Elections

Senator Sherrod Brown is betting that the issue will aid his re-election bid in Ohio, which recently upheld abortion rights. Allies of Senator Jon Tester of Montana are also hoping it helps.In the opening minutes of a debate during Sherrod Brown’s successful 2006 campaign for Senate, the Republican incumbent attacked him over “partial-birth abortion,” a phrase often weaponized by conservatives at the time to paint Democrats as somewhere between immoral and murderous.Mr. Brown, a Democrat from northeast Ohio in the House at the time, glanced at his notes. He opposed “late-term abortion,” he said in a measured voice. He denounced the mere idea that Congress would limit any procedure that could “save a woman’s health.”With that, he quickly pivoted. Mr. Brown used the rest of his time to burnish his political brand as a blue-collar economic populist.Nearly 18 years later, abortion will again be a central point of contention as Senator Brown fights for re-election against one of three Republicans trying to unseat him next year. One difference, other than that his shaggy dark hair is now shaded with gray, is that he is preparing to fully lean into his defense of abortion rights.“This issue’s not going away,” Mr. Brown said in an interview. “Women don’t trust Republicans on abortion, and they won’t for the foreseeable future — and they’re not going to trust these guys running against me.”Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, abortion rights has become an invaluable political asset for Democrats. They have leveraged the issue to hold onto control of the Senate, limit losses in the House and, this month, fuel victories in key state races across the Midwest and the South.But perhaps the toughest test for the issue’s power will come in Senate contests like Mr. Brown’s in Ohio and Senator Jon Tester’s in Montana. The fate of the razor-thin Democratic majority in the chamber could well be sealed in those two places, by the same voters who have installed Republicans in every other statewide office.Senator Jon Tester of Montana, like Mr. Brown, has often focused on local issues in his campaigns, rather than dominant national ones like abortion. Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesSo far, voters even in conservative states have consistently prioritized abortion protections over their partisanship. That was true last year in Kansas, where 59 percent of voters rejected a measure to remove abortion rights protections from the State Constitution, and again this month in Ohio, where 57 percent of voters agreed to enshrine such rights in their Constitution.The open question is whether Mr. Brown, 71, and Mr. Tester, 67, can maintain their invaluable political personas while — for the first time in their lengthy careers in public office — persuading their constituents to keep abortion rights front and center when voting next year.Both Democrats have long supported abortion rights, but their electoral successes trace back to carefully tailored campaigns that catered to local issues over dominant national ones like abortion. That individuality was how both men won re-election in 2018, even though their states voted for Donald J. Trump in 2016 and 2020.For Mr. Tester, this has meant campaigning on policies he has focused on in the Senate, where he serves on committees overseeing agricultural, Native American and veterans issues.His first television ads this campaign strike similar tones. One features Mr. Tester — a paunchy former schoolteacher with a flattop haircut and a left hand missing three fingers from a boyhood accident with a meat grinder — describing himself as both physically and philosophically different from his congressional colleagues.“I may not look like the other senators,” Mr. Tester says, “but that’s not stopping me from making Washington understand what makes Montana so special.”In Ohio, Mr. Brown has built his reputation on middle-class economic issues, including fighting corporate tax breaks and the high cost of health care. In a 2004 book, “Myths of Free Trade: Why America Trade Policy Has Failed,” he argued that unregulated trade deals had reopened the country’s class divide.This year, Mr. Brown’s campaign has already released a video attacking his three potential Republican challengers as extreme on abortion. In Montana, the Democratic Party has taken a similar approach on behalf of Mr. Tester.“The thing I think a lot of people miss with Sherrod is that he knows abortion is an economic issue,” said Nan Whaley, a Democratic former mayor of Dayton, Ohio, who ran for governor last year. “Abortion rights and abortion access maybe wasn’t discussed as much in previous campaigns, but that’s because it was before the fall of Roe.”Frank LaRose, the secretary of state of Ohio and one of the Republicans running against Mr. Brown, has supported a national abortion ban. Nick Fancher for The New York TimesThe task for the two Democrats will be complicated by a political headwind that neither senator has confronted: seeking re-election on a ballot topped by an unpopular president from their own party.Both first won election to the Senate by unseating incumbents in 2006, when discontent over the Iraq war and Republican corruption scandals helped Democrats make gains in Congress.Each was re-elected in 2012, when Democrats scored huge majorities from Black and Hispanic voters as President Barack Obama won a second term. They won again in 2018, a Democratic wave year propelled by opposition to Mr. Trump.Republicans are already trying to massage their message on abortion. