Elections

Infighting between Trump acolytes and traditionalists has driven away donors and voters. Can the Michigan Republican Party rebuild in time for the presidential election?The Michigan Republican Party is starving for cash. A group of prominent activists — including a former statewide candidate — was hit this month with felony charges connected to a bizarre plot to hijack election machines. And in the face of these troubles, suspicion and infighting have been running high. A recent state committee meeting led to a fistfight, a spinal injury and a pair of shattered dentures.This turmoil is one measure of the way Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election have rippled through his party. While Mr. Trump has just begun to wrestle with the consequences of his fictions — including two indictments related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 results — the vast machine of activists, donors and volunteers that power his party has been reckoning with the fallout for years.As the party looks toward the presidential election next year, the strains are glaring.Mr. Trump’s election lies spread like wildfire in Michigan, breaking the state party into ardent believers and pragmatists wanting to move on. Bitter disputes, power struggles and contentious primaries followed, leaving the Michigan Republican Party a husk of itself.The battleground has steadily grown safer for Democrats. No Republican has won a statewide election there since Mr. Trump won the state in 2016. (Republicans have won nonpartisan seats on the State Supreme Court.) G.O.P. officials in the state are growing concerned that they do not have a top-tier candidate to run for the open Senate seat.“It’s not going real well, and all you have to do is look at the facts,” said Representative Lisa McClain, a Republican from Eastern Michigan. “The ability to raise money, we’ve got a lot of donors sitting on the sideline. That’s not an opinion. That’s a fact. It’s just a plain fact. We have to fix that.”She added: “Everyone is in the blame game. We’ve got to stop.”Representative Lisa McClain at a Trump rally in Michigan in 2022. Ms. McClain says the “everyone is in the blame game” as the Michigan G.O.P. struggles with infighting and sluggish fund-raising. Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesMichigan Republicans were long a force in national politics. The state was home to Gerald Ford and George Romney and to many of the “Reagan Democrats” who helped transform the party four decades ago. Ronna McDaniel, the current chair of the Republican National Committee, was the chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party until 2017. Betsy DeVos, the former secretary of education under Mr. Trump who resigned after Jan. 6, is a power broker in the state, managing vast wealth and a political network with influence far beyond state lines.The slow unraveling of the state party began well before the 2020 election. Throughout the Obama administration, the right wing of the party grew more vocal and active. After Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016, many party posts that were once controlled largely by megadonor families and the Republican establishment began to be filled by Trump acolytes.By 2021, the new activists wanted to support only candidates who believed the 2020 election, which Mr. Trump lost in Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, was fraudulent and were committed to trying to do something about it.Those leaders soon emerged. Matthew DePerno, a lawyer who advanced false election theories, became a folk hero in the state and ran for attorney general. Kristina Karamo, a poll worker who signed an affidavit claiming she had witnessed vote stealing, became a conservative media star and ran for secretary of state. And Meshawn Maddock, the leader of Women for Trump who organized buses to Washington on Jan. 6, became co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party.As co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Meshawn Maddock blamed big donors for not supporting their candidates and maintained falsehoods about the 2020 election.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesMr. DePerno and Ms. Karamo did not respond to requests for comment. The Michigan Republican Party did not respond to requests for comment. In a video released on Monday night, Ms. Karamo defended her actions as party chair and lashed out at more moderate Republicans she claimed were part of a “uniparty.”Their nominations exposed a rift within the party, with more moderate, traditional Republicans like the DeVos family swearing off both Mr. DePerno and Ms. Karamo and withholding funds from most of the state party. Other donors similarly expressed their frustration. County nominating conventions devolved into open conflict.“Meshawn was never connected to the donor base, and so having her as the vice chair for a lot of us was a showstopper,” said Dave Trott, a former Republican congressman from Michigan who retired in 2018 and is also a former donor to the state party. “Because we just knew she would never be someone that would be rational in her approach to state party politics.”Ms. Maddock, who is no longer involved in the party, responded to Mr. Trott, saying she was “not surprised at all that he takes no responsibility for disappointing Michigan voters or anyone.” “The state party needs the wealthy RINOs who often fund it to come to terms with what the actual voters on the right want,” Ms. Maddock said. “Instead of constantly gaslighting the Republican base, the wealthy donors need to treat them with an ounce of respect for once.”As standard-bearers for the state party during the 2022 midterm cycle, Mr. DePerno, Ms. Karamo and Ms. Maddock all maintained the falsehoods about the 2020 election. In their campaigns, Mr. DePerno and Ms. Karamo placed extra emphasis on the 2020 election, often at the expense of other issues more central to voters.They were resoundingly defeated. Republicans also lost control of both chambers of the State Legislature. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic incumbent, sailed to a landslide victory.Republicans across the state were left pointing fingers. The state party blamed Tudor Dixon, the candidate for governor, for an unpopular abortion stance and anemic fund-raising. Ms. Dixon blamed state party leadership. Ms. Maddock blamed big donors for not supporting their candidates. Ms. Karamo refused to concede.A state party autopsy days after the election, made public by Ms. Dixon, acknowledged that “we found ourselves consistently navigating the power struggle between Trump and anti-Trump factions of the party” and that Mr. Trump “provided challenges on a statewide ballot.”Ms. Karamo, who succeeded Ms. Maddock at the helm, pledged to bring in a new donor class. But those donors never materialized. The party has lost money since Ms. Karamo took over, with under $150,000 in the bank as of June 30, according to federal campaign finance records. At the same time four years ago, the party had roughly three times as much cash on hand.Ms. Karamo and Matthew DePerno are prominent election deniers who stepped into the vacuum of leadership at the state party.