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      The Trump-Free Debate That’s All About Trump

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      Donald Trump may not be on the stage for tonight’s Republican primary debate, but at least eight other candidates will still have to contend with his presence — and his lead in the polls.The Opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg argues that tonight is an opportunity for Trump’s opponents to convince Republican voters that they can be as dominant as the former president, but without the legal baggage. The question remains, though: Will the Republican base buy it?Illustration by The New York Times; Photographs by Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times; Scott Morgan, Jim Young, Dan Koeck, Cheney Orr/Reuters; Ben Gray, Alex Brandon/Associated Press; Megan Varner/Getty ImagesThe 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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.This Opinion Short was produced by Sophia Alvarez Boyd. It was edited by Stephanie Joyce and Kaari Pitkin. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Special thanks to Shannon Busta, Kristina Samulewski and Annie-Rose Strasser. More

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      Burgum Debate Attendance in Question After Basketball Injury

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      The North Dakota governor, a long-shot Republican presidential candidate, was taken to an emergency room Tuesday. The extent of his injury was unclear.Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota injured himself playing basketball with his staff on Tuesday and was taken to an emergency room ahead of his planned appearance at Wednesday’s first Republican presidential primary debate.Mr. Burgum, 67, injured his leg, according to two campaign aides, and it was unclear on Wednesday morning whether he would be able to stand at the debate. The injury was earlier reported by CNN.Mr. Burgum is among the least-known candidates who made the stage, climbing over the 1 percent polling requirement set by the Republican National Committee after dipping into his personal fortune to air television ads in the early nominating states.In a brief interview this month, Mr. Burgum made clear that reaching the stage was a key first step in his candidacy.“The important part was making the debate,” he had said.This is a developing story. More

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      The Long-Shot Candidate Playbook: Make the Debate, Then See What Happens

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      The 2024 Republican field has a number of contenders who have almost no chance to take down Donald Trump. So why do they run?Donald J. Trump holds a commanding lead over his nearest rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. One or two might make a dent in the numbers at the first debate this week. But the rest of the field, featuring little-known candidates, is unlikely to make an impact.In fact, there is almost no plausible path for them to the nomination, especially in a race with Mr. Trump as the dominant force, which raises the key question: Why do they do it?Perhaps the biggest reason is the debate stage itself: National broadcasts have the potential to provide a biotech entrepreneur, a Miami mayor and a North Dakota governor the chance to become household names and position themselves for future success in politics — or whatever field they pursue.The longer-than-long-shot candidates — some have run in almost every cycle since cable news and social media became significant drivers in elections — are willing to endure the grueling schedule, the deep loss of privacy and the frequent humiliations of a campaign because there are so many consolation prizes.Candidates can raise their profiles and polish their résumés for a future bid for office. They can land lucrative commentator gigs on any number of platforms. A presidential run can lead to a high-paying job in the private sector or, of course, a big role in someone else’s administration.“There are always people who want to make a name for themselves,” said Curtis Loftis, who as the elected treasurer of South Carolina since 2010 has seen a parade of presidential aspirants roll through his early nominating state.