Trump mixes up Biden and Obama ahead of Super Tuesday: Live

Super Tuesday, the biggest day of the US presidential primary season, arrives early next month and promises to have a decisive if perhaps somewhat anticlimactic impact on the respective Republican and Democratic races.

All but one of his challengers have fallen away, leaving only the well-funded but under-performing ex-UN ambassador Nikki Haley still swinging.

But even she may not make it to Super Tuesday (although she has promised she will), as the next Republican primary takes place in her home state of South Carolina and current polling indicates the Palmetto State’s former governor could be in for another trouncing on her home turf, a further humiliation after she scored fewer votes than the “none of these candidates” box on Nevada ballot papers.

“Is there any way we can call the election for next Tuesday?” a cocky Mr Trump gloated on stage in Las Vegas after that result.

“That’s all I want. I want to call the election for next Tuesday.”

However, if Ms Haley can somehow conjure a surprise victory in either South Carolina on 24 February or Michigan on 27 February, it will be game on for Super Tuesday and we could find ourselves with a very interesting evening indeed.

The Democratic contest is looking equally one-sided, with President Joe Biden seemingly nailed-on to be his party’s candidate again as he seeks a second term in the White House, despite concerns about his advanced age and consistently poor polling.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Sunday she no longer feels bound by a pledge that required all GOP contenders to support the party’s eventual nominee in order to participate in the primary debates.

The Republican National Committee had made the pledge a prerequisite for all candidates, and nearly every major contender signed, except for Donald Trump, the current front-runner, who skipped the debates.

When Haley, Trump’s lone remaining major challenger for the nomination, was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether she was compelled to honor that commitment, she said, “No. I think I’ll make what decision I want to make.”

She said the “the RNC is now not the same RNC” as it was at the time of the debates. She also maintained that she has always said she had “serious concerns” about Trump, for whom she served as U.N. ambassador.

The RNC is in the midst of major changes, with the chair, Ronna McDaniel, set to leave the job on Friday. She was Trump’s hand-picked choice to lead the RNC shortly after the 2016 election, but Trump now is poised to install loyalists atop the organization. He has announced his preference for North Carolina GOP Chair Michael Whatley, a little-known veteran operative, to replace McDaniel. Trump also has picked his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to serve as committee co-chair.

Haley dismissed questions about whether she would drop out and eventually endorse Trump.

“Right now, my focus is, ‘How do we touch as many voters? How do we win?’” she said. “I want the American people to see that you don’t have to live this way. There is a path forward. And we can do it with someone who can put in eight years, that can constantly focus on results and not the negativity and the baggage that we have right now.”

Trump on Saturday continued his march toward the nomination, winning caucuses in Idaho and Missouri and sweeping the delegate haul at a party convention in Michigan.

Trump’s count is now 244, compared with 24 for Haley. A candidate needs to secure 1,215 delegates to clinch the nomination.

The next event on the Republican calendar was Sunday in the District of Columbia. Two days later is Super Tuesday, when 16 states will hold primaries on what will be the largest day of voting of the year outside of the November election. Trump is on track to lock up the nomination days later.

“I’ve always said this needs to be competitive. As long as we are competitive, as long as we are showing that there is a place for us, I’m going to continue to fight,” Haley said.

Major pharmacy retailers Walgreens and CVS will begin offering the abortion pill mifepristone as early as next week in stores across the US, a move that could significantly expand access to abortion care as the US Supreme Court once again prepares to hear a case that could radically restrict reproductive healthcare for millions of Americans.

Mifepristone is one of two drugs in a two-drug protocol for medication abortion, a procedure that accounts for more than half of all abortions in the US

The drug, which is only available with a prescription, was first approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2000. The pill blocks a hormone necessary for pregnancy development, and is followed by the pill misoprostol, which causes contractions to expel tissue.

That same regimen is also used in miscarriage treatment.

A phased rollout of the drug’s availability in two of the largest pharmacy chains in the US arrives just weeks before the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments in a case from right-wing legal groups and anti-abortion activists seeking to revoke the FDA’s approval, part of a years-long campaign to outlaw abortion nationwide.

That case comes before the court less than two years after a decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned a constitutional right to abortion care affirmed in Roe v Wade nearly 50 years earlier.

Patchwork anti-abortion laws across the country have choked off abortion access or effectively outlawed abortion care entirely; mifepristone prescriptions from CVS and Walgreens will only be available in states where abortion is legal.

But “many women will soon have the option to pick up their prescription at a local, certified pharmacy – just as they would for any other medication,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Friday.

