Ted Cruz was back on cable news battling the White House over the issue of the debt ceiling on Sunday as Republicans grow increasingly frustrated with the ironlike determination of the president to prevent their party from scoring a political win.

The Texas US senator spoke to Maria Bartiromo on the Fox Business Network as he fumed that Republicans were unable to make any progress in their bid for concessions from Democrats on spending cuts as part of negotiations to raise America’s debt ceiling and prevent a default on the US’s loans.

“The contrast could not be starker. The Republicans in the House are responsible and Joe Biden, what is he saying? He’s saying ‘I will not talk, I will not negotiate, I will not give in on anything, anyhow, any way,’” complained the Texas Republican.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is nearly ready to reveal his decision on entering the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, saying Sunday that he would make an announcement on May 22.

Scott didn’t definitively say that he’ll be announcing his official campaign, but he told those gathered at a downtown Charleston school during a town hall that he would be coming out with his decision at an event in about three weeks.

Scott, 57, has been inching ever closer to formally entering the GOP nomination race, where he would join other announced candidates, including former President Donald Trump, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and “anti-woke” biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Another of those is Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina governor who appointed Scott in 2012 to the Senate, where he is the sole Black Republican. Haley hasn’t commented on Scott’s potential entry into the race, while Scott has dismissed suggestions of any awkwardness in running against the former governor who appointed him to his Senate seat.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence are among those considering launching their own presidential campaigns in the coming months.

Former president Donald Trump requested a mistrial in the civil battery and defamation trial he faces against writer E Jean Carroll, citing the presiding judge’s “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings” against him, CNN reported.

Mr Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina filed a letter early Monday morning saying he would alternatively ask Judge Lewis Kaplan to “correct the record for each and every instance in which the Court has mischaracterized the facts of this case to the jury” or ask for greater leeway in cross examining Ms Carroll.

“Here, despite the fact trial testimony has been underway for only two days, the proceedings are already replete with numerous explains of Defendant’s unfair treatment by the Court, most of which has been witnessed by the Jury,” the letter read.

Former President Donald Trump continued his contradictory campaign of attacks targeting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis this weekend, insisting that the poltician who has been the subject of his relentless sniping in fact poses no threat to him.

The ex-president posted his latest take on the state of the 2024 Republican primary on Truth Social late on Sunday morning, writing that he “couldn’t care less” if Mr DeSantis chose to run against him for the GOP nomination.

“I couldn’t care less if Ron DeSanctus runs, but the problem is the Bill he is about to sign, which allows him to run without resigning from being Governor, totally weakens Election Integrity in Florida,” wrote Mr Trump, apparently now shortening the “Ron DeSanctimonious” nickname he previously came up with for the governor.

“Instead of getting tough, and doing what the people want (same day voting, Voter ID, proof of Citizenship, paper ballots, hand count, etc.) this Bill guts everything. It will allow dirty Voter rolls to get dirtier, weakens transparency, and is a total mess. It’s simple, all we want is a Free and Fair Election, and an honest count,” he continued.

Joe Biden was in full “Dark Brandon” form on Saturday evening at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and held nothing back as he celebrated the DC media sphere with remarks that both touched on important issues and revealed the levity for which he is famous.

The president spoke just before comedian Roy Wood Jr of The Daily Show took the stage, but Mr Biden’s remarks had the same cutting comedic bite that the seasoned “fake news show” reporters of Comedy Central are best known for.

During his remarks, the president called for the freedom of imprisoned Americans Austin Tice, Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkowitz, a reporter from The Wall Street Journal wrongly accused of espionage and imprisoned by the Russian government.

And then, he turned the focus on those reporters in the room with a series of jokes that certainly left many reporters in the room understanding the “Dark Brandon” meme a little better.

Ms Carroll, a writer and former advice columnist for Elle magazine, is the plaintiff in a pair of civil lawsuits against former president Donald Trump.

The jurors in the trial will remain anonymous on Judge Kaplan’s orders due to the risk of threats, intimidation or outright violence against anyone seen as an enemy by Mr Trump and his supporters as they hear evidence of allegations made by Ms Carroll against the twice-impeached and indicted ex-president.

Ms Carroll has claimed that Mr Trump raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

E Jean Carroll returned to the witness stand on Monday morning as the cross-examination by Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina continued.

“Ms Carroll, you continued to shop at Bergdorf’s after the 1995 or 1996 event you describe?” the attorney asked, according to Inner City Press, to which Ms Carroll said she did.

“Since 1995 or 1996, you’ve [made] many purchases from Bergdorf’s?” Mr Tacopina pressed.

“Not necessarily many, but several,” Ms Carroll said.

Mr Tacopina asked if it was “fair to say you were not afraid of going to Bergdorf’s?”

“Correct,” Ms Carroll said.

The magazine columnist spoke out about the allegations for the first time in 2019 when Mr Trump was president.

After he denied the allegations and accused her of lying in a bid to bolster sales of her forthcoming book, she filed a defamation lawsuit against him in November 2019.

That suit stalled in the courts for years and is yet to make it to trial.

Then, last year, New York lawmakers passed the state’s Adult Survivors Act, giving sexual abuse victims a one-year window to sue attackers for assaults that took place years ago.

That law paved the way for Ms Carroll to file a second lawsuit against the former president in November accusing him of both raping her and then defaming her years later by denying the assault took place.

That second lawsuit – seeking damages and a retraction of his denial – is now playing out in a New York court.

Ms Carroll said on Monday morning that she was “impressed” by The Apprentice.

“Ambitious young business people competing, that’s what I liked. Not [Mr Trump] firing people,” she said, according to Inner City Press.

“But you posted that you were a big fan,” Mr Tacopina pressed.

Ms Carroll noted that two of her friends were on the programme.

Although a Clinton-era Supreme Court case, Jones v Clinton, allows presidents to be sued for conduct which occurred before the start of their time in the White House, Mr Trump’s legal team asked the Department of Justice to aid in his defence of the 2019 case.

The department filed papers seeking to shield him from liability on the grounds that he was acting in an official capacity as president when he made the allegedly defamatory statements about Ms Carroll. But Judge Kaplan rejected those arguments and said the suit could proceed. An attempt by Mr Trump to appeal that decision failed in September 2021 as well.

His legal team took up another approach in February of last year when they moved to countersue Ms Carroll.

But Judge Kaplan blocked that bid in a scathing decision on 11 March 2022, in which he slammed Mr Trump’s continuing attempts to delay the case as “futile” and in “bad faith”.

“The defendant’s litigation tactics, whatever their intent, have delayed the case to an extent that readily could have been far less,” Judge Kaplan wrote.

“Granting leave to amend without considering the futility of the proposed amendment needlessly would make a regrettable situation worse by opening new avenues for significant further delay”.

Letting Mr Trump countersue “would make a regrettable situation worse,” the judge added.