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So after much anticipation, it's finally 2024.
which not only marks the start of an election year, but opens a new chapter in this campaign. People will start voting soon. And in states like Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, it's getting to be crunch time for the candidates. But this year, while all that typical campaigning is still happening, another storyline has taken off.
which could matter even more than any individual candidate. Now, former President Trump fighting to keep his name on the Republican primary ballot in Colorado and Maine. The Supreme Court of Colorado and Maine's Secretary of State have each ruled that the former president is not eligible to run for a second term in the White House. Two states, Colorado and Maine.
are saying that Donald Trump can't be on the ballot at all. They say that his actions on January 6th violated the 14th Amendment ban on insurrectionists holding federal office. They're basing this on a clause in the 14th Amendment, which bars candidates from office who have engaged in insurrection against the United States.
Maine's Secretary of State, who ruled on the issue, put it this way. Mr. Trump was aware of the tinder he laid in a multi-month efforts to challenge legitimacy of the 2020 election. And then, in an unprecedented and tragic series of events, chose to light a match. And the Trump campaign fired back.
eventually appealing the decision in state court. A Trump campaign spokesperson releasing a scathing statement, writing in part, More than a dozen similar cases are pending.
And in some other states, officials have ruled in the opposite way on the same issue, saying that Trump is eligible to be on the ballot. Now the Supreme Court faces mounting pressure to wade into uncharted constitutional territory and settle these 14th Amendment questions once and for all. The question is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court, especially because on Wednesday, Trump filed a petition asking the court to keep him on Colorado's primary ballot.
Separately, the court might also consider a key aspect in one of the criminal cases against Trump, the question of presidential immunity, which means that what was already seeming like a big role for the court in the 2024 election feels like it's getting bigger by the day. And remember the last time that happened? In 2000? You can't steal this one! You can't steal this one!
It got pretty messy. You can't do this one! Cut all the bones! From the New York Times, I'm Ested Herndon. This is The Run-Up.
Hey, Adam, how are you? Hey, Ested. So to try and make sense of all this, I called my colleague Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court. It's the first day of 2024. Do you have any New Year's resolutions? It's going to be a hell of a year, it looks like. Yeah, yeah. That's my personal resolution is like survival. I'm just giving myself like full reign of just like make it to the end. Exactly. Just survive. Yeah.
It's less than two weeks before anyone starts voting, and it's really kind of becoming real in the election sense for us. And part of the reason we wanted to talk to you is because we're already having a question about Donald Trump's eligibility.
And it feels kind of tangled. Some states have ruled that Donald Trump is ineligible for the ballot, two states specifically, Colorado and Maine. Can you talk us through what's been happening in those states? And what is the kind of legal process that's been playing out across the country? So there are lots and lots of challenges brought under a previously obscure part of the 14th Amendment, the amendment enacted after the Civil War.
that at a broad level of generality, maybe we'll drill down on this instead, but it says that officials who have taken an oath to support the Constitution are not eligible to hold office if they have engaged in an insurrection. And those two states have said that Donald Trump's conduct in plotting to overturn the election culminating in the events of January 6th fit that pattern.
And therefore, he's not eligible to be on the primary ballots in those two states. But the logic of the position would knock him off of every ballot everywhere, primary or general. And that really makes you think that this issue of national scope
So the issue or question here is a clause in the 14th Amendment that states that an individual who has taken an oath to protect the Constitution cannot hold office in the future if they have engaged in insurrection. Like, how did this legal theory or how did this kind of come to be in terms of rising up to get to this point?