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesShe has drawn condemnation from both Republicans and Democrats for her social media posts tying gun reforms to the Holocaust and has faced attempts to limit her power.The party has been plagued by infighting. In April, two county leaders were involved in an altercation, with one filing a police report claiming assault, according to video obtained by Bridge Michigan. In July, a brief brawl broke out during a state party gathering. The chairman of the Clare County Republican Party told police he had stress fractures in his spine, bruised ribs and broken dentures as a result of the fight.A memo circulated this month from the executive director and general counsel of the state party, obtained by The Times, warned of a rogue meeting being advertised under the banner of the state party that was “in no manner properly connected to or arising from the true and real Michigan Republican Party.”The issues facing the party extend beyond infighting and fund-raising; this month, Mr. DePerno, as well as a former Republican state representative and a lawyer, were charged with felonies related to a plan to illegally obtain voting machines. They have pleaded not guilty.“Tell me how that helps. Tell me how that helps get the swing voter,” said Ms. McClain. “Voters don’t care about the infighting. The swing voter wants to know, how are your policies going to help me have a better life for my family?”Prominent Michigan Republicans appear content to let the state party wither. Former Gov. Rick Snyder, among the last Republicans elected statewide in Michigan, has begun a fund-raising campaign directing money away from the state party and directly into the House Republican caucus in a desperate attempt to win back at least one chamber of the State Legislature.(The effort bears some similarities to one Gov. Brian Kemp undertook in Georgia, another state where division over Mr. Trump’s election claims hobbled the state party.)Mr. Snyder’s fund-raising, as well as some activity from the DeVos family network, have filled the coffers of the Republican House caucus, led by Matt Hall, the minority leader in the State Legislature whom many party elites are looking to as the de facto leader. The House Republican Caucus, despite being in the minority, is outpacing the House Democratic Caucus in fund-raising this year, with $2.3 million to the Democrats’ $1.7 million.Mr. Hall also has helped fuel 2020 election doubts. (He once was the chairman of a committee hearing featuring the Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani spreading lies about the election.) But he is far more likely to attack Democrats on spending or “pork” projects.Separate from Mr. Hall’s efforts, the DeVos family and other influential donors have begun raising money for congressional and state legislative races only, forgoing any presidential or Senate races, according to Jeff Timmer, a former executive director of the state party.But the problems looming ahead of next year’s election are not just about money.“What can’t be replicated is the manpower infrastructure,” said Mr. Timmer, who now advises the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group. “You can’t just go out and buy the passion and zealousness of people who will go out knock on doors and put up signs and do all those things that require human labor in a campaign.”Prominent Republicans point to the coming Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference as a sign of how far the state party has fallen. It was once a marquee stop for presidential hopefuls looking to make an impression on the critical swing state, and not a single Republican candidate for president in 2024 is scheduled to make an appearance.Instead, the featured speaker at the September conference will be Kari Lake, who lost her race for governor in Arizona and has since claimed her loss was marred by fraud. More

Judith Giuliani, his ex-wife, said, it’s “no longer a home,” while Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer told a judge recently that the former mayor is “close to broke.”Apartment 10W at 45 East 66th Street went up for sale for $6.5 million in July. The prewar apartment includes “an abundance of sunshine, high ceilings, and beautiful hardwood floors,” according to the listing. The layout is “thoughtful and inviting.” The dining room is “ideal for a tranquil breakfast or cozy dinner.” Oh, and “pets are welcome” in this co-op building.The seller, Rudolph W. Giuliani, could certainly use the cash. His lawyer, Adam Katz, filed an article about the apartment being listed for sale as an exhibit to show that Mr. Giuliani, 79, “was close to broke.” That was earlier this month at a court hearing where lawyers for Smartmatic, an election technology company that sued Mr. Giuliani and Fox News in 2021 over false claims of election fraud, argued that Mr. Giuliani was using his financial state as an excuse for not sharing discovery documents.There “are a lot of bills that he’s not paying, from a $57,000 phone bill to significantly more,” Mr. Katz said at the hearing. “I think that this is very humbling for Mr. Giuliani.” It’s a precipitous fall for “America’s Mayor” — the lawsuit is among several legal matters entangling Mr. Giuliani. Last week, he surrendered at an Atlanta jail for the racketeering case against former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Giuliani has been identified as a co-conspirator.The controversies have left stains not just on Mr. Giuliani’s reputation, but on the apartment’s as well. It was raided by the F.B.I. in 2021, overshadowing its walking distance to Nobu and Bergdorf Goodman.Years ago, “it was a very positive thing” to prospective buyers that Mr. Giuliani lived there, said Dolly Lenz, a luxury real estate agent, who has had multiple listings in the co-op.“It was like, it’s America’s mayor, he chose this building — all very good things ascribed to him living in the same building,” she said. But today, Ms. Lenz said she “would suspect it would be wildly different.”The Sotheby’s broker currently listing Mr. Giuliani’s apartment is Serena Boardman who New York magazine once called the “broker to the fallen stars” when she won the task of marketing a different disreputable owner’s property — Bernie Madoff’s Manhattan penthouse. She did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Katz also did not respond.The Giulianis first moved into the apartment in 2002. By then, Mr. Giuliani was a national household name in the wake of 9/11.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe PenthouseJudith Giuliani, Mr. Giuliani’s ex-wife, recalled the apartment’s glory days, which coincided with Mr. Giuliani’s peak as a national household name in the wake of 9/11. By 2002, his mayoral term had ended, and he embarked on his apartment search on the Upper East Side while staying at a hotel, the New York Post reported at the time. He needed a home that matched his heft, and he wouldn’t settle — Ms. Giuliani said that he wanted a top-floor apartment.After some negotiating, they snagged the 66th Street co-op apartment for $4.77 million.