Elections

Former President Donald J. Trump has made it known that he will not concede even a moment of the spotlight to his 2024 rivals.On Saturday, just as Gov. Ron DeSantis was working the pork tent at the Iowa State Fair — a rite of passage for presidential aspirants — Mr. Trump’s private plane flew noisily within spitting distance of the fairgrounds.Another plane circled the fairgrounds earlier in the day with a “Be likable, Ron!” banner trailing behind. The exclamation point was designed to look like the logo of a previous Florida governor that Mr. Trump dispatched in 2016, Jeb Bush.The Trump campaign wouldn’t take credit for the plane, though it heavily promoted the stunt. “I direct all inquiries to Generra Peck,” said Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s spokesman, referring to the campaign manager that Mr. DeSantis replaced this week.In the weeks leading up to the state fair, Mr. Trump has been on rocky terms with leaders in Iowa, including the state’s popular governor, Kim Reynolds, but he is well suited to the old-school politicking and political theater for which the event is known. On Saturday, he met a much warmer reception than Mr. DeSantis, his leading rival, who has struggled to connect with voters in more unscripted moments — a vulnerability Mr. Trump took advantage of on the fairgrounds.In another effort to poke Mr. DeSantis, the former president brought along a host of prominent Florida Republicans who have endorsed him over their governor. “We got pork that’s more well done than Ron DeSantis,” said Representative Matt Gaetz, a former DeSantis ally who is backing Mr. Trump in 2024 and was wearing a shirt that said “Florida man.”As Trump walked into the pork grilling area — wearing a white shirt with cuff links, no tie and a suit — he was handed a pork chop on a stick. He briefly held it aloft before offering it to a right-wing television personality nearby, who proceeded to eat it.Later, Mr. Trump spoke inside the Steer N’ Stein beer building, which advertises its extra cold 27-degree brews and on Saturday had a “MAGA Meal Day” special of “$24 for 2024” that included a double cheeseburger, “freedom fries” and a coke.Before he took the stage, Mr. Trump’s team handed out leaflets attacking Mr. DeSantis for his position on agricultural issues, calling him an “utter catastrophe” for farmers. The handouts were a reminder of the asymmetry of the unfolding primary: Day after day, Mr. Trump and his team rip Mr. DeSantis, who has mostly tried to disengage with the former president, lest he anger the sizable portion of the party that likes Mr. Trump but that he still hopes to win over.Mr. DeSantis wasn’t winning over Trump supporters on Saturday. They booed him as he strolled by the beer hall with his daughter on his shoulders, before Mr. Trump arrived.Reid J. Epstein More

Looking to contrast himself with former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — leading rivals in the race for the Republican nomination who converged on Iowa on Saturday — former Vice President Mike Pence made a play for civility politics during a round table with about two dozen Christian college and university presidents.When Mr. Pence arrived at the event in Ankeny, Iowa, Mary Jo Brown, 67, told the former vice president that he was “a man of integrity.”A former teacher at Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary, a private Christian school, Ms. Brown said in an interview that Mr. Pence’s faith had guided his decision-making on Jan. 6 and that she would support him “if he can get through.”Mr. Pence is polling at a distant sixth place in Iowa, according to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, far behind contenders like Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis, who are commanding attention in Iowa this weekend with their brasher style of politicking.Since the latest indictment against Mr. Trump came down, which revealed that Mr. Pence had provided prosecutors with “contemporaneous notes” regarding the former president’s efforts to reverse his 2020 loss, Mr. Pence has been emphasizing his loyalty to the Constitution — and invoking his faith as he tries to win the support of the evangelical voters he is counting on to propel him in the 2024 primary.But polling shows that Mr. Pence has the same 3 percent support among white evangelicals in Iowa that he has among the larger field of Republican caucusgoers.On Saturday, Mr. Pence cast himself as a key figure in the appointment of three conservatives to the Supreme Court by Mr. Trump, telling the Christian education leaders that he had interviewed each justice — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — as vice president.“You can have confidence that we have a pro-religious majority on the Supreme Court,” he said.Mr. Pence also shared an anecdote at the event about being invited in 2010 to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., by his then-House colleague John Lewis to commemorate Bloody Sunday.Noting their political differences, he called the civil rights leader, who died in July 2020, a “great man” and said that they had a mutual respect for each other as men of faith. That’s a stark contrast from how Mr. Trump played down Mr. Lewis’s accomplishments after his death.“He didn’t come to my inauguration,” Mr. Trump said at the time. More