Well, the logic of it in the post-Civil War makes a ton of sense, right? You don't want those people who have taken up arms against the federal government to be eligible to hold office. Maybe, Ested, we should actually look at the words of the 14th Amendment because I think that'll bring it into scope. It's a little tangled, but it's got four basic pieces. It specifies which offices we're talking about. It specified...
who is barred from holding those offices if they have, and here's the third part,
engaged in insurrection. And then it makes the interesting additional point that Congress can, by a two-thirds vote of each house, give amnesty, remove such disability. So let me read the words of the thing and see if it makes more sense that way. So first we're going to talk about what offices are in play. And as I read this, listen for does it talk about the president specifically. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress—
or elector of president and vice president, meaning a member of the electoral college, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any state. Now,
There's no specific reference to the president. There's the electors of the president, members of the Electoral College. But it does say hold any office, civil or military, under the United States. And there's some dispute about whether the presidency is a
office under the United States, but the Constitution in many other places refers to the office of the presidency. So that's, first of all, what positions are covered. Now let's turn to who is barred. And again, let's look to see if the president is in here. Someone who has previously taken an oath as a member of Congress,
or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state to support the Constitution of the United States. Now, here again, there's some dispute about whether the president is an officer of the United States, but most people, at least in a colloquial sense, would certainly think he is. And Donald Trump
took a presidential oath that doesn't have the word support in it, but it sure sounds like he's pledged to support the Constitution of the United States. Then there's the question of, okay, let's say you've taken this oath. Let's say it applies to one of these offices. What do you have to have done to be disqualified? Right. And it says,
And the antecedent here is support the Constitution of the United States. So shall have engaged...
in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. Against the same, meaning either the Constitution of the United States or the United States, not completely clear which is the antecedent. But in any event, this question of does what Trump did in the run-up to and during the January 6th attack on the Capitol,
amount to insurrection and there are lots of definitions from the era in which this provision was adopted that strongly suggest that this is the kind of political violence meant to frustrate the operation of government that fits pretty nicely within the definition of insurrection. So you put all these pieces together and
You have two states saying it fits, it's required, it's a qualification to take office. It's no different from the requirement that you be 35 years old or that you be a natural born citizen of the United States. The logic of these states is there are lots of people who would like to vote for Donald Trump, but you can't because the Constitution says so.
Okay, so this is really helpful. So it's not just the question of did Donald Trump engage in insurrection and that automatically kind of throws make someone ineligible to hold office. There is a kind of criteria that the amendment lays out that these cases are going to test broadly. One, if the president as a figure fits in this criteria, did Donald Trump then do the right actions that fall into the category of insurrection? All of that stuff has to add up.
to something that then leads these states to deem him ineligible. Is this like a widely accepted legal theory? Are these states applying something novel and new? And this is kind of like new ground that we're covering here. I guess I'm wondering how widely accepted are the leaps that these states are taking? How widely accepted are they in the kind of legal community?
So if by legal community we mean judges, this is virgin territory almost entirely. If by legal community we mean constitutional scholars, including prominent conservative constitutional scholars, I wouldn't call it a consensus, but I would say that a majority of prominent constitutional scholars are
think that the logic of the Colorado and Maine rulings are correct. And that's not super new. I mean, this has been an obscure area of the law, but legal scholars study obscure areas of the law. That's their jam. And they say it works as a legal matter.
Now, we're going to get all different kinds of answers. The California election official came to the opposite conclusion and said that Trump is eligible to run. These cases arise in different procedural settings. Some of them are limited to the primaries. Some of them say a voter doesn't have standing to bring this claim. There are a million kind of legal cross currents. Now, that leaves open the question of
the practical and political consequences and what the Supreme Court, if it gets this case,
is going to do with it. But although obscure, although untested, it's a serious question. The other question I have about the two states, Colorado and Maine, is that if I'm understanding it correctly, Colorado happened because of a decision from the state Supreme Court, where Maine was a decision from the state's Secretary of State. Is there any difference legally in how this happened? Is there any way that distinction is important?