“Some people have personal ambitions that allows them, or requires them, to run for higher office,” he said. “Politics is an industry. People have to keep their name fresh. By losing, they end up on highly paid corporate boards. It’s an industry — it’s not pretty.”But this campaign, especially, highlights the mixed motives of presidential hopefuls because there is such a large field, even though Mr. Trump overshadows the race like the de facto incumbent.The trend is somewhat new. Though newcomers have always pursued unlikely campaigns, they were mostly relegated to the sidelines. Even those whose candidacies were largely aspirational relied on their experience in elected office as a reason for running.The 2012 election was perhaps the tipping point, when Herman Cain, a successful chief executive of a pizza chain, at one point led the Republican primary polls. In 2016, Mr. Trump entered the race in what was seen as a vanity campaign.Herman Cain at a primary event in 2012 in Tampa, Fla.Marcus Yam for The New York TimesThe open field for Democrats in 2020 brought plenty of elected experience, but it also garnered attention for outsiders like Andrew Yang, another entrepreneur, and Marianne Williamson, a self-help author, who is running again in 2024. Both participated in the Democratic primary debates.Strategists of both parties who have worked for candidates with slim chances said it was unheard-of for them to admit privately that their goals were less than the winning the biggest prize. Yet, their behavior often betrays them, including on a debate stage when they decline to take on the front-runner, or, in the case of many of Mr. Trump’s rivals, even to say his name.“A lot of candidates approach campaigns with an ‘opportunity maximizing’ approach — if you don’t get to the moon, you can at least land among the stars,” said Sarah Isgur, who was a top aide to the long-shot Republican candidate Carly Fiorina in 2016. “They want to make sure not to shut any doors along the way — cabinet, TV contracts, whatever. That’s why you see some of these types of candidates pull so many punches on the stump or debate stage, because they don’t know who they’ll need as friends later on.”Carly Fiorina campaigning in 2016 in in Bedford, N.H.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesLike defense lawyers who never ask if a client is guilty, paid strategists mount the best campaign possible given a candidate’s skills, message and budget.Still, strategists’ gut instincts usually tell them how their clients have inwardly set their sights. “You can tell right away if they’re really running to lead or if they have other goals in mind,” said Gail Gitcho, a strategist who has worked for several Republican presidential candidates, including Vivek Ramaswamy, the conservative commentator, before she parted ways with him this spring.“Some candidates are running for president, others are running to replace Tucker Carlson,” Ms. Gitcho said.It goes without saying that getting candidates in the heat of campaign battle to admit to ulterior motives is a fruitless quest. Invariably, they cite outsiders like Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama and Mr. Trump himself who went all the way.But the rise of the wealthy, self-funded candidates brings in a whole new factor to a campaign. Perry Johnson, a Michigan businessman hovering around one percent in polls despite crisscrossing Iowa, said that raising his profile to increase his net worth was the furthest thing from his mind.“I am a very rich man, I don’t need any extra money,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “I expect to win this presidency. I am the one guy that the country truly needs.” He is one of a handful of multimillionaires seeking the nomination. (Egos, too, are rarely in short supply for the long shots running for president.)The rise of wealthy, self-funded candidates has given hope to a new type of candidate like Perry Johnson who is hovering around zero percent in polls.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesEven the longest of long shots — candidates with no electoral experience and limited political charisma — believe they might catch lightning in a bottle.And if not, perhaps they can capture the attention of the front-runner. Voters who attend events in Iowa or New Hampshire with Mr. Trump’s rivals openly say they are looking to see who could be a running mate — maybe Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, or the former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, or Mr. Ramaswamy.A New York Times/Siena College Poll last month showed Mr. Trump with 54 percent of the likely Republican primary vote, Mr. DeSantis with 17 percent and all others at 3 percent or less, including former Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Scott, Ms. Haley and Mr. Ramaswamy.Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, little known outside his state until recently, made it into the debate partly by offering $20 gift cards for a $1 donation, helping him clear the threshold of 40,000 individual donors to participate.“We’re running for president, and we actually think we have an excellent chance,” Mr. Burgum said in an interview, speaking in the first-person plural as if his candidacy was a movement.He dismissed Mr. Trump’s utter dominance of early polls as a reason not to run.“You wouldn’t say so-and-so is going to win the Super Bowl next February, we’re just going to cancel the season,” he said. “No, you play the game. America loves competition. America loves an underdog story, too.” More

