iowa is the end all be all at the moment. this is the place where it s going to be either trump or an alternative. if trump wins here, it s essentially door closed for everybody else. if someone else can win, it actually really does open the door for a real alternative. in the last few weeks, trump has been feuding with iowa s governor kim reynolds which upset some of her fans here. she s popular here in iowa. he is skipping this event, which has 2,000 likely caucus goers. it does open up the opportunity for desantis and the other candidates coming here. i had the chance to sit down with the man putting on this event. he is an influential vangelical and political leader in the state. i asked him about what s going on with trump and the state of iowa. listen to what he told me. how worried should donald trump be about iowa? i think he should be very concerned. the venues that he is doing
. new today, donald trump s lead over ron desantis has now grown to nearly 40 points. here s a look at the new morning consol poll, it shows trump at 56%, desantis way behind with 17%, and the rest of the pack in single digits. the florida governor is now scrambling to turn those numbers around with an appeal to conservative christian voters in iowa. he and other 2024 hopefuls scheduled to attend this weekend s family leadership summit. it s an event billed as the midwest s largest gathering of christians, and since there s been no good polling coming out of iowa, any candidate who eventually breaks into the top three there would immediately get some much-needed attention, and almost certainly a boost in fund-raising, which could also help them qualify for next month s first gop debate. donald trump, though, is skipping the weekend s events, even as he s feuding with the state s very popular governor. let s go to nbc use dasha burns who s in des moines for more on
again, sitting on the intelligence committee, did the us anticipate this happening? i can t get into classified information but suffice it to say that there were noises for months, very public ones from prigozhin, about the feuding that was escalating in its tone and its tenor with russian defence ministry officials including sergei shoigu as well as chief of staff gerasimov of the russian military, but the most damning thing that was set on television the other day was that he questioned the motives of the whole russian invasion of ukraine and said it was done for a profit motive, it wasn t deliberate russian speaking people in ukraine.
to kind of capitalise in a big way right now. to kind of capitalise in a big way right now. president biden has been commenting - way right now. president biden has been commenting today i way right now. president bidenj has been commenting today on what happened. this is what he said. we had to make sure we gave putin no excuse to blame this on the west to blame this on nato. we made clear we were not involved, we had nothing to do with it. this was part of struggle within the russian system . again, sitting on the intelligence committee, did the us anticipate this happening? i can t get it classified information but suffice it to say that there were noises for months, very public ones from prigozhin, about the feuding that was escalating in its tone and its tenor with russian defence ministry officials including sergei shoigu as well as chief of staff barrass of of the russian military