I don't think the mechanics of it matter that much. Both cases were brought by voters. The Colorado case was a lawsuit against the Secretary of State asking the court to force her to knock Trump off the ballot. So states will have different procedures. And there may be roadblocks and hurdles and exit ramps and procedural nonsense, but they all get to the same point. I mean, at some point,
We really need a definitive answer to does this provision of the Constitution, which makes at least some people ineligible to hold office, apply to Donald Trump? Yeah. The Colorado case is already at the court in the following sense. The Colorado Republican Party last week said,
went to the court, asked the court to hear its appeal, urged the court to move very fast to resolve the matter by Super Tuesday. I mean, it does feel, I mean, we're about to be in Iowa, and it does feel a little surreal that voters are going to start weighing in on a candidate in person who they don't fully know is going to be eligible.
come November. What is the likelihood that the court does move fast? And what is the timeline? I mean, you mentioned Super Tuesday as the one request. Is that timeline realistic? I could imagine the court setting the case down for argument in January and
And issuing a decision in February. I think they're capable of doing that. Bush v. Gore worked rather faster than that. Now, Bush v. Gore might not be the best example of the court's finest work. Yeah, how about you're going to trigger some people, right? It's back to Bush v. Gore. Is that the territory we're in here? I think it's comparable. But Bush v. Gore was about one state. And this is about the entire national...
presidential electoral system. So, I mean, the court will not be pleased to make this decision, would rather not deal with it, but probably can't avoid it. Do we have a sense of what the Supreme Court is likely to do here? The good news for Donald Trump is that there are enough different issues in the case, and we haven't even talked about some of them, like does Congress have to enact a law
under the 14th Amendment before judges can do anything. There are all kinds of threshold issues that the court could find a way to leave him on the ballot, even as it takes no position on or even accepts for the sake of argument.
that he engaged in insurrection. This is a very delicate business for the court. I'm not sure, although obviously it's a 6-3 court with six Republican appointees, three of them appointed by Donald Trump. I'm not sure it breaks along those lines, and they may well look
for some narrow technical way to leave him on the ballot without at the same time ruling on whether he was an insurrectionist. It's a very delicate business for the court. One question I have as a kind of layperson is like, you mentioned this partisanship of the court, three justices appointed by Donald Trump, six kind of conservatives. Is there any universe where that kind of partisan makeup would throw him off the ballot?
So I don't think this court particularly likes Donald Trump. I don't even think the Trump appointees particularly like Donald Trump. And in cases where you remember, Ested, there were subpoena cases while he was a sitting president from Congress and from the Manhattan DA. Trump lost those cases seven to two with all of his justices in the majority and only Alito and Thomas in dissent.
So for sure, there's a partisan tilt to the court in many settings, but Trump is a little bit of a special case. At the same time, it's a very, very, very big move, whatever the partisan composition of the court, to say that a leading candidate for the presidency cannot run and the voters may not themselves assess whether his conduct was disqualifying.
So this case really puts the court in a pickle. It's going to be a high wire act. You know, we mentioned how there's so many cases that are moving along on this front in a lot of different states. Is what I'm hearing from you that when the Supreme Court weighs in on Colorado, you
that's going to affect all these other cases too, right? They don't, will they have to weigh in on each individual one or is there going to be a ruling that kind of like puts the eligibility question to bed soon? Probably they will rule in a way that controls every single case in every single state. Okay. Are they, are they capable of ruling in a Colorado only way? Sure. They could say that some provision of Colorado law, uh,
is special and therefore this case could not have been brought and we'll wait for the next case, they could do that.
I don't think they'll do that. I think they'll reach the larger issues. And I don't think they want to have several bites at this apple. This is an apple they don't want at all. Yeah. You know, Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California said, you know, in California, quote, we defeat candidates we don't like at the polls. Everything else is a political distraction. You've heard, we've had some Democrats even come out and say that they're kind of uncomfortable with the idea of Donald Trump being thrown off the ballot, that it's kind of a
a gotcha rather than a kind of core political argument for defeating him. How much are these kind of partisan fights going to weigh on the court, if at all? So that argument is superficially appealing that voters should decide. If Donald Trump did something bad, voters should take account of that.
And if they think it was bad enough, they shouldn't vote for him. At the same time, instead, the thing that he's accused of doing is so profoundly anti-democratic. Yeah. To try to undo an election that it's a hell of a thing to say, because we're so committed to democracy, we're going to let the voters decide when the very act in question was an attempt to subvert democracy. Yeah.
It's a great point, because I really do think that, like, you know, we can talk out of both sides of our mouth on this thing. I'm like, I totally see the argument that voters should be able to decide this, that this is a kind of political matter on its face. But to your point, like...
