President Biden’s nomination of a judge who once released a man later involved in the murder of a 10-year-old, was not renewed after mounting pressure from Republicans in the senate, despite a Democrat majority. 

President Biden originally nominated Judge Todd Edelman in 2022 to serve on the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C. Edelman currently sits on the district’s Superior Court, where he presided over a case involving Christian Wingfield.

Wingfield was awaiting trial for illegal possession of a firearm when Edelman released Wingfield with a GPS monitoring ankle bracelet. Shortly after his release, Wingfield was involved in the murder of a 10-year-old boy, Davon McNeal, July 4, 2020, while attending a ‘stop the violence’ cookout. 

‘Crime in DC and across the country is skyrocketing, thanks in large part to radical, activist judges like Judge Edelman,’ Senator Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and opposed Edelman, told Fox News Digital.  

‘A child died because Judge Edelman didn’t do his job, but President Biden wanted to give him a promotion. I am pleased to see that the White House has backed down from its reckless decision to nominate Edelman to the federal bench,’ she said.

The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the matter. 

In an op-ed published by the Washington Post, author Dana Milbank, who is reportedly a friend of Edelman, said he was ‘an important pick for progressives.’ Milbank lamented Democrats’ inability to overwhelm Republican criticisms of Edelman, saying Democrats ‘cowered.’

‘[I]f Democrats are so cowardly that they won’t fight back and won’t answer the lies with truth, then the battle to preserve our democracy is already lost no matter who wins at the polls,’ said Milbank. 

In November of 2022, Edelman was questioned about his decision to release Wingfield in his nomination hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

‘When you made the choice to release Mr. Wingfield, you knew these following facts,’ Senator Blackburn told Edelman at the hearing. ‘You knew that he had multiple arrests for illegally possessing a firearm.’

‘And you know that he had been identified as the person who, on another occasion, had been shooting a gun in the street at 1 p.m. in broad daylight,’ she pressed. 

Blackburn added that a week prior to Edelman’s decision to release Wingfield, another judge denied Wingfield’s request for pre-trial release because he posed a ‘safety risk’ to the community.

Edelman said he recalled ‘virtually all the facts’ and defended his decision by calling the charge of illegal gun possession ‘non-violent.’ 

Edelman also stated that Wingfield pleaded guilty to ‘a lesser charge’ of associating with the group that killed McNeal and was not the person who fired the gun. Wingfield eventually pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Edelman failed to earn enough votes in the committee to proceed to a full senate confirmation, which let his confirmation expire at the end of the 117th Congress. With Democrats in the majority, his failure to earn enough committee votes indicates that at least one Democrat was unwilling to back him for the judgeship.

President Biden did not renew is nomination. 

Hunter Biden’s business associates are gearing up to testify behind closed doors at the House Oversight and Judiciary committees later this week as part of the House impeachment inquiry against his father, President Biden.

First up is Mervyn Yan, who was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee last year for financial records related to his business dealings with Hunter Biden.

Yan worked with Hunter Biden through Chinese energy company CEFC and Hudson West III.

Yan is set to appear before both committees on Thursday for closed-door transcribed interviews.

Next is Rob Walker, who was also subpoenaed last year. He is expected to appear for his closed-door transcribed interviews before both committees on Friday.

Financial records subpoenaed by the committee revealed that members of the Biden family, including Hallie Biden and Sara Biden, received more than $1 million in payments from accounts related to Walker and his Chinese business ventures with Hunter.

Walker worked on a joint venture called Sinohawk Holdings, which was meant to be a partnership with Chinese energy firm CEFC.

Multiple Biden family accounts, including those belonging to Hunter, Hallie Biden and an unnamed Biden, also received approximately $1.038 million from the same Walker LLC account after Bladon Enterprises, which reportedly belonged to Gabriel ‘Puiu’ Popoviciu, a Romanian tycoon, deposited more than $3 million between November 2015 to May 2017. According to a 2017 email from Walker, which was obtained by the Senate Finance Committee, Walker viewed himself as a ‘surrogate’ for Hunter and his uncle, Jim Biden, when ‘gauging [business] opportunities.’

The transcribed interviews with Yan and Walker this week come after the committees announced last week that they had confirmed a new date for Hunter Biden’s closed-door deposition.

Hunter Biden had initially defied a subpoena to appear for a deposition and was at risk of being held in contempt of Congress.

