Politics

(Reuters) – Mark Meadows, a former aide to Donald Trump who was charged in Georgia with trying to overturn the former U.S. president’s 2020 election loss, has appealed a judge’s ruling denying his bid to move the case to federal court, a court filing showed on Monday.

(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Rami Ayyub; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Americans are looking back on the horror and legacy of 9/11, gathering on Monday at memorials, firehouses, city halls and other locales to observe the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.

Commemorations stretch from the attack sites — at New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania — to Alaska and beyond.

President Joe Biden will observe the 22nd anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil at an Alaska military base with service members and their families, the White House announced.

Biden will not participate in any of the observances at 9/11 memorial sites in New York City, Virginia or Pennsylvania. Instead, the president will stop in Alaska for a Sept. 11 observance at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage on his way back to Washington from Asia.

The commander in chief is currently in Vietnam wrapping up the Group of 20 summit.

Vice President Kamala Harris will participate in the annual observance at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in lower Manhattan.

First lady Jill Biden will lay a wreath at the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon.

Terrorists hijacked commercial airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, and flew them into the Twin Towers in New York’s financial district and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks. Biden was a U.S. senator at the time.

It will not be the first time that a president has not attended annual observances at any of the three sites.

In 2015, President Barack Obama participated in a moment of silence on the White House lawn before going to Fort Meade in Maryland to recognize the military’s work protecting the country.

In 2005, President George W. Bush marked the anniversary on the White House lawn.

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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donald Trump crossed paths with several Republican rivals Saturday as he attended Iowa’s in-state college football grudge match, one of the former president’s few visits so far to the state that holds the first nominating caucus next year.

Trump waded into one of the state’s largest sports crowds at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, where Iowa State was hosting Iowa. Also at the game were Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and several lesser-known candidates.

With the race entering its traditional ramp-up after Labor Day, Trump has largely skipped holding town halls or participating in many of the state’s cherished campaign traditions, but has not paid a price so far. Trump remains far ahead of DeSantis and other rivals in Iowa and nationally.

Trump has made a habit of visiting Iowa on the same day as DeSantis, whom Trump treats as his main threat. Both were in and around the stadium before kickoff, reminiscent of the scene last month when Trump drew huge crowds to Iowa State Fair in Des Moines while DeSantis addressed smaller audiences and hit the midway rides with his family.

Trump stopped at a fraternity house before the game and came outside to greet cheering students. At one point, he stood in front of a table with a line of footballs arranged between red plastic cups. He picked up each of the balls and threw them into the crowd.

DeSantis met fans of both schools at tailgates and he was accompanied by Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has not endorsed a candidate but often has appeared with DeSantis and his wife, Casey. DeSantis said he would go to the game with Reynolds, an Iowa State graduate.

“I must say this is a little more civilized than the Florida-Georgia game,” he said.

Also appearing at tailgates were candidates Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, and Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas governor, who greeted each other.

DeSantis is increasingly focused on winning or placing high in Iowa and says he’s visited more than half of the state’s 99 counties already. Trump, meanwhile, has made only five visits to Iowa this year.

Instead of large-scale rallies, Trump is relying on state party events that offer large, friendly audiences at no cost to his campaign, while his political organization pays millions of dollars in legal expenses as he faces four criminal indictments. He was in neighboring South Dakota on Friday night appearing at a state party fundraiser with Gov. Kristi Noem, who endorsed him.

Trump’s campaign has also used digital outreach. Last week, Trump held a conference call with tens of thousands of Iowans. He has done some in-person events with voters. In June, he handed out Dairy Queen “Blizzards.”

Trump has foregone all but one such event in Iowa this year. The exception was the Iowa Republican Party Lincoln Dinner in July, a marquee event that helps to finance the caucus.

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NEW DELHI (AP) — President Joe Biden and his allies on Saturday announced plans to build a rail and shipping corridor linking India with the Middle East and Europe, an ambitious project aimed at fostering economic growth and political cooperation.

