Elections

In his first rally since his fourth indictment, the former president focused on his Republican rivals and President Biden, as some in the crowd wore Mr. Trump’s mug shot on their T-shirts.When Donald J. Trump came to South Dakota in July 2020, then a president in the middle of his re-election campaign, he stood in front of Mount Rushmore and outlined a dark vision of what he claimed his opponents on the left would do to the country.Three years, an election defeat and four indictments later, Mr. Trump returned on Friday to South Dakota for a rally, where he struck a similar message: that he was the sole bulwark keeping America from falling into ruin.“They’re just destroying our country,” Mr. Trump told a crowd of roughly 7,000, this time at a hockey arena in Rapid City, S.D. “And if we don’t take it back — if we don’t take it back in ’24, I really believe we’re not going to have a country left.”Appearing at a large-scale event for the first time since he stood for a mug shot in Georgia late last month, Mr. Trump acknowledged that his circumstances had changed. Yet he referred to the four criminal cases against him proudly — and as an applause line.“I’m being indicted for you,” Mr. Trump, the front-runner in the G.O.P. presidential primary race, said to the audience. “That’s not part of the job description,” he added, “but I’m being indicted for you.”Mr. Trump did not mention the Georgia indictment or the booking photo even as his campaign has used it in fund-raising appeals and began selling merchandise with the image as soon as it was released. A smattering of attendees were wearing T-shirts featuring Mr. Trump’s mug shot and the phrase “Never Surrender.”“The mug shot did good for him,” said Lydia Lozano of Summerset, S.D., who wore Mr. Trump’s mug shot on a blue T-shirt with the outline of an American flag. The charges in Georgia, she added, did not bother her, nor did Mr. Trump’s other indictments.“They’re just grasping at straws to try and get him to stop running,” Ms. Lozano said. “And he’s running anyway.”Mr. Trump’s mug shot appeared on T-shirts, which his campaign began selling immediately after his Georgia indictment.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Trump, too, marveled that his poll numbers in the primary had seemed to rise after his indictments. “I’m the only person in the history of politics who has been indicted whose poll numbers went up,” he said.Still, polls have shown that a majority of Americans believe his criminal cases were warranted, and some Republicans worry that the 91 total charges against him could hurt him in the general election. Mr. Trump’s legal issues could also create logistical and financial challenges that could make it difficult for him to campaign effectively.South Dakota, where Republicans have a firm stronghold, is a curious choice for an event during a political campaign. It does not hold an early nominating contest, and it does not qualify as a battleground state. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state was 1964.Still, as Mr. Trump’s campaign has tried to reduce its costs, especially as Mr. Trump’s legal fees mount, it has welcomed opportunities for the former president to attend large-scale events held by other groups rather than staging its own expensive ones.Friday’s rally was organized by the South Dakota Republican Party. The Republican governor of the state, Kristi Noem — who endorsed Mr. Trump’s campaign in her remarks introducing him — said that organizers had invited other candidates but that Mr. Trump was the only one who had accepted.Ms. Noem also worked to bring Mr. Trump to Mount Rushmore for the Independence Day celebration in 2020. A looping video of that appearance greeted the crowds filing into the arena on Friday.Speaking for about 110 minutes, Mr. Trump largely doubled down on his 2020 remarks, repeatedly saying that Democrats were threatening to rewrite history, replace America’s foundational values and deface monuments like Mount Rushmore. But he was less vague on Friday about the perceived threats to the nation, singling out specific political opponents.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a political rival in the Republican primary, was an “unskilled politician” who “sided with the communists” against farmers. Television networks were “evil.” President Biden, he said, was “grossly incompetent and very dangerous,” if not “the most crooked president in history.”As he has repeatedly, he claimed without evidence that all four cases against him were part of a politically motivated campaign by Mr. Biden. (Two of the cases are being brought by local prosecutors in New York and Georgia, while the two federal cases are being led by an independent special counsel.)The speakers who preceded him advanced his view.“How many indictments does it take to steal the presidential election in 2024?” Josh Haeder, South Dakota’s treasurer, rhetorically asked. “Here’s the answer: There’s not enough, because Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States of America.” More

At a rally on Friday, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota threw her support behind the former president, whose large lead in polls has stirred speculation about the No. 2 job.Donald J. Trump’s resilience in polls of the Republican presidential primary field is shifting attention to what, for the moment at least, is the only truly competitive national race for 2024: the contest to be his running mate.Speculation over Mr. Trump’s potential vice president — a decision that would rest solely with him — has remained an undercurrent in the primary race as his rivals for the nomination, including former Gov. Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott, a pair of South Carolina Republicans, regularly distance themselves from questions about their possible interest in the No. 2 job.One Republican welcoming those questions has been Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota. She isn’t running for the White House, and she recently told Fox News that “of course” she would consider joining a ticket with Mr. Trump.Ms. Noem, 51, fueled further vice-presidential conjecture by endorsing the former president at a rally on Friday evening in her home state.“Tonight, Mr. President, my message is clear: It is an honor to have you with us in South Dakota,” Ms. Noem said in front of a crowd of thousands in Rapid City. “You made America great again once. Let’s do it again.”Mr. Trump took the stage, briefly hugging Ms. Noem and exchanging words. Then, for a quick second, a graphic reading “TRUMP NOEM 2024” flashed on the giant screen above the stage.“Kristi is a warrior for American values,” Mr. Trump said, going on to compliment her handling of the coronavirus pandemic and her policies in South Dakota.“I get endorsements, some good, some bad,” he said. “Some don’t mean anything. Hers means a lot.”While South Dakota holds little sway in the Republican presidential primary contest — and even less in a general election — Ms. Noem’s endorsement is noteworthy, because only eight of the nation’s 26 Republican governors have publicly picked sides so far.Beyond Ms. Noem, just three — Mike Dunleavy of Alaska, Jim Justice of West Virginia and Henry McMaster of South Carolina — have backed Mr. Trump. Two others — Ron DeSantis of Florida and Doug Burgum of North Dakota — are running against him.