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      A Stage of Eight Takes Shape for a Trump-Less First G.O.P. Debate

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      Eight Republican presidential hopefuls will spar on Wednesday night in Milwaukee, without the party’s dominant front-runner.Former President Donald J. Trump won’t be there. But eight other Republicans hoping to catch him are now set for the first debate of the 2024 presidential primary on Wednesday in Milwaukee, according to two officials familiar with the Republican Party’s decision.Those eight include Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has been Mr. Trump’s leading rival in most polling, and Mr. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence. Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Trump ally turned antagonist, has secured a spot, as has another vocal Trump opponent, former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas.Two prominent South Carolina Republicans have also earned places onstage, Senator Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador. They will be joined by the political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy and Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota.The candidates will give Republicans a diverse field attempting to take on President Biden: six past or present governors, one Black candidate, two candidates born to Indian immigrants, one woman and one former vice president.A handful of others had been on the bubble heading into Monday evening. The Republican National Committee had imposed a 9 p.m. deadline for candidates to accumulate at least 40,000 donors and hit 1 percent in a certain number of qualifying national and state polls.But the two officials said that three candidates all fell short: Perry Johnson, a businessman who previously tried to run for governor of Michigan; Francis X. Suarez, the mayor of Miami; and Larry Elder, a talk-show host who made a failed run for governor of California. Those campaigns, already all long-shots, now face an even more uncertain future. The Lineup for the First Republican Presidential DebateThe stage is set for eight candidates. Donald J. Trump won’t be there.The R.N.C. had also required candidates to sign a pledge to support whomever the party nominates. At least one candidate has said publicly he would refuse to sign it: Will Hurd, a former congressman from Texas who has said he opposes Mr. Trump.With Mr. Trump opting to skip the debate entirely and citing his significant lead in the polls, much of the attention is expected to fall on Mr. DeSantis, who has steadily polled in second place despite some early struggles.The debate will be broadcast on Fox News at 9 p.m. Wednesday, with Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum serving as moderators.Despite the candidates’ months of campaigning across the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina already, the debate represents the first moment that many voters will tune into the contest — or even learn about many of the candidates.“Most of what you do in this process is filtered through media,” Mr. DeSantis said while campaigning in Georgia last week. “Seldom do you get the opportunity to speak directly to this many people.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is expected to draw a lot of attention at the debate, as the highest-polling candidate taking part.Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesYet it remains unclear how much the debate will transform a race where Mr. Trump remains the prohibitive front-runner, leading the field by large double-digit margins. The hosts have said they plan to turn Mr. Trump into a presence, with quotes and clips from the former president, even though he will not be on the stage. So far, much of the race has revolved around Mr. Trump, with the candidates repeatedly questioned on his denial of the 2020 election results, his four indictments and his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.The other candidates have prepared for weeks. Mr. DeSantis brought on a well-known debate coach, Mr. Pence has been holding practice sessions with mock lecterns in Indiana and Mr. Ramaswamy has been holding sessions with advisers on his private plane (Mr. Ramaswamy also posted a shirtless video of himself smashing tennis balls on Monday, calling it “three hours of solid debate prep”). Only Mr. Christie and Mr. Pence have previously participated in presidential-level debates, giving those two an advantage over less experienced rivals.Some of those onstage are nationally known, including Mr. Pence, who participated in two vice-presidential debates that were widely watched. But for Mr. Burgum and others, the event will be their national introduction and a chance to sell their biographies or bona fides, such as Mr. Hutchinson, a former congressman who has emerged as one of the party’s most vocal Trump critics.Breaking through the media attention surrounding the former president will require a viral moment — a surprise attack or notable defense — and the candidates have been reluctant to publicly signal their strategy. The release of memos from Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC last week was viewed as a significant tactical error that heightened the pressure on the Florida governor while limiting his avenues of attack.Some of Mr. Trump’s rivals have mocked him for skipping the debate, with Mr. Christie calling him a “coward.” Those taunts were unsuccessful in luring Mr. Trump in, though Mr. Christie has signaled his eagerness to swing at him in absentia.It is far from clear how much fire the rest of the field will focus on the missing front-runner, or whether they will skirmish among themselves in a bid to claim second place as his leading challenger.Mr. DeSantis’s aides have said they expect him to bear the brunt of attacks on Wednesday because he will be the leading candidate on the stage.Mr. Scott and his allies have aired a heavy rotation of advertising in Iowa and he has risen there to third place in some polling, including a Des Moines Register/NBC News survey this week. But those ads have not helped him catch Mr. DeSantis yet, let alone Mr. Trump.Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina before she served as ambassador under Mr. Trump, has sought to find middle ground, arguing that the party needs to move past the former president yet doing so without being overly critical of an administration she served in.Mr. Pence has searched for traction in a race where he has been typecast as a betrayer to Mr. Trump by some voters, for standing up to his bid to block certification of Mr. Biden’s victory. That confrontation has established Mr. Pence as a critical witness in one federal indictment against Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump, of course, is not giving up the spotlight entirely. He has recorded an interview with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, as counterprogramming to the network’s debate. And on Monday his lawyers agreed to a $200,000 bail ahead of his expected surrender to the authorities in Georgia later this week after he was charged as part of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election result there in 2020.The criminal indictment was Mr. Trump’s fourth of the year, though the accumulation of charges has done little to slow or stop his consolidation of support in polls so far. More

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      This Republican Candidate Is Offering $20 Gift Cards for $1 Donations

