Donald Trump is set to be the Republican candidate for president as his last remaining rival Nikki Haley is due to pull out of the race, NBC News reports.
A source familiar with Haley’s plans has confirmed to Sky News’s partner NBC that she will exit the race later this morning.
It means Mr Trump is heading for what is almost certainly going to be a November showdown with the man who beat him in the 2020 election: Democrat Joe Biden.
Haley, a 52-year-old former South Carolina governor, had pitched herself as a solid conservative and a younger alternative to Trump, who is 77.
She had also been seen as the choice for Republicans tired of Trump’s ongoing legal issues – he faces four criminal cases, including over efforts to reverse the 2020 election result and his handling of national security documents.
But Haley failed to reach Republican voters, losing the first five nominating contests and all but one of the primaries on Super Tuesday.
Mr Trump and Mr Biden each won California, Texas, Alabama, Colorado, Maine, Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Minnesota and Massachusetts.
Mr Biden also won the Democratic primaries in Utah, Vermont and Iowa. The only contest he lost on Tuesday was the Democratic caucus in American Samoa, a tiny US territory in the South Pacific Ocean.
Haley’s only win of the night came in Vermont – denying Mr Trump a full sweep.
But the former president carried other states that might have been favourable to her such as Virginia, Massachusetts and Maine, which have large swathes of moderate voters like those who have backed her in previous primaries.
Haley was ambassador to the United Nations for almost two years under Trump’s presidency and when she resigned, he called her a “very special” person.
In recent months on the campaign trail, however, he changed his tune.
He used her background as a daughter of Indian immigrants as ammunition for racist attacks, and he amplified false claims about her eligibility for the White House, despite her having been born in South Carolina.
She fought back, describing him as “unhinged”, saying he is too chaotic and divisive to be an effective president, and criticising his admiration for dictators such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump says a meeting is being set up between himself and Vladimir Putin – and that he and Barack Obama “probably” like each other.
Republican US president-elect Mr Trump spoke to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday, saying Russian president Mr Putin “wants to meet, and we are setting it up”.
“He has said that even publicly and we have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess,” Mr Trump said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday there was a “mutual desire” to set up a meeting – but added no details had been confirmed yet and that there may be progress once Mr Trump is inaugurated on 20 January.
“Moscow has repeatedly declared its openness to contacts with international leaders, including the US president, including Donald Trump,” Mr Peskov added.
“What is required is a mutual desire and political will to conduct dialogue and resolve existing problems through dialogue. We see that Mr Trump also declares his readiness to resolve problems through dialogue. We welcome this. There are still no specifics, we proceed from the mutual readiness for the meeting.”
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Trump on Obama: ‘We just got along’
Mr Trump also made some lighter remarks regarding a viral exchange between himself and former Democrat President Barack Obamaat Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Thursday.
The pairsat together for the late president’s service in Washington DC on Thursday, and could be seen speaking for several minutes as the remaining mourners filed in before it began.
Mr Obama was seen nodding as his successor spoke before breaking into a grin.
Asked about the exchange, Mr Trump said: “I didn’t realise how friendly it looked.
“I said, ‘boy, they look like two people that like each other’. And we probably do.
“We have a little different philosophies, right? But we probably do. I don’t know. We just got along. But I got along with just about everybody.”
The amicable exchange comes after years of criticising each other in the public eye; it was Mr Trump who spread the so-called “birther” conspiracy theory about Mr Obama in 2011, falsely asserting that he was not born in the United States.
Mr Trump has repeatedly attacked the Obamas, saying the former president was “ineffective” and “terrible” and calling former first lady Michelle Obama “nasty” as recently as October last year.
On Kamala Harris’s campaign trail last year, Mr Obama said Mr Trump was a “78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago”, while the former first lady said that “the consequences of him ever being president again are brutally serious.”
The US Supreme Court has rejected a last-ditch attempt by Donald Trump to delay sentencing in the Stormy Daniels hush money case.
The president-elect was convicted on 34 counts last May in New York of falsifying business records relating to payments made to Ms Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
Prosecutors claimed he had paid her $130,000 (£105,300) in hush money to not reveal details of what Ms Daniels said was a sexual relationship in 2006.
Mr Trump has denied any liaison with Ms Daniels or any wrongdoing.
By a majority, the Supreme Court found his sentencing would not be an insurmountable burden during the presidential transition since the presiding judge, Juan M Merchan, has indicated he will not give Mr Trump jail time, fines or probation.
Mr Trump’s attorneys argued that evidence used in the Manhattan trial violated last summer’s Supreme Court ruling giving Mr Trump broad immunity from prosecution over acts he took as president.
At the least, they said, the sentencing should be delayed while their appeals play out to avoid distracting Mr Trump during the presidential transition.
Mr Trump’s attorneys went to the justices after New York courts refused to postpone sentencing.
Judges in New York found that the convictions related to personal matters rather than Mr Trump’s official acts as president.
Mr Trump’s attorneys called the case politically motivated, and they said sentencing him now would be a “grave injustice” that threatens to disrupt the presidential transition as the Republican prepares to return to the White House.
Mr Trump has said he will appeal again: “I respect the court’s opinion – I think it was actually a very good opinion for us because you saw what they said, but they invited the appeal and the appeal is on the bigger issue. So, we’ll see how it works out,” he said at a dinner with Republican governors at his private club in Florida.
Because the New York case was a state, rather than federal crime, Mr Trump will not be able to pardon himself when he takes office on 20 January.