The committees said Hunter Biden’s attorneys confirmed that he would appear for a deposition on Feb. 28, thus pausing all contempt of Congress proceedings.

Hunter Biden’s deposition will come after his business associates share testimony with the committees.

The House Oversight and Judiciary committees plan to hear testimony from other Hunter Biden business associates like Eric Schwerin on Jan. 30, Tony Bobulinski on Feb. 5, and more.

I could give you 30 different reasons why Ron DeSantis flamed out before today’s New Hampshire primary.

Plenty of media folks are delighting in kicking him when he’s down – worst campaign of all time and so on – and his relentlessly negative coverage, augmented by his own mishandling of the media, is a factor.

But it comes down to something more existential.

One exchange on my show, about Donald Trump, has stuck with me.

I was talking about both MSNBC and CNN dumping out of Trump’s Iowa victory speech, and the former president declaring this was so unfair that NBC and CNN (which does not have a federal license) should be taken off the air.

Now I agree with Trump on the substance–and so does new CNN boss Mark Thompson, who told his staff the network should have carried more of the speech, according to the New York Times–but not on the remedy. Networks shouldn’t be kicked off the air because a president doesn’t like the coverage. 

I asked my liberal ‘Media Buzz’ guest, Leslie Marshall, about Trump’s threat, and she said his supporters ‘want to be entertained by him using nicknames for everyone,’ or in the case of mocking Nikki Haley’s Indian name, ‘racial shading.’

Trump, like him or loathe him, is an entertainer. He’s got that New York timing. He may ramble, but he puts on a show. What journalists hear as authoritarian language, dictator for one day, his loyalists view as shtick.

When Trump was indicted four times, media types called him a threat to democracy, but it boosted him in the polls.

For the record, Marshall said later that ‘Ron DeSantis clearly does not have that likability factor.’

Now you can call the Florida governor a hard worker, a policy wonk, a committed conservative with a strong record in his state. But he’s a serious and sober guy, not particularly entertaining, and he doesn’t like talking about himself, for instance that he served in the military in Iraq. 

One thing DeSantis and Haley, who is a very disciplined, stick-to-the script campaigner, is that neither has much of a sense of humor. Neither one is ‘entertaining.’

Now the counter-argument here is that government is serious business, that this isn’t a vaudeville show and policies affect all Americans. But first you have to win an election, and making a connection with the voters has always been crucial, especially in the television age.

Meanwhile, with Haley trailing Trump by double digits in most polls, the media are now focusing on whether the former president, at 77, is mentally confused. This is an obvious attempt to even the scales a bit with President Biden, who has long been known for gaffes and traces of a stutter but has at 81 clearly appeared more frail and sometimes mixed-up than three years ago.

So now there’s a concerted effort, especially on some MSNBC shows, to paint Trump as losing it as well.

Past glitches – such as saying Obama when he meant Biden, saying Biden could be starting World War II – didn’t get much traction.

But when Trump, at some length, mentioned Nikki Haley’s name three times and then said she was responsible for security on Jan. 6 and turned down his offer of 10,000 soldiers, he was clearly talking about Nancy Pelosi. (She disputes that story, by the way.)

And that obvious misstatement gave Haley an opening to question his ‘mental fitness,’ more sharply than in her standard riff about not wanting two 80-year-olds running for president.

This is the kind of aggressive attack that Haley should have been making long before the final weekend before the voting. She said yesterday that the entire ‘media elite’ was urging her to back out.

Just when the primary finally gets entertaining, Haley, the last woman standing, is still trailing Trump by double digits in most polls – and this feels like too little too late.

Republican Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake picked up two more Senate GOP endorsements in her bid to defeat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., in what’s anticipated to be one of 2024’s closely contested races.

Sens. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan., endorsed former President Donald Trump’s surrogate in the Arizona race in a campaign news release. 

‘If I learned anything from my 40 years of coaching football, it was the value of teamwork,’ Tuberville said in a statement. ‘And if I’ve learned anything during my time in the Senate, it’s that America needs more common-sense conservatives willing to go against the grain in Washington, DC, and fight to take our freedoms back. Kari Lake is just the teammate I need beside me in the United States Senate. That’s why she has my complete endorsement.’

Lake said in a statement that she and Tuberville are ‘cut from the same cloth’ and ‘share the relentless drive to save our country.’

