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WASHINGTON, April 18 (Reuters) - Donald Trump said on Thursday the survival of Ukraine is important to the United States, a shift in tone days before the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives is due to vote on a $61 billion aid package.

Maintenance costs have risen for many US weapons, including some crucial systems by Ukraine or likely to be deployed in a conflict with China. In particular, operating and support costs for the M982 Excalibur — a GPS-guided 155-mm artillery shell supplied to Ukraine — nearly doubled between 2011 and 2022 to roughly $100,000 per shell, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Such problems are baked into the military procurement system. The sticker price of a weapon, such as a jet fighter, only reflects a fraction of what it will cost to maintain that weapon over its lifetime. "Operating and...

BREAKING: DeSantis has just cleared his campaign website of upcoming events

The Governor worries Donald Trump and Nikki Haley now won't bother to debate him in the Granite State, where he trails badly. Gov. Ron DeSantis denies that he was “petrified” by the news Chris Christie was suspending his presidential run, but he is admitting in Iowa that he would have preferred a different outcome. DeSantis wanted the former New Jersey Governor in the race to ensure a televised debate in New Hampshire actually happens, an outcome apparently in doubt now. “I wanted him to stay in because I think if he was in the WMUR debate on Thursday and I...

On the menu today: The cover piece in the newest issue of National Review has Ron DeSantis fans grumbling that it’s far too early for such a gloomy assessment of his campaign because not a single vote has been cast yet. Fine, but to believe that DeSantis has a shot of winning Iowa, we need to believe that his support is at least 15 percentage points higher than his highest numbers in recent polling and that Donald Trump’s support is at least 15 percentage points lower than his lowest numbers in recent polling. (If you simply take DeSantis’s best number...

President Joe Biden’s parole pipeline at the United States-Mexico border has released a foreign population into American communities larger than Las Vegas, Nevada’s, population in less than a year. On Friday, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released illegal immigration figures for November. The data shows that since the start of the year, more than 670,000 foreign nationals have been released into the U.S. interior through the administration’s parole pipeline. The parole pipeline is made up of so-called “humanitarian parole” that Biden’s DHS offers to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans as well as the “CBP One” migrant mobile app whereby...

Ron DeSantis asked Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday to arrange a head-to-head debate that would allow the Florida governor to take on former President Trump. “Well, Sean, I don’t think we’ve spoken since that debate, and the reaction that I’ve gotten has been incredible in terms of obviously being able to show that freedom works, and the California model’s a failure, what that means for the country,” DeSantis said. DeSantis praised Hannity’s moderating skills and suggested he hold additional debates with either of his top competitors in the presidential primary

Nikki Haley doubles DeSantis' support. Donald Trump leads him by 57 points. Gov. Ron DeSantis arguably had his best performance in a national debate this week, with a widely viewed showdown with California’s Gavin Newsom the week before. But new polling suggests it might not matter. In the latest Emerson College poll, the Florida Governor has fallen to 7%, his worst showing in any national survey in the 2024 cycle. Adding insult to injury, DeSantis is actually at 6.7%, benefiting from rounding to even hit the modest 7% threshold. DeSantis trails Nikki Haley, who has double his support at 14%....

The latest non-surprise.The headline in Monday’s New York Times was this:Trump Crushing DeSantis and G.O.P. Rivals, Times/Siena Poll Finds The twice-indicted former president leads across nearly every category and region, as primary voters wave off concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy.The Times reported:Former President Donald J. Trump is dominating his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, leading his nearest challenger, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by a landslide 37 percentage points nationally among the likely Republican primary electorate, according to the first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign.Mr. Trump held decisive advantages across almost every demographic group...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has slipped to third place in the latest RMG Research survey examining the Republican primary race on the national scale.Former President Donald Trump is only continuing to widen his lead in the Republican primary race, boasting 60 percent support in the latest RMG Research survey — 43 points ahead of his closest challenger. That reflects a five-point bump from the 55 percent support he saw one week ago.That challenger in second place is no longer DeSantis but anti-woke businessman Vivek Ramaswamy with 13 percent support. DeSantis slipped into the single digits, coming in third place with...