“Everybody should consider it,” Ms. Noem told Fox News about a potential vice-presidential slot. “If President Trump is going to be back in the White House, I’d do all I can to help him be successful.”Still, Mr. Trump is said to be giving little direct thought to a running mate.Some close to the former president said that was most likely rooted in superstition that such consideration would jeopardize his own nomination. Others said he had devalued the position, viewing it as little more than a White House staff position that carries little political sway with voters.Mr. Trump raised eyebrows among some associates with private, offhand comments that Mr. Scott had not received much coverage for his performance during the first Republican presidential debate. Mr. Scott has been mentioned as a potential vice-presidential pick even though he is currently running against Mr. Trump, who didn’t participate in his party’s first debate.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said the vice-presidential speculation showed that “everyone knows President Trump will be the nominee and he continues to dominate every single poll.”Along with Mr. Scott, other Republican candidates mentioned as potential running mates for Mr. Trump have included Ms. Haley and the businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Mr. Trump’s two-time running mate, former Vice President Mike Pence, has split with the former president over the 2020 election results. This week, he cast Mr. Trump’s populism as “a road to ruin” for the party.In a radio interview this week, Mr. Trump told Hugh Hewitt, a conservative talk show host, that he was unlikely to make an early decision on a vice president — brushing aside the idea that his running mate could help campaign next spring when the former president is facing multiple criminal trials.“There’s never been a vice president that got a president elected, because it doesn’t work that way,” Mr. Trump said. “It sounds good and everything, but the president gets himself elected.”Mr. Trump endorsed Ms. Noem for governor in 2018, and she was an ardent ally during his presidency. When she hosted him in 2020, her laudatory public remarks prompted speculation that she was hoping to replace Mr. Pence on the Republican ticket.Ms. Noem changed her tune somewhat after Republicans fell short of expectations in last year’s midterm elections. In an interview with The New York Times at the time, Ms. Noem — who was frequently cited as a potential 2024 candidate — floated the thought that she did not believe Mr. Trump offered “the best chance” for Republicans.Still, Ms. Noem stayed out of a crowded Republican primary in which Mr. Trump is far and away the front-runner, and she has more recently voiced support for him in cable news appearances.On Thursday, she told the conservative news channel Newsmax that she would “in a heartbeat” consider being Mr. Trump’s running mate if asked.Maggie Haberman More

Moving the case to federal court would have given Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, one key advantage: a jury pool that was more favorable to Donald J. Trump.Georgia prosecutors leading the criminal election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 18 of his allies notched a victory on Friday when a judge rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move his case from state court to federal court.Mr. Meadows would have faced the same state felony charges had his case been heard by a federal judge and jury, including a racketeering charge for his role in what prosecutors have described as a “criminal organization” that sought to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. But removal to federal court would have given him key advantages, including a jury pool that was more favorable to Mr. Trump.Conducting a trial in federal court would have also increased the likelihood that the United States Supreme Court, a third of whose members were nominated by Mr. Trump, would ultimately get involved in the case.The setback for Mr. Meadows came in the first of many rulings that are expected for the defendants who are seeking to have their cases moved out of state court. Mr. Trump has not filed for a removal to federal court, but he is widely expected to do so.However, the ruling, by Judge Steve C. Jones of the Northern District of Georgia, does not bode well for any of those efforts. An early trial is already scheduled to start in state court on Oct. 23 for two defendants, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who have invoked their right for a speedy trial under Georgia law.The question of where the trials will take place is significant in another way as well. Unlike in federal court, the proceedings in state court will be televised, setting the stage for long-running public trials focused on efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to cling to power.“There is no federal jurisdiction over the criminal case,” Judge Jones, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, wrote in his ruling. “The outcome of this case will be for a Fulton County judge and trier of fact to ultimately decide.”A lawyer for Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Read the documentJudge Steve C. Jones of the Northern District of Georgia rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move his racketeering case from state court to federal court.Read Document 49 pagesThe ruling, which Mr. Meadows appealed on Friday night, came after his lawyers took the unexpected step of putting their client on the witness stand to make the case for removal in a hearing on Aug. 28 in Judge Jones’s courtroom in downtown Atlanta.“Meadows had the strongest of the removal cases,” said Norman Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “If Meadows has failed, then there’s little hope for Clark, or for that matter Trump,” he added, referring to Jeffrey Clark, a defendant and former Justice Department official who has also filed to move his case to federal court.In a filing this week, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Steven H. Sadow, notified the presiding Fulton County Superior Court judge, Scott McAfee, that Mr. Trump might seek to move his case; he has until the end of the month to decide.A key issue for Judge Jones was whether Mr. Meadows’s actions, as described in the 98-page indictment, could be considered within the scope of his job duties as White House chief of staff, which would qualify his case for removal under federal law. Removal is a longstanding legal tradition meant to protect federal officials from state-level prosecution that could impede them from conducting federal business; it is rooted in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law “supreme” over contrary state laws.In the hearing on Mr. Meadows’s request, Fulton County prosecutors argued that he had overstepped the bounds of his chief-of-staff duties by acting as a de facto agent of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. They noted that he had arranged and participated in the now-famous Jan. 2, 2021, call between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which Mr. Trump said he wanted to “find” roughly 12,000 votes, enough to reverse his election loss in the state.The prosecutors said that with such actions, Mr. Meadows had violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are on the job. Among the examples they noted was a text message that Mr. Meadows sent on Dec. 27, 2020, to an official in Mr. Raffensperger’s office, in which he offered financial assistance from the “Trump campaign” for a ballot verification effort.Mr. Meadows’s lawyers emphasized that a chief of staff’s job often occupies a messy place where policy and politics converge — and that was among the reasons that some observers thought he had the best shot at removal to federal court.But Judge Jones decided that the actions ascribed to Mr. Meadows in the indictment were not within the scope of his federal duties.The evidence, he ruled, “establishes that the actions at