there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could have swung the 2020 election. But Trump has continued to spread falsehoods about the election.

By AAMER MADHANI and SEUNG MIN KIM (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday is hosting a member of Israel’s wartime Cabinet who is visiting Washington in defiance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Benny Gantz, a centrist political rival of Netanyahu, is sitting down with several senior Biden administration officials this week, including Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Council Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk and Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser. President Joe Biden is at Camp David, the presidential retreat just outside Washington, until Tuesday. Gantz is also scheduled to meet on Monday with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Gantz met on Sunday with the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, and State Department counselor Derek Chollet ahead of his White House meetings, according to administration officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

Over the weekend, Harris issued a forceful call for a temporary cease-fire deal in Gaza, which administration officials say would halt fighting for at least six weeks, and also increased pressure on Israel to not impede the aid that workers were trying to get into the region. The White House has been advocating for that framework deal for weeks.

“Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate cease-fire for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table,” Harris said during an appearance in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday. “This will get the hostages out and get a significant amount of aid in.”

Harris continued: “This would allow us to build something more enduring to ensure Israel is secure and to respect the right of the Palestinian people to dignity, freedom and self-determination.”

As she painted a dire portrait of malnourished and dying children in Gaza, Harris stressed that the Israeli government “must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid.”

“No excuses,” Harris said. “They must open new border crossings. They must not impose any unnecessary restrictions on the delivery of aid. They must ensure humanitarian personnel, sites, 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.”

Israel has essentially agreed to the deal, according to a senior Biden administration official, and the White House has emphasized that the onus is on Hamas to come on board.

An official from Netanyahu’s far-right Likud party said Gantz did not have approval from the prime minister for his meetings in Washington and that Netanyahu gave the Cabinet official a “tough talk” — underscoring the widening crack within Israel’s wartime leadership nearly six months into the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Gantz, who polls show would earn enough support to become prime minister if a vote were held today, is viewed as a political moderate, but he has remained vague about his view of Palestinian statehood. He is a member of the war cabinet and is widely viewed to be a moderating force. It is also assumed that when the heavy fighting subsides, he will leave the government, which would increase pressure for early elections.

Related Articles

After 10 years of trying, a Palestinian woman had twins. An Israeli strike killed them both

US military aircraft airdrop thousands of meals into Gaza in emergency humanitarian aid operation

US says Israel has agreed to the framework for a Gaza cease-fire. Hamas must now decide

Biden approves military airdrops of aid into Gaza after chaotic encounter left more than 100 dead

Gaza doctor says gunfire accounted for 80% of the wounds at his hospital from aid convoy bloodshed

Since Gantz joined Netanyahu’s three-minister war cabinet in October, U.S. officials have found him to be easier to deal with than either Netanyahu or Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Although Gantz holds many of the same hardline views as Netanyahu and Gallant, he has been seen as more open to compromise on critical issues, including the increased delivery of humanitarian assistance that will be a prime topic of discussion of the meetings in Washington this week.

Until now, calls for elections have been muted amid the war, but analysts think that when Gantz leaves the government, it will send a signal to the Israeli public that the need for national unity has passed and efforts to oust Netanyahu’s government can begin in earnest.

For his part while in Washington, Gantz aims to strengthen ties with the U.S., bolster support for Israel’s war and push for the release of Israeli hostages, according to a second Israeli official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t allowed to publicly discuss the disputes within the Israeli government. Gantz is scheduled to head to London for meetings after his U.S. visit.

The U.S. has begun a series of airdrops of aid into Gaza, just days after dozens of Palestinians were killed as they were trying to get food from an Israel-organized convoy. The first drop on Saturday included about 38,000 meals into southwest Gaza, and White House officials have said those airdrops will continue to supplement truck deliveries, while they also work on sending aid via sea.

Harris previously met Gantz at the Munich Security Conference in 2022.

Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; Wafaa Shurafa from Rafah, Gaza Strip; and Samy Magdy from Cairo and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.