If engaging in an insurrection or blocking the transfer of power or plotting against the government is not enough to kick in said clause that's in the Constitution, it does kind of beg the question of like, what is it there for? You know, like it does feel as if at some point the words have to matter, even though I totally understand the voter argument. And I think a lot of people are really more comfortable with the voter argument.
Right. But it's possible there are parts of the Constitution that are anti-democratic. Yeah, that's important. That's an important point. The other qualifications for president, you got to be 35. Yeah, I may want to vote for a 30 year old.
You've got to be a natural born citizen of the United States. I might want to vote for someone born in France. You're saying there's a lot of things that we actually understand that the Constitution lays out in terms of these requirements and not being an insurrectionist is one of them.
Let me ask the kind of last couple questions. You know, we also did an episode recently about Trump's other legal problems. I'm thinking of his kind of state criminal cases in New York and Georgia. Also, the federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith. It seems as if there's a big question of kind of presidential immunity in the federal cases that the Supreme Court might also have to weigh in on. Do we have a sense on when and how this court might weigh in on that front also? Yeah.
I think they're likely to weigh in on it soon. The Federal Appeals Court in Washington is going to hear arguments on January 9 on whether Trump enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. That court will almost certainly act fast.
The losing side will almost certainly go to the Supreme Court. And I think the court will hear that case and might like to hear that case in tandem with the one we've been talking about because it could give the court an opportunity to give something to each side. The immunity argument is a real stretch, and the court won't have a lot of problem rejecting it, I predict. Right.
And if they give Trump a loss on that one and a win on the eligibility 14th Amendment one, then maybe it seems like they're being even handed. It's interesting the kind of optics of it all might lead them, you're saying, to put these cases together. But it also really reminds me, you mentioned Bush-Gore, of just what –
of a massive role the Supreme Court is about to have in the early stages of this race, not only the presidential immunity ruling or the eligibility questions, but even thinking back to the Dobbs decision, of course, the decision on student loans, how much this court has really dramatically shaped the first few years of the Biden administration. It will shape this year's, I said next year, I'm so used to saying it, this year's presidential election. Uh,
It feels kind of unprecedented to me, but as someone who has studied the court, how unique is the current position that it's in? It's a very powerful court. Some people call it an imperial court. It's partly a consequence of the fact that Congress is gridlocked and not able to do anything. It's partly a consequence of the court being very assertive in
thrusting itself into the middle of every major controversy, seemingly abortion, guns, religion, the climate, student loans, affirmative action. So I don't want to make broad historical claims, but in the 15 years I've been covering the court, this court, now with a sixth justice conservative supermajority, seems very eager as a general matter to
to get into and decide all of the big issues of the day. But even as I say that, I would footnote that some of these election cases, they're going to go into holding their noses because they know nothing good is going to come for the court, whatever they do in this election.
on this question of eligibility, half the country is going to be furious. I mean, the last question I would ask is like, if you could kind of crystal ball this year of the court, with the Trump eligibility coming soon, with the question of presidential immunity coming soon, how much of this do you think is going to be a kind of legacy defining year for a Roberts court that's already had so many of those moments?
Yeah, so I would have thought that this would be a quiet term. They had two huge terms before the one that started in October. But these Trump cases, depending on how they come out and depending on how they affect the election...
could be the biggest term of the Roberts Court, which has been in business since 2005. And it's hard to predict this, Ted, because we've got four different criminal trials on the runway. They're going to produce issues we haven't even thought about. And it's not hard for them to speed to the Supreme Court in a matter of weeks. So this will be a busy time for covering the court.
Yeah. When I think about the actors that are going to matter so much for the race, you know, we think about the nominees, we think about the parties, but it's really making clear to me, we have to think about the court in that same category because they're going to play such a big role this year. That's exactly right. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. More after the break.