the heart of the state’s charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.”Mr. Meadows testified at the hearing before Judge Jones that he believed there were outstanding allegations of election fraud that Mr. Trump was concerned about that needed further investigation in the weeks after the election even after William P. Barr, the attorney general at the time, met with Mr. Meadows and told him that many of the allegations were “bullshit.”In a likely preview to his defense strategy, Mr. Meadows also said he wanted to help Mr. Trump look into election fraud allegations as a way to “hopefully get this off of the president’s concern list.” That way, he could “land the plane,” he said, referring to facilitating a smooth and peaceful transfer of power to an incoming President Biden.Mr. Trump’s lawyers unsuccessfully sought removal in his state criminal case in New York, in which he is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from a hush money payment made to a porn star in 2016. Mr. Trump is also facing two federal criminal cases in Florida and Washington, D.C.Besides Mr. Meadows and Mr. Clark, three other co-defendants in the Georgia case have asked for their cases to be moved to federal court. The others were Republican Party electors who submitted Electoral College votes for Mr. Trump despite his loss in Georgia: State Senator Shawn Still; Cathy Latham, a party activist from rural Georgia; and David Shafer, the former head of the Georgia Republican Party. Their claim is seen as particularly tenuous, because they did not work for the federal government.For cases that remain in the state court system, the jury will be drawn from Fulton County, which covers most of Atlanta; Mr. Trump received just over 26 percent of the vote there in 2020. Cases removed to federal court would get a jury from a 10-county area where Mr. Trump received nearly 35 percent of the vote — a not-insignificant advantage for defendants, given the fact that it takes only one not-guilty vote to hang a jury.In addition to racketeering, Mr. Meadows is charged with one count of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer for his participation in the phone call with Mr. Raffensperger, the secretary of state. Prosecutors accuse Mr. Meadows of having “unlawfully solicited, requested and importuned” Mr. Raffensperger to engage in the illegal act of changing the certified vote returns in the state.Prosecutors subpoenaed Mr. Raffensperger to testify at Mr. Meadows’s removal hearing. Mr. Raffensperger recounted how he was not swayed by Mr. Trump’s arguments that there were problems with the election results, which at that point had been subject to multiple recounts.When asked to characterize the conversation with Mr. Trump and Mr. Meadows, Mr. Raffensperger said, “I thought it was a campaign call.” More

Since she stepped down from leadership last year, many observers expected Representative Nancy Pelosi of California to head toward retirement. But she has kept people guessing about her future.Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who served for decades as the Democratic Party’s House leader and was the first woman to become speaker, announced on Friday that she would seek re-election in 2024, ending months of speculation about her political future.“In light of the values of San Francisco, which we’ve always been proud to promote, I’ve made the decision to seek re-election,” Ms. Pelosi said on Friday at an event in her hometown focused on organized labor.Since she stepped down from leadership last year after Democrats lost the House majority, many observers expected that Ms. Pelosi, who at 83 is the seventh-oldest member of the chamber, was headed for retirement. Some had been surprised to see her stay in Congress at all, a rare move for a former speaker, and speculated that she would not finish her term.But colleagues said she has relished her lower profile as a rank-and-file member with emeritus status. In that new role, Ms. Pelosi offers advice on an as-needed basis to her party’s new leadership team, often sits in the back rows of the House floor gabbing with her closest friends and focuses her attention on San Francisco while quietly remaining a fund-raising powerhouse for Democrats.“I’m emancipated now!” an ebullient Ms. Pelosi said in a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times.Even after Ms. Pelosi made clear she would stay on after giving up her leadership post, some Democrats assumed that she would leave Congress early, potentially clearing the way for her daughter Christine Pelosi, a party activist and a Democratic National Committee executive committee member, to run for her seat.Ms. Pelosi’s decision to carry on with her 36-year career in the House comes at a moment of renewed scrutiny on the advanced age and health status of the country’s leading public servants — including President Biden, 80, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, 81, the longtime Republican leader — and questions about whether they have overstayed their time in power. Ms. Pelosi managed to somewhat insulate herself from those critiques when she decided last year to step down from leadership, essentially giving herself a demotion.Senator Dianne Feinstein, another California Democrat who at 90 is the oldest member of Congress, plans to retire after her term ends next year. But she is facing calls to step down sooner amid a precipitous health decline that has raised questions about her ability to do her job. Ms. Pelosi recently attributed those calls to sexism.A major factor in Ms. Pelosi’s decision to not only finish her term but to seek another, according to people close to her, was the health of her husband, Paul Pelosi, who was brutally beaten with a hammer at the couple’s home in San Francisco last year by an assailant who later said he had been targeting the speaker. With Mr. Pelosi on a solid path to recovery, allies said, Ms. Pelosi did not feel it was necessary to step away from a job she loved.“Nancy Pelosi has always been untraditional,” said Stacy Kerr, who for a decade served as a senior aide to Ms. Pelosi. “She’s done things her own way her whole career, driven by the needs of her district and the country. We shouldn’t expect that she won’t continue to be a trailblazer now.”Still, Ms. Pelosi, famous for keeping her own counsel, had not shared her plans with anyone. People close to her said on Friday that she had ultimately decided to run again because she also viewed it as an urgent priority to re-elect Mr. Biden and help Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, become the next House speaker.Ms. Pelosi is still her party’s most prolific fund-raiser in Congress, a political skill that could be determinative in helping Democrats win back the House majority next year.The National Republican Congressional Committee quickly tried to frame her decision to stay on as a sign of Mr. Jeffries’s weakness.“The babysitter agreed to stay late!” the group’s press secretary, Will Reinert, said in a statement, noting that House Democrats still relied on Ms. Pelosi as the main engine of their fund-raising machine.In an online post, Ms. Pelosi characterized her decision to run again as one driven by local and global concerns.“Now, more than ever, our city needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery,” Ms. Pelosi said in announcing her plans. “Our country needs America to show the world that our flag is still there, with liberty and justice for all.” More