“This is a big deal,” said Biden. “This is a really big deal.”

The corridor, outlined at the annual Group of 20 summit of the world’s top economies, would help boost trade, deliver energy resources and improve digital connectivity. It would include India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Israel and the European Union, said Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.

Sullivan said the network reflected Biden’s vision for “far reaching investments” that come from “effective American leadership” and a willingness to embrace other nations as partners. He said the enhanced infrastructure would boost economic growth, help bring countries in the Middle East together and establish that region as a hub for economic activity instead of as a “source of challenge, conflict or crisis” as it has been in recent history.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other leaders from around the world participated in the announcement.

“Enhancing connectivity with all regions has been a key priority for India,” said Modi, speaking through a translator. “We believe that connectivity is a means to not only increase mutual trade between different countries but also increase mutual trust.”

The rail and shipping corridor would help physically tie together a vast stretch of the globe, improving digital connectivity and enabling more trade among countries, including with energy products such as hydrogen. Although White House officials did not set a timeline for its completion, the corridor would provide a physical and ideological alternative to China’s own nation-spanning infrastructure program.

The White House gave no details on the project’s cost or financing, though Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman mentioned a figure of $20 billion during the announcement. It was unclear if that sum applied solely to the Saudi commitment.

After the announcement, Biden greeted the crown prince with a hearty handshake, a friendlier exchange than when they last met, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, just over a year ago. At that time, Biden, who had harshly criticized Prince Mohammed over the kingdom’s human rights record, awkwardly greeted him with a fist bump, a moment roundly criticized by rights activists.

Von der Leyen described the project as a “green and digital bridge across continents and civilizations.” She added that it includes cables to transmit electricity and data.

She also announced a “Trans-African Corridor” connecting the Angolan port of Lobito with landlocked areas of the continent: the Kananga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the copper-mining regions of Zambia.

Speaking of the African project, Biden called it a “game changing regional investment” and said “both of these are huge, huge steps forward.”

Amos Hochstein, Biden’s coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security, laid out a rough timeline for the project over the next year.

In the next 60 days, working groups will put together a fuller plan and set timelines. The first phase will involve identifying the areas that need investment and where physical infrastructure can be connected between countries. Hochstein said the plans can be put into place over the next year so that the project can move onto setting up finances and construction.

Sullivan said the project started coming together after Biden visited Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in July 2022, where he emphasized a need for greater regional economic integration.

In January, the White House started having conversations with regional partners about the concept. By spring, maps and written assessments of existing rail infrastructure in the Middle East were being drafted. Sullivan, and senior White House aides Hochstein and Brett McGurk, traveled to Saudi Arabia in May to meet with their Indian, Saudi and UAE counterparts.

All sides have worked since then to finalize details of the agreement announced Saturday.

The parties also brought Israel and Jordan into the project. Saudi Arabia and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, though the White House has been pushing them toward normalizing relations.

Sullivan said the transportation project is not seen as a “precursor” to a potential normalization deal but he characterized Israel’s inclusion as “significant.”

“The participants in this effort are focused on practical outcomes that deliver for their people,” Sullivan said. “And a corridor of this kind by dint of geography works best having Israel in as opposed to out and the countries participating prioritized that.”

Biden participated in both G20 sessions on Saturday. He highlighted plans to push for more investments to address climate change, such as his own domestic incentives to encourage the use of renewable energy. He also argued that Russia’s war in Ukraine is hurting many other nations, which have had to cope with greater food and energy costs as well as higher interest rate costs on their debt.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been a regular presence at international summits, including last year’s G20 in Indonesia, since Russia invaded his country more than 18 months ago, was not invited by Modi’s government to this year’s gathering.

Zelenskyy has used the high-profile gatherings to argue for continued economic and military support for his country. India is one of the most prominent U.S. allies that has largely stayed on the sidelines of the war, and has even dramatically increased its purchases of Russian oil.