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is coaching candidates to oppose a national abortion ban and to clearly state their support for exceptions when it comes to rape, incest or a woman’s health.But not all Republicans are on board, as the party’s Senate primary race in Ohio shows. One top candidate, Frank LaRose, the Ohio secretary of state, has supported a national ban and opposed exceptions for rape and incest — and also unsuccessfully campaigned against the abortion ballot question.Another contender, Bernie Moreno, a businessman seeking his first elected office, has said he supports exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the woman, but he told a reporter from Breitbart News last year that he did not. He has also expressed support for a 15-week federal ban.Matt Dolan, a Republican state senator in Ohio who is also running against Mr. Brown, opposes a national abortion ban.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesThe third leading candidate, Matt Dolan, a state senator, opposed the state’s constitutional amendment this month, but he has a more moderate record on the issue than his opponents. Mr. Dolan opposes a national ban and has criticized abortion ban proposals in Ohio that haven’t included the three main exceptions.“Most Americans agree there should be reasonable limits on abortion and abortion policy will primarily be made at the state level,” Mr. Dolan said in a statement, adding that Mr. Brown held “extreme” views on the issue.Some Republicans have said that Ohio’s ballot referendum means the abortion issue will have less urgency in the state next year. But Democrats contend that Republican support for a federal ban would help keep the issue alive, arguing that such a measure would undermine the will of Ohio voters.A poll commissioned by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee recommended that messaging focus on G.O.P. support for a “national abortion ban” and that politicians should not be involved in “personal medical decisions.” Abortion rights groups have encouraged candidates to simultaneously adopt a “proactive” platform that calls for expanding access to contraception and maternal health resources while highlighting Republican involvement in abortion restrictions.“Campaigns need to quickly define who the villains are here: Republicans overturned Roe, Republicans have been campaigning against Roe for decades, Republicans have been pledging to create a court that would overturn Roe,” said Mini Timmaraju, the president of Reproductive Freedom for All, one of the country’s largest abortion rights groups. “They got it, they did it, they’re responsible. Pin it on them. Do not flinch.”Neither Mr. Brown nor Mr. Tester has been shy about supporting abortion rights.Mr. Tester campaigned in 2018 with Cecile Richards, who had recently stepped down as the president of Planned Parenthood. He said recently that abortion rights had clear resonance in Montana, where libertarian-leaning voters tend to reject perceived government intrusion.Still, Mr. Tester has mostly tailored his campaigns around issues closer to the Continental Divide in his state than the partisan divide in Washington.Supporters celebrating in Columbus this month after Ohio voters enshrined a right to abortion in the state’s Constitution. Adam Cairns/USA Today Network, via, via ReutersMr. Brown won his first political office in 1974, the year after Roe v. Wade was decided. He has proudly highlighted his 100 percent voting score from Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Reproductive Freedom for All.“My focus has always been on civil rights and women’s rights,” he said. “That leads to a better economy, too — when women have better access to child care and can make decisions for their families.”Mr. Brown was involved in the campaign this year to support the constitutional amendment on abortion, phone-banking alongside the Ohio Democratic Party and frequently bringing up the measure during campaign events.Hours after Ohioans voted, Mr. Brown posted a video on social media that framed his three potential Republican challengers as sitting on the wrong side of the issue. “All of my opponents would support a national abortion ban,” the caption read.If there was any doubt, Mr. Brown made clear in the interview that he saw the political benefit of the issue.Abortion, he said, “will surely be talked about more than in my other races.” More

State courts in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and elsewhere have so far declined to rule in favor of challenges asserting that Donald Trump should be disqualified from holding the presidency again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. (Cases in Michigan and Colorado have been appealed.)Challengers assert that Mr. Trump is barred because, as stated in Section 3, he was an officer of the United States who, after taking an oath to support the Constitution, “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the country, or gave “aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” before and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.Mr. Trump and his campaign have called this claim an “absurd conspiracy theory” and efforts to bar him “election interference.” Some election officials and legal scholars — many of them otherwise opposed to the former president — have also been critical of the efforts.The Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, writes that invoking Section 3 “is merely the newest way of attempting to short-circuit the ballot box.” Michael McConnell, a former judge and professor at Stanford Law School, claims that keeping Mr. Trump off the ballot on grounds that are “debatable at best is not something that will be regarded as legitimate.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