‘And he needs more America First Senators to take the field alongside him and win this country back,’ she said.

Marshall said in a statement that Lake is ‘a straight shooter who will work tirelessly to secure our border, protect our constitutional rights, rein in inflation, and support law and order.’

‘For these reasons and a litany of others, I am honored to endorse her candidacy for the U.S. Senate,’ he said.

In a statement, Lake said Marshall ‘understands, like I do, the need to help women, save babies, and empower families.’

‘In the Senate, I will work with him on improving our healthcare system, championing strong agriculture policies, securing America’s border and defending our 2nd amendment. I am proud to have his endorsement to be the next U.S. Senator from Arizona,’ her statement read.

The two lawmakers join the third ranking GOP senator, Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who threw their support behind Lake in December. 

Lake’s only major opponent in the Republican primary is Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb. 

The conservative firebrand gained national attention in her 2022 gubernatorial bid in Arizona, making Trump’s voter fraud allegations a key campaign issue. Lake lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs. 

U.S. Defense officials said U.S. and U.K. ships and warplanes carried out multiple strikes on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen on Monday.

Multiple locations in Yemen experienced large explosions which were the result of the airstrikes.

A U.S. official tells Fox News one of the Houthi targets struck by U.S. and British munitions included Al Dailami Air Base along with missile launching sites and weapons storage facilities for ballistic missiles and drones.

This is the second joint U.S.-U.K. strikes from air and sea since Jan 11.

The strikes consisted of Tomahawk missiles fired from U.S. warships, as well as F-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier.

‘Today, the militaries of the United States and United Kingdom, at the direction of their respective governments with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands, conducted an additional round of proportionate and necessary strikes against 8 Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the Houthis’ continued attacks against international and commercial shipping as well as naval vessels transiting the Red Sea,’ a joint statement from the U.S., U.K. and other countries stated.

The statement referred to a series of illegal, dangerous and destabilizing Houthi actions, including anti-ship ballistic missile and unmanned aerial system attacks that struck two U.S.-owned merchant vessels earlier this month.

The ‘precision strikes’ on Monday were intended to ‘disrupt and degrade’ Houthi efforts to threaten global trade and the lives of mariners.

‘Today’s strike specifically targeted a Houthi underground storage site and locations associated with the Houthis’ missile and air surveillance capabilities,’ the statement read. ‘The Houthis’ now more than thirty attacks on international and commercial vessels since mid-November constitute an international challenge.

‘Our aim remains to de-escalate tensions and restore stability in the Red Sea, but let us reiterate our warning to Houthi leadership: we will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways in the face of continued threats,’ the joint statement continued.

There have been at least 151 attacks on U.S. forces in the region since Oct. 17.

Former President Donald Trump on Monday said the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, ‘would not have existed’ if then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., accepted his ‘offer’ for security in the days leading up, and that the more than 100 files deleted by Democrats ‘exonerated’ him ‘completely.’ 

Trump was reacting to an exclusive Fox News Digital report revealing that the former House Select Committee on Jan. 6, led by Democrats, deleted 117 encrypted files from its probe just days before Republicans took over the majority of the House of Representatives.

‘The whole Committee of Political Operatives, Thugs, and Misfits was a SCAM set up to injure and defeat your Favorite President, Donald J. Trump,’ Trump posted on his Truth Social, reacting to the revelations. ‘They’ve deleted and destroyed almost everything, because it exonerated me completely, and was very bad for Crazy Nancy Pelosi and other Fascists and Communists.’

‘It showed that Pelosi was in charge of Security at the Capitol, and she rejected my offer of 10,000 Soldiers or National Guard Troops prior to January 6th,’ Trump continued. ‘Had she accepted, January 6th would not have existed!’

Trump has claimed since 2021 that days before the Capitol riot, he suggested deploying the National Guard to the Capitol due to intelligence the government was receiving regarding activities on Jan. 6.  Trump has said Pelosi had authority over the Capitol, and he suggested National Guard troops deploy ‘three days in advance.’ Trump said ‘she turned it down.’

‘The mayor of D.C. gave us a letter saying that she turns it down. OK, we have it. Nancy Pelosi also was asked, and she turned it down. The police commissioner of Capitol police …’ Trump said in an NBC interview last year. ‘Wait, a minute,’ he pressed on, ‘Capitol police said that he wanted it, and Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t accept it. She’s responsible for Jan. 6.’

