Trump desperately begs MAGA supporters to help him pay $464m fraud bond: Latest

The adult film star, who could testify against the former president in New York next month and is the subject of a new documentary, has claimed that she took Trump’s hush money deal just before the 2016 election so that the former president “couldn’t have me killed”.

Gustaf Kilander has more.

The former president has now indicated that he would support a 15-week federal abortion ban after months of avoiding giving a clear-cut position on the issue.

“The number of weeks now, people are agreeing on 15, and I’m thinking in terms of that, and it’ll come out to something that’s very reasonable,” Trump said in an interview with WABC this week.

“But people are really — even hard-liners are agreeing — seems to be 15 weeks, seems to be a number that people are agreeing at.”

He added that “you have to have exceptions” for cases involving rape and incest and to safeguard the life of the mother.

However, he stopped short of making that a policy, saying he would announce a specific timeframe “at the appropriate time”.

Here’s more from Kelly Rissman.

The former first lady has refused to say whether she will campaign for her husband in the November 2024 election.

“Stay tuned,” was all she would say to reporters in Florida this week after she was asked about a return to the trail.

Martha McHardy has more on the biggest disappearing act from public life outside of Kate Middleton.

Another win for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee yesterday came when the judge overseeing his election interference case in Georgia issued a certificate of immediate review allowing the former president and his co-defendants to appeal the decision to allow Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case against them.

President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign raked in a further $21m in donations in February, according to its latest report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, closing out the month with $71m in cash on hand.

That means the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee together have an estimated $97.5m in cash right now, more than twice the $44.8m Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee have in the bank.

President Biden is expected to use some of that money to ramp up his spending on attack ads against his rival, who remains embroiled in controversy as he fights for a return to the White House while battling four criminal indictments.

In less positive news for the incumbent, Trump has taken a narrow polling lead in four key battleground states – Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona – according to the latest Marist survey.

Here’s more on that from Gustaf Kilander.

Here’s the latest from Trump’s social swamp, where he’s been fuming about the bond after a marathon session on the subject all week, branding the retired general Mark Milley, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a “loser” over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 and bragging about his alleged appeal to Latino voters.

Donald Trump has issued a panicky fundraising email to his supporters entitled “Keep your filthy hands off Trump Tower!” as the Monday deadline to pay his $464m bond in the New York fraud judgement against him ticks ever closer.

”KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF TRUMP TOWER!” the mailout reads. “Insane radical Democrat AG Letitia Jameswants to SEIZE my properties in New York. THIS INCLUDES THE ICONIC TRUMP TOWER!”

Mr Trump’s lawyers notified an appeals court this week that their client has failed to raise the money to cover the bond, saying finding a surety company to help them was proving a “practical impossibility”.

Asked in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday whether Trump could look to wealthy overseas donors in Russia or Saudi Arabia for help, Trump attorney Alina Habba did not rule it out, stating instead that she could not discuss strategy.

So could James really take Trump Tower? Here’s our look at that very question.

In a 10 March interview on “This Week”, Stephanopoulos repeatedly asked congresswoman Nancy Mace, a rape survivor, why she supports the former US president even after a jury “found him liable for rape”.

However, the judge offered a clarification as Shweta Sharma reports:

John Bowden filed this report from Cleveland, Ohio:

Bernie Moreno decisively won the GOP nomination for US Senate in Ohio on Monday, the second candidate to be essentially carried to victory by former President Donald Trump in the state in two years.

He’ll join the other Republican with that distinction, JD Vance, in Ohio’s US Senate delegation next January if he is able to beat incumbent Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown in the fall. Mr Moreno actually ran against Mr Vance in the last election cycle but withdrew to clear the way for his one-time rival after the Hillbilly Elegy author won Mr Trump’s endorsement that year.

Tuesday evening’s victory is a sign of Donald Trump’s continued endorsement strength — particularly in the midwest and in states where he has less directly clashed with state Republican leaders.