Mike Pence reportedly decided to skip the congressional certification process for Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, because to preside over it as required by the constitution would be “too hurtful” to his “friend”, Donald Trump. He was then shamed into standing up to Trump by his son, a US marine.“Dad, you took the same oath I took,” the then vice-president’s son Michael Pence said, according to ABC News, adding that it was “an oath to support and defend the constitution”.Ultimately, Pence did supervise certification, even as it was delayed by the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.Trump incited the attack by telling supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” in his cause – the lie that Biden’s win was the result of electoral fraud.Some chanted for Pence to be hanged. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, more than a thousand arrests made and hundreds of convictions secured.Throughout the investigation of January 6 by a House committee, Pence was praised for standing up to Trump and fulfilling his constitutional duty. He later released a memoir, So Help Me God, about his time as Trump’s No 2.But according to ABC, which on Tuesday cited sources familiar with Pence’s testimony to the special counsel Jack Smith, investigating Trump’s election subversion, Pence offered details not included in his book, including how he had to be prodded into doing his duty.“Not feeling like I should attend electoral count,” Pence reportedly wrote in contemporaneous notes in late December 2020, as Trump pressured him to help overturn Biden’s win.“Too many questions, too many doubts, too hurtful to my friend. Therefore I’m not going to participate in certification of election.”ABC reported that Pence told investigators, “Then, sitting across the table from his son, a [US] marine, while on vacation in Colorado, his son said to him, ‘Dad, you took the same oath I took’ – it was ‘an oath to support and defend the constitution’.“That’s when Pence decided he would be at the Capitol on 6 January after all.”Trump now faces four federal criminal counts regarding election subversion. He also faces 13 counts relating to election subversion in Georgia, 40 from Smith regarding his retention of classified information, and 34 in New York regarding hush-money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. He also faces civil threats, including a defamation suit arising from a rape allegation a judge said was “substantially true”.Nonetheless, Trump is the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination next year.Pence also described to investigators an Oval Office meeting on 21 December 2020, “as the campaign’s legal challenges across the country were failing but Trump was continuing to claim the election was stolen and had begun urging supporters to gather in Washington DC for a ‘big protest’ on 6 January”, per ABC.Trump reportedly asked what he should do. Pence, according to ABC, said he “should simply accept the result … should take a bow”, should “travel the country to thank supporters … and then run again if you want”.“And I’ll never forget, he pointed at me … as if to say, ‘That’s worth thinking about.’ And he walked” away.Nearly three years on, Trump has not walked away. But Pence has. Last month, long before the first vote of a primary in which he and others grappled with how to oppose Trump without alienating his supporters, Pence dropped out of the Republican race. More

Vice President Kamala Harris, Elon Musk, Bob Iger, Jamie Dimon and Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan, are among the big names speaking.Leaders in politics, business and culture will gather in New York for the DealBook Summit today. Here, The Times’s Andrew Ross Sorkin interviews Reed Hastings of Netflix at last year’s event.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThe lineup for DealBook Summit 2023 On Wednesday, DealBook will be live and in person at our annual summit in New York.Andrew takes the stage around 9 a.m. Eastern, and the first interview kicks off soon after. The DealBook team and reporters from The Times will be reporting live from the conference.Even if you are not with us, you can follow along here beginning at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.Here are the speakers:Vice President Kamala HarrisTsai Ing-wen, the president of TaiwanElon Musk, the chairman and C.E.O. of SpaceX, the C.E.O. of Tesla and the chairman and chief technology officer of XLina Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade CommissionJamie Dimon, the chairman and C.E.O. of JPMorgan ChaseBob Iger, the C.E.O. of DisneyRepresentative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of CaliforniaJensen Huang, the C.E.O. of NvidiaDavid Zaslav, the C.E.O. of Warner Bros. DiscoveryShonda Rhimes, the television show creator and the founder of the Shondaland production companyJay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA TourWhat to watch: The buzz and fears swirling around artificial intelligence, the rise of hate speech and antisemitism since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, China-U.S. relations, inflation, interest rates and the chip wars and streaming wars — these topics and more will be covered by Andrew as he interviews some of the biggest newsmakers in business, politics and culture.There will be plenty of questions about an uncertain world. Americans are down on politics, the economy and workplace conditions. College campuses are divided. What role does business play in addressing these grievances? What about the White House and Congress? Can they bring voters together? Speaking of which, can Republicans unite to keep the government from shutting down again (and again)?Elsewhere, can Beijing and Washington decrease tensions and restore more normalized trading relations? What about A.I.? Is this a technology that will unleash a new wave of productivity, or is it a force that could do irreparable harm? And what’s so special about colonizing Mars?More on what to expect later.