On the trail: New Hampshire dominates 2024 spotlight this week

By PAUL STEINHAUSER

For the Monitor

Published: 05-11-2023 6:32 PM

From a contentious CNN town hall with former President Donald Trump to an appearance by Sen. Tim Scott that teased his all but certain presidential campaign launch, New Hampshire was front and center this week in the race for the Republican nomination.

Backed up and emboldened at times by a vocal audience of Republican and GOP-leaning Granite Staters, Trump used Wednesday night’s nationally televised event from Saint Anselm College – which was his first appearance on CNN since the 2016 election – to reiterate his unproven claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” and said he’d accept the 2024 election results only “if I think it’s an honest election.”

Trump defended his role in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters who aimed to halt congressional certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory.

Trump called Jan. 6 a “beautifulday” while calling Michael Byrd – the Black Capitol Police lieutenant who fatally shot protester Ashli Babbitt while protecting members of Congress as the Capitol was stormed – a “thug.”

More than 300 protesters have been charged to date with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees during the attack on the Capitol. Asked if he would pardon some of Jan. 6 defendants convicted of crimes if elected again to the White House, Trump said “I am inclined to pardon many of them…I would say it would be a large portion of them.”

Some of those taking part on the assault on the Capitol were chanting “hang Mike Pence.” The then-vice president was performing his Constitutional duty of overseeing the certification, and along with lawmakers temporarily fled for safety.

Asked if he owed his former running mate an apology, Trump answered, “No, because he did something wrong… he made a mistake.” And Trump reiterated his claim that Pence had the authority to send the election results back to the states, saying “Mike had the right to do it.”

The town hall was held one day after a jury in New York City found Trump liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in an upscale Manhattan department store nearly three decades ago, but not liable for the rape Carroll accused Trump of committing.

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Along with trashing the verdict as a “rigged deal,” Trump claimed that Carroll was “a wack job.” The former president also reiterated that he had “never met this woman” and claimed that “this is a fake story, a made-up story.”

Trump took multiple shots during the town hall at Biden. The former president, in a fundraising tweet to supporters following the conclusion of the town hall, wrote “It’s simple, folks. Do you want four more years of that? If you don’t, pitch in to our campaign.”

Trump, who’s the overwhelming front-runner right now as he runs a third straight time for the White House, also swiped at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s likely to jump into the GOP presidential nomination race in the coming weeks. The former president and his allies have repeatedly attacked the popular conservative governor for months.

Touting his expanded lead over DeSantis in recent Republican presidential primary polling, Trump said the Florida governor “ought to relax and take it easy and think about the future. Because right now his future is not looking so good.”

Trump was asked about a number of other issues during the town hall, including Russian’s invasion last year of Ukraine and the lingering war. He repeated his boast that “if I’m president I will have that war settled in one day.”

Asked if he wanted Ukraine or Russia to win the war, the former president answered “I don’t think in terms of winning or losing. I think in terms of getting it settled, so we stop killing all these people.” Asked again, he once again didn’t answer and instead said, “I want everybody to stop dying.”

Trump also refused to say if Russian leader Vladimir Putin is a war criminal due to his actions in the war with Ukraine.

The trip by Trump to New Hampshire – the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the Republican presidential nominating calendar, was his second in two weeks and third overall since declaring his candidacy last November.

Hutchinson takes aim at Trump over verdict

Republican presidential candidate and former two-term Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says the verdict by a federal jury that former President Trump was liable for sexual abuse is a “distraction that really hurts the Republican cause.”

In an interview with this reporter at Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics hours before the former president’s town hall, Hutchinson called Trump “unbecoming of somebody who wants to be president.”

“I think it’s important for leaders to speak out on an important issue that impacts women, that impacts our justice system, and impact somebody who wants to be President of the United States,” said Hutchinson, who is a vocal Republican critic of the former president.“I think it’s important to speak the truth in those kinds of occasions and not to run from a flaw and conduct that is unbecoming of somebody who wants to be president. I said it. I don’t think we should undermine what the jury determined. That’s undermining the rule of law that’s important in our society.”

Hutchinson was interviewed during a busy two-day swing through New Hampshire, which included meetings with trade groups and with top Republican leaders and activists in the state.

Hutchinson faces a steep uphill climb against Trump and an emerging field that also includes other well-known candidates with much bigger campaign war chests. Additionally, he stands at 1% or less support in the most recent GOP presidential nomination public opinion surveys.