‘Nancy Pelosi’s responsible, and the Jan. 6 Committee refused to interview her,’ he said.

Pelosi’s office replied at the time, saying: ‘As our office has said before, the former president’s allegations are completely made up,’ a representative for Pelosi told Fox News Digital.

‘As numerous independent fact-checkers have confirmed, Speaker Pelosi did not plan her own assassination,’ the spokesperson added.

The House Administration Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee is leading an investigation into Jan. 6, 2021, led by Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga. The panel is investigating the security failures on that day, as well as the ‘actions’ of the former select committee investigating the Capitol riot.

Loudermilk last week told Fox News Digital his investigation had entered a ‘new phase’ with renewed support from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has committed additional resources to the panel’s investigation.

Sources familiar with Loudermilk’s investigation told Fox News Digital that, per House rules, the former select committee, which was chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., was required to turn over all documents from its investigation to the new, GOP-led panel, after Republicans secured the majority of the House of Representatives following the 2022 midterm elections.

Sources told Fox News Digital that Thompson had told Loudermilk that the select committee would turn over four terabytes of archived data, but that the new committee only received approximately two terabytes of data.

Fox News Digital has learned that Loudermilk’s committee hired a digital forensics team to scrape hard drives to determine what information they were not given.

Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a letter Loudermilk sent to Thompson, requesting access to recovered digital files by his forensic team.

The forensics team, according to sources familiar with their search, determined that 117 files were both deleted and encrypted. Sources said those files were deleted on Jan. 1, 2023 – just days before Thompson’s team was required to transfer the data to the new committee.

Fox News Digital has learned the forensics team has recovered all 117 deleted and encrypted files. Now, Loudermilk is demanding answers and passwords to access the data. 

‘As you acknowledged in your July 7, 2023 letter, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Select Committee) did not archive all Committee records as required by House Rules,’ Loudermilk wrote. ‘You wrote that you sent specific transcribed interviews and depositions to the White House and Department of Homeland Security but did not archive them with the Clerk of the House.’

Loudermilk added that Thompson also ‘claimed that you turned over 4-terabytes of digital files, but the hard drives archived by the Select Committee with the Clerk of the House contain less than 3- terabytes of data.’

Loudermilk explained that after a forensic analysis of the data and archived hard drives, he was able to recover ‘numerous digital records from hard drives archived by the Select Committee.’

‘One recovered file disclosed the identity of an individual whose testimony was not archived by the Select Committee,’ Loudermilk wrote. ‘Further, we found that most of the recovered files are password-protected, preventing us from determining what they contain.’

Loudermilk asked that Thompson provide him ‘a list of passwords for all password-protected files created by the Select Committee’ so that his committee can ‘access these files and ensure they are properly archived.’

Meanwhile, Loudermilk also penned letters to White House general counsel and the general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, requesting ‘unedited and unredacted transcripts’ of White House and DHS testimony to the former select committee. 

Loudermilk’s committee knows the transcripts of these interviews exist, but said they were not turned over by the Thompson-led committee. 

Loudermilk demanded the White House and DHS comply with his request by Jan. 24.

‘It’s obvious that Pelosi’s Select Committee went to great lengths to prevent Americans from seeing certain documents produced in their investigation. It also appears that Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney intended to obstruct our Subcommittee by failing to preserve critical information and videos as required by House rules,’ Loudermilk told Fox News Digital. 

‘The American people deserve to know the full truth, and Speaker Johnson has empowered me to use all tools necessary to recover these documents to get the truth, and I will.’

Johnson endorsed the investigation, telling Fox News Digital that ‘the January 6 Committee was a partisan exercise determined to prove a political narrative regardless of the facts.’ 

‘Rather than delivering transparency and focusing on security failures, the Committee obfuscated facts and hid evidence,’ Johnson told Fox News Digital. ‘I applaud Chairman Loudermilk and fully support the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight’s efforts to present clarity, not theater, to the American people about exactly what occurred that day.’ 

President Biden’s younger brother, James Biden, is in active negotiations to appear for a deposition before House Republicans, Fox News has learned. 

The younger Biden was subpoenaed as part of the investigation into Hunter Biden and President Biden in November. 

House Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry into President Biden believe that James has knowledge of Hunter’s business deals and whether the president was involved. 

The president’s brother was scheduled to appear for a closed-door deposition in early December, but that date came and went. Conversations continue between the House Oversight Committee and Biden’s legal team. 

‘I’m going to hold off criticism of the president’s brother. He obviously has due process and we have heard from his attorney. We’re trying to make that work and I feel like that’ll happen soon,’ House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said last month.

The Washington Post reported in December that James Biden’s conversations were swept up in an FBI investigation, though he was not the target. 

According to the Post, Biden’s conversations were recorded as part of an FBI investigation into a Mississippi attorney named Richard ‘Dickie’ Scruggs. 

The outlet reported that the FBI secretly recorded conversations involving Biden because of his relationship with Scruggs, who went to federal prison for a bribery conviction involving a judge. 

James Biden was not the subject of the FBI probe and was never charged or accused of wrongdoing by the bureau.

James Biden’s nephew, Hunter Biden, is scheduled for a closed-door deposition on Feb. 28 after a public back and forth with the committee that almost led to a contempt of Congress vote.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) revealed footage on Monday of a tunnel in southern Gaza, where Hamas is believed to have held Israeli hostages.

The tunnel, beneath the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, had extensive facilities, including bathrooms. Israel says it destroyed the tunnel after completing its investigation.

‘The tunnel was located in the heart of a civilian area in Khan Yunis, and the entrance to it was located in the residence of a Hamas terrorist. According to intelligence estimates, millions of shekels were invested in the construction of the tunnel,’ the IDF said.

Shekels are worth just over one fourth of a U.S. dollar.

‘As part of the examination of the tunnel, a central chamber where hostages were held and five barred prison cells were discovered. In addition, the soldiers located findings that indicated that hostages had been held there, intelligence and weapons belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization,’ the IDF added.

While Israel is in control of most of the territory in northern and southern Gaza, Hamas remains able to operate thanks to its extensive network of tunnels.

Israel has cleared, bombed and even flooded tunnels throughout the region.

Top Hamas commanders, like Yahya Sinwar, remain held up in the labyrinth. Recent reports have suggested that Israel knows Sinwar’s location but has not attacked him because he surrounds himself with Israeli hostages.

Israel believes some 130 hostages remain in Hamas custody in Gaza, though it is unclear how many of those remain alive.

A top Republican committee is moving to defend its state majorities while looking to reclaim others from Democrats and detailed their operations in a memo provided to Fox News Digital.

Within the memo, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) outlined its 2024 objectives and plans to push back against the ‘onslaught of liberal spending from the far left.’ The group believes President Biden’s low popularity provides an opening for them to accomplish their goals.

‘Building upon the success of our Absentee Ballot and Early Voting (AB/EV) program during the Virginia state elections, we have strategically refined our operations recognizing the urgency to effectively mobilize low-propensity voters and counter potential Democratic gains,’ the RSLC wrote in its memo.

‘The aftermath of the Virginia elections not only provided a snapshot into the influx of outside spending that will define 2024, so much that it surpassed our entire cycle budget within a month, but it revealed the Democrats’ advantage in newly redrawn maps that provided their candidates with a D +4.2% edge,’ the memo states. ‘In response, we recognized the potential impact of a turnout operation targeting low-propensity voters to mobilize and win in these slim-margin districts that will make or break majorities this year.’

The RLSC’s 2024 plan includes zeroing in on 33 seats that will determine ‘control of the nation.’ 

There are 85 of 99 state legislative chambers up in 2024, and 33 of which are expected to determine which party is in the driver’s seat for the next couple of years.

The memo’s strategy pinpoints that ‘Republicans must flip 7 seats across 3 states to get back to control of 60 state legislative chambers, while Democrats must flip 33 seats across 5 states to have a simple majority of state legislative chambers.’

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) also has a target map that they will use as a blueprint to try to capitalize on the ‘momentum’ they built in 2022 and 2023 and ‘will aggressively defend our new majorities and mount competitive challenges in vulnerable GOP chambers that we have an opportunity to take back.’ Their website says they will be targeting states where ‘Republicans’ toxic brand of MAGA extremism has made them increasingly unpopular with voters,’ saying their ‘best chances to flip chambers are in’ the Arizona House and Senate, New Hampshire House and Senate, and Pennsylvania Senate.