Jon Finer, the White House principal deputy national security adviser, said the administration pushed for Zelenskyy’s inclusion at the summit.

“Ultimately, it is not our decision,” Finer said. “But you can expect that the United States and our other partners who are working with Ukraine so closely … We’ll make that case quite forcefully in the context of these conversations.”

The summit communique, a joint statement agreed to by all participants, addressed the war, among other issues. It included language underlining the principle that states cannot use force to change borders, disavowed the use of nuclear weapons and called for a just peace based on the principles of the U.N. Charter. The communique also underscored that attacks on civilian infrastructure must end.

During the summit, Biden also discussed his request to Congress for additional funding for the World Bank that could generate more than $25 billion in new lending for economic development.

The White House more broadly is trying to strengthen the G20 as an international forum, while Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin decided not to attend.

Biden has said he was disappointed by Xi’s decision. Asked again about the Chinese leader’s absence, Biden said Saturday that the summit “is going well” though “it would be nice to have him here.”

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By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, on Friday announced she would run for re-election to her San Francisco congressional seat.

KEY QUOTE

“Now more than ever our city needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery. Our country needs America to show the world that our flag is still there, with liberty and justice for ALL. That is why I am running for reelection — and respectfully ask for your vote,” Pelosi said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.

CONTEXT

Pelosi, a Democrat who twice served as House speaker, is the first woman to hold the position that is second in line for the presidency if the president is incapacitated.

Following the 2022 congressional elections, Pelosi announced she would no longer seek a Democratic Party leadership position in the House, while continuing to serve as a representative.

Her strong campaign fundraising abilities that also benefit fellow Democrats are well-known in Washington political circles.

Pelosi was first elected to the House in 1987.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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By Luc Cohen and Jack Queen

(Reuters) -A Georgia grand jury recommended criminal charges against three Republican U.S. senators and other allies of Donald Trump as part of its investigation into efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 presidential defeat, according to a report released on Friday.

None were ultimately charged when Georgia prosecutors filed a sweeping criminal case against Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators.

The special grand jury recommended charging Georgia’s two senators at the time, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, as well as Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the report showed.

The panel also recommended charges against Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, adviser and attorney Boris Epshteyn and lawyers Lin Wood and Cleta Mitchell, the report showed.

Graham, a former Trump rival-turned-golf-buddy, asked Georgia officials to examine absentee ballots after the Republican president’s defeat. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Graham has defended his behavior, saying he was entitled to examine state election activity as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He fought a subpoena ordering him to testify but was ultimately told to do so by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Loeffler and Perdue, both Trump loyalists, were defeated by Democratic candidates in January 2021 runoff elections. Perdue ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022. Neither immediately responded to a request for comment.

Mitchell and Wood, both conservative lawyers who worked with Trump to reverse his defeat, also did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

The special grand jury convened in 2021 at the request of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to aid her investigation. Over several months, the jurors subpoenaed testimony from 75 witnesses, including Trump allies such as his former attorney Rudy Giuliani, Graham and top Georgia officials such as Governor Brian Kemp.

The panel recommended charging 39 people in total in its Dec. 15 report, which has been sealed for nine months.

The special grand jury did not have the power to issue charges. But Willis used the evidence it gathered to seek an indictment from a regular grand jury last month that accused Trump and his co-defendants of overseeing a wide-ranging conspiracy to sabotage Democrat Joe Biden’s statewide victory.

The grand jury did not act unanimously. At least one member voted against each of the charges that it recommended against Trump. The panel was also split on whether to indict the members of an illegitimate slate of electors that intended to persuade Congress to award Georgia’s electoral votes for Trump.

Two jurors said the fake electors should not be indicted for “doing what they were misled to understand as their civic duty.”

The indictment listed 30 unindicted co-conspirators, who have not been charged but allegedly played a role in the scheme.