“He never even saw the apartment until we had already decided to buy it,” she said, adding that the interior design and decoration was done by her. “I found it, I decorated it, I made it his home.” There, she hosted many luncheons, holidays and charity events — but it was primarily about hosting and entertaining friends and family, not work, Ms. Giuliani said. “It was home for us,” said Ms. Giuliani, 68, who was married to Mr. Giuliani for 15 years. “He was my husband, and he loved coming home,” she said. “It was a place where he went for it to be a respite.” In the paneled library room, Ms. Giuliani installed a special humidifying system and plasma TV for Mr. Giuliani, “where he could smoke cigars and relax and watch his Yankee games.”One of the main appeals of the apartment was that it was “built for entertaining,” Ms. Giuliani said. “The dining room seats 40 people,” she said. “I loved giving my themed luncheons — make an Easter egg for Easter, Valentine’s — I’m known for that, I still do that.” The Giulianis’ guest lists were just as impressive; the Kissingers, Vera Wang and George Pataki, among others, attended the events, she said. Difficult times were spent there too. “Rudy had prostate cancer, when we first met, which we also lived through in that apartment,” Ms. Giuliani said. In 2014, Mr. Giuliani tried to stop the construction of a new penthouse in the building. “It was extremely important to Rudy that he lived in a penthouse,” Judith Giuliani said.Seth Wenig/Associated PressOver the years, Mr. Giuliani’s real estate portfolio also included a Hamptons home which he bought for $3.2 million in 2004, a private locker at the storied Nat Sherman smoking lounge in Midtown Manhattan and two Palm Beach condos — “I’m just going to play some golf and relax,” he told the New York Daily News while in Florida in 2009.But the Upper East Side apartment has remained at the center of his assets. The gothic-style apartment complex was built between 1906 and 1908, and it was designated as a landmark in 1977. When architects applied to build a new penthouse addition at the top of the building, Mr. Giuliani sought to block the construction. In 2014, Curbed reported that Brian Morgenstern, a lawyer for Mr. Giuliani, said that a “penthouse on top of a penthouse on top of a penthouse” would be too much. The concern, on Mr. Giuliani’s part, was perhaps because at the time, his apartment was on the top floor, and he didn’t want to lose his own penthouse status.“At the time that we bought it, it was a penthouse. It was extremely important to Rudy that he lived in a penthouse,” she said. The new addition was approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.Mr. Giuliani was no longer at the top.The Giulianis got married in 2003, but divorce proceedings were underway by 2018. “I’m sad to know that the hero of 9/11 has become a liar,” Ms. Giuliani told The Times in 2019.Matthew Peyton/Getty Images‘I Wish Rudy Well.’His marriage would soon wane.By 2018, Ms. Giuliani filed for divorce. Mr. Giuliani’s dealings with Mr. Trump were well underway and public opinion started to turn against him. “I’m sad to know that the hero of 9/11 has become a liar,” Ms. Giuliani told The Times in 2019, of the legal battle to get from the divorce what she felt she was owed.Though she had decorated the apartment and had fond memories of her parties, “I wanted to move on,” said Ms. Giuliani, who is represented by the lawyer Dror Bikel. “He was, after all, the Mayor of the City of New York, at one point a very well respected one. So, it seemed logical that he would have that apartment.”But it’s “no longer a home,” Ms. Giuliani said. His decision to film in the library for a podcast series in 2020 “gobsmacked me.” And then came the search by the F.B.I., as part of a criminal investigation into his Ukraine dealings as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer. “No matter how things ended up, there were many, many, many happy memories in that apartment,” said Ms. Giuliani. “And I wish the next person well, and I wish Rudy well.” Alain Delaquérière More

With much of his racial equity agenda thwarted by Congress or the courts, President Biden is trying to close an enthusiasm gap among the voters who helped deliver him to the White House.During a recent town hall with the Congressional Black Caucus, Vice President Kamala Harris offered a gut check to the 200 people who had gathered to take stock of the state of civil rights in America.“We are looking at a full-on attack on our hard-fought, hard-won freedoms,” Ms. Harris told the crowd, which erupted in applause as she spoke. “So much is at stake,” she said of the 2024 presidential election, “including our very democracy.”In 2020, President Biden promised Black voters he would deliver a sweeping “racial equity” agenda that included a landmark federal voting rights bill, student loan relief, criminal justice reform and more. Three years later, with much of that agenda thwarted by Congress or the courts, the White House is looking for new ways to re-energize a crucial constituency that helped propel Mr. Biden to the presidency.That means describing the stakes of the election in stark terms, as Ms. Harris did over the summer in Boston, arguing that the Republican Party is trying to reverse generations of racial progress in America. But Mr. Biden is also asking voters to judge him on a series of achievements that benefit Black Americans — but that are hardly the marquee promises from the early days of his administration.In recent weeks, the Biden administration has gone out of its way to highlight its economic accomplishments, which include the lowest Black unemployment rate on record and the fastest creation rate of Black-owned small businesses in over 25 years. It has pointed to social policy efforts, such as increased enrollment in Obamacare and closing the digital divide, as examples of real impacts on the Black community.Vice President Kamala Harris has defended the administration’s racial equity policies.David Degner for The New York TimesIn an opinion essay published on Sunday in The Washington Post, marking the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, Mr. Biden said his stewardship of the economy — a top concern among Black voters — was helping to fulfill the nation’s promise of equality.The president wrote that his administration was “advancing equity in everything we do making unprecedented investments in all of America, including for Black Americans.”Administration officials acknowledge that some of those advances may not immediately resonate with a population that sees its constitutional rights under assault. While polls show continued strong support for Mr. Biden among Black voters, there are growing concerns about an enthusiasm gap among the most loyal constituencies in the Democratic Party.Neera Tanden, Mr. Biden’s domestic policy adviser, said the president was focused on dismantling inequities that had been embedded for decades.“I think we’ll have a transformative change,” Ms. Tanden said, pointing to executive orders Mr. Biden signed in his first days in office, which directed federal agencies to consider racial equity when it comes to the distribution of money and benefits.But, she added, “it won’t be something millions of people feel in a minute.”For Black Americans like Maeia Corbett, the promises of future benefits ring hollow.“Looking at these promises that this administration has made, it’s like a whirlwind,” said Ms. Corbett, 27. “What can I grasp onto when all of these things are being taken from me?”Ms. Corbett, who graduated from college just months before the coronavirus pandemic brought student loan payments to a pause, had been banking on Mr. Biden’s promise to cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt for millions of borrowers.When the Supreme Court ruled in June that Mr. Biden’s plan was unconstitutional, Ms. Corbett, like many Black Americans, felt a familiar sting of disappointment. The fact that the decision came just 24 hours after the court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, a longstanding mechanism for economic and social mobility for Black people, was almost disorienting.