TRUMP v. HALEY
Ron DeSantis’s exit from the GOP presidential campaign throws a monkey wrench into today’s New Hampshire primary election.
Some voters told The Epoch Times it takes the fun out of the race. Former DeSantis supporter Bob Nash of Hillsboro said, “There’s only one question now. Will get more than 50 percent or won’t he?”
(Left) Former President Donald Trump speaks at his caucus night event at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 15, 2024. (Alex Wong/Getty Images); (Right) Republican presidential candidate, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks during a campaign event held at Gilbert H. Hood Middle School in Derry, N.H., on Jan. 21, 2024. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
With DeSantis out, the race is between former President Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. The latest polls show Trump leading by double digits.
Haley’s prime advocate, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, has begun to talk about finishing a “strong second” as a sort of win.
Some New Hampshirites think the margin of victory will be wider than the polls show. “Polls tend to be off in New Hampshire,” C.S. Lark of Lyndeborough told The Epoch Times. “People are very private here.”
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The Granite State has a number of quirky laws. One is that poll times are set locally, and at least one town votes at midnight. Those results are already in. (All six voters in the northern border town of Dixville Notch cast their ballots for Haley)
State GOP Chairman Chris Ager predicted a swift count when the polls close at 8 p.m. “We’ll have a quick result,” Ager told The Epoch Times.
DeSantis’s exit on Sunday puzzled some observers here, who expected him to stay in the race at least through today’s voting.
As for the post-mortem on his campaign, observers began weighing in even before the governor called it quits. A lousy launch, poor strategy, wrong messaging, and incompetent advisors were all suggested.
The real reason, according to one observer, could be much simpler: Donald Trump.
“None of us fully understood—Trump may have but none of the rest of us did—is that Trump is the champion of a national movement, not a candidate,” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a contributor of The Epoch Times, said.
That made it virtually impossible to attack him directly, leaving the other candidates to fight amongst themselves.
With no movement in the polls, a lackluster result in Iowa, and no viable path forward, DeSantis read the tea leaves and called it a day.
“I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don’t have a clear path to victory,” he said in a videotaped announcement.
That move gave Haley exactly what she’d been angling for, a one-on-one contest with Trump.
We’ll have the results for you sometime this evening.
—Lawrence Wilson
CALLS TO INVESTIGATE FORCED ORGAN HARVESTING
Today, the United Nations Human Rights Council will begin a meeting reviewing China’s human rights records.
A coalition comprised of over 100 members says that the U.N. should make investigating forced organ harvesting a priority.
One of their demands is the creation of an international criminal tribunal over the issue.
“While forced organ harvesting may appear to be a remote occurrence to those of us in the free world, it would become relevant if we, or our relatives, needed an organ transplant,” said Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, a medical ethics group that initiated the call.
A 2019 London-based China Tribunal found that forced organ harvesting has been taking place for years in China on a “significant scale,” and that practitioners of the spiritual group Falun Gong are a primary target group.
Philip Hunt, a former British health administrator, cited the London Tribunal findings to explain the importance of having an international forum. The benefit of allowing the facts assembled through such a platform for a “very high powered, objective, dispassionate review of the evidence”—“you cannot underestimate their importance,” he told The Epoch Times.
Last week, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the persecution of Falun Gong and calling for an investigation to hold perpetrators accountable.
—Eva Fu
14TH AMENDMENT’S CONTESTED HISTORY
Trump faces a series of efforts to disqualify him from seeking office under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. The relatively untested post-Civil War provision has been likened to an unexploded bomb with questions surrounding whether text and history support its application to Trump’s activities on Jan. 6, 2021.
Legal scholars have disagreed over its meaning, but Section Three’s wording somewhat vaguely refers to “an officer of the United States” who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.”
It was “terribly written,” University of Richmond Law Professor Kurt Lash told The Epoch Times. Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson said “the sponsors of the amendment often didn’t know what they were doing,” and that the clause “has turned into an invitation for judicial activism.”
Section Three’s final version represented a major defeat for the radical Republicans. Far from disenfranchising Confederate rebels, it merely banned from certain offices those who previously took an oath to the Constitution.
Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (R-Pa.), at the time, panned the new Section Three as inadequate, and beseeched Congress to pass “proper enabling acts” to put the amendment in effect, lest it “may give the next Congress and President to the reconstructed rebels.”
Nothing in its text prevents the amendment from covering insurrections after the Civil War. Still, there are questions over who can enforce it, especially given that Sections Three and Five indicate Congress has some authority over its application.
“Self-executing” is how the Colorado Supreme Court described the amendment when it ruled that President Trump couldn’t appear on the state’s ballot. In other words, courts can determine politicians’ eligibility without Congress passing a special law.
Two law professors—William Baude at University of Chicago and Michael Paulsen at University of St. Thomas—penned a paper last year that argued the amendment would apply to President Trump “and potentially many others, because of their participation in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.”
Due process may complicate enforcement of Section Three, according to Natelson and Lash. Determining whether Trump engaged in an insurrection may be difficult for the legal system and it’s questionable whether Trump should first be convicted of violating the federal law barring insurrection.
Baude and Paulsen wrote that an “insurrection or rebellion were forms of active resistance to the lawful authority of the government. An insurrection might be something short of outright rebellion. But an insurrection against government authority sometimes grows into full-on ‘rebellion.’”
The Colorado Supreme Court decision followed a ruling from a lower court that held a weeklong hearing over whether Trump engaged in an insurrection under the amendment. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows later cited the Colorado Supreme Court ruling in her decision that Trump was disqualified. A court later stopped that decision from taking effect.
“Officer of the United States” is a contested concept under law as well. While Baude and Paulsen argue it included people like Trump, Lash argued that: “Scholars have yet to identify a single ratifier who described Section Three as applying to persons seeking the office of the President of the United States.”
–Sam Dorman and Petr Svab
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- New Hampshire holds its primary election. Results are expected to come in after 8 p.m. ET.
- President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris campaign at a rally in Manassas, Virginia, touting their pro-abortion platform.
An article by the Washington Examiner reveals that a state director for Haley’s New Hampshire campaign used to lobby for a Democratic dark money group.
The World Health Organization is preparing for the onset of a potential new pandemic known as “Disease X.” An article by The Epoch Times’ Kevin Stocklin explores the elusive identity of the hypothetical disease—and what it could mean for Americans.
Unsealed documents show that Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in the Georgia election case against Trump, was held in contempt of court for failing to deliver court-ordered documents during divorce proceedings, The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports.
The Democratic Socialists of America are in dire financial straits, according to an article by the New York Post. The organization, which has hosted a series of rallies in favor of Palestine, is facing a seven-figure financial pitfall—and is considering mass layoffs in response.
James Biden, President Biden’s brother, is in active communication with the House to set a deposition date to appear before the House Oversight Committee, Fox News reports. The Epoch Times has confirmed these talks are ongoing.
Rep. Chip Roy spoke out against a proposed treaty with the WHO, The Epoch Times’ Joseph Lord reported. The treaty is viewed by critics as a threat to free speech and U.S. sovereignty.
A group seeking to disqualify Trump from the ballot is setting their sights on others with ties to the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, The Epoch Times’ Beth Brelje reported. Targets of the new effort include Trump-linked politicians who helped organize the rally and transportation there.
