Former President Donald Trump has won the Iowa caucus by a landslide with about 51% of the vote. Trump claimed victory in 98 of Iowa’s 99 counties. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis narrowly topped former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to place second in the first caucus of the 2024 election cycle. New Hampshire will hold the first primary a week from today. After placing fourth in Iowa, Vivek Ramaswamy suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump. Just 14% of Iowa’s registered Republicans participated in the caucus in part due to record low temperatures.
Trump’s victory came despite his mounting legal troubles and his refusal to debate his challengers. During a victory speech, Trump repeated his vow to deport millions of immigrants if he returns to the White House.

Donald Trump: “We’re going to drill, baby, drill right away. Drill, baby, drill. We’re going to seal up the border, because right now we have an invasion. We have an invasion of millions and millions of people that are coming into our country.”

Donald Trump speaking in Iowa. Today he will be back in a New York courtroom for the start of E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial against him. The first trial found Trump had sexually assaulted the New York writer in the 1990s and then defamed her. In May, a jury awarded Carroll $5 million. At this new trial, a different jury will determine if Trump owes her more money for other acts of defamation.

Israel’s bombardment and siege on Gaza has entered its 102nd day. Palestinian health officials say Israeli attacks have killed 158 civilians in Gaza over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to over 24,000. The dead include more than 10,000 children.

On Sunday, President Biden released a statement marking 100 days since the October 7 Hamas attack. In the statement, Biden decried Hamas for continuing to hold more than 100 hostages, but Biden made no mention of the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, injured or displaced during Israel’s indiscriminate assault.

Major rallies calling for a ceasefire in Gaza were held around the world this weekend. In Washington, D.C., organizers said as many as 400,000 people took part in a march on Saturday. The rally was held just two days after South Africa brought its historic genocide case against Israel to The Hague. Speakers at Saturday’s rally in Washington included independent presidential candidate Cornel West.

Cornel West: “And I say personally to Biden and company: You’re not just enabling. You’re not just facilitating. You’re not just coagulating and cooperating with the vicious crime of genocide. That makes you war criminals yourselves! You ought to be shamed. Who do you think we are? You think that you can suppress the love that we have for our Palestinian brothers and sisters? No, you got the wrong people.”

Tension is continuing to escalate across the Middle East. On Monday, Houthi forces from Yemen fired a missile that hit a U.S.-owned cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden. The attack came after the U.S. and U.K. bombed Houthi sites in Yemen on Thursday and again on Friday. Houthi officials have vowed to keep attacking ships linked to Israel, as well as U.S. and British ships, until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.

Yahya Sarea: “In support of the grievances of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, who are subjected to the most heinous types of massacres by the Zionist entity, and in response to the American and British aggression against our country, the naval forces of the Yemeni Houthi armed forces, with the help of Allah Almighty, carried out a military operation targeting a U.S. ship in the Gulf of Aden with a number of appropriate naval missiles, and the hit was accurate and direct.”

In Iraq, at least four people were killed earlier today when Iran bombed what it described as an Israeli spy headquarters near Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraq denied the struck building was tied to the Mossad. Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan region, described the attack as a “crime against the Kurdish people.” Iran says it also bombed targets in northern Syria linked to ISIS. The U.S. State Department condemned the Iranian attack near Erbil, describing it as reckless. This comes less than two weeks after the U.S. assassinated the leader of an Iranian-backed militia in Baghdad, which the U.S. claimed was done in self-defense.

In Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo was sworn in as president early Monday morning after opposition lawmakers delayed the transfer of power by nine hours in the latest effort by Guatemala’s elite to weaken the anti-corruption crusader. Arévalo shocked Guatemala’s elite in August by winning the presidential election. Ever since then, Guatemala’s Attorney General Consuelo Porras has led a campaign to block him from taking office. Bernardo Arévalo is the son of former President Juan José Arévalo, Guatemala’s first democratically elected leader. Arévalo spoke on Monday after he was finally sworn in.

President Bernardo Arévalo: “Guatemala has suffered deep wounds that require healing. These scars are not only reflected in indicators or in technocratic exercises that assess the country’s reality. They are rooted in the daily experiences of our communities.”

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party has won its third consecutive presidential victory. Taiwan’s vice president, Lai Ching-te, won Saturday’s election in a vote closely watched in Beijing and Washington. China vocally opposed his candidacy and has described the president-elect as a “dangerous separatist.” Lai Ching-te spoke on Saturday.

President-elect Lai Ching-te: “We hope that both sides of the Taiwan Strait can return to healthy and orderly exchanges in the future. Indeed, as you have mentioned, President Tsai Ing-wen has continuously extended goodwill over these eight years. Unfortunately, China has not provided an appropriate response. … The Taiwanese people have taken action to successfully resist the intervention of external forces. This is because we believe in electing our own president.”

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi responded to the vote in Taiwan by issuing a harsh warning to anyone in Taiwan who seeks independence.

Wang Yi: “Taiwan has never been a country, not in the past and certainly not in the future. Taiwanese independence has never been possible. It has not been possible in the past, and it will never be possible in the future. Anyone on the island of Taiwan who wants to pursue Taiwanese independence or split China’s territory will be severely punished by history and law.”

The longtime Black liberation activist Sekou Odinga has died at the age of 79. He was a member of Malcolm X’s Organization of Afro-American Unity, as well as the Black Panther Party in New York City and the Black Liberation Army. After spending years underground, he was convicted in 1984 of charges related in part to his role in helping Assata Shakur escape prison. Odinga served 33 years in state and federal prison before being released. In 2016, Sekou Odinga appeared on Democracy Now! and talked about why he initially joined the Black Panthers.

Sekou Odinga: “What attracted me more than anything else was the stand against police brutality, because, like all the other ghettos in this country or Black areas of this country, police brutality was running rampant. … That was the attraction, the big attraction, for me, personally, and many of the comrades that I came in with, because they really — we were not part of the civil rights movement to turn your other cheek. We was mostly followers of the Malcolm X position that if someone smack you, you smack him back; if someone punch you, you punch him back; that your life was the biggest and best thing you had, and you had a right to not only protect it, but to defend it by any means necessary.”

Black liberation activist Sekou Odinga, speaking in 2016 on Democracy Now! He has died at the age of 79. Click here to see the full interview.