President Trump says abortion should be left to states, avoid national bans: Live Updates

Legal expert and former ambassador Norm Eisen said of Donald Trump's recent attempts to delay hush money criminal trials through the Defending Democracies Project.

“With none of his previous eight attempts yielding the delay he so desperately wanted, Mr. Trump has now resorted to a truly desperate effort and is suing the judge.” Mr. Trump will not be able to delay the trial date. Mr. Trump will not be able to delay what he rightfully fears: the election interference and voter fraud that Mr. Trump first engaged in in 2016 in an effort to seize power. They will be forced to face a jury of ordinary Americans who are likely to convict them. They will be held accountable.”

With less than a week until jury selection begins, Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the judge overseeing the Manhattan hush money case in a last-ditch effort to block his first-ever criminal trial.

As part of the latest attempt to delay the case, Trump has asked appeals court judges to stop the first of four criminal trials he is expected to face in the coming months. He is expected to request that the government block the gag order and move the case out of Manhattan. .

Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of President Donald Trump's staunchest allies, disagrees with the former president's statements about abortion as a states' rights issue.

“I respectfully disagree with President Trump's statement that abortion is a states' rights issue. Mr. Dobbs does not legally require such a conclusion, and the pro-life movement has always made the welfare of the unborn child an issue. and not geography.”

President Joe Biden responded to his predecessor's comments on abortion rights in the United States in a scathing statement released this morning.

“Donald Trump today made it clear once again that he is the person responsible for ending Roe v. Wade, more than anyone else in America. They are responsible for creating cruelty and chaos.

“Trump once said that women seeking reproductive health care should be punished, and that wish has come true. Women have been turned away from emergency rooms and have to go to court to get permission to get the treatment they need. Abortion is likely to soon become illegal in states such as Florida, before many women even know they are pregnant. Because of Donald Trump, one in three American women is already living under extreme and dangerous bans that put their lives at risk and threaten to prosecute doctors for doing their jobs. And it's only going to get worse. With all the empty words about infertility treatment, President Trump has announced that MAGA Republicans in Congress, whom he controls, have introduced a bill that could ban infertility treatments. and that the Speaker of the House who empowered President Trump is one of the strongest supporters of national abortion. Let's have no illusions. Donald Trump is elected. And if MAGA Republicans in Congress put a nationwide abortion ban on the resolution desk, Trump will sign it into law.

“Here's what Donald Trump doesn't understand: When he stripped away Roe v. Wade, he stripped American women of the fundamental rights that the United States Supreme Court has affirmed and reaffirmed for 50 years. ” As a fundamental right, it didn’t matter where you lived. It's given to you as an American, not as a resident of any state. Generations of women have come to rely on that right. We are currently in an unusual situation where women have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers. This has never happened before in America. And we can't let it go. I am determined to restore federal protections in Roe v. Wade. So it doesn't matter where you live in America. A woman's fundamental right to choose will once again be the law of the land. If you give me and Vice President Harris a Democratic Congress, that's exactly what we'll do.

“Trump is just lying. There was no groundswell of support for Roe's overthrow in America. In fact, support for Roe is at an all-time high in America today. The real truth is that Trump I mean, he made a political deal in 2016. He promised to appoint a court that would eliminate Roe. And he had to repay that debt. So he did. It was never about policy or what is right or what Trump believes. It was always about politics.

“Mr. Trump acknowledged the same thing in his statement today. He's trying to say, 'Oh, never mind.' He created the mess of overturning Roe.” Please don't punish me for that. I just want to win. ”

“Trump is panicking. He's worried that voters will hold him accountable in 2024 because he was the one behind overturning Roe. Now, let Donald know the news. Yes, we will. America was built on individual liberty and liberty. So there is nothing more un-American than having our personal freedoms taken away. And that's what Donald Trump does. That's what I did.

“I've said many times since the Dobbs decision that Donald Trump and everyone responsible for overturning Roe have no idea about the power of women in America. But they're about to find out.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has blocked Donald Trump's latest attempt to have Judge Juan Machan removed from his hush money trial, scheduled to begin on April 15th.

In a court filing Monday morning, Bragg's office wrote:

Defendant's motion is not a good faith effort to identify good cause for this court's dismissal. Rather, this motion is part of a pointless effort to suspend orders restricting extrajudicial speech, taint court documents with dehumanizing attacks on courts and their families, and cast doubt on the integrity of these proceedings. It's nothing more than that. . And this motion is yet another last-ditch attempt to address defendant's true purpose, which, as the court has already recognized, is to postpone this proceeding indefinitely. As this court has repeatedly held, there is no good reason to avoid or postpone future trials. Defendants' current motion should be denied.

The Trump campaign announced that it had raised $50.5 million at a fundraiser held in Palm Beach on Saturday night that included the former president and first lady Melania Trump.

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.