Neither potential candidate has entered the race to unseat Senator Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona.Former President Donald J. Trump on Sunday called Blake Masters, the failed Arizona Senate candidate considering a second run next year, and told him he didn’t think Mr. Masters could win a primary race against Kari Lake, the former news anchor who ran unsuccessfully for governor last year, according to two people briefed on the conversation.Mr. Trump’s delivery of this blunt political assessment — which could indicate that Mr. Trump may endorse Ms. Lake if she has a relatively open path to the nomination — is at odds with Mr. Trump’s posture so far this political cycle, in which he has shown more restraint in endorsing candidates than he had in the 2022 midterms.Mr. Trump’s call on Sunday came days after a report that Mr. Masters, a 37-year-old venture capitalist, was preparing to make a second run for the Senate in the swing state after his loss to Senator Mark Kelly, the Democratic incumbent, in 2022.Ms. Lake, who lost a bitter contest with Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is looking at announcing a Senate campaign in the first half of October, two people familiar with the matter said. The race to unseat Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat who last year became an independent, is expected to be a crowded one in a state where the Republican Party is fractured.Last year, Mr. Trump endorsed both Mr. Masters, a political newcomer and an anti-immigration hard-liner who has close ties to the populist New Right, and Ms. Lake, who embraced Mr. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election with particular intensity.Mr. Masters parlayed Mr. Trump’s endorsement and around $15 million from the billionaire Peter Thiel into a victory in a hard-fought Republican primary. At the time, Republican leaders resented Mr. Trump’s intervention, believing he had propped up a weak candidate.Mr. Trump went on an endorsement spree ahead of the 2022 midterms, backing several candidates who won their primaries only to go on to lose what Republican leaders considered to be winnable Senate races, including Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, the former football star Herschel Walker in Georgia and Mr. Masters.By contrast, so far in this cycle, Mr. Trump, the dominant front-runner for the G.O.P. presidential nomination, has endorsed only one Republican Senate candidate who isn’t an incumbent, and it was a safe choice: Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, who is backed by the Republican establishment and is regarded as a lock for that seat.Mr. Trump’s comparative caution is by design and serves not only his own interests but also those of the same Republican leaders who despaired of his interventions in 2022 midterm primaries.A spokesman for Mr. Trump, Steven Cheung, said he would not comment on any private conversations “that the president may or may not have had.” Mr. Masters did not respond to a request for comment.The call between the former president and Mr. Masters was described by two people familiar with it who insisted on anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the private conversation. One of the people said Mr. Trump had not definitively ruled out supporting Mr. Masters’s candidacy and that in conversations with others, Mr. Trump had left open the possibility that Ms. Lake might not run.In a statement shared by an aide, Ms. Lake said, “I am strongly considering getting in the race and will be making my final decision in the coming weeks,” and cast herself as someone who would be loyal to Mr. Trump in the Senate. Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County is already in the race.A person close to Mr. Masters who was not authorized to speak publicly stressed that Mr. Masters “believes the party needs a candidate with a proven ability to fund-raise and campaign and is prepared to run in the absence of such a candidate.”Mr. Masters has told associates that he thinks another “bloody” primary would hurt the party’s chances of winning the seat — and that a battle against Ms. Lake would surely be bloody, according to the person close to him. Mr. Masters has also privately questioned whether Ms. Lake will run, that person said.The person said Mr. Masters had seriously considered announcing his candidacy shortly after Labor Day but that no plans were set.Mr. Trump’s skepticism about Mr. Masters long predates their weekend conversation. The former president has told associates he thinks Mr. Masters was a “bad candidate” in 2022, according to two people who have spoken to the former president.Among Mr. Trump’s complaints about Mr. Masters was that he had tempered some of his comments related to Mr. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. When Mr. Masters said in a debate in October 2022 that he hadn’t seen evidence of widespread fraud in the state, Mr. Trump called him, in a moment captured by a Fox News camera.“If you want to get across the line, you’ve got to go stronger on that one thing,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Masters. “That was the one thing, a lot of complaints about it.” Then he mentioned Ms. Lake, then the Republican nominee for governor.“Look at Kari — Kari’s winning with very little money,” Mr. Trump said. “And if they say, ‘How is your family?’ She says, ‘The election was rigged and stolen.’ You’ll lose if you go soft. You’re going to lose that base.”Regardless of Mr. Trump’s motivations, his more cautious approach to endorsements has been appreciated by party leaders. Mr. Trump has told several people that he made too many endorsements in the 2022 midterms — including some for people who have yet to endorse him in his own race for president — and that he plans to be less involved this time, according to two people with direct knowledge of his comments.Mr. Trump has established a strong relationship with Senator Steve Daines of Montana, the chair of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm. Mr. Daines’s endorsement of Mr. Trump for president months ago was a strategic move: It gave him entree with the Republican Party’s most influential figure in the hopes of getting him to support the committee’s favored candidates, or at least to refrain from attacking them.To that end, Mr. Trump has quietly helped Mr. Daines by telling two House Republicans running for Senate — Representatives Matt Rosendale of Montana and Alex Mooney of West Virginia — that he would not endorse them in Senate primaries in their states. In West Virginia, Mr. Daines has issued a statement supportive of a different candidate: the state’s governor, Jim Justice.A person with direct knowledge confirmed those conversations, adding that part of Mr. Trump’s motivation for delivering the messages was his anger at the anti-tax Club for Growth, a one-time ally that more recently has attacked him. The Club for Growth is spending money to support Mr. Mooney and potentially could do the same for Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Trump’s conversations with Mr. Rosendale and Mr. Mooney were first reported by CNN.A spokesman for Mr. Rosendale could not be reached for comment.In a statement attacking Mr. Justice as part of the “big-spending D.C. swamp uniparty,” Mr. Mooney’s campaign manager, John Findlay, noted that “the congressman has endorsed President Trump and would of course like to have his endorsement again.” He added, “As of now, President Trump has chosen to stay neutral.” More