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After talking with Adam, I had a better sense of the legal questions at play when it comes to Trump's ballot eligibility. But I still wanted to talk with someone on the state level who was directly involved in the initial decision to remove his name from the ballot. Secretary Bellows, thank you for joining us. Welcome and Happy New Year. Thank you so much. Happy New Year. I'm thrilled to be here. So on Tuesday afternoon, I called Maine Secretary of State, Shana Bellows. I wanted to know about her ruling.
But I also wanted to understand how she was thinking about the politics of it all, considering her decision has already had such huge political impacts. I want to jump into the conversation pretty quick here. Take me through the explanation of how this question of whether Trump is eligible to be on the 2024 ballot in Maine came to your desk.
Oh, I'm so glad you asked that question because Maine is unique. To my knowledge, no other state has a process quite like this. Under Maine election law, which is Title 21A for those legal geeks out there, once the secretary has made the initial qualification of any candidate for the ballot, and I did that, my office verified Mr. Trump's signatures and indicated that he had met that requirement.
Any registered Maine voter may bring a challenge to the candidate's qualifications under Maine law. They don't have the option of going right to court. They must bring that challenge to the secretary. In this case, five registered Maine voters did so, including two former Republican state senators. Under the law, I as secretary am required to hold an administrative hearing
and then must issue a decision following the conclusion of the hearing proceedings. And what's important was that the weight of the evidence made clear that not only were the events of January 6th tragic and unprecedented...
but that they did meet the definition of insurrection and that those events, which were an attack not only on the Capitol and government officials, but also attack on the peaceful transfer of power and the rule of law, the evidence presented at the hearing demonstrated they occurred at the behest of and with the knowledge and support of the outgoing president. And Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is clear, the Constitution does not tolerate insurrection
and assault on the foundations of our government. Maine election law required me to act. I hear what you're saying. You know, I wasn't particularly familiar with this specific clause of the 14th Amendment or, you know, to be honest with you, the argument in general. But one of the things I have learned is that there are questions beyond just whether Donald Trump
engaged in insurrection on the 6th, questions about whether this clause would even apply to the president. That's not a universally accepted kind of legal theory. I guess I'm wondering, considering the range of opinions on this, did that factor into you making such a decision that was going to resonate so broadly? How did you weigh what seems to be several legal questions at once?
So my obligation under the law was to review and make a determination on all of the legal questions brought forward in the hearing, in the record. One thing I want to make clear for your listeners, however, is this is the first step in the process. I voluntarily, in the last page of my decision, decided
suspended the effect of my decision, stayed my decision pending appeal to the courts because the next step is an appeal to Superior Court and then the Maine Supreme Judicial Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. And certainly the courts will weigh in and my decision will be upheld or overturned. I will
comply with whatever the courts direct me to do. That's my obligation as Secretary of State under the law. Maybe it's because I'm a political reporter, but I'm also thinking about the amount of Republicans we have talked to in the last year who are getting ready to vote for Donald Trump, who have made arguments saying that Democratic elected officials across the country are seeking to keep him from office outside of the Democratic process, to remove that
agency from voters. I've even seen some Democratic elected officials say a kind of similar argument, saying that the power should really rest with the people, not necessarily these officials. I would love a clear response to that argument. I know you're kind of saying the Constitution should come first, but it does feel like there's an inevitable political backlash with decisions like this. Is it
Were you just blocking that out? I was blocking it out. Okay. My personal safety, the political considerations, my personal views, none of that could enter in because the Constitution and the law required me to review the
and exclusively the evidence in the record. But I do want to address this. So Article 1 of the Constitution leaves it up to the states to determine their election laws. Article 1 of the Constitution also leaves it up to the states, the administration of elections. That's why you see such variability. But it's not the states that set the qualifications for office. That's the Constitution. And looking at Maine law, it was very clear to me that
If Barack Obama or George W. Bush wanted to run for president and submitted the 2,000 signatures required, I would be prohibited from placing them on the ballot. If an 18-year-old or a non-citizen sought to be placed on the presidential ballot in Maine, I would be prohibited from placing them on the ballot. Yeah.
