Trump endorses Jordan as speaker as he tries to toss Jan 6 case: Live

The View host and ex-Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin has declared that Taylor Swift is the “only person” who could defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

Farah Griffin – who served as director of strategic communications for the White House during former president Trump’s administration – emphasised her love for the 12-time Grammy winner in an episode of The View: Behind the Table podcast with executive producer Brian Teta, released on 2 October.

“I had to hold back how excited I was about this topic to not off-put other people at the table,” Farah Griffin said about the Swift and Kelce dating rumours. “It may be a fling, it may be any sort of thing, but she’s always dated actors or musicians who kind of fit the same bill. Dating a pro athlete is totally different and I think, because she’s not always had success in love, going for something outside of the box makes sense.”

The former press secretary for the Department of Defense added: “This ends in one way. We are all Taylor Swift fans and, to be honest, if Donald Trump looks like he’s going to win, she’s just going to need to get in the race and defeat him once and for all because she’s probably the only person who can.”

A spokesperson for the former US president confirmed the decision to drop the case on Thursday, although Mr Trump has not waived his right to sue again.

The fact that any House Republicans are seriously considering Trump to replace McCarthy shows just how utterly broken the Republican party is. Political parties are supposed to be collective endeavors, in which many politicians, interest groups, activists, and voters work together towards shared policy goals. Instead, the GOP is devolving from a democratic party into an authoritarian shell whose answer to every problem is “Trump!”

There are a range of reasons that Trump is unfit for House Speaker; many of them are the same as the reasons that he is unfit for president.

Donald Trump’s campaign said on Wednesday it raised over $45.5 million in the third quarter from July to September, nearly 30% higher than it raised in the previous quarter while the former U.S. president faces multiple legal charges.

The acceleration in fundraising could be a sign that Trump’s 2024 campaign coffers are benefiting from his legal problems, which include four indictments.

The Trump campaign’s statement on Wednesday did not provide details of how it arrived at that tally or its break up from where the funds were raised.

The Trump campaign said it had over $37.5 million cash on hand and that about $36 million of it is designated for the primary.

Trump is the frontrunner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination for the November 2024 election.

His closest rival, who trails him by a big margin in opinion polls, is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

The DeSantis campaign on Wednesday reported raising $15 million during the third quarter, although not all of those funds will be available for use during the Republican primary. It was a lower take than the $20 million in the second quarter, a possible sign that donors are souring on DeSantis as he has failed to dent Trump’s commanding lead.

The former president faces four criminal indictments over his attempts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, his handling of classified documents after he left the White House, and hush money paid to a porn star. Trump has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty in all of the cases.

He also faces a January civil damages trial for defaming a writer who accused him of rape, which he denies.

Trump is also accused by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, of inflating the value of his assets to secure better loan and insurance terms. He has said the case is part of a “political witch-hunt.”

Trump’s main fundraising committee raised more than $35 million during the April-June period, nearly twice what the group gathered in the prior three months.

Mr Trump announced his support for the House judiciary committee chairman and his ally on Truth Social on Friday at midnight, stating that he had his “complete and total endorsement”.

Judge Arthur Engoron has called on Team Trump and the New York Attorney General’s office to offer up some suggestions for independent receivers to oversee the dissolution of Trumpworld companies by 26 October, according to court documents. This is an extension from the initial 10-day deadline set on 26 September.

His orders also call on Team Trump to turn over a list of all of those companies and inform the monitor already overseeing Trump Organization transactions about any third parties who are involved.

Here’s Alex Woodward’s earlier reporting on the judge’s pre-trial ruling.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the Georgia Republican Party spent $370,000 on legal fees just in July and August. Since the start of 2022 the state GOP has spent $1m in legal fees — mostly on the Trump election case.

As Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis prepared to indict former President Donald Trump and 18 others in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election in August, the state Republican Party’s legal bills mounted.

The state party has ramped up fundraising to defend its GOP electors indicted in the Trump case, and federal reports show it spent about $370,000 in July and August on legal fees. Earlier this summer The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the Georgia GOP had spent more than $500,000 on legal fees in the first half of 2023, much of it to represent those involved in the Trump investigation.

In all, the Georgia GOP has spent more than $1 million on legal fees since the beginning of last year, most of it for the Trump election interference case.

Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani defended himself in the wake of a bombshell report about his alleged drinking habits, calling the claim a “big damn lie.”

“I do not have an alcohol problem. I have never had an alcohol problem,” Mr Giuliani said during a press conference in Concord, New Hampshire on Wednesday. A recent New York Times report included discussions with sources close to Mr Giuliani who described his drinking tendencies as getting worse following his presidential primary defeat — including his tenure working for Donald Trump.

He said that if he had “an alcohol problem, I should be in the Guinness Book of World Records,” referencing his accomplishments and career. “Nobody could have achieved that if they did” have a drinking problem.

The man once known as “America’s Mayor” added: “I was working 24 hours a day. It’s a big damn lie.”

At the press conference, Mr Giuliani reportedly called the Times a “disgrace.”

In a new court filing, Donald Trump has petitioned to delay his trial date in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case until “at least mid-November 2024”.

The introduction to the filing reads:

President Donald J. Trump respectfully submits this memorandum in support of (1) his pending motion for a revised schedule for motions to compel and CIPA § 4 litigation, and (2) an adjournment of the trial date until at least mid-November 2024, in light of additional, ongoing discovery failures by the Special Counsel’s Office.