The West Virginia Democrat could run for re-election to the Senate, make a third-party presidential bid or simply retire from politics. To his party’s consternation, he’s not ready to say which.Senator Joe Manchin III, the conservative West Virginia Democrat, was attending an event in his home state last month when he made a joke that quickly touched off the latest round of feverish speculation about his political future.“I will also endorse Jim for basketball coach,” Mr. Manchin said, suggesting that the popular Republican governor, Jim Justice, who has announced he will seek Mr. Manchin’s Senate seat next year, should instead be hired by West Virginia University to pursue his lifelong passion on the court.The comment seemed to suggest that Mr. Manchin, who has flirted with bolting his party and running for president as an independent, had not given up on defending his Senate seat.But as the last pivotal Democratic senator who has not yet said whether he will seek re-election, Mr. Manchin still has Washington and his party guessing about his plans.Behind closed doors, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has been relentlessly encouraging him to run, regarding Mr. Manchin — perhaps the only Democrat with a chance to win a statewide contest in deeply conservative West Virginia — as key to preserving his party’s tenuous control of the Senate. Democrats across the country have been praying that he will seek re-election rather than pursuing a presidential bid through the centrist political group No Labels, which could draw votes from President Biden and help elect a Republican.For a man who routinely seeks the spotlight when faced with politically consequential decisions, this is among the most closely watched dilemmas Mr. Manchin has confronted.“I don’t have a clue what he’s going to do, and I don’t think he knows what he’s going to do,” said Phil Smith, the longtime chief lobbyist for the United Mine Workers of America and a close ally of Mr. Manchin’s.In a brief interview in the basement of the Senate this week, Mr. Manchin said he would make a decision about his future by the end of the year. If he intends to run for re-election, he must inform the state by January.“The bottom line is, I’ve been in West Virginia for a long time and moving in the right direction,” he said. “Our approval rating’s up quite substantially in a very, very, very red state. So I feel very good about all those things.”He added, “We’ve got plenty of time.”Still, decisions will have to be made before the political terrain becomes completely clear. The most important of his considerations is which Republican he would face. To win the nomination, Mr. Justice, a wealthy Democrat turned Republican, would have to defeat Representative Alex X. Mooney, a more reliable ally of former President Donald J. Trump’s.A poll last week for the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce encapsulated Mr. Manchin’s conundrum. The senator and the governor are both popular in the state, with 56 percent of voters approving of the job Mr. Justice has done and 51 percent approving of Mr. Manchin’s performance, numbers above even Mr. Trump’s 49 percent approval rating.Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia, a wealthy Democrat turned Republican, is very popular in the state.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesWhile the poll showed Mr. Justice beating Mr. Manchin handily in a hypothetical Senate contest, 51 percent to 38 percent, the poll also found that Mr. Manchin would narrowly lead Mr. Mooney, 45 percent to 41 percent.(Mr. Manchin’s allies point out that his approval rating increased by 9 percentage points since 2021 in the poll, while Mr. Justice declined by 5 points.)The conservative political action committee Club for Growth has said it will back Mr. Mooney in the primary. Joe Kildea, a spokesman for the group, said its political arm had raised about $14 million and would spend “whatever it takes.” That could bloody Mr. Justice, but money alone may not be enough for Mr. Mooney, who trails the governor among West Virginia Republican voters, 58 percent to 26 percent.“We beat big-government, establishment RINOs all the time,” said David McIntosh, the president of Club for Growth, referring to the conservative slur “Republicans in name only.”It is also unclear whether Mr. Trump will seek to get involved in the primary, set for May 14. In 2022, he endorsed Mr. Mooney in a House Republican primary against Representative David B. McKinley, and Mr. Mooney won easily. This time around, Mr. Trump is extremely unhappy with Club for Growth, which has funded an advertising campaign in Iowa imploring Republicans to back a different presidential candidate. Then again, he also likes to counter Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, who backs Mr. Justice.Mr. Manchin’s allies claim that none of that is weighing particularly heavily on the senator these days.“I know it’s shocking in D.C., but Joe Manchin isn’t focused on partisan politics this year,” said Jonathan Kott, his former senior adviser in the Senate. “He will sit down with his family at the end of the year and figure out how he can best serve the people of West Virginia and the country.”Yet the timeline set by No Labels for a possible independent presidential run has complicated Mr. Manchin’s calculations. So far, the group has qualified for a spot on the presidential ballot in only 11 states and is hustling to make the ballot in many more. And though No Labels leaders still insist they will only start a “unity” ticket for the White House if the major party nominees do not move to the political center, the group has set a date in April for a convention in Dallas to choose its candidates.That means Mr. Manchin would be choosing between the Senate run and a White House bid before he knew whether No Labels would select him.His third option might be simply to retire at 76. His alma mater, West Virginia University, is in deep trouble, slashing its budget, laying off faculty and even eliminating its foreign language program. Its president, E. Gordon Gee, turns 80 in February, and a chance to lead the university out of crisis would be tempting for the senator, Mr. Manchin’s allies said.Students protesting the budget cuts that led to the elimination of foreign language programs at West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.Va., last month.Leah Willingham/Associated PressOne official with close ties to the senator pointed to the decision of one of his former chiefs of staff, Larry Puccio, to sign on with Mr. Justice as an indication that Mr. Manchin will retire.Adding to the intrigue, the senator’s daughter Heather Manchin has started a nonprofit organization, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, that is trying to raise more than $100 million to promote centrist policies. Those familiar with the organization, which is currently independent from Mr. Manchin, said it could serve as a landing pad for the senator if he retires from politics. The group could also conduct market research on policies and messaging that would prove useful to his presidential aspirations should he run, though Ms. Manchin denied that had anything to do with it.“This movement is not about starting a third party or rallying behind any one individual,” she said. The No Labels flirtation has perplexed some of Mr. Manchin’s allies and some political observers. Senate aides say Mr. Manchin is seriously considering it, but others suggest that he is simply using the prospect of a third-party presidential run to keep his name in the news, pressure Mr. Biden to address his policy priorities as he carries out the Inflation Reduction Act and raise money for whatever he decides to do next.A possible rival for the No Labels ticket has already emerged in Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican and the former governor of Maryland.Mr. Hogan, appearing on CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday, implied that the name at the top of the No Labels ticket would have to be a Republican to ensure that the independent campaign would take at least as many votes from the current Republican front-runner, Mr. Trump, as from Mr. Biden. Democrats, he said, should relax.Mr. Manchin’s possible candidacy “is really what set them off in a panic,” Mr. Hogan said.It was at an event in Beckley, W.Va., for former Representative Nick Rahall, one of the last Democrats to represent the state in Congress, that Mr. Manchin made the quip about West Virginia University hiring Mr. Justice to coach basketball, after Mr. Gee had suggested it.The event was a dedication of Mr. Rahall’s archives, and the crowd was full of former Democrats, including Mr. Justice. Mr. Manchin was the last of his kind.Still, Mr. Rahall left confident in the senator’s survival.“Joe Manchin has said if he enters the race, he will win, and I believe him when he says that,” Mr. Rahall said. “Now, he hasn’t said which race he’ll enter.” More