So under May law, the qualifications in the Constitution, they're not a menu. They're requirements. I totally hear that. I guess I'm wondering, someone not being 35 is a fact, right? Someone having served two terms in office previously is a fact. Whether Donald Trump engaged in insurrection is not a legally defined fact, at least at this point. He has not been convicted of doing so in a court. How is this decision the same, I guess, considering there is that kind of legal distinction between
between something that has been established and something that it seems like, at least in here, you are establishing through the hearing.
Do you get what I'm saying? I do. There are two things that I would say. So first, you know, in my decision, I determined that the record demonstrated that Mr. Trump engaged in the insurrection of January 6, 2021. And as part of the exhibits, except as part of the record, those included nonpartisan reports from the Senate, from the Government Accounting Office, the GAO, from the Defense Department. There were a variety of
you know, the January 6th report, which was also nonpartisan. And so it was my review of the evidence that day that more than 2,000 people entered the Capitol and were present, according to the GAO, for seven hours attacking police officers, that seven deaths resulted. And it was attacked not just on those police officers, but on the peaceful transfer of power.
That is what led to my determination that it was an insurrection. Now, in my decision, I do know that it's a closer question of whether Mr. Trump engaged in insurrection. It would have been clear, should Mr. Trump have been found guilty or not guilty in a criminal court, that would be an easier question. But statistically,
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not say convicted. It says engaged. And so I was compelled by main law based on facts and legal arguments to make a determination. Now the courts will weigh in, right? The courts will determine whether that analysis and that reasoning was sound. Will you only look back at this decision now?
if it is upheld positively? Or does that not matter about whether the appellate courts actually agree with your reasoning or not? Do you know what I'm saying? No, it doesn't matter. I'll do whatever the courts tell me to do. No, no, I understand that. I guess I'm saying when you think back to your initial decision or this reasoning here, does it matter what the courts end up saying after? Because I'm thinking about a situation where Donald Trump ends back on the ballot and, you know, the impact of some of these moments could be that it fuels a general perception that folks are trying to keep him
off. That's a political impact. But I'm saying, from what I heard earlier, it sounds like you were saying all of that stuff doesn't matter. Exactly. Because I have a job to do under the Constitution of the law. And it would be irresponsible. It would be unacceptable for me not to do my job and not to follow the Constitution. And sometimes, you know, secretaries of state get
get challenged in court. That's part of the process all of the time. It's not personal. It's not political. It's what does the law tell you? And that's the way it should work is to follow established legal processes wherever they take you, even, and I do want to talk for a minute, even if it means an individual coming to personal harm or there being political consequences. So, yeah,
So, you know, I anticipated criticism. I anticipated feedback. Yeah, I was going to ask about this. Yeah. I did not anticipate that I, the people who work for me, my family would be targeted with abusive, aggressive, and threatening communications starting immediately, start all day Friday. And then I certainly...
Mm-hmm.
You know, my personal home address was posted online and I was receiving an incredible number of angry calls to my office, but also to my personal cell phone, which of course I wasn't answering, but it was, you know, all of this. And I think the swatting and also the targeting of my family, that is unacceptable. And it's time to de-escalate the rhetoric. It is time to tone down communications that
We follow the law. We can agree to disagree without threats of violence. I, you know, those things...
are not only upsetting, I'm sorry those things are happening, it follows a trend too of voting workers. And we've seen in the 2020 election that that specter of violence has been used by many to be a real intimidating force. And that is a trend that continues to be concerning. You know, you mentioned the de-escalation of rhetoric. The Trump campaign is obviously unhappy with this decision and wrote that we are witnessing in real time the attempted theft of an election and
and the disenfranchisement of the American voter. That's not a tone down of rhetoric, as you mentioned, but they're also framing your own actions as something that escalates political intensity. What would you say to that as, you know, it's certainly not swatting, it's certainly not this type of violent rhetoric that we've seen come from Trump, but it is an action to remove some of the violence. Are you comparing my following the law under Maine statute to being swatted? No, I'm comparing a partisan, no, I'm perfectly
Because it's really not partisan. It is really not partisan. And here's the thing. It's really important that we stop thinking about the politics and start thinking about the law and where the law leads us and where the Constitution leads us. And we may, you know, we...
can agree to disagree. We can have different views. Mr. Trump has that option to appeal this week in court, and no doubt he will. But the political tactics, so for example, some Republicans in Maine have called for my impeachment. Well, that is absurd.
