The latest on the 2024 campaign and primary elections

The Biden campaign launched a new ad Tuesday focused on abortion rights, slamming former President Donald Trump for his role in the overturning of Roe v. Wade and warning that “he’s running to pass a national ban." 

The ad opens with a clip of Trump saying, “Because for 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated and I did it and I'm proud to have done it.”

Then, appearing in the ad, President Biden says, “In 2016, Donald Trump ran to overturn Roe v. Wade. Now in 2024 he's running to pass a national ban on a woman's right to choose. I'm running to make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again. So women have a federal guarantee to the right to choose.”

Abortion rights have been a major point of emphasis for Democratic campaigns in recent election cycles, and the new ad reflects the Biden campaign’s desire to link the issue more explicitly to Trump as their general election matchup intensifies.

The ad began airing Tuesday morning in Michigan, on the same day that Trump is in the state for a campaign event in Grand Rapids. Michigan is one of several states that the Biden campaign has targeted with millions in early advertising, and this week his campaign has about $467,000 booked there, in addition to about $218,000 booked in Wisconsin, where Trump is also set to make an appearance later today.

Donald Trump is juggling a busy court and campaign schedule as he defends himself in several criminal cases while also vying for a second term in the White House.

The former president’s criminal hush money trial is expected to start on April 15. He faces charges stemming from his alleged falsification of business records with the intent to conceal illegal conduct connected to his 2016 presidential campaign.

The trial start date in Trump’s classified documents case in Florida had been set for late May, but the judge overseeing that case revisited the timing of the trial during a key hearing on March 1. She has not yet set a new date for the trial.

Donald Trump is returning to the campaign trail on Tuesday with events in Michigan and Wisconsin, two critical Midwest battlegrounds that he won eight years ago but that have mostly vexed Republicans ever since.

The former president is scheduled to first appear in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he is expected to deliver remarks about the US-Mexico border. From there, he will travel to Green Bay, Wisconsin, for his first rally in the Badger State since launching his third White House bid.

The visits come amid a notable lull in Trump’s campaign activity in the weeks since he became the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

Trump has held two campaign events since Super Tuesday — while the same time period has seen a surge in political activity from President Joe Biden, including his own stops in Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump, meanwhile, has unleashed a flurry of social media posts in recent weeks, attacking his Democratic rival and the judges and prosecutors overseeing the various legal cases against the former president.

Read more about Trump's attention on Michigan and Wisconsin.

President Joe Biden's campaign continued to link Donald Trump to political violence on Monday ahead of the former president's visit to the key battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan.

At a news conference in Washington, DC, Biden campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler said a video posted by Trump on Friday that featured an image of Biden tied up in the back of a pickup truck, was "not the first time and sadly will not be the last time that Donald Trump chooses to traffic in violence as he seeks to regain power."

Tyler said the former president is "perfectly comfortable with violence when he thinks it benefits him," before later listing off examples of Trump's proximity to violence, including encouraging supporters to beat up protesters in 2016, saying there were "fine people" on "both sides" when White supremacists descended on Charlottesville and stoking riots on January 6.

The campaign also invited former US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell and Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, who were both at the center of violence on January 6, to appear in their personal capacities to speak out about the violence stoked by Trump on that day.

"For Trump, violence is a weapon to get what he wants – power, revenge, retribution. I have seen what happened if someone like him has power, and I barely survived it," Gonell said. 

Hodges accused Trump of only caring about victims of violence, like slain New York Police Department Officer Jonathan Diller, "when he thinks it benefits him." 

Trump attended Diller's wake in New York last week after the officer was gunned down in the line of duty. Hodges said Diller's "bravery should be celebrated and should not be a photo opp for Donald Trump."

Former President Donald Trump has posted a $175 million bond as he appeals the judgment against him in the New York civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James.

The amount was lowered by several hundred million dollars by a state appeals court last month after Trump’s attorneys argued that covering the full bond on the $464 million verdict against him was not feasible. (Trump himself was ordered to pay $454 million; the $464 million includes the disgorgement for his adult sons Don Jr. and Eric.)

Trump’s bond pauses any action that James could take against Trump’s properties in response to the judgment until at least September when the state appeals court also set a schedule to hear his appeal of the verdict. The bond is underwritten by Knight Specialty Insurance, a California-based insurance company.

In January, Judge Arthur Engoron fined Trump and his co-defendants, including his adult sons and his company, $464 million, finding they fraudulently inflated the value of the former president’s assets to obtain better loan rates. Trump had been given 30 days to post the bond for the full amount of the judgement while he appealed, as is required by state law, but his attorneys said he could not find an insurance company to underwrite that large of a bond. That prompted James to take steps to prepare to seize Trump’s assets in the event Trump failed to post bond.

When the 30-day deadline hit, however, the New York appeals court stepped in and lowered the bond to $175 million, giving Trump an additional 10 days.