Although some G.O.P. lawmakers see the appointment of David C. Weiss as a vindication of their strategy, others criticize the now-scuttled plea deal he struck with Mr. Biden.Congressional Republicans have for months repeatedly written to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland demanding he appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, the president’s son, over his business dealings.Some even demanded that a specific man be named to lead the inquiry: David C. Weiss, the Trump-appointed Delaware U.S. attorney who has long investigated the case.But on Friday, after Mr. Garland elevated Mr. Weiss to special counsel status, Republicans in Congress reacted publicly not with triumph, but with outrage. “David Weiss can’t be trusted and this is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family’s corruption,” Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.The reaction was a notable political development, one that underscored both how Mr. Weiss, a Republican, has fallen in conservative circles, and how deeply it has become ingrained in the G.O.P. to oppose the Justice Department at every turn.“The reality is this appointment is meant to distract from, and slow down, our investigations,” said Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri and chairman of Ways and Means, one of three congressional committees looking into the Biden family’s finances.But in interviews, away from social media and television appearances, the reaction of many Republicans to Mr. Weiss’s appointment was more nuanced. Privately, some in the G.O.P. were chalking up the development as a victory.The party had worked for years to elevate the Hunter Biden case — which Democrats have long dismissed as a partisan obsession of the right — to a scandal equivalent to those dogging former President Donald J. Trump, who has faced two impeachment trials, two special counsel investigations and three indictments totaling 78 felony counts against him. Those indictments include charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and willfully retaining national defense information after he left office.By contrast, Hunter Biden has thus far been accused of two misdemeanor crimes stemming from his failure to pay taxes on more than $1.5 million in income related to his overseas business deals, and one felony count of illegally possessing a firearm while being a drug user.After leaving his job as a lobbyist while his father was running to become vice president more than a decade ago, Hunter Biden, a Yale-educated lawyer, and partners entered into a series of international business relationships, often with firms seeking influence and access within the United States. Mr. Biden was paid handsomely, even as he descended into drug addiction, and Republicans have accused him and his family of corruption. But they have not produced evidence that any of the overseas money went to President Biden or that the president influenced U.S. policy to benefit his son’s business partners.“This appointment is meant to distract from, and slow down, our investigations,” said Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which is looking into the Biden family’s finances.Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEven as they objected to Mr. Weiss, some Republicans said the appointment appeared to be an acknowledgment that the allegations they had made deserved a serious investigation. It promised to keep Hunter Biden’s misdeeds in the news — and in the courts — for longer than Democrats would like as the 2024 presidential election heats up. And it ensured that in the minds of some voters the names Trump and Biden would both be linked to scandal, even if Republicans have not proved any wrongdoing by the current president.In an interview with Newsmax, a top Trump adviser, Jason Miller, appeared to echo both sentiments, and foreshadowed coming attacks.Mr. Miller said the appointment of Mr. Weiss “stinks” and accused the prosecutor of sitting on his hands for years. But, he added, ”I do want to make sure that my Republican brethren” don’t ”lose sight of the big prize here.”He described the appointment of a special counsel as “a direct acknowledgment that Hunter Biden did something wrong,” and he recalled President Biden saying in a 2020 debate with Mr. Trump that he had not done anything wrong.Since Mr. Weiss announced a proposed plea deal in June with Mr. Biden — an agreement that would have allowed him to avoid jail time on tax and gun charges but has since fallen apart — Republicans in Congress have sharply criticized the government, accusing the Justice Department of leniency with the president’s son as they conduct their own investigations in an effort to tie his overseas business dealings to the president. House Republicans have also brought forth two I.R.S. agents who worked on Mr. Weiss’s investigation and claimed there had been political interference.One allegation made by the I.R.S. agents was that Mr. Weiss had sought to bring charges against Hunter Biden in Washington and California but had been rebuffed by prosecutors in those jurisdictions who declined to partner with him. The order appointing Mr. Weiss to special counsel authorizes him to bring charges in any jurisdiction.Alyssa DaCunha, a co-chair of the congressional investigations practice at the law firm WilmerHale, said she believed House Republicans’ investigations and their criticisms of the proposed plea deal had “caught the attention” of the Justice Department.