All 19 defendants have pleaded not guilty. As with his three other criminal prosecutions, Trump has denied any wrongdoing and said he is the victim of political persecution.

Despite his legal troubles, he remains the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination next year against Biden, the incumbent.

The special grand jury report remained secret for nine months at Willis’s request while she determined what charges to bring. With the indictments issued, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in an order last week, there is no longer any reason to keep it from the public.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward, Makini Brice and Joseph Ax; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Daniel Wallis and Howard Goller)

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By Nandita Bose

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden headed into a closed-door meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, shortly after arriving in New Delhi for a G20 summit over the weekend.

As Biden and Modi met at the Prime Minister’s residence, the U.S. press corps was sequestered in a van, out of eyesight of the two leaders – an unusual situation for the reporters and photographers who follow the U.S. President at home and around the world to witness and record his public appearances.

Biden and Modi last met in person in June when the Indian leader was the guest of a White House state visit. The two men are expected to discuss progress on a number of agreements reached in June, including a deal to allow General Electric to produce jet engines in India to power Indian military aircraft.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen joined the meeting, as did White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, the White House said in a statement. Indian attendees included external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and security adviser Ajit Doval.

Reporters didn’t see Biden or Yellen arrive, and were parked in a van outside Modi’s residence, a complex in central New Delhi, for about 10 minutes before being asked to leave.

Sullivan told reporters ahead of the meeting that the talks would show “the breadth of the relationship between our countries.”

Questions about press access on the India trip have been persistent, after the official White House schedule did not show that the usual pool of reporters would be allowed in for the start of the Modi-Biden meeting.

“Look, guys, we are doing everything that we can to make sure that there is access,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on the Air Force One flight to India.

Though the countries are not formal treaty-bound allies and India has long relished its independence, Washington wants Delhi to be a strategic counterweight to China.

Armed with cash for the World Bank and promises of sustained U.S. engagement, Biden hopes to persuade fast-growing economies in Africa, Latin America and Asia that there is an alternative to China’s Belt and Road project, which has funneled billions of dollars to developing countries but left many deeply in debt.

After the G20, Biden is to visit Vietnam before returning to the United States later on Monday.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Steve Holland; Editing by Nick Macfie, Heather Timmons and Grant McCool)

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to consider fiscal 2024 defense spending legislation next week, Majority Leader Steve Scalise said on Friday.

The Republican-controlled House, which returns to Washington on Tuesday from its August recess, will consider an appropriations bill covering defense spending, according to Scalise’s weekly floor schedule.

Action on spending legislation would allow Republicans to demonstrate progress on government funding, after weeks of impasse over hardline demands that discretionary spending be cut to a fiscal 2022 level of $1.47 trillion.

But Republican lawmakers said the party remains split over other appropriations bills, as well as an expected short-term stopgap measure to keep federal agencies operating when current funding expires on Sept. 30.

“Next week will be interesting – maybe not necessarily in a great way – as everybody on our side tries to figure out what a path forward looks like,” Republican Representative Kelly Armstrong told Reuters.

The spending level sought by hardliners is $120 billion lower than what House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democratic President Joe Biden agreed to earlier this year.

The House and Democratic-led Senate each need to pass 12 appropriations bills for the 2024 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 and then negotiate compromise legislation that Biden can sign into law. The full House has passed only one bill so far, while the full Senate is expected to begin considering three measures on Monday.

The two chambers are far apart on funding, with the Senate pursuing spending at the level set by McCarthy and Biden.

A separate stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution, would give lawmakers additional time to iron out their differences over spending by providing temporary funding.

(Reporting by David Morgan; editing by Rami Ayyub, Rosalba O’Brien and Leslie Adler)

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By Luc Cohen and Jack Queen

(Reuters) -A Georgia grand jury recommended criminal charges against Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and other allies of Donald Trump as part of its investigation into efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 presidential defeat, said a report released on Friday.

