Trump cringingly dubbed ‘Donald Duck’ as he skips GOP debate – live

The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump ally and failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake will launch a Senate campaign on 10 October, setting up an expected three-way race against current Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Democrat Ruben Gallego.

So far, Mr Trump has been criminally indicted four times – two of which are on the federal level and two are on the state level. This is on top of two civil lawsuits the ex-president is involved in New York City.

Though Mr Trump’s legal team has continuously pushed judges to delay trial dates until after the 2024 election, nearly all of the dates for his criminal indictments have been set for next spring.

Republican presidential candidates spent two hours on live television late on Wednesday hurling insults and shouting at each other — often through switched-off microphones — at a presidential debate that was most notable for the continued absence of the candidate who currently leads the field, former president Donald Trump.

The seven-person field, consisting of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, ex-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, and former Vice President Mike Pence, took to the stage for a 120-minute session hosted by Fox Business Network and Univision, roughly a month after the first primary debate in Milwaukee.

Mr Trump, who most polling shows to have a commanding lead over the entire field, skipped the televised session to deliver prepared remarks to a group of non-union auto workers in Michigan.

A former president has been charged with crimes connected to his attempts to overturn the results of an American election.

The federal investigation into the efforts from Donald Trump and his allies to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election yielded four criminal charges in a 45-page indictment, outlining three alleged criminal conspiracies and the obstruction of of Joe Biden’s victory and detailing a multi-state scheme built on a legacy of lies and conspiracy theories to undermine the democratic process.

Mr Trump and 18 co-defendants are separately charged in Georgia in a sprawling racketeering case outlining the multi-state scheme to pressure state officials and then-Vice President Mike Pence to subvert election results against the will of Georgia voters.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie was mocked online on Wednesday evening after he attempted during the second presidential debate to give Donald Trump a new nickname: “Donald Duck.”

“I want to look in that camera now and tell you, Donald, I know you’re watching, you can’t help yourself,” Mr Christie said.

“You’re not here tonight, not because of polls and not because of your indictments. You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on this stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things.”

“Let me tell you what’s going to happen,” he continued. “You keep doing that, and no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. We’re gonna call you Donald Duck.”

The comments — met with a mix of cheers and boos in the debate hall — were instantly mocked online.

Read more from The Independent’s Josh Marcus…

The US Department of Justice veteran oversaw anti-corruption prosecutions against multiple US politicians in his role as the head of the Department of Justice public integrity section from 2010 to 2015.

One of those cases was against former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell, a Republican against whom he secured a conviction on bribery charges, though the case was later thrown out by the US Supreme Court.

He also won a conviction of former GOP Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona, who received a sentence of three years in prison before being pardoned by Mr Trump.

A Harvard Law School graduate, Mr Smith also served in prosecutorial roles in US Attorney offices in the Middle District of Tennessee and the Eastern District of New York.

The former president pleaded not guilty on 31 August to the slew of 13 charges accusing him of running a criminal enterprise to stay in power at all costs.

“As evidenced by my signature below, I do hereby waive formal arraignment and enter my plea of NOT GUILTY to the indictment in this case,” the filing states.

The arraignment was slated to take place in Fulton County court on 6 September.

It would have been the ex-president’s fourth after a grand jury in Georgia indicted the ex-president and 18 other defendants on various charges related to their alleged efforts to change the outcome of the 2020 election in the state. The charges stem from a years-long investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Former president visited Michigan a day after Joe Biden joined striking autoworkers’ picket line.

Donald Trump opted for speech in Michigan instead of attending debates in California.