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime lieutenant, dies at age 99. A former lawyer who became the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and a billionaire in his own right, he became known for his sardonic quips. But Munger had more influence than his title suggests: Buffett credited him with devising Berkshire’s famed approach of buying well-performing businesses at low prices, turning the company into one of the most successful conglomerates in history.The Koch Network endorses Nikki Haley. Founded by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, the political network — which had raised a war chest of more than $70 million as of this summer — could give Haley’s campaign organizational strength and financial heft as she battles Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and aims to close the gap on the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump. Haley has risen in the polls since the first Republican primary debate in August, while DeSantis has slipped.Apple reportedly moves to end its credit card pact with Goldman Sachs. In the latest blow to Goldman’s consumer finance ambitions, the tech giant has proposed pulling the plug on a credit card and savings account it introduced with the bank, according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s unclear if Apple has found a new partner to issue its Apple Card, though Goldman had previously discussed a deal to offload the program to American Express.Mark Cuban makes two exits. The billionaire entrepreneur will leave “Shark Tank” after more than 10 years of assessing start-up pitches and making deals on camera. And, according to The Athletic, Cuban is selling a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks to the casino billionaire Miriam Adelson and her family for a valuation around $3.5 billion. (He will retain full control over basketball operations.)Some things we’d like to cover Vice President Kamala HarrisWill “Bidenomics” save or sink the Biden-Harris ticket in 2024?Elon Musk, SpaceX, Tesla and XWhat did you learn from your trip this week to Israel?Lina Khan, F.T.C.What is your endgame in taking on Big Tech?Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan ChaseDoes America have too many banks?Jensen Huang, NvidiaIs investor enthusiasm around artificial intelligence justified, or is it merely inflating a bubble?We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. More

The crowds are her biggest yet, and voters are warming up to her candidacy, but Nikki Haley still faces a daunting task in taking down the front-runner, Donald Trump.In a packed opera house on Tuesday night in Derry, N.H., Hannah Kesselring had a pressing question for Nikki Haley, one that many voters in the room appear to have been considering as Ms. Haley has climbed in the 2024 Republican presidential contest.A punchy 9-year-old decked in a red and navy blue Haley cap, Hannah had gone viral when she spoke up at another Haley town hall before Thanksgiving. She had since had the chance to see Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy stump in her state, she told Ms. Haley. Now, she wanted to know three reasons Ms. Haley “believed she should be elected president over them.”Ms. Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and a former United Nations ambassador, didn’t skip a beat. She ticked off her executive experience, her foreign policy credentials and her concern for the state of the country and the world.“I am a mom,” she said to several nods in the room. “And the truth is, I don’t want my kids growing up like this.”It was the kind of exchange that Ms. Haley has used to steadily build momentum — and it seems to be paying off.In diners, gyms and event halls across New Hampshire and South Carolina, the state she led for six years, voters have recently shown increased interest in Ms. Haley’s campaign, with a palpable shift in energy. For some, the hope that she might be able to consolidate the wing of her party craving an alternative to former President Donald J. Trump has become less far-fetched.At her town hall in Derry, where almost half the people in the audience raised their hands when she asked if this was their first time watching her speak, Ms. Haley drew louder cheers beyond her usual applause lines. One day earlier, in Bluffton, S.C., she had addressed a buoyant audience of roughly 2,500 people — the largest yet in her home state — walking onstage to “Eye of the Tiger,” her standard opener, and chants of “Haley, Haley, Haley.”