tonight, we begin with a major legal setback for donald trump. after seeking to delay his classified documents trial until after the 2024 election, the twice indicted ex president has been met with major pushback from special counsel jack smith. trump s legal team had argued that, under smith s proposed timeline for the trial, which the cult unreasonable, a fair trial would not be possible and considerations should be paid to the fact that much of the presidents schedule will be consumed with campaigning. in effect, trump wanted to postpone the trial indefinitely and was using his presidential run as an excuse. but in a court filing this, week assistant special counsel david harbuck did not mince words saying, quote, many indicted defendants are demanding jobs that require a considerable amount of their time and energy, or a significant amount of travel. the speedy trial act contemplates no such factor as a basis for a continuance and the court should not indulge it here. in
and disregard them, the jury, as subjected to them, may not. the court shall not permit the defendant to turn the courtroom into a forum in which trump inject politics into this proceeding. jack smith then kicks off a highlight reel of trump s favorite spurious arguments, things like, trump, quotes complaints about the jury indictment and the trial date will interfere with his political activities. or trump s quote, false accusation was directed at the former president. jack smith also takes issue with some of the trump s favorite catch phrases like the injustice department or biden indictment. all of it, jack smith says, would taint a jury pool. quote, the in addition t being wrong, these allegations are irrelevant to the jury s determination of the defendant s guilt or innocence. it would be prejudicial if presented to the jury. put another way, the trump defense was, quote, repeatedly used rhetoric that made the acceptable on the campaign but not on the trial. make no mi
presidential actions on january 6th, and is disqualifiedro holding office under section iii of theh amendment. importantly eedd was the ticking countdown clock, giving any party, not just donald trump, until january 4th to appeal to the supreme court and saying if anyone asks the supreme court to review this case, then donald trump s name stays on the ballot until the supreme court weighs in. well, no surprise, the disgraced, twice impeached, four times indicted ex-president made a lot of noise after the ruling came out whining and bloviating and promising to, quote, swiftly file an appeal to the supreme court. but then a funny thing happened. while trump and his lawye were working on that swift appeal look who beat him to t proverbial punch, the colorado republican party, who filed their owneal urging the justices to take up the case and d while mr. trump is expected toil his own petition in the coming days, the move by the colorado republican party has a, quote, practical i
number of migrants putting a strain on both their governments. what can they get done? we ll have the latest coming up. we re going to start in the middle east where israel says it is battling enemies in gaza, in the west bank. lebanon, syria, iraq, yemen, and iran simultaneously. the heaviest fighting is happening in central gaza right now where israel says refugee camps are now considered a new battle zone. the u.n. says bombings there have killed at least 100 palestinians since christmas, and despite evacuation orders there is, quotes, no safe place for gaza residents to go. jay gray is live in tel aviv. jay, give us the very latest on the intensity of fighting happening now. reporter: yeah, it s very intense right now. in fact, some humanitarian agencies saying this is the most violent and deadly fighting we ve seen since the beginning of the ground invasion into gaza. we know that the idf is working, as you talked about, in these refugee camps, in central gaza just o
joni ernst of iowa, republican senator. the state is the first in the nation for the republicans nominating process. nearly all the party s candidates campaigned at the event which just wrapped up. donald trump was a prominent no-show. jeff zeleny joins us from des moines. for candidates this was a prime opportunity to mingle with a crowd of politically plugged in caucus-goers. what was the reaction, though, to trump not being there? was that a an oversight on his part, did he miss an opportunity there? what did you hear from folks? reporter: we ll see. i mean, certainly republican voters here, some 900 or so, were sitting for several hours watching all the speeches at the roast and ride. we talked to joni ernst and she said she did extend an invitation to donald trump a few months ago. she said it was her sense he does not like to attend multicandidate events. translation, he does not like to be in the same room at the same time as his rivals. that s why he decided not