None were ultimately charged when Georgia prosecutors filed a sweeping criminal case against Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators.

The special grand jury recommended charges against Graham as well as Georgia’s two U.S. senators at the time, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the report said. Like Trump, all are Republicans.

Graham, a Trump rival turned golf buddy, denied wrongdoing and said he was fulfilling his oversight duties as the top lawmaker on the Senate Judiciary Committee when he asked Georgia officials to examine absentee ballots after Trump’s defeat.

“We can’t criminalize senators doing their job,” he said at a news conference in South Carolina on Friday. “The next election, if I have questions I’ll do the same thing.”

The panel also recommended charges against Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, adviser Boris Epshteyn and lawyers Lin Wood and Cleta Mitchell, the report showed.

It was unclear why Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opted not to bring charges against the six people, and her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The six were among 39 people the special grand jury recommended charging in its Dec. 15 report, which had been sealed for nine months. Unlike the final criminal indictment, it did not detail specific allegations.

The special grand jury did not have the power to issue charges, but Willis used the evidence it gathered to seek an indictment of Trump and his 18 co-defendants from a regular grand jury last month.

TRUMP BLAMES POLITICS

Responding to the report’s release on Friday, Trump said it showed Willis’s case was politically motivated. “They wanted to indict anybody who happened to be breathing at the time,” he wrote on social media.

Trump and the other defendants in the case have pleaded not guilty. As with his three other criminal prosecutions, Trump has denied any wrongdoing and said he is the victim of political persecution.

Loeffler and Perdue, both Trump loyalists, were defeated by Democratic candidates in January 2021 runoff elections. Perdue ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022. Neither immediately responded to a request for comment.

“This baseless witch hunt isn’t based on the facts, or the law, or reality,” Flynn’s lawyer Jesse Binnall said in a statement. Flynn, a prominent figure on the far right, had urged Trump to use the military to overturn the 2020 election.

A longtime Trump political adviser, Epshteyn was involved in efforts to overturn Trump’s loss and has since been advising the former president on the legal threats he now faces. An attorney, Epshteyn declined to comment.

Wood, a conservative lawyer who promoted conspiracy efforts about the election, denied wrongdoing and said he was surprised to learn the special grand jury recommended charges against him. “I’m not quite sure why my name is in it,” he told Reuters. He has since retired in the face of disciplinary bar proceedings.

Mitchell, another conservative lawyer who worked to reverse Trump’s defeat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The special grand jury convened in 2021 at the request of Willis to aid her investigation. Over several months, the jurors subpoenaed testimony from 75 witnesses, including Trump allies such as his former attorney Rudy Giuliani, Graham and top Georgia officials such as Governor Brian Kemp.

The special grand jury did not act unanimously.

It voted 13-7, 14-6 and 17-4 in favor of indicting Graham, Loeffler and Perdue, respectively. There was one abstention in each of the votes for Graham and Loeffler. The grand jury voted 20-1 in favor of indicting Trump with respect to the national effort to overturn the election.

The indictment listed 30 unindicted co-conspirators, who have not been charged but allegedly played a role in the scheme.

Despite his legal troubles, Trump remains the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination next year against Democratic President Joe Biden, the incumbent.

The special grand jury report remained secret at Willis’s request while she determined what charges to bring. With the indictments issued, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled there was no longer any reason to keep it from the public.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward, Jasper Ward, Sarah N. Lynch, Makini Brice, Katharine Jackson, Richard Cowan and Joseph Ax; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Howard Goller)

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By Gram Slattery

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) -U.S. 2024 Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley wants to send special forces to Mexico to wipe out drug cartels, double down on sending weapons to Ukraine and make sure China understands “there will be hell to pay” if it attacks Taiwan.

The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is stubbornly bucking traditional political wisdom that foreign policy does not influence American voters in elections.

