Colorado Supreme Court rules Trump can’t appear on 2024 ballot: Live

The Trump campaign has collated data indicating that the frontrunner and former president will clinch the nomination by March, The Washington Post reports.

The former president’s campaign anticipates having won enough delegates to move to a general election footing months before the GOP convention.

The campaign has analysed internal and public polls and found that Mr Trump may be able to gather 973 delegates by Super Tuesday, which is set for 5 March. By 19 March, the campaign estimates to have gathered 1,478 delegates, hundreds more than the 1,215 needed to get the nomination.

The next day, at a rally in Reno, Nevada, he accused migrants of waging an “invasion” and falsely claimed people are “charging across the border by the hundreds of thousands”.

“This is an invasion. This is like a military invasion,” he said. “Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.”

Alex Woodward has the full story.

The Trump campaign on Tuesday vowed to challenge a Colorado ruling barring him from the state’s 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment “insurrection” clause.

“The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight and we will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision,” Trump 2024 spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.

The campaign accused Democrats of being “in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead President Trump has amassed in the polls” and of having “lost faith in the failed Biden presidency.”

Here’s more in the ruling that set him off.

A ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday was the first among any state supreme court to consider the question of his eligibility, following a wave of lawsuits challenging his presidential candidacy under the US Constitution’s “insurrection” clause.

“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” according to the unsigned order from the court’s four-justice majority.

“We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us,” the justices wrote. “We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”

Alex Woordward is following the story.

In a historic ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday held that Donald Trump is ineligible to be placed the state’s 2024 presidential election ballot.

The 4-3 decision found that Mr Trump had violated a 14th Amendment provision barring from office those who had “engaged in insurrection.”

The judgement could lead to further appeals and prompt a full US Supreme Court decision on the meaning of the rarely used provision, which advocates have used to challenge Mr Trump’s 2024 candidacy in other states.

Read their full ruling here.

Link Lauren, a 25-year-old TikTok influencer who has interviewed several 2024 candidates, agrees that the next election will be all about the economy.

“The number one issue for young people is money, money, money,” he told The Independent in an interview.

“We love mother nature, but we also have to eat,” he said, citing the skyrocketing cost of rent, food and other essentials as top of mind.

Mr Lauren’s TikTok channel pivoted from pop culture to politics around the time of Mr Trump’s CNN town hall in May, and quickly found a receptive audience for his spicy takes on Mr Biden, Hollywood and the mainstream press.

He told The Independent that his young audience are also hyper-engaged on immigration.

“People think, ‘Oh young people, they’re not so into the border’. But the migrant crisis is now affecting New York City, it’s affecting Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,” he said. “They’re slashing funding for education, they’re slashing NYPD funding over the migrant crisis.”

A Republican senator from Alabama co-signed former president Donald Trump’s words about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of the United States, saying that the former president and Republican frontrunner for the party’s nomination for president did not go far enough.

Sen Tommy Tuberville told The Independent that Mr Trump’s words were too timid when discussing migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border.

“I’m mad he wasn’t tougher than that because you’re seeing what’s happening on the border? We’re being overrun,” Mr Tuberville told The Independent.

Mr Tuberville, who endorsed Mr Trump for re-election, made the remarks after Mr Trump spoke in New Hampshire about migration degrading the United States in extreme terms.

“They’re poisoning the blood of the country. That’s what they’ve done,” the former president said. “They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America. Not just the three or four countries we think about. But all over the world they’re coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia.”

Mr Tuberville has come under fire in the past for his defence of white nationalists serving in the US military, saying in response to a question from CNN host Kaitlan Collins that white nationalists are people who believe white people are superior, “Well, that’s some people’s opinion.”

Tucker Carlson has ripped in to Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign team as the “nastiest, stupidest” political operation he has ever seen.

Mr Carlson also blamed the Florida Governor’s flip-flop on opposition to Ukraine funding after being pressured by top GOP donor Ken Griffin during a live debate with podcaster Tim Pool at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest.

“You really get the sense that Ron DeSantis – who I liked as governor – the people who represent him online are the nastiest, the stupidest, and the most zero-sum people I’ve ever seen in my life,” Carlson said.

“And I don’t think that reflects him, but it’s like, this is kind of small ball.”

Pool, an influential far-right media figure, agreed that the DeSantis campaign’s repeated missteps reflected badly on him.

“Ron should have fired the people running his campaign a long time ago,” Pool said.

“The high heels, boot scandal. Who’s giving this guy advice and why does he keep taking it?” he added, referring to Mr DeSantis being roasted for wearing heel lifts.

Lawyer Alina Habba, who is representing the former president in his New York civil fraud trial prosecuted by Ms James, made the inflammatory comments on stage at the four-day AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday.

“So I’m sure everybody has seen for the last 11 joyous weeks, I’ve been attacked and been attacking Miss Letitia James,” she said.

“The attorney general for the state of New York who is trying to kill the Trump family, their organisation and the presidency.”

Ms Habba did not provide any evidence to back up her wild claims. The Independent has reached out to AG James’s office for comment.

Ms Habba went on to say that the attorney general ran her election campaign on the promise that she would be “getting Trump”.

“She said ‘I’m going to turn every page on the Trump Organization. I’m going to go in there. I’m going to get Trump and I’m gonna go home’,” said Ms Habba.

“That’s what we’re dealing with.”