“It’s like you get to the steps of equity and the steps are torn down,” she said.Ms. Corbett’s sentiments are a warning sign for the president, who has tied the success of his presidency to racial progress. Mr. Biden has said he would use the power of his office to address inequity in housing, criminal justice, voting rights, health care, education and economic mobility.“I’m not promising we can end it tomorrow,” Mr. Biden said in January 2021. “But I promise you: We’re going to continue to make progress to eliminate systemic racism, and every branch of the White House and the federal government is going to be part of that effort.”Melanie L. Campbell, the president of the nonpartisan National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, said Black women — widely credited with securing Mr. Biden’s win — could see tangible progress in historic appointments of Black women to cabinet positions and the federal judiciary, including Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. But the courts, conservative activists and a bitterly divided Congress have curtailed a lot of Mr. Biden’s agenda. Lawsuits have held up the administration’s efforts to forgive the debts of Black and other minority farmers after years of discrimination. Congress has blocked two signature pieces of legislation Mr. Biden championed, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. And conservative groups have vowed to pursue legislation challenging Mr. Biden’s plans to prioritize race-conscious policies throughout the federal government.Now, with aides describing him as frustrated over the setbacks, Mr. Biden is taking pains to cast the election as a choice between his agenda and the extremism of “MAGA Republicans,” or those loyal to former President Donald J. Trump.“My dad used to say: ‘Joey, don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative,’” Mr. Biden says in a common refrain.Cedric Richmond, a co-chairman of the Biden campaign, said the campaign would emphasize that Mr. Biden should not be blamed for the Supreme Court decisions. “It’s the court that just rolled back equity, and we’re going to point to it,” he said.The Biden administration has pointed to social policy efforts as examples of real impacts on the Black community.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesA recent Axios survey of more than 780 college students and recent graduates found that 47 percent of voters blamed the Supreme Court for student loans not being forgiven, 38 percent blamed Republicans and 10 percent blamed Mr. Biden.Still, polls show that Black voters under 30 have far less enthusiasm for Mr. Biden than their elders do.Mary-Pat Hector, the chief executive of Rise, a student advocacy organization that has pushed for student debt relief and college affordability, said the disillusionment among young voters was real. On issues like student loan debt and climate, Ms. Hector said, all the voters see are “things we were told were going to happen that just haven’t happened.”“When it comes to Gen Z,” she said, “they don’t forget, and it’s hard for them to forgive.”In the meantime, the White House says it has not given up on its most ambitious goals.This month, the Education and Justice Departments released guidance for how colleges should navigate the affirmative action decision, urging them to continue to strive for diversity. And the Education Department is preparing to start new loan programs, while delivering billions in loan relief by fixing existing programs that have long disenfranchised Black borrowers. And dozens of federal agencies are working through “equity action plans” tackling everything from disparities in home appraisals to maternal mortality.Stephen K. Benjamin, Mr. Biden’s director of public engagement, said he believed the administration’s economic record would resonate, even as he acknowledged that the White House needed help from Congress to make good on its broader agenda.“I do believe when the rubber hits the road,” he said, “people will pay more attention to these dramatic investments in their quality of life.”Lennore Vinnie, 53, said she felt the administration was looking out for people like her.Having benefited from affirmative action when she entered the white, male-dominated information technology field in the 1990s, Ms. Vinnie, a single mother of two, incurred $280,000 in student loan debt after years of pursuing a doctoral degree to advance to a senior leadership position. Some of the debt was acquired at predatory for-profit colleges.Lennore Vinnie is applying for loan relief through forgiveness programs that were not affected by the Supreme Court ruling.Carlos Bernate for The New York Times“I know for me, as an African American woman, you can never have too many degrees or too many credentials,” she said, “because that way I take away all your reasons for not putting me in the position.”Ms. Vinnie, who ultimately obtained her doctorate and her promotion, is applying for relief through loan forgiveness programs that were not affected by the Supreme Court ruling.Ms. Harris’s appearance before the Congressional Black Caucus in Boston encapsulated the administration’s strategy moving forward: highlighting its progress while rallying a community to remember — and repeat — history.In Boston, the crowd was rapt, shouting “preach!” as she called out “extremist so-called leaders” who sought to distract from the nation’s legacy of slavery and systemic racism.Ms. Harris then reminded the room that Black voters drove Mr. Biden to win the presidency in 2020, and made her the first Black vice president. “The future of America,” she said, “has always relied on the folks who are in this room.” More

Nikki Haley, fresh off a strong debate performance last week, was back on the trail and took a moment to condemn the weekend shooting in Jacksonville, Fla.Breaking from her usual stump speech at a South Carolina town hall event on Monday, Nikki Haley paused to condemn a deadly weekend rampage in Jacksonville, Fla., that the authorities were investigating as a hate crime.“I am not going to lie to you, it takes me back to a dark place,” Ms. Haley told an audience of roughly 1,000 people gathered in a corporate campus auditorium in Indian Land. “There is no place for hate in America.”Ms. Haley was governor in 2015 when a white supremacist opened fire in an African American church in Charleston, S.C., and killed nine Black parishioners at a Bible study. Ms. Haley eventually called for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol. She later described struggling with the beginning effects of post-traumatic stress disorder in response to the shooting, but she said that the victims’ families showed her what strength and grace looked like.Ms. Haley also toed the Republican Party line on guns and racism, suggesting that such violence and mass shootings could be prevented if Americans improved mental health services, abided by gun laws and rejected division and hate in their everyday lives.She renewed her calls for the need to reverse what she often describes as a “national self-loathing,” or the idea that “America is bad or that America is rotten or that it is racist.”