Doug Burgum drops out of 2024 presidential race – latest

As President Joe Biden likes to remind anyone who will listen, “This is not your grandfather’s Republican Party”.

That has never been more evident than when examining the way the 2024 Republican presidential candidates approach the topic of Ukraine.

Support for Ukraine is dividing the GOP field. Several candidates believe the US should continue to support the war effort – a stance that adheres to more traditional Republican foreign policy beliefs.

For years, leaders in the GOP like George W Bush sounded alarms about Russia and supported Nato membership for Ukraine.

But in more recent years, notably under former president Donald Trump, modern conservatives have embraced isolationism.

A number of other Republican candidates, including Mr Trump – the current frontrunner, have expressed support for this.

This is a rundown of what the GOP presidential candidates have said about Ukraine.

The issue of abortion rights in the United States is staring the 2024 GOP presidential candidates in their eyes as they prepare to kick their campaigns into high gear.

Abortion has become a top concern for many voters

Since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark case Roe v Wade (1973) last summer, 21 states have enacted abortion restrictions ranging from a total ban to the point of viability.

Though the anti-abortion stance has long been associated with the Republican Party, it’s an unpopular view with most voters. Approximately 61 per cent of adults in the US believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to Pew Research Center.

As Americans look to next year’s presidential election, undoubtedly, voters will be considering where the Republican nominee stands on abortion when determining who to support.

Here is what each GOP presidential candidate has said on the issue.

At the Florida Freedom Summit last month, Mr Christie waged a battle with the Trump-loving audience, slamming the crowd for being afraid of the truth and detached from reality.

“Your anger against the truth is reprehensible,” he told the crowd as they booed him. “The problem is you want to shout down any voice that says anything different than what you want to hear.”

“You can go and boo about it as much as you like, but it doesn’t change the truth and the truth is coming,” he added.

“What a shock, you’re for Trump. I’m going to fall over dead. The problem is you fear the truth,” Mr Christie said.

“I assume that you’re yelling for $33 trillion in debt,” he told the audience. “It must be one of the things you’re for. You’re probably for it. Because you won’t be here to pay for it. But our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be here to pay for it.”

Late last month, Mr Christie pointed to Mr Trump’s use of aggressive rhetoric as one of the reasons behind the rise in Islamophobia and anti-Semitism following the outbreak of Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

“Well, look, when you show intolerance towards everyone, which is what he does, you give permission, as a leader, for others to let their intolerance come out,” he told CNN. “Intolerance towards anyone encourages intolerance towards everyone, and that’s what’s going on here.”

On Sunday, Mr Christie appeared on CBS, saying that Mr Trump “acts like someone who doesn’t care about our democracy. He acts like someone who wants to be a dictator. He acts like someone who doesn’t care for the Constitution”.

“I think I’ve made it very, very clear how I feel about this, and if folks want to return to some decency and civility why would you ever vote for Donald Trump?” he added.

Mr Ramaswamy has called Mr Trump “the best president of the 21st century” and the ex-president has returned the favour, calling the political neophyte a “very, very, very intelligent person”.

At the second debate, Mr Ramaswamy argued that while Mr Trump was a great president, he was better equipped to lead Mr Trump’s movement into the future.

“I think Trump was an excellent president. But the America First agenda does not belong to one man,” Mr Ramaswamy said on the debate stage. “I will respect Donald Trump and his legacy because it’s the right thing to do. But we will unite this country to take the America First agenda to the next level.”

After meeting Mr Trump, Mr Ramaswamy said his intellect “exceeded my expectations,” according to The Washington Post, pointing to his “memory and command over specific details relating to his foreign policy record and tenure in office” as well as his friendly personality when greeting guests.

“He kept commenting on my energy. I was like, ‘Actually, I thought you had a lot of energy too,’” Mr Ramaswamy said.

He has also said that “The donor class and the Republican Party does not like Trump. And they don’t like it when other candidates say good things about Trump, and that puts other candidates on a tight leash. What runs through the undercurrent of the Trump movement is a form of nationalism, and I share that nationalism”.

Mr Ramaswamy recently ended up in hot water when he was asked on CNN whether he believed the term “vermin” to be neo-Nazi rhetoric after Mr Trump used the word to describe his political enemies.

“This is a classic mainstream media move,” he said, dodging the question. “Pick some individual phrase of Donald Trump, focus on literally that word without actually interrogating the substance or what’s at issue.

“You have Antifa and other related groups that have been burning down cities for the last three years in this county,” he added. “We have an invasion on our southern border, we have millions of people crossing our southern border, let’s talk about the substance of why we have to recognize that we’re not in ordinary times.”

As South Carolina governor in 2016, Ms Haley said she was appalled by then-candidate Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the US, later putting in place a version of that plan, prompting massive protests at airports.

Ms Haley, whose parents are Indian immigrants, said at the time that Mr Trump’s promise was “absolutely un-American,” adding that it was just one of many “unacceptable” things Mr Trump had said and done.

She still joined the Trump administration as UN Ambassador and defended the policy when Mr Trump put in place a 90-day ban on travellers and refugees from coming to the US from Muslim-majority countries.

She’s now trying to attract GOP voters by emphasizing the drama of those years.

“We cannot have four years of chaos, vendettas and drama,” she has told voters, according to The New York Times. “America needs a captain who will steady the ship, not capsize it.”

She also bashed Mr Trump by saying that as president, she would not praise dictators and that she would “have the backs of our allies”.

Campaigning in New Hampshire last week, Ms Haley spoke of her time as one of America’s top diplomats.

