Trump’s latest attempt to delay hush money trial denied by appeal judge: Live updates

Donald Trump has again compared himself to a historically-persecuted figure – this time, the late South African leader and anti-apartheid legend Nelson Mandela.

Mr Trump made the comparison on Saturday on his social media platform, Truth Social, as he railed against Judge Juan Merchan for his latest ruling to expand a gag order against him. Mr Trump is accused of falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels in the New York trial.

The former president even claimed that he was prepared to go to jail.

John Bowden has the story:

A new Axios/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday showed that just 41 per cent of Latinos have a favorable view of Biden. That number is slightly higher than Trump, who has an approval of 32 per cent among Latinos. Nevertheless, the devil is in the detail: Biden’s favorability rating has gone downward, while Trump’s has improved. In June of last year, Biden had a 47 per cent approval rating while Mr Trump came in low at 29 per cent.

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.

The Foreign Office insisted that “it is standard practice for ministers to meet opposition candidates as part of their routine international engagement”. This is the opposite of the truth, which is that the convention is for ministers to avoid engagement with non-government politicians during election periods abroad to avoid giving the impression of interfering in another country’s politics.

But the convention is only a guideline, and David Cameron was quite right to adapt it to the needs of the hour.

Statement from President Joe Biden on Arizona Supreme Court Decision to Uphold Abortion Ban from 1864

Millions of Arizonans will soon live under an even more extreme and dangerous abortion ban, which fails to protect women even when their health is at risk or in tragic cases of rape or incest. This cruel ban was first enacted in 1864—more than 150 years ago, before Arizona was even a state and well before women had secured the right to vote. This ruling is a result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom.

Vice President Harris and I stand with the vast majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose. We will continue to fight to protect reproductive rights and call on Congress to pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade for women in every state.

John Bowden reports from Washington, DC:

Former President Donald Trump held a meeting with David Cameron Monday evening, one day before the foreign secretary was due in Washington to meet with his counterpart in the Biden administration, Antony Blinken.

The ex-president dined with Lord Cameron at his Mar-a-Lago estate where the two discussed a wide range of topics including Brexit, Ukraine, and the war in Gaza, according to a readout from the Trump campaign.

Mr Cameron went on to defend the optics of that meeting as “entirely proper” on Tuesday at a joint presser alongside Mr Blinken, noting that US officials had recently met with Labour leader Keir Starmer and his own past meeting with Mitt Romney when Mr Romney, now a retiring one-term senator from Utah, was running for president.

In a 4-2 bombshell decision, the state’s supreme court upheld a Civil-War era law that criminalises abortions, and those who help a woman obtain one, only with exceptions to save a woman’s life.

The state’s supreme court had been mulling over whether to resurrect the law that bans, and criminalises, nearly all abortions or follow a 2022 law that bans abortions only after 15 weeks unless medically necessary to save a woman’s life.

A state appeals court judge rejected his second 11th hour attempt to further delay the trial on Tuesday, one day after a judge denied his request to delay the proceedings while he tries to move the case out of Manhattan.

Mr Trump’s latest attempts to delay the proceedings follow repeated failures to stop what will be the first of four criminal trials he is expected to face in the coming months.

Former President Donald Trump finally responded to criticism of his murky stance on reproductive rights on Monday and issued a video statement outlining abortion policy under a Trump second term.

The four-minute address was posted to his Truth Social media platform and proclaimed that the GOP would remain fundamentally opposed to abortion rights under his leadership.

He also repeated one of his favourite smears about Democrats and abortion as John Bowden reports:

Donald Trump and British Foreign Minister David Cameron had dinner on Monday at the Republican presidential candidate’s Florida home, where they discussed “the need for NATO countries to meet their defence spending requirements,” Trump’s campaign said in a statement.

The two also discussed “the upcoming US and UK elections, policy matters specific to Brexit … and ending the killing in Ukraine,” the statement said.