“Don’t fall into the narrative that this is a racist country,” she told the mostly white and graying crowd, citing her own election in 2010 as the first woman and person of color to lead the state as progress. “It was only 60 years ago today that Martin Luther King gave that speech. Look at how far we have come.”The way Ms. Haley, a former United Nations ambassador, and other Republican presidential candidates tend to downplay structural racism and prejudice — and to focus on the nation’s racial progress — puts them at odds with most Black voters.On Monday, Ms. Haley’s home state rival in the presidential race, Senator Tim Scott, called the Florida rampage “heinous.” He said that the killings had prompted patrons at his church service to discuss “the absolute devastation” in 2015 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.Asked whether the Republican Party had done enough to denounce white supremacist violence, Mr. Scott argued that it was the duty of every American, regardless of party affiliation, to do their part. “The question is, Have humans done enough to talk about racism and discrimination that leads to violence and to death,” he said.Ms. Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy during the debate last week.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesOn Monday, Ms. Haley was back in her home state for a victory lap after a strong performance in the first Republican primary debate. In recent days, her polling numbers have climbed, and top donors have seen her as a standout. So many people packed into her town hall at the CrossRidge Center in Indian Land that attendees filled a balcony and an overflow room.As they return to the campaign trail, Ms. Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and political newcomer, have continued the clashes they started on the debate stage, where they tussled over policy on China, Israel and the war in Ukraine. Mr. Ramaswamy has unveiled his foreign policy platform, and on his website, he accuses Ms. Haley of lying about his stances on Israel, and calls her by her first and maiden last name, Nimarata Randhawa. For her part, Ms. Haley did not mention Mr. Ramaswamy by name, but she elicited loud laughter from the audience on Monday when she asked voters if they had watched the debate.“Bless his heart,” she said. “I know I wear a skirt. But y’all see me at work. If you say something that is totally off the wall, I am going to call you out on it.”Leaving the town hall, Ross Payne, 62, a former managing director for Wells Fargo, said that he supported Ms. Haley, whom he called the “Iron Lady,” a reference to Margaret Thatcher and a hero of Ms. Haley. But he said he had been somewhat disappointed with her answer to his question on whether she would be willing to pull from both sides of the political aisle to regulate guns and automatic weapons.Ms. Haley said that though she worried about her own children, people should have the ability to protect themselves, and that she would improve access to mental health services and ensure that people arrested for gun violations stay behind bars.“Like with abortion, can’t we all agree that if you want an AR semiautomatic weapon, you’ve got to go through two or three weeks of training and extensive vetting before you can get your hands on a weapon like that?” Mr. Payne said, echoing Ms. Haley’s calls at the debate for consensus on abortion. “A weapon that can kill, you know, 10 people in 10 seconds.”Maya King More

“To the American people’s chagrin, we will have to leave the rapping to the real Slim Shady,” Mr. Ramaswamy’s spokesman said after the campaign received a cease-and-desist letter.As it turned out, Vivek Ramaswamy only got one shot to lose himself in the music.Marshall B. Mathers III, better known as the rapper Eminem, has told Mr. Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential candidate, that he is no longer to use Eminem music on the campaign trail, just weeks after Mr. Ramaswamy broke into an impromptu version of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” at the Iowa State Fair.The licensing arm of Mr. Mathers’s record company, BMI, informed the Ramaswamy campaign in a letter dated Wednesday and reprinted in The Daily Mail on Monday that “BMI will consider any performance of the Eminem works by the Vivek 2024 campaign from this date forward to be a material breach” of the firm’s licensing rules, “for which BMI reserves all rights and remedies with respect thereto.”The Ramaswamy campaign didn’t put up a fight. And it wasn’t a regular thing, this Eminem rap-along. At the fair, Mr. Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old political newcomer, had told Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa that his favorite “walk off” song was “Lose Yourself,” and an enterprising sound technician blared it over the fair’s loud speaker. The candidate picked up the mic and joined in.“Vivek just got on the stage and cut loose,” his campaign spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, said on Monday. “To the American people’s chagrin, we will have to leave the rapping to the real Slim Shady,” another of Mr. Mathers’s noms de plume.Though Mr. Ramaswamy has professed his love for Eminem, the breakup was probably inevitable. Mr. Ramaswamy has clung more tightly to Donald J. Trump and his brand of right-wing populism than any other candidate in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and Eminem is no fan of the former president. In 2017, Eminem famously performed a freestyle protest against Mr. Trump, calling him “a kamikaze that’ll probably cause a nuclear holocaust.” More

Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, told a judge he believed his actions regarding the 2020 election fell within the scope of his job as a federal official.A battle over whether to move the Georgia racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies to federal court began in earnest on Monday, when Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, testified in favor of such a move before a federal judge in Atlanta.Under questioning by his own lawyers and by prosecutors, Mr. Meadows stated emphatically that he believed that his actions detailed in the indictment fell within the scope of his duties as chief of staff. But he also appeared unsure of himself at times, saying often that he could not recall details of events in late 2020 and early 2021. “My wife will tell you sometimes that I forget to take out the trash,” he told Judge Steve C. Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.At another point during the daylong hearing, he asked whether he was properly complying with the judge’s instructions, saying, “I’m in enough trouble as it is.”The effort to shift the case to federal court is the first major legal fight since the indictment of Mr. Trump, Mr. Meadows and 17 others was filed by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga. The indictment charges Mr. Trump and his allies with interfering in the 2020 presidential election in the state. Mr. Meadows is one of several defendants who are trying to move the case; any ruling on the issue could apply to all 19 defendants.Mr. Meadows testified that Mr. Trump directed him to set up the now-famous phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state. During the call — a focus of the case — Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Raffensperger and said he wanted to “find” nearly 12,000 more Trump votes, enough to reverse his defeat in Georgia.Mr. Meadows said Mr. Trump wanted to make the call because he believed that fraud had occurred, and wanted to resolve questions about the ballot signature verification process. “We all want accurate elections,” Mr. Meadows said at one point.Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican who is the state’s top elections official, also testified after being subpoenaed by the prosecution. He recounted how he had ignored earlier calls from Mr. Meadows — he said he “didn’t think it was appropriate” to talk to him while Mr. Trump was contesting the state’s results — and initially tried to avoid the Jan. 2 call with Mr. Trump. Under questioning by the prosecution, he characterized it as “a campaign call.”“Outreach to this extent was extraordinary,” he said of the calls from Mr. Meadows and Mr. Trump.Monday’s hearing marked a dramatic inflection point in the case: Mr. Meadows, one of the highest-profile defendants, faced Fulton County prosecutors for the first time. Mr. Raffensperger recounted the threats against him, his wife and election workers after Mr. Trump made unfounded allegations about Georgia voter fraud. And Mr. Trump’s distinctive voice filled the courtroom as prosecutors played snippets of the Jan. 2 call.“We won the state,” Mr. Trump said.If the effort to move the case to federal court succeeds, it could benefit the Trump side by broadening the jury pool beyond Fulton County into outlying counties where the former president has somewhat more support.It could also slow down at least some of the proceedings. If the case remains in state court, three of the defendants are likely to face trial starting in October. Kenneth Chesebro has already been granted an early trial, and Sidney Powell has sought the same. A lawyer for John Eastman, another defendant, has said he, too, will seek a speedy trial.Removing a case to federal court requires persuading a judge that the actions under scrutiny were carried out by federal officers as part of their official business. Earlier this year, Mr. Trump failed in his attempt to move a New York State criminal case against him to federal court; his argument in that case was seen as particularly tenuous.Mr. Meadows was cross-examined by Anna Cross, a veteran prosecutor who has worked for district attorneys in three Atlanta area counties. She continually pressed him on what kind of federal policy or interest he was advancing in carrying out what prosecutors have described in court documents as political acts in service of the Trump campaign — and thus not grounds for removal to federal court.Mr. Meadows and his lawyers argue that the job of chief of staff sometimes seeps into the realm of politics by its very nature, and that the local district attorney is essentially operating beyond her power by seeking to delineate what a powerful federal official’s job should and should not be.Ms. Cross noted to Mr. Meadows that he had visited suburban Cobb County, Ga., where a ballot audit was taking place, after a meeting with William P. Barr, who was then the U.S. attorney general. During the meeting, Mr. Barr dismissed election fraud claims as unsupported by facts. Mr. Meadows replied that in his mind, there were still allegations worthy of investigation.The arguments echoed those made in filings before the hearing by the prosecution and Mr. Meadows’s lawyers. Mr. Meadows, along with all 18 other defendants, is charged with racketeering. Along with Mr. Trump, he is also accused of soliciting Mr. Raffensperger to violate his oath of office. (Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, has written that he felt he was being pressured to “fudge the numbers.”)During his testimony, Mr. Meadows discussed the trip he made to Cobb County during its audit of signatures on mail-in absentee ballots. He was turned away after trying to get into the room where state investigators were verifying the signatures. Mr. Meadows said he had been in the area visiting his children who live there, and went to the auditing location because he was “anticipating” that Mr. Trump would eventually bring up the Cobb County review. He said what he found was “a very professional operation.”The case continues to move forward in state court. On Monday, the judge, Scott McAfee, scheduled arraignments of Mr. Trump and the other defendants for Sept. 6. It is possible that some or all of the arraignments will not be conducted in person, given the heightened security requirements involving a former president.For the next few weeks at least, the case will be wrangled by two different judges working in courthouses a few blocks apart in downtown Atlanta. Judge McAfee, of Fulton County Superior Court, is an appointee of Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and a member of the conservative Federalist Society, though he also once worked for Ms. Willis and is well regarded by many lawyers on both sides of the case.Judge Jones, an Obama appointee, has been moving quickly regarding the removal question. In 2019, he upheld Georgia’s purge of nearly 100,000 names from its voter rolls, over the objections of liberal activists. In 2020, he blocked a six-week abortion ban from taking effect in the state.The Georgia case is the fourth criminal indictment of Mr. Trump this year. If Mr. Trump is elected president again, he could theoretically try to pardon himself for any federal convictions. But regardless of whether the Georgia case is tried in state or federal court, it concerns state crimes, which are beyond the pardon power of presidents.Christian Boone More

For Republicans in 2008, he briefly became a symbol of Middle America when he questioned the presidential candidate Barack Obama in a televised encounter.Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, who briefly became “Joe the Plumber,” the metaphorical American middle-class Everyman, by injecting himself into the 2008 presidential campaign in an impromptu nationally-televised face-off with Barack Obama over taxing small businesses, died on Sunday at his home in Campbellsport, Wis., about 60 miles north of Milwaukee. He was 49.The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, his wife, Katie Wurzelbacher, said.Mr. Obama, then a United States senator from Illinois, was campaigning on Shrewsbury Street, in a working-class neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio, on Sunday, Oct. 12, 2008, when Mr. Wurzelbacher interrupted a football catch with his son in his front yard to mosey over and ask the Democratic nominee about his proposed tax increase for some small businesses.During a cordial but largely inconclusive five-minute colloquy in front of news cameras, Mr. Wurzelbacher said he was concerned about being subjected to a bigger tax bite just as he was approaching the point where he could finally afford to buy a plumbing business, which he said would generate an income of $250,000 a year.Three days later, “Joe the Plumber,” as he was popularized by Mr. Obama’s Republican rival, Senator John McCain, was invoked some two dozen times during the final debate of the presidential campaign.Mr. Wurzelbacher became a folk hero of sorts during the campaign’s final weeks, particularly among McCain supporters and conservative commentators who cottoned to his remarks that Mr. Obama’s share-the-wealth prescriptions for the economy were akin to socialism or even communism and contradicted the American dream. Mr. McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, also jumped in, appearing onstage with Mr. Wurzelbacher at rallies.Mr. Wurzelbacher during his encounter with Barack Obama in Ohio in early October 2008. Captured by television cameras, the moment thrust Mr. Wurzelbacher, labeled “Joe the Plumber,” briefly into the national spotlight.Jae C. Hong/Associated PressBut by Election Day, his tenure as a burly, bald, iron-jawed John Doe eroded as the public learned that he was not a licensed plumber (he could work in Toledo only for someone with a master’s license or in outlying areas) and owed $1,200 in back taxes.He flirted with supporting Mr. McCain but later referred to him as “the lesser of two evils” on the ballot and never revealed for whom he had voted that November.