“There’s a real need to make sure that whatever charging decisions are made are very, very well supported and the department can really stand behind them,” Ms. DaCunha said. “It seems like this will extend the life of the investigation, and so there are lots of ways in which this is going to complicate the narrative for Democrats moving forward and give the Republicans lots of leverage.”Some House Republicans close to Mr. Trump acknowledged they were pleased with the announcement of the special counsel. For Mr. Trump, in particular, it provided him with the investigation he has long desired to be able to depict the Biden family as corrupt, even as Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes are significantly less severe than the charges Mr. Trump is facing.Mr. Trump’s statement did not suggest that he viewed the appointment of a special counsel as a bad development, merely that it had come late, something his advisers also argued in private.Hunter Biden’s plea deal on tax and gun charges fell apart in court last month.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesMike Pence, the former vice president who is now running against Mr. Trump, was among the few well-known Republicans to openly praise Mr. Weiss’s appointment.But other Republicans were worried the development could be used to block their investigations. Mr. Weiss had pledged to testify on Capitol Hill this fall, but those Republicans predicted he could now cite the special counsel investigation to refuse to do so.The announcement also gives President Biden and Mr. Garland some political cover against Republican accusations that Mr. Trump is a victim of a two-tier system of justice, placing the investigation outside the normal workings of the Justice Department. It could also undercut Republican arguments that an impeachment inquiry of the president is necessary.“In the near term, it gives Republicans the ability to say it legitimizes what they’ve been looking into and it helps give more momentum to their different oversight activities,” said Michael Ricci, a former top communications official to two Republican House speakers and a current fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service. “But in the longer term, the White House will absolutely use this as an argument against any kind of rush into impeachment.”Several Republicans said their respect for Mr. Weiss had declined after he entered into the plea deal with Hunter Biden.Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who had once called for Mr. Weiss to be made special counsel, said he no longer stands by that belief. “Given the underhanded plea deal negotiated by the U.S. attorney from President Biden’s home state, it’s clear Mr. Weiss isn’t the right person for the job,” Mr. Grassley said.Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, had once called for Mr. Weiss to be made special counsel but said the plea deal changed his mind. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBut Democrat-aligned groups saw something else in the Republicans’ about-face: disingenuousness.“House Republicans’ opposition to Trump appointee David Weiss’s appointment as special counsel is nothing more than another political stunt,” said Kyle Herrig, the director of the Congressional Integrity Project, an advocacy group that defends President Biden from congressional investigations. “After months of calling for this, their dismay makes clear that they will stop at nothing to weaponize Congress to interfere with an ongoing investigation and harm Joe Biden.” More

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Readers react to David Brooks’s suggestion that the elite are partly to blame for Trumpism.To the Editor:Re “What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?,” by David Brooks (column, Aug. 4):I am sick and tired of people like Mr. Brooks telling me that I am the problem or the “bad guy” because I am educated (and no, I was not educated at an Ivy League school, and neither of my parents finished high school) to justify the fact that 35 percent of the population are fervent supporters of Donald Trump, no matter what he says or does.Moreover, Mr. Trump is also part of the elite, but his supporters simply ignore this. This is not because he identifies with them in any way (as a golden-haired billionaire living in a mansion), but because Fox, Newsmax, and other right-wing TV and radio media outlets, right-wing militias and Trump puppet politicians in Congress essentially brainwashed them with their daily dose of propaganda about how the “left wing socialists and communists,” “elites,” the “woke,” etc., are all conspiring to take their country and only Donald Trump can stop them.In my opinion, this is the biggest problem, Mr. Brooks, not educated Americans who as you correctly state are “are earnest, kind and public spirited.”So, let’s not beat ourselves up because the other side has been completely brainwashed, does not accept facts, scientific and otherwise, is obsessed with conspiracies and lives in a right-wing echo chamber.Michael HadjiargyrouCenterport, N.Y.To the Editor:While I grew up in a small Midwestern town in a middle-class family, education has offered me a satisfying life with a secure retirement. Many of my classmates who chose a more blue-collar life path have endured more struggles, starting with military service in Vietnam. I am quite confident that many of them today support Donald Trump, at least partly for the reasons that David Brooks suggests.Mr. Brooks’s column was a brilliant, moving description of the unspoken arrogance of