Under Maine's Constitution, I was doing my duty. I was doing my job. But it's the same type of rhetoric that you see in Washington, D.C., right? And I think violence and threats of violence have to be different than administrative procedures and
and an elected official following their obligations under statute. My last question would be, if you had a general message to Maine voters, maybe even Maine Republicans who were thinking that they were going to have an opportunity to vote for Donald Trump, and they're now hearing some of this kind of rhetoric that you mentioned, what would be your message to the Trump voters of Maine?
So I also want to make one thing clear. The effect of suspending my decision means that Trump hasn't been removed from the ballot. It will depend on the courts. So that's first and foremost. And second, though, everyone has to follow the law.
I'm mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on section three of the 14th amendment. I'm also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection. If you do not meet the qualifications of the office, if you're 18, if you've been president twice, you are not eligible for the office.
Yeah, I appreciate your time. You know, a part of the reason I'm asking the like political point is because, you know, I understand that like secretary of states are compounded by what kind of legal requirements and see that really clearly. But so much of this is reverberated in different spheres. And, you know, the one we live in is a political one. So thank you. I appreciate you for taking those questions. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time today. Yeah. Have a great day. You too. Take care. As of the end of the day, Wednesday, everyone is still waiting.
Waiting for the Supreme Court to make a decision on the Colorado case. Waiting to see how the Trump campaign's appeal in Maine moves forward. But now that it's the new year, one thing we don't have to wait much longer for is for actual voting to get underway.
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Please make your tax-deductible donation now. Just $25 can feed a family with nutritious fruits and vegetables for an entire month. Visit at unrefugees.org slash hunger to give now. That's the run-up for Thursday, January 4th, 2024. Now, to Iowa and New Hampshire for the rundown. After gaining some ground in the polls recently, it's been a tough couple weeks for Nikki Haley. What was the cause of the United States Civil War?
Well, don't come with an easy question or anything. I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn't do.
She's been dealing with controversy after an audience member at a New Hampshire town hall seemed to catch her off guard with a question about the Civil War. In the days that follow,
She's tried to clean up what she said. Ron DeSantis and other GOP challengers piled on.
The minute that she faces any type of scrutiny, she tends to cave. She did it because she's unwilling to offend anyone by telling the truth. There are seven candidates left in the Republican primary race. Although Chris Christie... Chris Christie's a friend, but his race is at an absolute dead end. ...is facing pressure to drop out. He released an ad. Some people say I should drop out of this race. Really?
I'm the only one saying Donald Trump is a liar. Pushing back on that idea. What kind of president do we want? A liar or someone who's got the guts to tell the truth? As for the frontrunner, Donald Trump released a holiday message on Truth Social where he went on a tirade against his political opponents, President Biden and Special Counsel Jack Smith specifically. He finished by saying, quote, Again, Merry Christmas.
There's one week and four days until the Iowa caucuses and 306 days until the general election. We'll see you next week. The Run-Up is reported by me, Ested Herndon. It's produced by Elisa Gutierrez, Caitlin O'Keefe, and Anna Foley. It's edited by Rachel Dry, Lisa Tobin, and Frannie Cartoff. With original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, and Alisha E. Toop.
It was mixed by Sophia Landman and fact-checked by Caitlin Love. Special thanks to Paula Schumann, Sam Jolnick, Marissa Anderson, Maddy Maciello, David Halfinger, Mahima Chablani, Renan Barelli, and Jeffrey Miranda. Do you have questions about the 2024 election? Like, what's never made sense to you about polling? Or the Electoral College? And why don't third-party candidates get more traction in our system? We want to hear from you.
Email us at therunupatnytimes.com. Or better yet, record your question using the voice memo app on your phone and send us the file. That email, again, is therunupatnytimes.com. And finally, if you like the show and want to get updates on the latest episodes, follow our feed wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. ♪
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