The Florida governor, who has cast himself as a Teddy Roosevelt-style conservationist, sounds far different as a presidential candidate, pledging to expand fossil fuel production and fight electric-vehicle mandates.During his 2018 run for governor, Ron DeSantis not only pledged to protect Florida’s Everglades and waterways, he also acknowledged that humans played a role in exacerbating the climate change that threatened them.“I think that humans contribute to what goes on around us,” Mr. DeSantis told the editorial board of The Florida Times-Union, a Jacksonville newspaper, according to a recording obtained by The New York Times.“The resiliency and some of the sea-level rise, we have to deal with that,” he added, although he pointedly said he was “not Al Gore,” referring to the former Democratic vice president who reinvented himself as a climate change activist.Now running for president five years later, the Florida governor no longer repeats his previous view that humans affect the climate, even as scientists say that the hurricanes battering his state are being intensified by man-made global warming. Those storms include Hurricane Idalia, which killed three people this month, and last year’s catastrophic Hurricane Ian, which killed 150 Floridians.On the debate stage last month, Mr. DeSantis declined to raise his hand when a moderator asked the Republican candidates if they thought human behavior was causing climate change. His campaign and the governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment about his views.Instead, Mr. DeSantis has seemingly reverted to an old Republican Party line that climate change is happening naturally, without being accelerated by human behavior like the burning of fossil fuels. Decades of scientific research contradict that position. And it is also out of step with what polling shows many Americans believe.On the 2024 campaign trail, Mr. DeSantis has promised to ramp up domestic oil and gas production and fight against mandates on the introduction of electric vehicles — the kinds of steps that could worsen the sea-level rise that is flooding coastal cities in Florida and around the world. Mr. DeSantis says he is simply being realistic about the country’s economic and national security needs.Asked to describe his climate plan in an interview on Fox Business last month, Mr. DeSantis said: “It’s going to be to rip up Joe Biden’s Green New Deal.” (Mr. Biden’s policies do not actually go as far as the so-called Green New Deal, a wide-ranging climate proposal from progressives in Congress.)As the governor of a traditionally purple state on the front lines of climate change, Mr. DeSantis has been confronted with clear evidence that the environment is changing. But he has largely tried to treat global warming’s symptoms — funding local projects to address flooding and storm surge, for instance — rather than take steps to address what climate scientists say are the human-made underlying causes, such as by cutting back on the use of fossil fuels.Mr. DeSantis has also cast himself as a conservationist in the Teddy Roosevelt mold, embracing a brand of environmentally friendly outdoor-ism long pushed by Republicans in Florida — where swimming, boating, fishing and hunting are popular and profitable — as well as in Western states. That philosophy led him, especially early in his tenure, to attack the state’s powerful sugar industry, which contributes to water and air pollution.“In terms of environment, what I care about is the environment people enjoy,” Mr. DeSantis said in a radio interview this year. “I want to conserve Florida, leave it to God better than we found it.”More recently, however, he rejected roughly $350 million in federal funding for energy efficiency initiatives. And in a nod to the nation’s culture wars, he gave tax breaks to people who bought gas stoves.Florida environmentalists describe Mr. DeSantis’s mixed record as one that gave them optimism early on in his administration but has since left them feeling somewhat disappointed. Mr. DeSantis’s narrow but intense focus on Everglades restoration felt “very hopeful out of the gate,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, a nonprofit advocacy group. “But the follow-through has been problematic and lacking.”The governor created a toxic algae task force, she noted, but the group’s scientific recommendations had mostly been ignored. And projects to lessen climate change’s impact have not taken a comprehensive approach, she said.“‘Resilience’ has become a euphemism for installing diesel-powered pumps at the shoreline to keep developed areas dry,” she said. “That approach is not going to serve Florida in the long term.”At the first Republican debate last month, Mr. DeSantis reacted angrily when a Fox News moderator asked the candidates onstage to raise their hands if they thought human behavior was causing climate change.“We’re not school children,” Mr. DeSantis said. “Let’s have the debate.”But he did not answer the question, instead jumping into an attack on the “corporate media” and President Biden’s response to the wildfires in Maui. One of the moderators, Bret Baier, followed up: “Is that a yes? Is that a hand raise?”Mr. DeSantis stared at the camera without speaking, allowing another candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, to jump in. “I think it was a hand raise for him,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.“No, no, no,” Mr. DeSantis replied. “I didn’t raise a hand.”In contrast, nearly half of Americans believe that climate change is “mostly” caused by human activity, according to a poll by Ipsos released in May. Roughly a quarter said climate change was mostly caused by natural patterns. (Smaller percentages said that it was “not really happening” or that they did not know its cause.)There is a clear partisan divide, however. Among Republicans, only 22 percent of people said climate change was mostly caused by human activity, compared with 75 percent of Democrats.Mr. Biden seemed to weigh in last weekend during a visit to Florida after Idalia. “Nobody intelligent can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore,” he said.President Biden visiting a Florida community affected by Hurricane Idalia this month. Climate change has become a clearly partisan issue, with only 22 percent of Republicans saying in a recent poll that climate change was mostly caused by human activity, compared with 75 percent of Democrats.