“Let’s still keep that private,” his wife said by phone on Monday.In 2012, Mr. Wurzelbacher won the Republican nomination to challenge Representative Marcy Kaptur, the Democratic incumbent in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, but was crushed in the general election, winning only 23 percent of the vote to her 73 percent.During that campaign, he released a video defending the Second Amendment and blaming gun control as having helped enable the Ottoman Empire to commit genocide against Armenians in the early 20th century and Nazi Germany to carry out the Holocaust, saying gun laws had stripped the victims in both cases of the ability to defend themselves.Again defending a right to bear arms, he wrote to parents of the victims of a mass shooting in 2014 in Isla Vista, Calif., near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara, saying, “As harsh as this sounds — your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.”Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher was born on Dec. 3, 1973, to Frank and Kay (Bloomfield) Wurzelbacher. His mother was a waitress, his father a disabled war veteran.After high school, he enlisted in the Air Force, where he was trained in plumbing. He was discharged in 1996, and worked as a plumber’s assistant as well as for a telecommunications company.Capitalizing on his celebrity after the 2008 election, he appeared in TV commercials promoting digital television; published a book, “Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream” (2009, with Thomas Tabback); and covered the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza in 2009 for PJ Media, a conservative website. In 2014, he went to work in a Jeep plant.In addition to his wife, who had been Katie Schanen when they married, he is survived by a son, Samuel Jr., from his first marriage, which ended in divorce; and three children from his second marriage, Samantha Jo, Henry and Sarah Jo.Although Mr. Wurzelbacher ended his encounter with Mr. Obama by shaking hands with him, he didn’t seem satisfied by the candidate’s response to how his tax proposal would affect a small plumbing business.“If you’re a small business — which you would qualify, first of all — you would get a 50 percent tax credit, so you’d get a cut in taxes for your health care costs,” Mr. Obama explained. And if his business’s revenue were below $250,000, he added, its taxes would not go up.“It’s not that I want to punish your success; I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success, too,” Mr. Obama added. “My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody.“If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off,” he continued. “If you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you — and right now everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody — and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”Mr. Wurzelbacher was unpersuaded.“It’s my discretion who I want to give my money to,” he would later say repeatedly. “It’s not for the government to decide that I make a little too much, and so I need to share it with other people. That’s not the American dream.”Ms. Wurzelbacher insisted on Monday that her husband’s encounter with Mr. Obama in 2008 was completely spontaneous, not staged by Republican operatives or anyone else, and that Mr. Obama’s appearance in the neighborhood had actually been arranged by a neighbor down the block.“It was completely coincidental,” she said. “It always amazed him that one question thrust him into the national spotlight.” More

Judge Tanya S. Chutkan rejected efforts by the former president’s legal team to postpone the trial until 2026.A federal judge on Monday set a trial date of March 4 in the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, rebuffing Mr. Trump’s proposal to push it off until 2026.The decision by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to start the trial in March amounted to an early victory for prosecutors, who had asked for Jan. 2. But it potentially brought the proceeding into conflict with the three other trials that Mr. Trump is facing, underscoring the extraordinary complexities of his legal situation and the intersection of the prosecutions with his campaign to return to the White House.The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has proposed taking Mr. Trump to trial on charges of tampering with the election in that state on March 4 as well. Another case, in Manhattan, in which Mr. Trump has been accused of more than 30 felonies connected to hush-money payments to a porn actress in the run-up to the 2016 election, has been scheduled to go to trial on March 25.And if the trial in Washington lasts more than 11 weeks, it could bump up against Mr. Trump’s other federal trial, on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left office and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them. That trial is scheduled to begin in Florida in late May.The March 4 date set by Judge Chutkan for the federal election case at a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington is the day before Super Tuesday, when 15 states are scheduled to hold Republican primaries or caucuses.Judge Chutkan said that while she understood Mr. Trump had both other trial dates scheduled next year and, at the same time, was running for the country’s highest office, she was not going to let the intersection of his legal troubles and his political campaign get in the way of setting a date.“Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule,” Judge Chutkan said, adding that “there is a societal interest to a speedy trial.”Mr. Trump has now been indicted by grand juries four times in four places — Washington, New York, Atlanta and Florida — and prosecutors have been jockeying for position. All of them are trying to find time for their trials not only in relation to one another, but also against the backdrop of Mr. Trump’s crowded calendar as the candidate leading the field for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.While Judge Chutkan noted that she had spoken to the judge in the Manhattan case, it remained unclear how the judges, prosecutors and defense teams would address the problem of scheduling four criminal trials next year as Mr. Trump is campaigning.Hammering home the complexities, Judge Chutkan’s decision came the same day that Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former chief of staff and a co-defendant in the Georgia indictment, testified in his bid to move his case to federal court, a step that could slow down at least some of the proceedings there.Before a federal judge in Atlanta, Mr. Meadows argued that his actions in the indictment fell within the scope of his duties as chief of staff, even while saying often that he could not recall details of events in late 2020 and early 2021. He is one of several defendants trying to move the case; any ruling on the issue could apply to all 19 defendants.After Judge Chutkan’s decision in Washington, Mr. Trump said in a social media post that he would appeal, though it was not clear what grounds he would be able to cite, given that scheduling decisions are not generally subject to challenges to higher courts before a conviction is returned.The former president has made no secret in conversations with his aides that he would like to solve his uniquely complicated legal woes by winning the election. If either of his two federal trials is delayed until after the race and Mr. Trump prevails, he could seek to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the matters altogether.In remarks from the bench, Judge Chutkan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, dismissed arguments made by Mr. Trump’s lawyers that they needed until April 2026 to prepare for the trial given the voluminous amount of discovery they will have to sort through. That extended period, the judge said, was “far beyond what is necessary” to prepare even for a trial of this magnitude.As part of the hearing on Monday, John F. Lauro, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, previewed some of his defense case, identifying several motions that he and his colleague, Todd Blanche, planned to file on Mr. Trump’s behalf.Mr. Lauro said he could file a motion as soon as next week arguing that Mr. Trump was immune to the charges, given that the indictment against him covers a period when he served as the nation’s commander in chief.Mr. Lauro also said he was considering attacking the charges with a so-called selective prosecution motion. That motion, he said, would argue that Mr. Trump’s election interference indictment — brought by a special counsel appointed by the Biden administration — had been filed at least in part as retaliation for the federal investigation of Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, which began in earnest during the Trump administration.Moreover, Mr. Lauro told Judge Chutkan that he was planning to challenge each of the three conspiracy counts in the indictment brought against Mr. Trump early this month by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith. Those counts accuse Mr. Trump of plotting to defraud the United States, to disrupt the certification of the election at a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, and to deprive people of the right to have their vote counted.“In our view, this is a political prosecution,” Mr. Lauro said.Still, the issues surrounding the schedule of the trial took center stage at the 90-minute hearing, which Mr. Smith attended.Prosecutors working for Mr. Smith have said in court papers that the government could take four to six weeks to present its case to the judge, with Mr. Trump’s lawyers estimating a roughly similar amount of time.That timetable would push the trial well past the March 25 date that Justice Juan M. Merchan has set for the Manhattan trial and could edge close to or even beyond the May 20 date set for Mr. Trump’s federal trial in Florida.Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, signaled recently that he would be open to seeing the trial date for the Manhattan case moved, provided Justice Merchan agreed.Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the New York court system, said in a statement: “Justice Merchan and Judge Chutkan spoke last Thursday regarding their respective upcoming trials. At this time, there is nothing further to impart regarding the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump.”A spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga.In the federal election case, Mr. Trump’s lawyers began complaining two weeks ago about the amount of evidence they would have to wade through as part of the discovery process when they first made their request to postpone the trial until April 2026 in court papers submitted to Judge Chutkan.Mr. Lauro echoed that position in court on Monday. He took a sometimes aggressive tone in declaring that his client deserved a fair trial “no different than any American.”“For a federal prosecutor to suggest that we could go to trial in four months is not only absurd, it’s a violation of the oath of justice,” Mr. Lauro said, adding, “We cannot do this in the time frame the government has outlined.”In their own court papers, prosecutors had pushed back against Mr. Lauro’s protests about burdensome discovery, noting that much of the material was publicly available or known to Mr. Trump, having come from his 2020 presidential campaign or from political action committees associated with it.Molly Gaston, one of the prosecutors in the case, added a few new details to the portrait of the discovery evidence on Monday, noting that even though the total number of pages had reached about 12.8 million, the defense could go through it electronically with keyword searches.Ms. Gaston also said the government had created a file of about 300 key documents that served to annotate the 45-page indictment prosecutors filed against Mr. Trump early this month.“It is essentially a road map to our case,” she said.One of Ms. Gaston’s colleagues, Thomas P. Windom, told Judge Chutkan that the discovery evidence would include “a limited amount” of classified information, including about five to 10 sensitive documents, totaling fewer than 100 pages, and a 125-page transcript of an interview with a witness during which classified issues were discussed.Mr. Windom asserted, however, that prosecutors did not expect to introduce any of the classified material during the trial.In seeking to persuade Judge Chuktan to move quickly to trial, Ms. Gaston reminded her that Mr. Trump had repeatedly attacked the “integrity of the court and the citizens of D.C.” on social media in ways that could affect the case’s jury pool.At a hearing last month, Judge Chutkan warned Mr. Trump that she would not tolerate him using social media posts to intimidate witnesses or taint potential jurors. Within days of that admonition, Mr. Trump tested Judge Chutkan’s resolve by making more dubious posts.During the hearing on Monday, Judge Chutkan sought to calm Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Mr. Lauro, cautioning him twice to turn down the “temperature” when he was speaking.At one point, she appeared upset by the way that Mr. Lauro in his filings about the trial schedule had cited Powell v. Alabama, a landmark 1932 Supreme Court decision that reversed the convictions of the Scottsboro Boys, nine young Black men who were falsely accused of raping a white woman.Judge Chutkan pointed out that Mr. Trump would face trial in seven months after he was indicted, compared with only one week in the Alabama case.The two cases, she added, were “profoundly different” at their core.Jonah E. Bromwich More