Biden extends fundraising lead over Trump but poll sees him losing key swing states: Latest

Here’s a little more on the Trump campaign’s latest filing with the Federal Election Commission, which not only revealed that it raised just $21m in February, compared to Joe Biden’s $44.8m, but that the Save America PAC was torching 238,000 smackers a day defending their candidate in court, according to The Daily Beast.

That’s $5.6m for the month as a whole, alarming given that the PAC only managed to raise $5m in the same period.

The PAC also reportedly deferred payment on more than $500,000 in additional fees to the aforementioned Alina Habba while also chalking up a $645,000 bill to a company tasked with managing legal records in Trump’s business fraud case.

All in, Save America spent more than $6.9m on legal-related payments in February alone, the Beast calculates, or about $238,000 per day.

Here’s Sheila Flynn’s profile of the “lawyer, mother and billionaire” who could line up alongside the controversial independent presidential candidate.

Republican lawmakers across the country were already jockeying to push their states deeper into immigration enforcement when the Supreme Court, if only briefly, let Texas enforce a new law giving police broad powers to arrest migrants suspected of crossing the border illegally.

Within hours Tuesday, another court blocked the Texas law again. The same day, Iowa passed a similar bill.

The Biden campaign has been attempting, and apparently succeeding, at recruiting donors to the now-suspended campaign of former UN ambassador Nikki Haley.

Here’s more from Gustaf Kilander.

Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban, who voted for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP primary and is now supporting President Joe Biden, attended the president’s second fundraiser in Dallas on Wednesday night.

Biden’s appearance with Cuban, the former majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is part of the president’s larger effort to court donors and supporters of Nikki Haley following her exit from the race.

Cuban is one of the main sharks of the ABC reality television series Shark Tank and will exit the show in 2025.

He confirmed his attendance late Wednesday night, telling ABC News he “wanted to show my support and say hi to the President.”

Eric Garcia reports from Capitol Hill:

The Senate and House Appropriations Committees on Thursday released the text to fund major departments of the US government and avoid a government shutdown.

The appropriators dropped the text in the early hours of Thursday morning. The so-called minibus spending bill will fund the State Department; the Pentagon; the Department of Homeland Security; Congress; the Department of Health and Human Services; the Department of Education; financial services and the general government.

In addition to various aspects of government funding, the spending bill will also include 12,000 special immigrant visas for Afghans who assisted US service members in America’s longest war.

The United States has submitted a UN resolution that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the return of hostages held by Hamas, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Following weeks of increasing pressure from its allies at home and abroad over the humanitarian crisis caused by the war, Mr Blinken said in an interview that the US had drafted a security council resolution “that’s before the United Nations Security Council that does call for an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages, and we hope very much that countries will support that”.

Doesn’t seem like the White House counsel’s office is going to play ball though…