“We have one more fella we have to catch up to,” she said at that event, referring to Mr. Trump.In South Carolina, where her homecoming had the feel of a rally, Ms. Haley’s message appeared to resonate. Her campaign officials said they had to move the event to a larger location last week after so many people signed up to attend.But she still has a lot of convincing to do. Ms. Haley remains far behind the former president she served under, who continues to dominate in national polls, as well as in surveys in every early-voting state.In Iowa, her toughest challenger for second place is Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, who has made the state pivotal to his prospects. In New Hampshire, where she comfortably holds the second slot, it is former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey who has been gaining ground in his do-or-die state.At Ms. Haley’s town hall in Derry, several voters warmed up to her but were not yet necessarily convinced. Teri and Donald Synborski were still weighing Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Christie — anyone but Mr. Trump, they said. Mr. Synborski, 67, a corporate finance managing director, had caught wind of Ms. Haley’s momentum when he first saw her speak at a crowded diner in Londonderry not too long ago. The room was so packed, he recalled, that reporters were pushed up against him.Still, he said he would probably like to see Mr. DeSantis one more time before making up his mind. “He would really have to do something earth-shattering for me to be swayed to vote for him versus Nikki,” he added. “I’m leaning heavily in her direction, but I still call myself undecided.”That alone is progress for Ms. Haley. There was a time when political strategists and observers likened her path in New Hampshire to the steep and narrow road leading to the tallest peak in New England, a feat captured on a popular state bumper sticker: “This car climbed Mt. Washington.”But her rise there and beyond can be attributed to a grueling pace in the early-voting states, a series of standout debate performances and new interest among powerful players in the Republican Party’s donor class after two contenders — former Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott, a fellow South Carolinian — folded their bids this fall.Ms. Haley has been drawing more enthusiastic crowds. Her largest yet in South Carolina, in Bluffton, had the feel of a homecoming rally.Meg Kinnard/Associated PressThe political network founded by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch endorsed her campaign on Tuesday, giving her another financial boost and access to a direct-mail operation, field workers to knock on doors and people to call up prospective voters. Kenneth G. Langone, the billionaire Home Depot co-founder, who has donated to Ms. Haley’s campaign, is considering giving more and is expected to meet with her next week in New York.As she has risen, her rivals have taken notice. In recent national television interviews, Mr. Christie has kept up his criticism of Ms. Haley over what he describes as her unwillingness to take on Mr. Trump — “Either run against him or don’t run against him” — and her comments at an Iowa event before a conservative Christian audience, in which she said she would have signed a six-week ban on abortion when she was governor.“I want to be clear that there is no consensus around a six-week national abortion ban, and I wouldn’t sign it if I were president even,” Mr. Christie told CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” saying that would be putting such a decision “into the hands of politicians over people.”In an interview, Austin McCubbin, the state director for the Trump campaign in South Carolina, described Ms. Haley as a “paper tiger,” arguing that she had “absolutely no political operation in South Carolina,” nor representatives actively attending and engaged in local G.O.P. meetings. Trump campaign officials say that Mr. Trump has 83 endorsements from state lawmakers — more than all other Republicans combined.Responding to a request for comment on the arguments from the Trump campaign, Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokeswoman for Ms. Haley, said, “Americans are ready for a new-generation, conservative leader who will leave the drama and chaos behind.”Pacing before New Hampshire voters at the Derry Opera House, Ms. Haley seemed to ignore her critics and once more made the case for herself, saying it was time for Republicans to “acknowledge some hard truths” — specifically, her party has lost the popular vote for president in seven of the last eight elections.“This isn’t just about the presidency,” she said, contending that her candidacy would be a windfall down the ballot. “This is about governorships up and down. This is about House seats. This is about Senate seats. This is about truly righting the ship to get us back to where we need to be.” More

In a new book, the anti-Trump Republican Liz Cheney accuses the US House speaker, Mike Johnson, of dishonesty over both the authorship of a supreme court brief in support of Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and the document’s contents, saying Johnson duped his party with a “bait and switch”.