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesIn an interview with Fox News that aired on Wednesday, Mr. DeSantis shot back. “The idea that we’ve not had powerful storms until recently, that’s just not factually true,” he said, adding that Democrats were trying to “politicize the weather.”But scientists say that climate change is making hurricanes more powerful, though not more frequent, as warmer ocean waters strengthen and sustain those storms. The proportion of the most severe storms — Categories 4 and 5 — has increased since 1980, when satellite imagery began reliably tracking hurricanes.When Mr. DeSantis ran for governor in 2018, relations between Florida Republicans and environmentalists had hit a low point. Under Rick Scott, the Republican governor at the time, state officials said they had been warned against even using the phrases “climate change” or “global warming.” (Mr. Scott said there was no policy banning those terms.) Toxic algae blooms were choking many of Florida’s beautiful bays, canals and rivers.Mr. DeSantis made improving water quality one of his top campaign issues. Other Republicans, including Representatives Vern Buchanan and Brian J. Mast, whose districts were being harmed by the harmful algae, also campaigned on water quality. The G.O.P. had used the issue to attract independent and crossover Democratic voters at a time when Florida was still a true political battleground.The message, said Jacob Perry, who ran Mr. Mast’s 2016 campaign, was intended to be: “This isn’t your father’s Republican Party.”Mr. DeSantis appeared to embrace a similar approach.“The environment was a big reason he won that race,” said Stephen Lawson, Mr. DeSantis’s 2018 communications director, who added that it was one of the top reasons, if not the leading one, that he was able to appeal to swing voters.As a candidate in the 2018 Republican primary for governor, he criticized his party’s close ties to the sugar industry, which had supported his opponent. He said he backed “resiliency” but did not want to be a climate “alarmist.” Once elected, he seemed to relish signing off on billions of dollars to restore state waterways and the Everglades.During his first year in office, his environmental policies gave Mr. DeSantis the veneer of a center-right governor. He appointed the state’s first chief science officer and hired a “chief resilience officer,” whose job description included a mandate to prepare the state for the “impacts of climate change, especially sea-level rise.”He signed the first bill passed by the Republican-held Legislature that directly addressed climate change, after what a Republican state senator acknowledged had been a “lost decade” of inaction. This year, Mr. DeSantis vetoed legislation that would have allowed electric utilities to impose fees on property owners who install solar panels.But Mr. DeSantis has made other decisions that let down conservationists during his governorship. He limited local governments from making stringent environmental regulations. He backed the building of new rural highways known as the “roads to nowhere.”On the campaign trail, Mr. DeSantis does not often talk about what his environmental policies would be as president. But he has suggested in broad terms that reducing fossil fuel emissions would be a good thing, while saying that the free market is a more appropriate tool for doing so than government intervention.At a barbecue in New Hampshire last month, he laid out some of his positions on climate change in response to a voter’s question, taking the opportunity to criticize Democrats for pushing renewable energy in the United States while China and India continue to rely on oil and gas.“They’ve taken this position that you can never burn a fossil fuel,” Mr. DeSantis said. “That is not going to work for our economy.”But in a reflection of how divisive climate change — and science more generally — has become for Republicans, the governor almost did not get to answer the question. The man who asked it was bombarded with boos and catcalls from other members of the audience until the event’s host, former Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, asked for civility.“Science!” one woman in the crowd jeered sarcastically. “Facts!”Ruth Igielnik More

From 1h agoThe special grand jury investigating the attempt to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results recommended bringing charges against the state’s former senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler as well as the current South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham.None of the three were named in the indictment Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis unveiled last month, which targeted Donald Trump and 18 others with racketeering charges related to their attempt to stop Joe Biden from collecting Georgia’s electoral votes despite his victory there.According to the report, the jurors recommended the three senators be charged over “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election”.All told, the special grand jurors in Georgia recommended charges against 39 people for trying to overturn the state’s elections, but Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s indictment only targeted 19 people, Donald Trump among them.Among those who were named in the report, but not charged:David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler were Georgia’s Republican senators, until both were ousted from office by the Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in elections held the day before the January 6 insurrection.The special grand jury in Fulton county recommended that Perdue be charged “over the persistent, repeated communications directed to multiple Georgia officials and employees between November of 2020 and January of 2021” – the period when Donald Trump was trying to overturn his election loss. The vote was 16 jurors in favor, one against, and one abstention.The jurors also recommended charges against both Loeffler and Perdue for “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election”. However there was more dissent on this count. For Perdue, the vote was 17 in favor and four against, while for Loeffler, the vote was 14 in favor, 6 against, and one abstention.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis ultimately did not indict either of the former lawmakers.Lindsey Graham’s name appeared early as Donald Trump’s attempts to stay in the White House began shortly after his re-election defeat in November 2020.Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger told the press that the South Carolina senator had called him to ask if it was possible to throw away mail-in ballots in counties crucial to Joe Biden’s win in Georgia. From the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino’s report at the time:
Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, has said that Senator Lindsey Graham asked whether it was possible to invalidate legally cast ballots after Donald Trump was narrowly defeated in the state.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Raffensperger said that his fellow Republican, the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, questioned him about the state’s signature-matching law and asked whether political bias might have played a role in counties where poll workers accepted higher rates of mismatched signatures. According to Raffensperger, Graham then asked whether he had the authority to toss out all mail-in ballots in these counties.
Raffensperger was reportedly “stunned” by the question, in which Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to throw out legally cast absentee ballots.
“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” he said.
Graham confirmed the conversation to reporters on Capitol Hill but said it was “ridiculous” to suggest that he pressured Raffensperger to throw out legally cast absentee ballots. According to Graham, he only wanted to learn more about the process for verifying signatures, because what happens in Georgia “affects the whole nation”.