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday unanimously dismissed a longshot bid by former President Donald Trump to disqualify quash the special grand jury report that recommended criminal charges in the Fulton County district attorney’s probe of Georgia’s 2020 election. The state Supreme Court also rejected Trump’s request that it bar Fulton DA Fani Willis from continuing to oversee the criminal investigation. The ruling came weeks before Willis is expected to seek indictments in the probe of efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory over him in the Peach State.

MSNBC political analyst Claire McCaskill said Wednesday on “Deadline” that 2024 hopeful Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was “way out of step” with most of Americans views on LGBTQ issues because they have a loved one in that group. Guest anchor Ayman Mohideen asked, “The DeSantis campaign rapid response director tried to downplay the criticism by saying that opposing pride month isn’t homophobic because, and I quote, ‘We wouldn’t support a month to celebrate straight people for sexual orientation either. It is unnecessary and divisive pandering,’ which is what we’ve heard from racists when you want to talk about celebrating black...

CBS News poll showed the former president had 61 percent support in the Republican primary, leading his opponent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by a full 38 points – 61 percent to 23 percent. Republican Sen. Tim Scott (SC) stands in third place with just 4 percent of support, just one point ahead of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Regarding the indictment, a plurality of those polled expressed concern that the former president had been targeted for political reasons, not for legal reasons. Most explicitly ruled out the charges announced in the indictment changing their views about Mr. Trump. Rather than...

Former President Donald Trump claimed the straw poll at the Western Conservative Summit on Saturday barely 24-hours after his federal indictment was publicly unsealed. He surged past Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his nearest challenger for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination, by 40.3 percent to 35.8 percent, the Washington Examiner reports.

Former President Donald Trump is up double digits against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary matchup, a recently released Florida Atlantic University/Mainstreet Research survey found.The survey, taken between April 13 and 14, 2023, found 59 percent of registered Republicans choose Trump as their nominee of choice, while 31 percent choose DeSantis, giving Trump a 28-point advantage:2024 Florida Republican Primary:Trump 59% (+28)DeSantis 31%Mainstreet Research/Florida Atlantic University, RV, 4/13-14https://t.co/3qWwjVUzsk— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) May 12, 2023Further, the survey found 87 percent of registered Republican voters in Florida at least somewhat support Trump in the 2024 primary, despite looming legal...

Are we going to go flip the burgers now? pic.twitter.com/pcQuYsTUBh— AG Gancarski (@AGGancarski) May 13, 2023

Conservative talk show host Dan Bongino said former President Donald Trump's performance during a CNN town hall was so good Wednesday night that he effectively wrapped up the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. "I'm going to say after last night, I don't know what you guys think, the primary is over," Bongino said during his opening monologue Thursday of "The Dan Bongino Show" podcast. "It's over man. ... Trump was in rare form last night and just lit CNN on fire to the point where CNN was questioning CNN at the end of the night." Bongino said the town hall was...

At least 34 people injured during strikes on eastern city of Pavlohrad Russian shelling has struck warehouses that are believed to be storing ammunition in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad in an apparent attempt to slow an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive. The pre-dawn shelling, in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast, injured at least 34 people including three children and damaged dozens of buildings, according to regional administration officials. In a separate attack in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, one person was killed and three others wounded. Pavlohrad was struck twice during the night, Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipro council, said....

KIEV — “I was on the streets for the Orange Revolution when I was in my last year at university in 2004, and I was on the streets again in 2014. So, the 10-year mark of when we tend to mount revolutions is approaching,” said Inna Sovsun, an opposition lawmaker for Ukraine’s liberal pro-European Holos party.And she suspects there’s another political upheaval on its way.And while navigating the tempestuous postwar political waters would be difficult for any leader, according to the former minister, it will be especially so for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as he’s become part of the problem...

Update from Ukraine | Good news Wagners might be cut | Bad news Ruzzians in Bakhmut city center https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDa-tavjFlA ****NEW SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: Invasion Day 404 – Summary April 3, 2023 Jerome News The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-404-summary/