“I encourage all pharmacies that want to pursue this option to seek certification,” he added.

Nikki Haley’s balancing act over the issue of January 6 and the 2020 election continued on Sunday as she appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press and faced questions about the attack on the Capitol from Kristin Welker.

Ms Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations under Mr Trump’s presidency, drove a careful edge between opposing Mr Trump’s actions before and during the riot as she warned that the former president would have to answer in court for his actions. She took no position on whether the former president was guilty of a crime for not calling off the mob after rioters began attacking and injuring police on the grounds of the Capitol, only calling it “questionable” and stating that the courts would decide the answer.

“I’m not a lawyer,” she insisted, after explaining: “I think he should have said something earlier. I think he should have stopped it when it started.”

“I am telling you: Having the rally was not a crime. To turn around and not stop people from breaking the law, when he had the opportunity to do that, is questionable. And that’s what I think the courts are going to have to play with.”

The former governor added that her opponent will “have to answer” for allegedly condoning “lawlessness” on the day of the attack. Ms Haley has also indicated, however, that Mr Trump would receive a presidential pardon for his actions were she to reach the White House, meaning that any potential punishment for his actions at the federal level would not be levied.

The poll, released on Saturday, shows Mr Trump at 48 per cent and Mr Biden at 44 per cent among likely voters – among registered voters, Mr Trump had 48 and Mr Biden 43 per cent.

In a hypothetical matchup with Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador and the last remaining Republican challenger to Mr Trump, Mr Biden came in at 37 per cent to Ms Haley’s 46 per cent.

Forty-seven per cent of likely voters said they were strongly disapproving of Mr Biden’s handling of the job.

“Shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Mr Trump said on Saturday.

“I know them both very well and we will restore peace through strength. Get that war settled. It’s a bad war. And Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word,” Mr Trump added, seemingly in the false belief that Mr Biden’s former boss remains in charge.

There were plenty of moments during Mr Trump’s campaign events in Greensboro, North Carolina and later in Richmond when he appeared to struggle to deliver his speech or seemed to be confused.

A Venezuelan man who became the subject of national attention for allegedly kicking a police officer in Times Square, then flipping off news cameras on his way out of court, was cleared of wrongdoing on Friday after prosecutors concluded he played no role in the attack.

The stunning exoneration by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg came weeks after Jhoan Boada, 22, was widely vilified as the “smug” face of a Jan. 27th brawl between migrants and New York City police officers that touched off widespread political furor.

He featured prominently in a pro-Trump political ad titled “Joe Biden’s middle finger,” which ended on a freeze frame of Boada making the gesture while leaving his initial arraignment.

In a Manhattan courtroom Friday, prosecutors told a judge that further investigation proved Boada did not participate in the attack. The man seen in the video kicking an officer with pink shoes – initially identified by police as Boada – is now believed to be a separate person. That man has been charged and is awaiting criminal arraignment.

An attorney for Boada, Javier Damien, said his client was the victim of a “rush to judgment” by media, police, and elected officials. “It was a political football, and people were attacked with a broad brush,” he said. “It’s very sad.”

Michigan held its caucuses at 10am ET where the average voter wasn’t allowed to participate. In Michigan’s primary on Tuesday, which allocated about 16 of 55 delegates, Mr Trump won 12. The Michigan legislature is controlled by Democrats and it set a different date for the contest than the Republican National Committee (RNC).

So the state Republican Party instead chose a hybrid – having both a primary and a caucus, with most of the delegates being awarded via the latter. The caucus convention on Saturday only brought together about 2,000 activists who had been chosen at the county level, excluding ordinary voters, Yahoo! News noted.

Activists alleged last year that state Republican chair Kristina Karamo had mishandled the party’s finances. Mr Trump supported a different state party chair, ex-Rep Pete Hoekstra, who also received the backing of the RNC.

But Ms Karamo didn’t step back and instead set up her own caucus convention, only buckling under the pressure from the national party a day before the caucuses were set to take place, cancelling her convention.

Republican groups in two of the 13 congressional districts had also been planning to hold their own conventions this weekend, adding to the confusion.

Two operatives close to Ms Karamo told NBC News on Friday that her convention had been cancelled.

Ms Karamo posted a video on X, telling her backers to “keep fighting” and go “where your district chair recommends”.

Michigan GOP strategist Jason Cabel Roe told NBC ahead of the caucuses: “Delegates have been getting conflicting and confusing emails for weeks — promoting different agendas, different staff, different conventions.”

“You have to pay close attention to even know who is sending what and what the legitimate directions and events are,” he added.