many of us who are left-leaning. I believe that some sincere humility and understanding with regard to the concerns of many who feel left behind would go a long way to healing some of our divisions. Thanks to Mr. Brooks for his insight.David MahanSebring, Fla.To the Editor:Fine: I’ll accept David Brooks’s plea that we not blame the logic-defying viability of Donald Trump on the wrongheadedness of tens of millions of Americans. I get the class resentment. I share the rage against excessive political correctness and the feeling that immigration is unchecked and overwhelming. I see his point that the elite stoke these resentments by voicing our support for the nonelite while spending most of our energy and resources protecting our own class privilege.But let’s not gloss over the main factor here: Mr. Trump is the latest version of a leader who is little more than a self-obsessed expert at exploiting and inflaming the fear and resentments of the masses to benefit his own power and ego. Such a leader cares nothing about those who harbor these resentments, and certainly does not share the same fears.On a more practical note, those who resent wokeism are shooting themselves in the foot by supporting someone who so many Americans, elite and otherwise, would vote for over their proverbial dead bodies.Brian SmithDayton, OhioTo the Editor:The irony behind the case that David Brooks makes for Donald Trump’s support is that this support is based entirely on words (primarily offensive) and not actions. What did Mr. Trump do as president to help his supporters and make their lives better?His major accomplishment was the tax reform enacted in 2017, which heavily favored the rich and elites (including himself). His supporters love the way he attacks his “enemies” and anyone who disagrees with him and feel he speaks for them. The lack of actual benefits they have enjoyed seems not to matter.Ellen S. HirschNew YorkTo the Editor:Donald Trump, as loathsome as he is, has done one significant service for this country. He has made clear the great social divide that David Brooks describes in his excellent column. Now, how to fix it?As a former naval officer and Vietnam veteran, I would suggest universal national service, with almost no exemptions. Being forced to live with, eat with, work with people from all over the country would teach all of us to be more tolerant. This would not just be military service; it would include working in national parks, teaching in underserved schools, and many other forms of service to the nation.The only thing standing in the way is a timid Congress. Is there anyone in Congress brave enough to take this on?Jeffrey CallahanClevelandTo the Editor:David Brooks makes a familiar and not unreasonable argument about how the fear, resentment and sense of alienation that fuel the cult of Trumpism proceed from economic and cultural realities for which liberal elites are, in large part, responsible.When Mr. Brooks asks, however, whether anti-Trumpers should consider whether they are the “bad guys,” he embarks on an analysis that completely excludes millions of people like me who find Donald Trump and Trumpism appalling, without being “elite” at all.I was raised in a row home in northeast Philly by a single mom who was a cop. My dad was a union construction worker. I’ve been a musician and a bartender for most of my adult life. In short, I’m hardly part of the elite class that Mr. Brooks seems to equate with the anti-Trump movement, and yet I’m passionately anti-Trump!Maybe this particular piece simply wasn’t aimed at people like me, and that’s fine. But all too often I see this oversimplified, false duality that leaves out all the decent working-class people who have themselves been hurt by neoliberal policies and narratives, and yet would never channel their frustration into an odious movement like Trumpism. When we condemn Mr. Trump and his followers, we do so with a clean conscience.James A. LeponeTelford, Pa.To the Editor:David Brooks identifies the privileges enjoyed by the highly educated class and the resentment of the less educated class that might cause them to be ardent supporters of Donald Trump. Mr. Brooks concludes with a warning that history is the graveyard of classes with preferred caste privileges.What he fails to consider is that in the United States his identified “upper” class encourages, both by words and action, members of the “lower” class to join it. Nothing would make those with college or graduate degrees happier than if every capable child joined their class. This differs very much from any true caste system.Jack SternSetauket, N.Y.To the Editor:David Brooks’s column gave me a new perspective regarding why people support this obvious con man named Donald Trump. Although Mr. Brooks makes excellent points regarding the anger that people feel, is it not the Democrats who advocate and pass legislation regarding the minimum wage, infrastructure, child care, education, the environment, middle-class tax relief, financial assistance with community colleges and technical schools, etc., all for the benefit of working- and middle-class Americans?Mr. Trump and the current crop of Republicans have done nothing to help these people. In light of this, isn’t propaganda from Mr. Trump and his followers, as well as the cynical right-wing media, also to blame for this misplaced anger and anti-democratic sentiment?We’re not the bad guys. Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch are.Phillip L. RosenVenice Beach, Calif.To the Editor:David Brooks does an excellent job of setting up a straw man to bring down. Most liberals aren’t part of the “elite,” no matter how many right-wingers parrot that lie.Exit polls from 2020 found that Joe Biden outpaced Donald Trump significantly among voters making less than $100,000 a year, while Mr. Trump did better among those making $100,000 or more. Mr. Trump is no friend to the working class, and polls like these give me confidence that a majority of the working class recognizes this. And any member of the working class who supports him or today’s extreme-right Republican Party is going against their own best interests.It’s liberals and Democrats (usually but not always the same) who support policies to empower workers and reduce economic inequality, and the other side doesn’t give a damn. Liberals are not the elite and are not the enemy of the working class.Trudy RingBend, Ore. More

Three men walk into a courtroom, as August heats up.WASHINGTON — For a quiet summer Friday, there was quite a cacophony. Donald Trump crashing around. Clarence Thomas cashing in. Hunter Biden spinning out.News about these men rocked the capital. Yet there is something inevitable, even ancient, about the chaos enveloping them. Fatal flaws. Mythic obsessions. Greed. Revenge. Daddy issues. Maybe a touch of Cain and Abel.It’s all there, part of a murky cloud reaching from the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Court House to the Supreme Court to the Justice Department to the White House.On Thursday, ProPublica dropped a scalding piece about the abominable behavior of Clarence Thomas, following up on its revelations about Harlan Crow paying for Thomas’s luxury trips, his mother’s house in Georgia and private school tuition for his grandnephew. This one is headlined: “The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel.”In the old days, there was shame attached to selling your office. There was a single word that encapsulated such an outrage: vicuña. President Dwight Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Sherman Adams, accepted a vicuña coat from a Boston textile manufacturer doing business with the federal government. He lost his job and scarred his reputation.Now Thomas sneers at the law by failing to disclose gifts from billionaires eager to gain influence. (The gifts also benefited his wife, Ginni Thomas, who tried to help Trump overthrow the government.)ProPublica told the ka-ching: “At least 38 destination vacations … 26 private jet flights … a dozen V.I.P. passes to professional and college sporting events … two stays at luxury resorts … and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.”Thomas is abiding by the adage that living well is the best revenge. He never got over the humiliation of the Anita Hill hearings, even though his allies smeared Hill as he lied his way to Senate confirmation. (Thanks, Joe Biden!) He came out of it feeling angry and vindictive. He got on the court, muscling past questions about his legal abilities and ethical compass by pushing the story that he was a guy who worked his way up from poverty.The justice polished that just-folks image over the years by going on R.V. vacations with his wife to escape the “meanness” of Washington. But as The Times reported last weekend, the $267,230 Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon R.V., which Thomas told friends he had scrimped and saved to afford, was actually underwritten by Anthony Welters, a friend who made a bundle in health care.Thomas is ruining the court’s image and, with the help of other uber-conservatives, he’s undoing our social constructs, causing many Americans to rebel.At a hearing Friday, the federal judge overseeing the case against Trump for conspiring to purloin Biden’s election victory made a brisk start. “The fact that he is running a political campaign has to yield to the administration of justice,” Judge Tanya Chutkan informed Trump’s lawyers. “And if that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say in a political speech, that is just how it’s going to have to be.”This will be tough for Trump because, as David Axelrod says, “the sense that he is being tried for political reasons is the essence of his campaign.”The judge warned Trump’s lawyers, “To the extent your client wants to make statements on the internet, they have to always yield to witness security and witness safety,” adding, “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”Trump was warped by a father who told him, You’re either a killer or a loser. He couldn’t tolerate losing in 2020 so he concocted a scheme to become a killer — of democracy.Trump reminds me of fairy-tale figures — like Midas or the ballerina in “The Red Shoes,” a movie drawn from a fairy tale — who crave something so badly, they follow it down a destructive path. Trump refused to let go of the spotlight. He wanted all the attention and now it’s going to crush him.Like Thomas, Trump is driven by revenge. We shouldn’t hand power to people whose main motive is doing bad stuff to other people.A few blocks from Judge Chutkan’s courthouse, Merrick Garland emerged Friday with an announcement that surprised the White House — he was elevating the Hunter Biden prosecutor to a special counsel.This ratchets up the White House family drama. Beau was the ballast for the Bidens. Now he is his father’s hero, which is bound to make the troubled Hunter feel like a zero.Joe Biden should have reined in Hunter when he began living off his dad’s positions and connections. But the president, who lost two kids and nearly lost this one, is clearly paralyzed when it comes to Hunter.With Hunter likely going on trial, and the 2024 race underway, it will be harder for the president to argue that Trump is the one with all the legal and ethical albatrosses.Hunter is staining his father’s campaign, as Thomas is smearing the Roberts court, as Trump is dragging down the G.O.P.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

