Maine's election chief has disqualified former President Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot, in a surprise decision based on the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban," CNN confirmed on Dec. 28.
The 14th Amendment is from the Civil War era and says officials can’t run for office if they “engaged in insurrection,” a phrase used to describe Confederate leaders who once fought against the Union, but has only been applied twice in the 20th century and does not mention the presidency.
Maine's secretary of state Shenna Bellows said Trump must be disqualified from the 2024 Republican primary race in her state.
The shock decision follows a similar ruling by the state of Colorado's top court and is unprecedented in U.S. history.
The Trump 2024 campaign said that Bellows, a longtime member of the Democratic Party, "decided to interfere in the presidential election" and vowed to contest the decision in court.
Trump in a second term would likely appoint loyalists in key roles in the military and intelligence community, allowing him to implement more isolationist policies in the face of ballooning national debt and domestic tensions, multiple U.S. officials told the press on Dec. 18.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a press conference on Dec. 19 that the result of the 2024 U.S. presidential election can "very strongly" influence the course of Russia's war against Ukraine.
"If the policy of the next president – whoever he is – will be different toward Ukraine, colder or more inward-oriented, if there will be more focus on domestic policy... then I think these signals will greatly affect the course of the war in Ukraine," Zelensky said, during his two-hour press conference.
Lance Luo