Despite opinion polls for the Republican nomination putting Haley in single digits, she is still singularly focused on winning over voters, in large part by pushing her foreign policy vision in a party where isolationism has increasingly taken hold.

This is where Haley differs from many of the other nine contestants for the party’s presidential nomination. Her vision for a much more assertive U.S. foreign policy is not just a plank in her campaign, but a huge part of her pitch to voters to elect her the nominee.

Haley acknowledged in an interview with Reuters this week that she is preaching to a divided party, but said she sees her role as educating voters, rather than showing them that she already shared their views.

“If you go to my town halls, you hear me talk about it, and the reason I talk about is because I want Americans to have all the facts,” said Haley, who is running fourth among Republicans in most opinion polls.

“When the Americans are given the truth, when they’re given all of those facts, then they understand why I’m passionate about it, and why they should care about it as well,” said Haley, who served two years as U.N. ambassador under former President Donald Trump.

Haley’s stance on military aid to Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion in particular puts her at odds with much of her party’s rank-and-file. Some 52% of Republicans said in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in July that they were less likely to support a candidate who favors increased military aid to Ukraine.

The campaign is making a strategic wager, advisers said, that Haley’s full-throated support for Ukraine is more popular among voters looking to move past Trump, than with the Republican Party writ large.

‘LET THE CHIPS FALL’

Haley said she uses her town halls to explain to voters that her staunch support for sending more military equipment to Ukraine is to ensure they have what they need to fight the Russians, so that U.S. troops never have to be deployed there.

“I go and lay it out there, and let the chips fall where they may,” she said.

That position puts her in conflict with rivals, Republican front-runner Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Haley’s advisers argue that those Republicans least in favor of military aid to Ukraine are more likely to be Trump supporters, so pandering to them is not a sound tactic.

In one memo sent by the campaign to donors and seen by Reuters, campaign manager Betsy Ankney cited comments by DeSantis in March in which he dismissed the Ukraine war as a “territorial dispute,” as an example of an opponent trying to appeal to the most dedicated Trump acolytes.

“Many of the people who believe most that we should not be supporting Ukraine are going to be your hard-and-fast Trump voters so they’re never going to go with someone else anyways,” said one adviser, who requested anonymity.

“The vast majority of the persuadable voters are what you might call ‘hawks.’”

At two town halls in New Hampshire, Haley discussed Russia, China and Ukraine at length, as well other U.S. foes including Iran, Venezuela and China.

CALL TO ATTACK MEXICO DRUG CARTELS

In her interview with Reuters she reiterated her willingness to send U.S. special forces into Mexico – without the greenlight of the Mexican government – to attack drug cartels behind the smuggling of the synthetic opioid fentanyl that has fueled drug-related deaths in the United States.

“Well, first you go to the Mexican government, you say, either you do it, or we do it, but you don’t wait,” she said.

On China, she was no less willing to confront the world’s No.2 economy if it sought to invade Taiwan, the democratically governed island that China claims as its own.

“We need to let China know that there will be hell to pay if they touch Taiwan. So are we going to defend Taiwan? We will do whatever we need to defend our friend,” Haley said.

Haley is getting more attention from Republican voters since the first Republican primary debate on Aug. 23, where she strongly asserted the importance of confronting Russia and China. Her support has doubled since then, according to polling averages, but still lingers at about 7%.

In the two New Hampshire town halls, attendees were divided on Haley’s foreign policy stances, illustrating the tricky position in which she finds herself. Some attendees cited her support for Ukraine as the reason they supported her.

“I spent 11 years in Europe as a soldier. I know the threat over there, and it will be devastating if (Russia) took over Ukraine,” said Al Lepine, 75.

Others cited it as the very reason they were hesitant to vote for Haley.

“I think she’s a bit pro-war,” said Mike Loftus, a 68-year-old retired engineer. “I think that we shouldn’t get involved in all the conflicts around the world.”

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; editing by Ross Colvin and Grant McCool)

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