Donald Trump joins Republican presidential candidate rivals at campaign dinner
Donald Trump has told supporters at an influential campaign event in Iowa he is the only Republican candidate who can beat President Joe Biden.
The former president took to the stage at the Lincoln Day Dinner with his main rival Ron DeSantis and several other candidates in the race to become the party’s nominee in 2024.
While his competitors broadly refused to speak about Mr Trump‘s ongoing legal problems, the former president made one veiled reference, saying: “If I weren’t running, I would have nobody coming after me.”
Pic: AP
He also insisted the same would be true if he were trailing in the polls.
The other Republican candidates mostly reserved their sharpest criticism for Mr Biden and a Democratic party they argued had lost touch with mainstream America.
“The time for excuses is over. We must get the job done,” Mr DeSantis told around 1,200 Republican party members and activists.
Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis speaks at the Lincoln Dinner Pic: AP
“I will get the job done,” he said.
The Florida governor also repeated his promise to halt the “weaponisation” of the Justice Department, alluding to Mr Trump’s indictments.
Mr Trump, who has a comfortable lead in the polls, was heavily critical of his rivals. He repeatedly branded Mr DeSantis “DeSanctus” and said: “I wouldn’t take a chance on that one.”
As he opened a campaign office outside Iowa’s capital Des Moines before the dinner, Mr Trump said: “I understand the other candidates are falling very flat… it’s like death.”
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Mr Trump frequently avoids attending events involving other candidates, questioning why he would share a stage with competitors who are trailing him in polls.
While most Republican candidates refused to criticise him, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchison said, “as a party, we need a new direction for America and for the GOP”, drawing only muted reaction from the crowd.
Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman, faced loud boos when he said: “The reason Donald Trump lost the election in 2020 is he failed to grow the GOP brand.
“Donald Trump is not running for president to make America great again… Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.”
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Iowa’s caucus, one of the first contests in the race for the Republican nomination, is set to take place in January 2024.
Trump is facing several criminal and civil investigations and has been indicted twice.
On Friday, federal documents said he faced new charges over classified documents he allegedly took from the White House, including deleting CCTV footage of his staff moving boxes at his Florida home.
A trial in that case has been set to start on 20 May 2024 – just weeks before the Republican and Democratic national conventions where each party’s nominees are set to be announced.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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