Trump celebrates victory in Iowa caucuses ahead of return to NY court: Live updates

If you’re just joining us, former president Donald Trump has overwhelmingly won the Iowa caucuses in the first official contest of this year’s Republican presidential primaries.

Trump posted a double-digit victory in Iowa eight years after he lost the caucuses to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. The front-runner far-outpaced his nearest competitors, Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who served as Trump’s US ambassador to the United Nations in his administration.

His victory in Iowa breaks Bob Dole’s record for a margin of victory of 13 points in 1996 and George W Bush’s 10.5-point victory in 2000. Both candidates went on to become the Republican nominee for president, a future that seems all but certain for Trump despite dozens of criminal charges against him.

Here’s what last night’s victor had to say for himself over his resounding victory over Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.

The three-minute clip, posted to Truth Social on Sunday evening, opens on grainy footage of an LP turning on a record player, broadcasting an apparently ancient sermon in which a preacher intones: “And on 14 June 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker.’

“So God gave us Trump,” the voiceover adds.

Boos from the crowd drowned out the woman before the former president taunted: “Go home to Mommy! Your mommy’s worried.”

Fani Willis, the district attorney of Georgia’s Fulton County, seemed to acknowledge for the first time the allegations of an affair directed at her during her address to a church congregation. She also defended the special prosecutor she appointed for the election interference case involving former president Donald Trump, without directly naming him.

“I hope for y’all this week I don’t look like what I’ve been through,” she joked at the Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a service to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr Day on Sunday.

Maroosha Muzaffar has reports:

The incident occurred on Saturday after the Florida governor staged a town hall in Atlantic, Iowa. An unidentified man approached Mr DeSantis, holding a small award.

“Governor DeSantis I want to present to you this participation trophy,” he said, prompting laughter from those gathered.

“You’re probably not going to win the election but we’re proud of you for trying,” the man added, before declaring: “He’s special, he’s unique, and he’s our little snowflake.”

Mr DeSantis did not take the gift and tried to laugh off the prank, telling the man: “I don’t do participation trophies, sorry buddy.”

Mike Bedigan has the story:

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is dropping out of the race after low numbers in Iowa caucuses, sources have told Bloomberg and CNN.

Mr Ramaswamy told staff in a private meeting that he would endorse Donald Trump on stage tonight in Iowa.

Among caucusgoers with college degrees, 35 per cent backed Mr Trump, 33 per cent supported Ms Haley, and 23 per cent backed Mr DeSantis, according to the entrance poll shared by the network. Among those without a college degree, 65 per cent backed Mr Trump, 17 per cent supported Mr DeSantis, and eight per cent backed Ms Haley.

In the NBC poll, 79 per cent of Haley backers said they thought Mr Biden was legitimately elected, the same was true for 40 per cent of those supporting Mr DeSantis and six per cent of those backing Mr Trump.

The trial arrives approximately four months after Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that Mr Trump defamed Ms Carroll in 2019 when he denied sexually assaulting her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodmans in the mid-1990s.

Ms Carroll first came forward with allegations of rape during Mr Trump’s presidency in her book What Do We Need Men For? He denied the allegations and claimed, “She’s not my type”.

Now, this week’s trial will focus only on the damages that Mr Trump owes Ms Carroll for making the defamatory statements. Judge Kaplan made the decision after the jury in a separate defamation trial found Mr Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

The previous defamation trial focused on statements Mr Trump made on Truth Social in 2022 in which he called Ms Carroll’s rape allegations “a Hoax and a lie”.

The lopsided landslide blowout that resulted from the year-long primary race between former president Donald Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis unofficially began in November of 2022, when Mr Trump — then planning his next campaign but speaking in support of then-Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz — bestowed a pejorative moniker on the Sunshine State executive.

As he spoke in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Mr Trump referred to Mr DeSantis, who also had not yet announced his candidacy in this year’s presidential contest, as “Ron DeSanctimonious”.

For professional Trump-watchers such as your correspondent, the bestowing of a nickname upon an opponent by the ex-president was, at the time, a sign that Mr Trump considered the Florida governor to be a threat to his hopes of regaining his party’s nomination to take on the man who beat him in the 2020 election, President Joe Biden, in 2024.