Trump loses last-ditch bid to delay hush money trial as jury questionnaire revealed: Live updates

Lord Cameron has held face to face meetings with Donald Trump in Florida during his push for the US to back more funding for Ukraine.

The foreign secretary is visiting the former US president despite previously calling him “divisive, stupid and wrong”. It was the first meeting between a senior British minister and the former Republican president since he left office in 2021.

Lord Cameron is on a high profile visit to the US to press Congress to pass the blocked aid package for Ukraine and will also discuss Israel’s war in Gaza.

It is the latest of several interventions made by the foreign secretary over the additional funding for Ukraine. Earlier this year, he warned Congress not to show “the weakness displayed against Hitler” in the 1930s.

His previous comments drew the ire of right-wing congresswoman and staunch Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene, who told him to “kiss my ass” and “worry about his own country”.

Senator Lindsey Graham — one of Donald Trump’s most loyal allies — disagrees with the former president’s remarks on abortion as a states’ rights issue.

“I respectfully disagree with President Trump’s statement that abortion is a states’ rights issue. Dobbs does not require that conclusion legally and the pro-life movement has always been about the wellbeing of the unborn child – not geography.”

President Joe Biden has reacted to his predecessor’s remarks about abortion rights in the US in a scathing statement released this morning.

“Donald Trump made it clear once again today that he is – more than anyone in America – the person responsible for ending Roe v. Wade. He is – more than anyone in America – responsible for creating the cruelty and the chaos that has enveloped America since the Dobbs decision.

“Trump once said women must be punished for seeking reproductive health care – and he’s gotten his wish. Women are being turned away from emergency rooms, forced to go to court to seek permission for the medical attention they need, and left to travel hundreds of miles for health care. In states like Florida, abortion will likely soon be illegal before many women know they’re pregnant. Because of Donald Trump, one in three women in America already live under extreme and dangerous bans that put their lives at risk and threaten doctors with prosecution for doing their jobs. And that is only going to get worse. With all his empty words on fertility treatments, Trump doesn’t tell you the MAGA Republicans he controls in Congress have put forward bills that could ban fertility treatments and that the Speaker of the House he empowered is one of the strongest supporters for a national abortion ban in the nation. Let there be no illusion. If Donald Trump is elected and the MAGA Republicans in Congress put a national abortion ban on the Resolute Desk, Trump will sign it into law.

“Here’s what Donald Trump doesn’t understand: When he ripped away Roe v. Wade, he ripped away a fundamental right for the women of America that the United States Supreme Court had affirmed and reaffirmed for 50 years. As a fundamental right, it didn’t matter where you lived. It was granted to you as an American, not as a resident of any state. Generations of women had come to rely on that right. Now we’re in the extraordinary position where women today have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers. That has never happened before in America. And it cannot be allowed to stand. I am determined to restore the federal protections of Roe v. Wade. So it won’t matter where you live in America: The fundamental right to choose for women will once again be the law of the land. If you give me and Vice President Harris a Democratic Congress, that is exactly what we will do.

“Trump is simply lying. There was no groundswell of support in America for overturning Roe. In fact, support for Roe is higher today in America than it has ever been. The real truth is Trump made a political deal in 2016. He promised to appoint a Court that would get rid of Roe. And he had to make good on that debt. So he did. It was never about public policy or what was right or what Trump believed. It was always about politics.

“Trump admits as much in his statement today. Having created the chaos of overturning Roe, he’s trying to say, ‘Oh, never mind. Don’t punish me for that. I just want to win.’

“Trump is scrambling. He’s worried that since he’s the one responsible for overturning Roe the voters will hold him accountable in 2024. Well, I have news for Donald. They will. America was built on personal freedom and liberty. So, there is nothing more un-American than having our personal freedoms taken away. And that is what Donald Trump has done.

“As I have said many times since the Dobbs decision, Donald Trump and all those responsible for overturning Roe don’t have a clue about the power of women in America. But they are about to find out.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has shot down Donald Trump’s latest attempt to get Judge Juan Merchan removed from his criminal hush money trial, set to begin on 15 April.

In a court filing on Monday morning, Mr Bragg’s office wrote:

Defendant’s motion is not a good-faith effort to identify legitimate grounds for this Court’s recusal. Instead, this motion is no more than an effort to end-run the order restricting extrajudicial speech and pollute the court file with ad hominem attacks against the Court and the Court’s family as part of a meritless effort to call the integrity of these proceedings into question. And the motion is yet another last-ditch attempt to address defendant’s real objective, which is—as the Court has already recognized—to delay this proceeding indefinitely. As this Court has repeatedly held, there is no valid ground to avoid or adjourn the forthcoming trial. Defendant’s current motion should be denied.

The Trump campaign says that it raised $50.5m at a Saturday evening fundraiser in Palm Beach attended by the former president and wife Melania.

The Florida soiree was held at the mansion of billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson, who hosted the event with his girlfriend Alina de Almeida.

Donald Trump has hinted that his long-awaited policy on abortion would include exceptions for rape and incest as well as protection for the life of the mother.

The Republican presidential candidate said he would outline the policy on Monday. Although he did not provide further details, it is expected to call for a federal abortion ban less restrictive than the six-week prohibition passed in Florida and Georgia.

In the past, the former president has argued that a more moderate position on abortion is necessary for Republicans to prevail in the November election.

Donald Trump has again boasted about the being the person “proudly responsible” for ending Roe v Wade in a video setting out his views on abortion.

In a four-minute video uploaded to his Truth Social channel, the former president and Republican candidate said he believed the issue of abortion should be decided by individual states, but said that “like Ronald Reagan” he supported exceptions based on rape, incest and the life of the mother.

He also misstated the position of Democrats, saying they wanted to “execute” children after birth, and said he supported IVF treatment, something some Republicans have come out against in recent weeks.

His views on abortion have changed over the years: while previously pro-choice, he claimed during his 2016 campaign that women who have abortions should be “punished”, a stance he later dropped. He has boasted that by appointing three conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his term he was responsible for overturning Roe v Wade, the constitutional right to an abortion.

Trump told conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt earlier this week: “I think what happened is, you know, that white stuff that they happened to find, which happened to be cocaine in the White House, I don’t know, I think something’s going on there.

“I watched his State of the Union, and he was all jacked up at the beginning. By the end, he was fading fast. There’s something going on there.”