When asked about his game plan to increase support, Hutchinson said he will concentrate on campaigning in New Hampshire and Iowa, whose caucuses lead off the Republican presidential nominating calendar.

“Iowa and New Hampshire are important parts of it. They’re more important, in terms of polling, than across the nation, at the initial phases,” he said.

“I want people to understand my story that I grew up on a farm, the fact that I worked in factories, the fact that I have a very common background. I had a student loan that was repaid. I want them to understand my commitment to the law that I have been a prosecutor. I bring more experience to this race in terms of law enforcement than anyone else. I have the greatest breadth of experience from federal to state issues than anyone else in the race. It’s an experience that fits with the challenges that we face,” he added.

“I want to tell that story. I think that makes a difference. I think that it will grow in support, and I’m excited about being in the early states and making my case,” he highlighted.

Scott ramping up for 2024 announcement

Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott made a two-day swing through New Hampshire earlier this week, ahead of an expected presidential campaign launch on May 22 in his home state of South Carolina, which holds the second overall contest in the Republican calendar.

It was the senator’s second trip to the Granite State in a month, and looking ahead to his expected presidential campaign, Scott told a town hall audience Monday evening at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics that “I will be back so often that you’ll say, ‘He’s back again.’”

The senator held a similar town hall this past weekend in Iowa – his third trip this year to the state whose caucuses lead off the Republican presidential schedule.

“I’m excited about this next step. I’m certainly ready for this next step,” said Scott, who kicked off a “Faith in America” listening tour in February. “And I am excited to have an opportunity to talk about my positive, conservative message that is anchored in American values that have always led the way.”

Scott tends to project a positive vision for the country compared to Trump’s much more combative message

“I’ve seen this all across the country so far that people are hungry for an optimistic, positive message as long as you have a backbone,” he said.

“Don’t conflate being positive with being uninterested and having a tough stand on those issues that matter,” he added. “China – we’re going to be tough as nails. We’re going to be lethal to our adversaries, whoever they are, and loyal to our allies.”

Biden ally warns the president may be putting NH ‘at risk’

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California says he’ll be campaigning “110%” on behalf of President Biden’s re-election bid.

But Khanna, the four-term progressive lawmaker who represents a congressional district in the San Francisco Bay area, says he’s concerned that if the president avoids campaigning in the key battleground of New Hampshire in next year’s primary, “that puts the general election in the state at risk.”

Khanna is a big supporter of New Hampshire’s tradition for the past century of holding the first presidential primary in the race for the White House. He returns to the Granite State on Friday to headline the McIntyre-Shaheen gala, which is the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s largest annual fundraiser.

However, it’s increasingly unlikely that Biden will campaign in New Hampshire or even be on the primary ballot here.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) overwhelmingly voted in February voted to dramatically alter the top of its presidential nominating calendar for the 2024 election cycle, bumping Iowa and New Hampshire from their longtime leadoff positions. The DNC approved a proposal by Biden to move South Carolina to lead off spot, with New Hampshire and Nevada holding primaries three days later.

The push by the DNC to upend its primary calendar to give more representation at the top of the schedule to Black and Hispanic voters in a party that’s become increasingly diverse in recent decades — was vigorously fought by New Hampshire.

Due to a longstanding state law that dictates that New Hampshire holds the first presidential primary, it’s nearly certain that an unsanctioned, rogue Democratic primary in the Granite State will be held early next year on the same day as Republicans, who are not changing their longstanding order of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The DNC likely would penalize New Hampshire and any candidates that take part in the Granite State’s Democratic presidential primary for violating the party’s new calendar.

If it gets to that point, it’s likely the president will avoid the New Hampshire primary, as the Biden campaign has inferred that they would abide by any sanctions imposed by the DNC.

“I believe the president should be on the ballot in the primary everywhere he was on the ballot in 2020. It worked then. He became president,” Khanna said. “He’s eloquently made the point that we need to move up states that have Black and Brown voters and I appreciated his advocacy on that, but he can do that and still be on the ballot everywhere.”

An unsanctioned New Hampshire primary where Biden doesn’t take part could invite trouble for the president. It would potentially benefit two long-shot candidates who are primary challenging the president — environmental lawyer and high-profile vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and best-selling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson.

But looking ahead to the 2024 general election, Khanna stressed that “the four electoral votes in New Hampshire are going to matter and we certainly should be active in the primary in the battleground states. It would be a mistake to allow Trump and DeSantis to suck all the oxygen and for us not to be making our case in key battleground states about the president’s re-election.”

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