WASHINGTON — As the Trump-Vance ticket attempts to pivot toward the middle to try and convince independent voters they’re not as radical as portrayed, Donald Trump is doing all he can to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

But that’s just on the surface.

Dig a little deeper and you’ll find the Republican Party — including Trump and vice presidential running mate J.D. Vance — is all in on some of the proposal’s more drastic recommendations, especially when it comes to slashing the federal workforce and then reshaping it in the GOP’s own image. ...

No, Taylor Swift is not on New Hampshire's Republican ballot.

But Rachel "Mohawk" Swift of Hagerstown, Md., is.

Swift is rather preoccupied with ... pens. Her presidential agenda? Unclear....

Nobody is digging the Democratic National Committee (DNC) dancing after former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson bid adieu to the 2024 presidential race.

The DNC's National Press Secretary Sarafina Chitika almost came after Hutchinson like a has-been whose political journey to win the White House croaked long ago.

"This news comes as a shock to those of us who could've sworn he had already dropped out," the official statement reads....

In the hour before the Iowa caucuses started, Donald Trump’s campaign twice blasted out fundraising text messages with an apparent scare tactic to spur supporters to donate.

“President Trump: Suspend my campaign?” the messages began, accompanied by an “ALERT” image of Trump in his signature Make America Great Again hat and billowing American flags.

“ONE MILLION TRUE MAGA RESPONSES NEEDED,” the graphic said....

On the day before Donald Trump, who's leading the GOP primary field by an average of 41 points in the polls, is expected to surrender to Georgia authorities, eight of his competitors took to the debate stage to kick off what promises to be a long and painful election cycle.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was leading Trump in some polls as recently as February and has since crashed spectacularly as voters got to know him better, and “anti-woke” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — whose surprising rise to third place in the crowded field has been fueled by effusive coverage in the conservative press and who may prove to be the Andrew Yang of the 2024 cycle — came into the debate vying for sole possession of second place among GOP primary voters.

They did so in the hope that as Trump's indictments work their way through the courts, the Republican base, which currently believes that President Joe Biden is so weak that electability shouldn't factor into their choice of a nominee, will get skittish and seek an alternative. ...

Some of President Donald Trump’s Republican challengers have started to break from him in their initial reactions to the four felony counts he faces in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection and effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump’s 2016 running mate and former Vice President Mike Pence, for one, said that today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.”

“I will have more to say about the government’s case after reviewing the indictment,” Pence continued. “The former president is entitled to the presumption of innocence but with this indictment, his candidacy means more talk about January 6th and more distractions.”...