“I thought it was a good conversation,” Graham said on Monday after the interview was published. “I’m surprised to hear he characterized it that way.”
Trump has refused to accept results showing Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election, falsely blaming rampant fraud and irregularities that election officials in both parties have dismissed as meritless.
The special grand jury investigating the attempt to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results recommended bringing charges against the state’s former senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler as well as the current South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham.None of the three were named in the indictment Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis unveiled last month, which targeted Donald Trump and 18 others with racketeering charges related to their attempt to stop Joe Biden from collecting Georgia’s electoral votes despite his victory there.According to the report, the jurors recommended the three senators be charged over “the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election”.The full report of the special grand jury whose investigation led to the indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others for trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election result has been released.We’re digging into it and will let you know what it says.The special grand jury report that was used in the indictment of Donald Trump and 18 others in Georgia for trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election results is expected to be released any minute now.While parts of it have already been unsealed, we will finally be getting a look at the full report by the jurors empaneled by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis. There are two main pieces of news expected from the report:
Whether the grand jurors recommended charges be brought against people who Willis ultimately opted not to pursue.
The vote counts for each person the jurors said should be indicted, and whether there were any significant splits within the panel.
Yesterday, Ron DeSantis had a testy exchange with an audience member who accused the Republican governor of backing policies in Florida that enabled violence against Black people – such as last month’s shooting by a racist gunman in Jacksonville:Clearly smarting over the exchange, DeSantis later went on Fox News to call the questioner a “nutjob”:While Joe Biden is in India for a meeting of G20 leaders, Republicans angling to replace him next year are continuing their campaigns, including Ron DeSantis – who may have done himself more harm than good by skipping a meeting with the president after a hurricane struck Florida. Here’s the story, from the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe:One reality of Florida politics is that a bad hurricane for the state traditionally blows good fortune for its governor. It was true for Rick Scott, elected a senator in November 2018, one month after guiding Florida through Category 5 Hurricane Michael; and again for Ron DeSantis, whose landslide re-election last year followed his much-praised handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.This year, however, DeSantis is struggling to shake the dark clouds of Hurricane Idalia, as his return to the national stage to try to rescue his flailing presidential campaign after an 11-day break has been further scarred by his “petty and small” snub of Joe Biden’s visit to Florida last weekend to survey the storm’s damage.Opponents seized on it as a partisan politicization of a climate disaster, contrasting the Republican Florida governor’s approach to a year ago after Ian, when DeSantis and Biden put their differences aside to praise each other and tour the worst-affected areas with their respective first ladies.“Your job as governor is to be the tour guide for the president, to make sure the president sees your people, sees the damage, sees the suffering, what’s going on and what needs to be done to rebuild it,” Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, and a rival for the Republican presidential nomination, told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade.“You’re doing your job. And unfortunately, he put politics ahead of his job,” added Christie, who was applauded by Democrats and savaged by Republicans for working closely with Barack Obama after superstorm Sandy mauled his state in 2012.The Twitter/X account of Joe Biden, who is currently flying on Air Force One to New Delhi for a summit of G20 nations, just released video showing him touring the renovated situation room.That’s the space in the White House where the president goes to handle emergencies or highly sensitive operations:Perhaps the most famous appearance of a president in the situation room is Barack Obama’s from 1 May 2011, as he watched US soldiers kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. His photographer Pete Souza captured the scene:Yesterday, Donald Trump indicated he may ask that his trial in the Georgia election subversion case be moved to federal court, which the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported could have a number of advantages for the former president:Donald Trump’s lead defense lawyer notified a judge in Fulton county on Thursday that he could soon seek to remove to federal court the racketeering prosecution charging him with attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.The unusual filing, submitted to the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee, said only that the former president “may seek removal of his prosecution”, stopping short of submitting a formal motion to transfer the trial venue.Trump has been weighing for weeks whether to seek removal to federal court and, according to two people familiar with deliberations, is expected to make a decision based on whether his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is successful in his own effort.The idea with waiting on a decision in the Meadows case, the people said, is to use him as a test. If Meadows is successful in transferring to federal court, the Trump legal team is intending to repurpose the same arguments and follow a similar strategy.To have the case moved to the US district court for the northern district of Georgia, Trump would have to show that the criminal conduct alleged in the indictment involved his official duties as president – he was acting “under color of office” – and cannot be prosecuted at the state level.The rationale to seek removal to federal court is seen as twofold: the jury pool would expand beyond just the Atlanta area – which skews heavily Democratic – and a federal judge might be less deferential to local prosecutors compared with judges in the Fulton county superior court.The Georgia special grand jury report that is expected to be released at 10am ET today could reveal whether the investigative panel thought anyone else besides Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants should face charges for meddling in the state’s election result three years ago.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis convened the panel and used its subpoena power to compel witness testimony, and portions of its final report have already been released. The special grand jury did not indict Trump – that was done by one of the regular grand juries she convened in August.Good morning, US politics live blog readers. It’s going to be another big Friday in one of the criminal cases against Donald Trump, while US president Joe Biden is in India for G20 and a crucial bilateral with the prime minister, Narendra Modi.Here’s some of what’s ahead:
The report of the special grand jury in Georgia that investigated Trump in the election subversion case – where the now-former president attempted to overturn the 2020 election in the swing state – is expected to be unsealed today.
Biden is due to touch down in New Delhi, India, in under two hours, a day before the start of the G20 summit there. He and Modi will hold a bilateral meeting shortly after the US president arrives. The specter of Russia’s war in Ukraine looms over the event.
Speaking of criminal cases against former US presidents, on this day 49 years ago Republican president Gerald Ford granted a “full, free, and absolute pardon” to former president Richard Nixon covering his entire term in office, the AP notes.
Trump will attend a rally tonight in South Dakota and the state’s rightwing governor Kristi Noem is expected to endorse his run for the 2024 Republican nomination for the White House. Noem is considered a vice-presidential hopeful. More