“If he was doing something wrong, I showed up in his office or I picked up the phone and said you cannot do this,” she said in Wolfeboro.

During a press conference at a Florida charter school on Monday, Mr DeSantis slammed Mr Trump for skipping the GOP primary debates.

“If you’re doing so well, you should want to go up there and make your case, and I think voters deserve to hear from candidates as to why they should be the nominee,” he said, according to WFLA.

Mr DeSantis also pushed back against Mr Trump after the ex-president blamed his fellow Florida man after the College Football Playoff committee excluded Florida State University from the playoffs. Similarly, the governor went after his former ally for siding with Disney in his ongoing feud with the entertainment giant over disagreements on social issues.

“If you’re going to be a keyboard warrior, get out of your dungeon, get off the keyboard, stand on the debate stage, and let’s go,” Mr DeSantis said. “Let’s do it. I don’t think he will do it because I don’t think he can stand there for two hours against me and come out on top.”

Over the weekend, Mr DeSantis appeared on Meet The Press on NBC bashing Mr Trump for his failure to repeal and replace Obamacare.

“This is part of a pattern where he’s running on things that he didn’t do,” the governor said, citing the border wall among other things. “Here’s what I will do. What I think they’re going to need to do is have a plan that will supersede Obamacare that will lower prices for people so that they can afford health care while also making sure that people with pre-existing conditions are protected.”

Four candidates have so far qualified for the fourth Republican primary debate, set to be hosted by NewsNation on 6 December.

Former Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and biotech entrepreneur and anti-woke author Vivek Ramaswamy have all qualified for the Wednesday night showdown at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

The debate will be moderated by former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, now of SiriusXM, NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas, and Eliana Johnson, the editor of the Washington Free Beacon.

The debate will be broadcast on NewsNation, a subscription-based network, and it will be streamed online on Rumble, the video-hosting site mainly used by right-wing voters. The first three debates were hosted by Fox News, Fox Business, and NBC News.

To qualify, candidates had to acquire 80,000 donors – at least 200 from 20 states and territories – and at least six per cent support in at least two national polls or one national survey and two polls from the early states – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

Former President Donald Trump has also qualified but he’s not expected to attend. He skipped the first three debates. The ex-president will instead attend a fundraiser for his Make America Great Again (MAGA) super PAC in Florida, he announced on his Truth Social.

Mr Trump isn’t planning on counter-programming the debate with his own event as he has done previously, according to his campaign.

While Alabama is a deeply red state where Republicans easily win statewide races against Democrats, it does host a somewhat early primary contest on 5 March.

The field of Republican candidates has winnowed significantly since the beginning of the campaign, going from eight hopefuls appearing on the stage during the first primary debate to just four in the fourth showdown.

The frontrunner by a wide margin is former President Donald Trump, who has declined to appear at any of the debates so far, but his reticence to argue his case hasn’t had any impact on his strong primary poll numbers.

The four top remaining challengers have all used different tactics to take on Mr Trump.

Biotech entrepreneur and anti-woke author Vivek Ramaswamy has been mimicking him while at times struggling to explain why he’s running against a man he has called “the best president of the 21st century”.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been creative in finding different ways to call Mr Trump a wildly incompetent and dangerous criminal.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has argued that he would be a more competent, and most importantly, younger, version of the ex-president who would be able to run again in 2028.

Former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley initially instituted the “pro-having it and pro-eating it” cake policy of disgraced former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson when it came to Mr Trump, attempting to remain on the fence and not annoy either Republicans supportive or critical of the former president. More recently, she has become slightly more outspoken in her criticism.

Here’s a rundown of what each of them have said about Mr Trump.

Just a week after JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon urged even liberal Democrats to help Nikki Haley’s campaign to give Republicans an alternative to Donald Trump, one Democrat megadonor has done just that.

Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, donated $250,000 to a super PAC supporting the former UN ambassador’s 2024 campaign to be the GOP nominee in 2024.

The New York Times confirmed the donation had been made with Dmitri Mehlhorn, a political adviser to Mr Hoffman.

Mr Mehlhorn told the outlet that the pro-Haley super PAC SFA Fund Inc was specifically asked if it would take money from a Democrat who actively supports President Joe Biden, and they said yes.

SFA Fund Inc is one of the biggest actors in the 2024 Republican primary race, having spent more than $33m on advertising and other expenses.

Its biggest contributors up to mid-2023 were Jan Koum, a co-founder of WhatsApp, who gave $5m, and the venture capitalist Tim Draper, who gave $1.25m.

Previously Mr Hoffman helped fund E Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against the former president when she sued him for rape and defamation. Mr Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defaming Ms Carroll.

He also hosted a fundraiser for Mr Biden in California earlier this year; donated to vocal Trump foe Liz Cheney in 2022; and gave $3.35m to the Republican Accountability Project during the 2022 election cycle.

READ MORE

Three candidates have so far qualified for the fourth Republican primary debate, set to be hosted by NewsNation on 6 December.

Former Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and biotech entrepreneur and anti-woke author Vivek Ramaswamy have all qualified for the Wednesday night showdown at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

The debate will be moderated by former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, now of SiriusXM, NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas, and Eliana Johnson, the editor of the Washington Free Beacon.

The debate will be broadcast on NewsNation, a subscription-based network, and it will be streamed online on Rumble, the video-hosting site mainly used by right-wing voters. The first three debates were hosted by Fox News, Fox Business, and NBC News.

To qualify, candidates had to acquire 80,000 donors – at least 200 from 20 states and territories – and at least six per cent support in at least two national polls or one national survey and two polls from the early states – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.