Trump news – live: Trump attacks Nikki Haley as he refuses to say he will back GOP 2024 nominee

Donald Trump refused to say that he would back the next GOP candidate for president if he himself does not secure the nomination.

Mr Trump, who has announced he will run again in 2024, was asked about supporting a Republican rival who beats him when he appeared on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show on Thursday.

“It would depend,” said Mr Trump, and he added, “It would have to depend on who the nominee was.”

Hunter Biden has asked state and federal officials to launch investigations into leading conservative figures who helped spread claims based on private information discovered on a laptop he allegedly dropped off at a Delaware repair shop.

In a series of letters to the Justice Department, the Delaware attorney general’s office, the IRS, and others, the president’s son called for probes of individuals like former New York mayor and Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, as well as conservative agitator Steve Bannon, for their role in spreading the laptop story, which was seized upon by political opponents of the president.

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President’s son could face investigations of his own under Republican-controlled House of Representatives

On Tuesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ released a video showing Donald Trump pleading the fifth more than 400 times in a deposition in the civil fraud case against him.

Mr Trump is being sued along with the Trump Organization and three of his adult children for allegedly inflating their finances in order to receive benefits.

Trump pleads the 5th Amendment in fraud deposition

Mr Trump, who is actively using his own social media platform Truth Social after he was barred from Twitter, reposted a message by a supporter who seemed to suggest violence.

“Then they will have to figure out how to fight 80,000,000 + it’s not going to happen again. People my age and old will physically fight for him this time,” a Truth Social post from username @freeTX1776 read.

‘Trump is gearing up for another January 6th attack’

The company which owns former US president Donald Trump’s Ayrshire golf course posted a more than £15 million loss in 2021, its accounts show.

Golf Recreation Scotland owns Trump Turnberry in South Ayrshire, which was purchased by the controversial property tycoon who is currently eyeing a second term in the White House.

According to accounts lodged with Companies House and published on Wednesday, the group made a loss of £14.7 million in 2021, despite an operating profit of just over £1 million, as a result of depreciation, foreign currency exchange and “exceptional items”.

The accounts show Brexit – once hailed by Mr Trump as a ‘great thing’ – had impacted staffing and supply chains at his Turnberry resort.

“Joe Biden’s weakness and incompetence has brought us to the brink of nuclear war and leading us to World War III,” he wrote on truth Social on Wednesday. “It’s time for all parties involved to pursue a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine before it spirals out of control and into nuclear war.”

Nikki Haley is preparing to announce her own 2024 presidential bid taking on the former president in a race for the White House.

The former South Carolina governor and former US ambassador to the UN is expected to formally launch her run on 15 February in Charleston.

This would make her the first Republican to publicly confirm she is challenging Donald Trump.

It would also make her the third Indian-American in US history to make a White House bid.

Former president Donald Trump has vowed to go after medical staff providing care to trans children if he is re-elected to office.

In a video released on his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday, Mr Trump said: “On day one I will revoke Joe Biden’s cruel policies offering so-called gender affirming care.

“Ridiculous. A process that includes giving kids puberty blockers, mutating their physical appearance and ultimately performing surgery on minor children. Can you believe this?”

Former president pushes for sweeping changes to trans rights at federal level

By this time four years ago, at least a dozen Democratic presidential hopefuls eager to make their case against Donald Trump had either visited Iowa or announced plans to soon visit the leadoff voting state ahead of the 2020 election.

Iowa’s campaign landscape is markedly different this year, with a Republican field seemingly frozen by Trump’s early announcement of a 2024 campaign. So far, only former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has visited this year, and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is making plans to stop by in the next few weeks.

Even Trump, the only declared candidate in the 2024 race right now, has been absent from Iowa, choosing instead to kickstart his campaign last weekend in New Hampshire and South Carolina, two other early voting states.

With Iowa’s first-in-the-nation GOP caucuses just a year off, the field of would-be White House candidates has largely been content to steer clear of bone-chilling Iowa — and, perhaps more importantly, avoid being the first candidate to announce a bid against the former president.

“No one wants to be on a limb by themselves against Trump,” said Alan Ostergren, a Republican lawyer in Des Moines who is involved in GOP politics. “They’ll all break at some point. But no one wants to go first.”