After a setback for President Biden, Democrats pointed to Donald Trump’s indictments and suggested that swing voters would ultimately not care about the sins of a candidate’s son.For President Biden and his party, the appointment of a special counsel on Friday in the investigation into Hunter Biden was hardly a welcome development. A blossoming criminal inquiry focused on the president’s son is a high-risk proposition that comes with the dangers of an election-year trial and investigations that could balloon beyond the tax and gun charges the younger Mr. Biden already faces.Yet many Democrats were sanguine about a dark moment in a summer of cautiously bright news for their president. In interviews, more than a dozen Democratic officials, operatives and pollsters said Hunter Biden’s legal problems were less worrisome than their other concerns about the president: his age, his low approval ratings and Americans’ lack of confidence in an improving economy.Part of their sense of calm stems from a version of the what-aboutism often adopted by Republicans since Donald J. Trump’s rise: Mr. Biden’s son is under investigation, Democrats say, but across the aisle, the G.O.P. front-runner has actually been criminally indicted — three times.“I find it hard to imagine that anyone concerned about political corruption would turn to Donald Trump to address the problem of political corruption,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which has been investigating Hunter Biden since Republicans took control of the chamber.Democrats cited an array of reasons for whistling past the announcement that David C. Weiss, the Delaware prosecutor first appointed by the Trump administration in 2018 to investigate Hunter Biden, would be elevated to a special counsel. Mr. Weiss has examined both Mr. Biden’s business and personal life, including his foreign dealings, his drug use and his finances; a deal to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and accept a diversion program to dismiss an unlawful gun possession charge has fallen apart.Polling, Democrats noted, has suggested that swing voters aren’t attuned to the various Hunter Biden controversies. Recent elections, including the Ohio referendum this past week, have shown that the abortion rights issue is powering Democratic victories. And Democrats believe ne’er-do-well family members do not cause transitive harm to relatives who are running for president.“There are plenty of things that keep Democrats up at night when it comes to 2024, and this is not one of them,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic organization. “Billy Carter is not the reason that Ronald Reagan won 49 states in 1980.”Just as they did after Mr. Trump’s three indictments, the White House, the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee on Friday appeared to undertake a collective vow of silence about the special counsel’s appointment. Far more of the president’s allies declined to discuss the Hunter Biden news — or would do so only carefully off the record — than were willing to talk about the situation openly.David C. Weiss, a federal prosecutor who is already investigating Hunter Biden, has been elevated to special counsel status.Suchat Pederson/The News Journal, via Associated PressThe Biden campaign canceled a scheduled Friday afternoon appearance on MSNBC for its campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, after the special counsel announcement to avoid facing a litany of questions about the president’s son, according to two people familiar with the scheduling.The White House, and more recently the Biden campaign, have long treaded carefully around questions about the president’s son. Matt Barreto, who conducts polling for Mr. Biden, said Hunter Biden had not been a concern in focus groups.“I haven’t seen polling, and I have not been asked to do polling, on that,” Mr. Barreto said about the younger Mr. Biden’s travails. “Americans are totally focused right now on who is going to improve their economic output.”In late June, a poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that 58 percent of Americans said Hunter Biden’s proposed plea agreement would have no impact on the likelihood of their voting for the elder Mr. Biden in 2024. The survey found that 51 percent of Americans believed Hunter Biden’s legal troubles were unrelated to President Biden’s job performance.How much a trial of Hunter Biden would damage his father’s presidential campaign is unclear, given that Mr. Trump — the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner — is already facing three potential trials and the prospect of another indictment in Georgia. Court proceedings that implicated the elder Mr. Biden or required his testimony would serve as a major distraction for his campaign, but there has not been any legitimate suggestion that he engaged in wrongdoing himself.Sarah Longwell, a Republican consultant who conducts regular focus groups, said that voters who had supported Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020 often brought up Hunter Biden on their own in response to questions about Mr. Trump’s indictments. But swing voters, or those who cast ballots for Mr. Trump the first time but not the second, had more empathy, she said, and tended to say that concerns about Hunter Biden did not apply to the president.