“As I read the amicus brief – which was poorly written – it became clear Mike was being less than honest,” Cheney writes. “He was playing bait and switch, assuring members that the brief made no claims about specific allegations of [electoral] fraud when, in fact, it was full of such claims.”Cheney also says Johnson was neither the author of the brief nor a “constitutional law expert”, as he was “telling colleagues he was”. Pro-Trump lawyers actually wrote the document, Cheney writes.As Trump’s attempts to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden progressed towards the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, Cheney was a House Republican leader. Turning against Trump, she sat on the House January 6 committee and was ostracised by her party, losing her Wyoming seat last year.Her book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Johnson became speaker last month, after McCarthy was ejected by the Trumpist far right, the first House speaker ever removed by his own party.On Tuesday, CNN ran excerpts from Cheney’s book, quoting her view that Johnson “appeared especially susceptible to flattery from Trump and aspired to being anywhere in Trump’s orbit”.CNN also reported that Cheney writes: “When I confronted him with the flaws in his legal arguments, Johnson would often concede, or say something to the effect of, ‘We just need to do this one last thing for Trump.’”But Cheney’s portrait of Johnson’s manoeuvres is more comprehensive and arguably considerably more damning.The case in which the amicus brief was filed saw Republican states led by Texas attempt to persuade the supreme court to side with Trump over his electoral fraud lies.It did not. As Cheney points out, even the two most rightwing justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who wanted to hear the case, said they would not have sided with the complainants.Cheney describes how Johnson, then Republican study committee chair, emailed GOP members on 9 December 2020 to say Trump had “specifically” asked him to request all Republicans in Congress “join on to our brief”.Johnson, Cheney says, insisted he was not trying to pressure people and simply wanted to show support for Trump, by “affirm[ing] for the court (and our constituents back home) our serious concerns with the integrity of our electoral system” and seeking “careful, timely review”.“Mike was seriously misleading our members,” Cheney writes. “The brief did assert as facts known to the amici many allegations of fraud and serious wrongdoing by officials in multiple states.”Johnson, she says, then told Republicans that 105 House members had expressed interest. “Not one of them had seen the brief,” Cheney writes. She also says he added “a new inaccurate claim”, that state officials had been “clearly shown” to have violated the constitution.“But virtually all those claims had already been heard by the courts and decided against Trump.”Calling the brief “poorly written”, Cheney says she doubted Johnson’s honesty and asked him who wrote it, as “to assert facts in a federal court without personal knowledge” would “present ethical questions for anyone who is a member of the bar”.The general counsel to McCarthy, then Republican minority leader, told Cheney that McCarthy would not sign the brief, while McCarthy’s chief of staff also called it “a bait and switch”. McCarthy told her he would not sign on. When the brief was filed, McCarthy had not signed it. But “less than 24 hours later, a revised version … bore the names of 20 additional members. Among them was Kevin McCarthy.“Mike Johnson blamed a ‘clerical error’ … [which] was also the rationale given to the supreme court for the revised filing. In fact, McCarthy had first chosen not to be on the brief, then changed his mind, likely because of pressure from Trump.”It took the court a few hours to reject the Texas suit. But the saga was not over. Trump continued to seek to overturn his defeat, culminating in the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021 by supporters whom he told to “fight like hell”.Cheney takes other shots at Johnson. But in picking apart his role in the amicus brief, she strikes close to claims made for his legal abilities as he grasped the speaker’s gavel last month. Johnson “was telling our colleagues he was a constitutional law expert, while advocating positions that were constitutionally infirm”, Cheney writes.Citing conversations with other Republicans about Johnson’s “lawsuit gimmick” (as she says James Comer of Kentucky, now House oversight chair, called it), Cheney says she “ultimately learned” that Johnson did not write the brief.“A team of lawyers who were also apparently advising Trump had in fact drafted [it],” she writes. “Mike Johnson had left the impression that he was responsible for the brief, but he was just carrying Trump’s water.”The Guardian contacted Johnson for comment. Earlier, responding to CNN, a Trump spokesperson said Cheney’s book belonged “in the fiction section of the bookstore”.Cheney also considers the run-up to January 6 and the historic day itself. Before it, she writes, she and Johnson discussed mounting danger of serious unrest. He agreed, she says, but cited support for Trump among Republican voters as a reason not to abandon the president. Such support from Johnson and other senior Republicans, Cheney writes, allowed Trump to create a full-blown crisis.Two and a half years on, notwithstanding 91 criminal charges, 17 for election subversion, Trump is the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He polls close to or ahead of Biden.In certain circumstances, close elections can be thrown to the House – which Mike Johnson now controls. More

