Trump news today: Trump rages at CPAC empty seats mockery as ex-aide Hope Hicks meets Manhattan prosecutors

Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has ruled himself out of the 2024 race, after saying that he will not go head-to-head with Donald Trump.

The Republican, who has become one of the party’s fiercest critics of Mr Trump, wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times that he will not challenge the former president.

“I would never run for president to sell books or position myself for a Cabinet role,” he wrote.

“I have long said that I care more about ensuring a future for the Republican Party than securing my own future in the Republican Party. And that is why I will not be seeking the Republican nomination for president.”

While he said he appreciated “all those around the nation who have for many years encouraged me to run for president, after eight years of pouring my heart and soul into serving the people of Maryland, I have no desire to put my family through another grueling campaign just for the experience”.

Donald Trump’s former aide Hope Hicks has met with Manhattan prosecutors investigating the former president’s alleged hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.

The former White House communications director visited the office of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg with her lawyers on Monday – spending several hours there before they were spotted leaving.

This comses as prosecutors ramp up the long-running investigation into the payments to the adult film star leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

Ms Hicks is only the latest in a growing number of people who were in Mr Trump’s inner circle at the time.

Mr Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen and former political adviser Kellyanne Conway spoke to prosecutors about the probe last week.

If the audience of CPAC 2023 was evidence of one thing, it was the increasingly rightward tilt of both the American Conservative Union which hosts the event, as well as the broader GOP activist base.

What could have been a massive “big tent” gathering of DC Republicans and their nationwide grassroots allies instead appeared to be more of a muted affair held to celebrate the glory of Donald Trump and his dominant but still incomplete segment of the Republican Party.

The split was evident in the crowd sizes at the event on Friday, when many big-name speakers including Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump Jr., and others were slated to speak. All of the above spoke to half-empty ballrooms which struggled to reach the same tenor and excitement of your average Trump rally.

John Bowden has more from the ground at CPAC:

“In his keynote CPAC speech, Donald Trump once again demonstrated why his leadership of the Republican Party has led to electoral loss after electoral loss. His rambling speech was unlikely to appeal to anyone not already firmly ensconced in the conservative bubble. When he did settle into a coherent statement, it was more often than not a vicious attack on his Republican rivals.

“The combination is a looming nightmare for the GOP. Trump has no vision for the future himself and is determined to torch the party if it attempts to move on from him. The media loves Democrats in disarray stories, but Trump makes it clear that there is an almost limitless potential for Republican dysfunction in 2024.”

Noah Berlatsky writes for The Independent:

Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has ruled himself out of the 2024 race, after saying that he will not go head-to-head with Donald Trump.

The Republican, who has become one of the party’s fiercest critics of Mr Trump, wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times that he will not challenge the former president.

“I would never run for president to sell books or position myself for a Cabinet role,” he wrote.

“I have long said that I care more about ensuring a future for the Republican Party than securing my own future in the Republican Party. And that is why I will not be seeking the Republican nomination for president.”

While he said he appreciated “all those around the nation who have for many years encouraged me to run for president, after eight years of pouring my heart and soul into serving the people of Maryland, I have no desire to put my family through another grueling campaign just for the experience”.

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) concluded on Saturday with a speech from former President Donald Trump, still considered the heavy favourite (especially by this crowd) for the 2024 GOP nomination.

But while Republicans attending the three-day Trumpfest at Maryland’s National Harbor were certain of who should be at the top of the ticket — even breaking out into chants of “Trump! Trump!” during a speech by his competitor, Nikki Haley — they were far less certain about who the former president should pick as his running mate should he secure his party’s nomination.

It’s a unique question for the once-president. He obviously cannot run again with his former vice president, Mike Pence, who is mulling his own 2024 bid and has publicly broken with his ex-boss on Mr Trump’s most important issue: The certainty of their shared 2020 defeat to Joe Biden. The former president also has far fewer ties with the GOP establishment than he had the last go around or even was able to forge in 2016, meaning that his hypothetical pick for several reasons could likely end up being someone with much stronger ties to the GOP’s far-right activist base.

John Bowden and Eric Garcia take a look at the possible choices, and gauge the enthusiasm at CPAC:

Rupert Murdoch and Fox News’ parent company are being sued over claims that they shared campaign strategy from Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential run with Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The suit filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by progressive activist group Media Matters on Friday alleges Fox made an illegal contribution to the Trump campaign when they shared his opponent’s ads before they had aired on the network.

“(Fox’s) actions are not only an egregious violation of the (Federal Election Campaign) Act and the Commission’s regulations, but also a nefarious attempt by people in power to operate a press entity as a political organisation, in blatant disregard of the rules that govern our elections and democracy,” Media Matters CEO and president Angelo Carusone writes in the filing, which was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

The Independent’s Bevan Hurley has the full story:

Saturday Night Live’s cold open went after Fox News over its conspicuous silence about damning revelations in a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.

Internal communications and sworn depositions in the court battle have revealed that Fox’s star anchors and executives knew that Donald Trump’s false 2020 election fraud claims were bogus.

Since the allegations were made public in unsealed court filings last week, Fox News has barely acknowledged them.

A senior presidential adviser in the Trump White House, Kellyanne Conway, and her husband, attorney George Conway, a prominent critic of the former president, say they are divorcing.

The news marks the end of one of Washington’s strangest power couples.

Read more in The Independent:

Former senior adviser to Donald Trump, Hope Hicks, was spotted entering the Manhattan district attorney’s office yesterday in a signal of a possible escalation of the investigation into the former president’s alleged involvement in hush money payments to a porn star during his presidential campaign.

Prosecutors from district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office have been presenting evidence to a grand jury since January, with Ms Hicks being the seventh witness to meet with them, the New York Times reported.

It remains unclear whether she was simply answering questions or will be asked to testify before the grand jury.

Mr Trump has labelled the investigation a “witch hunt,” and it is unknown whether the district attorney will seek an indictment against him.