Donald Trump has withdrawn his endorsement from Alabama congressman and Senate candidate Mo Brooks, citing his longtime ally’s “horrible mistake” of suggesting that Republicans need to move on from the claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
Mr Trump accused the congressman of “going woke” in a lengthy statement this morning. He raised the possibility of retracting his endorsement in a recent interview, after which Mr Brooks released an ad boasting of his appearance at the rally outside the White House before the 6 January Capitol riot.
In a statement, Mr Brooks revealed that from September 2021 onwards, Mr Trump repeatedly asked him to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, reinstall him as president, and hold a new special election for the presidency. The Alabama lawmaker says he knew it was legally impossible.
On another front, Mr Trump and his children Donald Jr and Ivanka have filed an appeal in their fight against the New York attorney general’s attempt to depose them as part of a civil investigation into the Trump Organization.
Ms Trump has stepped up in the effort to support Ukrainian refugees by sending 1 million meals to Poland for distribution through charitable partners and aid workers on the ground there and in Ukraine.
Finally, in an unexpected development over the weekend, disgraced ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who has links to Russia, was stopped from taking a flight from Miami to Dubai because of an invalid passport.