The debate over a candidate’s photo reflects concerns among states over selfies of ballots and of people showing how they vote. A Wisconsin judge on Monday dismissed a felony charge against a school board candidate who had posted a photograph on Facebook of a ballot with his name filled in.In his ruling, the judge, Paul V. Malloy of Ozaukee County, threw out the count of voter fraud against the man, Paul H. Buzzell, 52, a former school board member in Mequon, a suburb of Milwaukee, who was voted back onto the board during an election in April, online court records show. Judge Malloy ruled on a motion to dismiss by Mr. Buzzell’s lawyers, who argued that the state law prohibiting so-called ballot selfies was overly broad and violated the constitutional guarantee of free expression. “What is at stake is branding a politician a felon for declaring to the world that the politician displayed” a marked ballot “showing a vote for himself in an election,” the motion said. Mr. Burrell would have faced a maximum possible sentence of three and a half years in prison and a $10,000 fine had he been convicted. He would also have been barred from running for elected office.The case reflects the debate among states over selfies of ballots and of people showing how they vote. Some legislators have argued that public displays of marked ballots can be used to influence voters in an election or to promote vote buying. Others, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say such laws banning voting selfies on social media restrict free speech.Under Wisconsin law, it is an election fraud violation for a person to show his or her marked ballot to someone else, or to mark a ballot so that it is identifiable as his or hers. It is one of at least 18 states that have laws prohibiting selfies displaying a voter’s marked ballot.In 2020, the Wisconsin Senate passed a bill to legalize ballot selfies, but the State Assembly failed to pass a bill that would eliminate the statute, The Associated Press reported.According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Buzzell, 52, published a photograph on Facebook of a marked ballot on March 27 ahead of an election for the Mequon-Thiensville School Board. Witnesses reported the post to the Mequon Police Department as a case of possible election fraud, the complaint said. The photograph of the ballot showed the oval next to Mr. Buzzell’s name filled out as well as that of another candidate, Jason P. Levash, court documents show. Mr. Levash serves as the school board’s vice president, and Mr. Buzzell serves as treasurer. “He displayed a marked ballot showing a vote for himself,” Mr. Buzzell’s lawyer, Michael Chernin, said on Tuesday, adding that Mr. Buzzell indicated that the ballot in question was his daughter’s. Mr. Buzzell, when contacted by the police on April 2, said that “his understanding was that it was not illegal to post a photo of a ballot with his name on it,” the complaint said. He cast his own ballot in person on April 5, according to the complaint.While the dismissal means that the prosecutors’ case cannot move ahead, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which reported on Monday that the charges had been dropped, quoted the Ozaukee County district attorney, Adam Gerol, as saying that he would ask the attorney general to decide whether to file an appeal or issue an opinion. “It’s in the A.G.’s hands,” said Mr. Gerol, a Republican. He did not immediately reply to a message left at his office on Tuesday.The office of Josh Kaul, the attorney general, said in a statement on Tuesday that the Wisconsin Department of Justice would review the district attorney’s request and “proceed appropriately.” More

After sparring twice with Sean Hannity, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California will jump into the ring this week with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. The stakes are high for both men.Gavin Newsom has a scant history of tough debates over his two decades as governor and lieutenant governor of California and mayor of San Francisco.But he is nevertheless unusually prepared for his nationally televised face-off on Thursday with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida: Over the past few months, Mr. Newsom has lived through something of a debate boot camp on how to respond to attacks on California, President Biden, the Democratic Party and his own mistakes over the years.It came in the form of two lively interviews with Sean Hannity, the conservative Fox News host who will moderate the debate on Thursday. From the moment they sat down, he pressed Mr. Newsom on the differences between them on issues as varied as immigration and law enforcement.“I want border security,” Mr. Newsom said, disputing the premise of Mr. Hannity’s question in the opening minutes of their first encounter. “Democrats want border security.”“You don’t want any walls,” Mr. Hannity responded, referring to the wall former President Donald J. Trump set out to build along the Mexican border. Mr. Newsom kept talking.“I want comprehensive immigration reform,” Mr. Newsom said. “I want to actually address the issue more comprehensively — just like Ronald Reagan did.” He added, “I don’t need to be educated on the issue of the border or issues of immigration policy.”On Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern, Mr. Newsom will be sparring on Fox News not with Mr. Hannity but with Mr. DeSantis for 90 minutes in a studio in Alpharetta, Ga., with no audience on hand. The stakes will be high for both Mr. DeSantis, 45, whose candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination has appeared to fade in recent weeks, and Mr. Newsom, 56, who has positioned himself for a potential White House run in 2028.The debate between these two relatively youthful national leaders, one from a Republican state, the other from a Democratic one, will offer sharply contrasting views of America’s future during polarized times. Not incidentally, it offers a glimpse at what could potentially be two leading candidates in the next presidential contest.