“The dominant position of swing voters has been, the Hunter Biden stuff is family, personal,” Ms. Longwell said. “We asked a swing-voting group about Hunter, and they were saying things like, ‘Every family has someone like this, a black sheep.’”The lonely Democratic voice warning that the Hunter Biden question will hurt Mr. Biden and Democrats at the polls next November is Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who in recent weeks has been on a media tour calling for an intraparty challenge to Mr. Biden.Mr. Phillips said the special counsel news was “exactly my entire rationale for the call to action” for a Biden challenger. Mr. Biden isn’t corrupt, Mr. Phillips said, but he added that the facts of the case mattered far less than the nuggets of information people received about it.“It’s not about the truth, it’s not about the facts — it’s about how people feel, and people feel concerned,” Mr. Phillips said. “It’s gone from a distraction and ridiculous to ‘Oh wow, maybe something is there.’”Most Democrats, however, are convinced that voters are more focused on other things.“I haven’t gotten one call about this other than from reporters,” said Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee chairwoman. “There’s nothing that I believe is going to change the conversation.”For others, knowing that Mr. Biden has already defeated Mr. Trump once serves as a salve against concerns that Hunter Biden could derail the 2024 campaign. Much of the stress that was on constant display after Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton has dissipated following the party’s successes in the last three national elections.“I just don’t see the source of anxiety that this might have caused a few years ago,” said Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia. More

Former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida will arrive at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, a convergence of the two leading Republican presidential candidates that will highlight the busiest day of state politicking amid farm animals, corn dogs and oversize lemonades.The fair is a throwback to an earlier era of politics more dominated by in-person interactions than cable news appearances, featuring a mix of speechifying and politicians flipping pork chops, and it is drawing most of the 2024 field.Mr. Trump, who famously brought a helicopter to the fair in 2015 and gave children rides during his first primary campaign, is flying to Iowa for a single day of campaigning. In an effort to poke his leading rival, he is bringing along a host of prominent Florida Republicans who have endorsed him over Mr. DeSantis.Mr. DeSantis, who replaced his campaign manager earlier in the week, is focused on turning around his political fortunes in Iowa. He has spent two full days campaigning in the state ahead of the fair and ticking off visits to more of Iowa’s 99 counties, all of which he has pledged to visit.In fact, while recording a podcast in downtown Des Moines, Mr. DeSantis predicted on Thursday that he would complete that feat by October, a timeline that suggests a particularly aggressive next two months of events in the state.On Friday, a number of lower-polling candidates fanned out across the fairgrounds, including former Vice President Mike Pence, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Perry Johnson, Larry Elder and Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami, all seeking attention from potential Iowa caucusgoers.“This is amazing — I feel like I’m at Disneyworld,” Mr. Suarez, who is likely to miss the first debate later this month, said in a chat with Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, who invited every candidate to a friendly Q. and A. session she is billing as “fair-side chats.”Almost everyone accepted the invitation, with the notable exception of Mr. Trump. He has criticized Ms. Reynolds for her plans to stay neutral in the primary and tried to take credit for her election.Mr. DeSantis has sought to take advantage of Mr. Trump’s comments about Ms. Reynolds, with his allies and advisers arguing that Mr. Trump has provided an opening by demeaning the popular Republican governor.On Friday, Mr. DeSantis scored the formal endorsement of a prominent conservative radio host in the state, Steve Deace, who has been open about his hope that the party won’t nominate Mr. Trump again.While Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump are not expected to cross paths on Saturday, it is not clear when they will next be in the same location. Mr. Trump has vacillated about attending the first debate of the primary — less than two weeks away — suggesting that he does not need to, given his polling lead. He has also said that he won’t sign the required loyalty pledge.“You have to earn this nomination, and you have to show up,” Mr. DeSantis said on the “Ruthless” podcast on Thursday. “You have to debate. You’ve got to be willing to answer questions. You’ve got to be willing to defend your record, and you’ve got to articulate a vision for the future.” More