They will also be making ‘strategic chamber investments’ in Georgia, Kansas, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

The Republican committee identified three states with the greatest opportunity for Republican flips: Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. 

The 2024 presidential election will also play a key role in determining which states and races will be of highest play. 

With this in mind, the committee highlighted that Democrat spending is going to increase in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin – states that are key in the upcoming Senate, congressional and presidential elections.

State races in Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky and Nebraska will also be on the RLSC’s radar, but ‘these states will not alter the balance of top of the ticket races.’

Democrat-led California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New York, Oregon and Washington are expected to remain heavily blue, but the committee plans to chase every opportunity for GOP expansion within the states.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., on Monday joined the list of South Carolina Republicans backing former President Trump over Nikki Haley ahead of the New Hampshire primaries. 

Mace, who notably ruffled feathers in the House GOP as one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last year, told The Associated Press that she was backing Trump over Haley, who lives in her congressional district and supported her in 2022 against a Trump-backed challenger.

‘I don’t see eye to eye perfectly with any candidate. And until now I’ve stayed out of it,’ Mace told the AP. ‘But the time has come to unite behind our nominee.’

Mace later confirmed to Fox News Digital that she endorsed Trump in the 2024 race. 

‘Today I’m endorsing Donald J. Trump for President. I don’t see eye to eye perfectly with any candidate. And until now I’ve stayed out of it. But the time has come to unite behind our nominee,’ Mace said in an emailed statement Monday. ‘To be honest, it’s been a complete sh** show since he left the White House. Our country needs to reverse all the damage Joe Biden has done. By every barometer our lives and our nation were better under President Trump. The economy was booming, our border was locked down and our nation and her allies were safer because our adversaries feared him. Donald Trump’s record in his first term should tell every American how vital it is he be returned to office.’ 

Mace had stayed out of the 2024 Republican primary as two fellow South Carolinians – Haley, the former governor, and Sen. Tim Scott – entered the race last year. Scott, who ended his own 2024 bid in November and was appointed to the Senate by Haley in 2012, endorsed Trump over Haley on Friday in a rousing call-and-response speech in New Hampshire. 

On Saturday, Trump was joined on stage at another New Hampshire rally by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, the state’s lieutenant governor and other senior statewide officials, including the state’s attorney general, treasurer and House speaker, as well as U.S. Reps. Joe Wilson, William Timmons and Russell Fry. 

Haley, appearing on Fox News Monday morning, touted that she won South Carolina twice and expected a strong showing in the upcoming primaries in the Palmetto State. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ departure from the race on Sunday leaves Haley as the main GOP candidate remaining to challenge Trump.

New Hampshire votes on Tuesday, but South Carolina’s primary is in a month, and the state’s Republican leadership has largely already lined up behind Trump. Mace’s endorsement means that Trump has secured four of the state’s six Republican U.S. House members. Rep. Ralph Norman is backing Haley and Rep. Jeff Duncan is saying he’s not endorsing before the primary.

Just two years ago, Mace and Haley were aligned in a congressional primary that tested Trump’s heft in South Carolina, where his own 2016 presidential primary win helped cement his nomination. After the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol, Mace, who had just been sworn in as a freshman lawmaker, went on TV to criticize Trump for his role in the day’s events, saying the president’s accomplishments in office ‘were wiped out in just a few short hours.’ 

Trump responded by calling Mace ‘an absolutely terrible candidate’ and soliciting ‘any interest from good and SMART America First Republican Patriots’ to run against a list of sitting House Republicans, including Mace, whom he endorsed for her first run in 2020 and who worked for his 2016 campaign.

When Katie Arrington, who unsuccessfully sought the seat in 2018, launched her 2022 bid against Mace, she had Trump’s ‘Complete and Total Endorsement.’ During a pre-primary rally in South Carolina, Trump called Mace ‘crazy’ and ‘a terrible person.’

Haley, meanwhile, stumped with Mace, as she had in 2020, helping raise money and appearing in a television ad on her behalf, calling her a ‘fighter.’

But the two reportedly haven’t spoken since last year, when Mace’s name was floated as a possible running mate for Trump, should he win the GOP nomination.

On Monday, Mace said she felt Trump was the better option this year.

‘Donald Trump’s record in his first term should tell every America how vital it is he be returned to office,’ she told the AP. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.