“These are two of the most dominant governors in the country,” Mr. Hannity said in an interview on Monday. “Two very smart, well-educated, highly opinionated, philosophically different governors. They are diametrically opposed.”Mr. DeSantis has faced off against Nikki Haley and other Republican presidential rivals in three debates, all of which former President Donald J. Trump has skipped. Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesFor Mr. DeSantis, this will be his fourth debate since entering the presidential race. In onstage meetings with Republican opponents like Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, he has sought to display a command of conservative policy priorities and has clashed with his rivals only occasionally, and on the edges.Now, he will be debating a leader of the opposing party, ready to draw sharp differences over U.S. assistance to help Ukraine battle Russia, the turmoil in the Middle East, immigration — and over Mr. Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination.Mr. DeSantis has dismissed the idea that Mr. Newsom has toughened himself up for this debate through his sessions with Mr. Hannity. The Florida governor told reporters in New Hampshire last week that his California counterpart was operating in a “left-wing cocoon,” and had little sense of voters’ concerns and the politics of the nation beyond the West Coast.“I think he caters to a very far-left slice of the electorate,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I think that that will be on display when we have the debate.”Still, that Newsom-Hannity encounter in June, as well as an encore after the Republican presidential candidates debated at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in September, offer a primer of how Mr. Newsom may approach this moment: assertive, engaging, armed with statistics and catchy phrases, plowing ahead to talk over an opponent or disparage a question he finds specious, and not easy to corner into a mistake.“He came into that interview very prepared,” Mr. Hannity told a New York Times reporter in September. “I’ve interviewed people that come in totally unprepared.”“This is complimentary in every way: He’s out of central casting,” Mr. Hannity said, speaking shortly after finishing his appearance with Mr. Newsom. “He has a lovely family. He’s young. Compare his energy level to Joe Biden’s.”Mr. Newsom, right, speaking with Sean Hannity of Fox News after the second Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesIf those earlier sessions are any clue, Mr. Newsom will be combative when confronted with questions about people and corporations leaving California. “We are on the way to becoming the world’s fourth-largest economy,” he has told Mr. Hannity. “Eat your heart out, Germany.”He will defend California against attacks from Republicans, Mr. DeSantis among them, as a place in moral, economic or political decline: “I’ve been hearing this nonsense for half a century — literally half a century.”He will be contrite if asked about homelessness (“Disgraceful. We own this.”) or about his unmasked dinner with lobbyists at the French Laundry, a luxury Yountville restaurant, at the height of the Covid crisis. (“It was dumb.”)And he might even agree with some attacks on Democratic policy in his state, such as the new “mansion tax” on property sales above $5 million recently imposed in Los Angeles. “I opposed it when I was mayor of San Francisco, so I don’t disagree,” Mr. Newsom said when Mr. Hannity questioned the wisdom of such a tax.Mr. DeSantis is not Mr. Hannity, with whom Mr. Newsom has what both men have described as a something of a friendship, albeit a jostling one. (They text each other at night.) Mr. DeSantis has, over the course of the Republican debates, proved to be disciplined, at times almost scripted, and more likely to offer a flash of anger than humor.Mr. Newsom has had his ups and downs with California voters, and it is far from clear how a politician who looks like a Hollywood actor and often seems to be walking the line between sharp and glib — or self-assured and arrogant — will come across to a national audience.But he has proved an elusive target for his state’s beleaguered Republican Party. He easily survived a recall effort in 2021, with support from 62 percent of voters, and was re-elected to a second term with 59 percent of the vote in 2022.“I think Gavin Newsom is going to be the smooth-talking used-car salesman that he always is,” said Jessica Millan Patterson, the chairwoman of the California Republican Party, suggesting what Mr. DeSantis should expect. “Unfortunately, a lot of people still fall for that.”“The facts are on DeSantis’s side,” she said. “What helps Newsom is his charm and his quote-unquote likability. It doesn’t work for me, but it works for a lot of folks.”Mr. DeSantis’s agreement to debate someone who will not be on the Iowa ballot in January has baffled some Democrats as well as Republicans. “We were all frankly surprised he took the offer,” said Sean Clegg, a political adviser to Mr. Newsom.That said, the debate gives Mr. DeSantis an opportunity to draw attention to his candidacy at a time when Mr. Trump has overshadowed him and Ms. Haley threatens to eclipse him.And the debate could provide viewers a sneak preview of key 2028 players.“It’s going to be one of the more interesting events of 2023,” Mr. Clegg said. “It’s a debate between two of the premier governors of the country. Exhibition games can be highly satisfying in their own ways.”Max Scheinblum contributed reporting. More