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      The candidate, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, is one of several Republican presidential candidates going to great lengths to reach a crucial threshold to qualify for the first primary debate.How much is a dollar worth?To Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, quite a lot.Mr. Burgum is one of several Republican presidential candidates going to great lengths to reach a crucial threshold to qualify for the party’s first primary debate on Aug. 23 — the requirement that only candidates with at least 40,000 individual donors to their campaigns will be allowed on the stage.A long-shot contender at the bottom of recent polls, Mr. Burgum is offering $20 gift cards to the first 50,000 people who donate at least $1 to his campaign. And one lucky donor, as his campaign advertised on Facebook, will have the chance to win a Yeti Tundra 45 cooler that typically costs more than $300 — just for donating at least $1. The unusual offer was earlier reported by FWIW, a newsletter that tracks digital politics.Mr. Burgum’s push to prioritize donors over actual dollars is a sign of some candidates’ desperation to make the debate stage and to seize some of the national spotlight from the Republican front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, and his top rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, another Republican candidate, recently ended a campaign ad with a direct plea that flashed on the screen to “Donate today, get Chris Christie on the debate stage.”Mr. Burgum’s campaign acknowledged that its requests were directly tied to the debate and spun the gift-card giveaways into attacks on President Biden.“Doug knows people are hurting because of Bidenflation, and giving Biden Economic Relief Gift Cards is a way to help 50,000 people until Doug is elected President to fix this crazy economy for everyone,” said Lance Trover, a spokesman for the Burgum campaign.Mr. Trover added that the efforts allowed the campaign to “secure a spot on the debate stage while avoiding paying more advertising fees to social media platforms who have owners that are hostile to conservatives.”Kyle Tharp, the author of the FWIW newsletter that reported on the solicitations, said that as part of his reporting process, he had donated $1 to the Burgum campaign. He did not receive any follow-up information about how he would receive the gift card, he said. The campaign later clarified on Twitter that 50,000 donors would receive a Visa or Mastercard gift card to their mailing address.The campaign did not respond to a request for comment about how many donors had contributed so far.The campaign’s donations-for-cash strategy could raise potential legal concerns, said Paul Ryan, a campaign finance lawyer. Voters who make donations in exchange for gift cards, he said, might be considered straw donors because part or all of their donations are being reimbursed by the campaign.“Federal law says ‘no person shall make a contribution in the name of another person,’” Mr. Ryan said. “Here, the candidate is making a contribution to himself in the name of all these individual donors.” Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in election law, said that typically, campaigns ask the Federal Election Commission when engaging in new forms of donations.The Burgum campaign’s maneuver, he said, “certainly seems novel” and “raises concerns about whether it violates the prohibition on straw donations.”But some of the legal uncertainty, Mr. Hasen added, stems from the fact that “functionally, campaigns spend a lot of money to get small donations, especially in cases like this where they’re trying to reach a debate threshold.”Mr. Burgum isn’t alone in using his immense wealth — he’s a billionaire former software executive — to bolster his campaign.Perry Johnson, a businessman who also announced a hopeful bid for the Republican presidential nomination and who ran for Michigan governor last year, has spent $80,000 to $90,000 on ads promoting $1 hats that read, “I identify as ‘Non-Bidenary,’” Facebook records show. His campaign said in a recent ad that it had reached 10,000 donors.To qualify for the first presidential debate, candidates must have a minimum of 200 unique donors per state or territory in 20 states and territories, according to the Republican National Committee, which set the rules. They must also garner at least 1 percent in multiple national or early-voting state polls recognized by the committee.Shane Goldmacher More

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      Stumping on July 4, Trump’s Rivals Pitch Themselves to Early-State Voters

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      Donald J. Trump loomed large over the campaign trail, even though he was among the few G.O.P. contenders who stayed away from it.At a high school cafeteria in Merrimack, N.H., on Tuesday, where patriotic music blasted from the speakers and the lunch tables were decked in star-spangled napery, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota mingled with families who were digging into eggs, sausage and pancakes at a Fourth of July breakfast hosted by the local Rotary Club.Nelson Disco, 88, one of the prospective voters in the small crowd, had a couple of questions for him. What was he running for? And with which party?“You’ve got some competition,” Mr. Disco exclaimed, as the North Dakota governor told him he was seeking the Republican nomination for president.But Mr. Burgum was undeterred: “Feeling great” about the race, he said.It was the final Fourth of July before New Hampshire’s first-in-the nation Republican primary, set for February, and the famed kingmaking caucuses in Iowa — plenty of time to make up ground, but it was clear for the darkest of dark horses who were burning shoe leather on Tuesday that there was a lot of ground to make up.Some better-known competitors were in New Hampshire too. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is in a distant second place in the Republican primary polls to former President Donald J. Trump, walked in two parades, including one that also drew Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is still well back in the pack. The weather was less than agreeable: Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Scott and others walking in the afternoon parade in Merrimack, N.H., were soaked when a rainstorm swept through.Independence Day campaigning is a tradition in New Hampshire and Iowa, as old as the caucuses and the primary in those states. That would be more than a century of front-runners and also-rans at the parades, picnics and pancake breakfasts of the Granite State. This year, however, there was a twist: The prohibitive front-runner, Mr. Trump, skipped the hustings, staying home with his family and firing off vulgar social media posts.Yet the minions of his campaign and his own bulky shadow still hung heavily over his competition.Former Vice President Mike Pence greeted spectators at an Independence Day parade in Urbandale, Iowa.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesIn Urbandale, Iowa, where Mr. Trump’s former vice president and current competitor, Mike Pence, was marching in the parade, spectators broke into a chant — “Trump, Trump, Trump” — as he passed by.Melody Krejci, 60, of Urbandale, said: “My whole family is Trump supporters, even down to our grandbabies. They also wear Trump clothing and Trump hats.” There are posters of Trump in their rooms, too, she said.She added, “I think Pence is a coward,” alluding to the erroneous belief, still pushed by Mr. Trump, that his vice president could have rejected enough electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, to send the 2020 election back to the states, and possibly overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.In the old days — before super PACs flooded the airwaves, social media brought politicians’ messages directly to voters’ smartphones and partisans were glued to their favored cable news shows — showing up on the Fourth of July really mattered.“Retail has always been mostly theater, but now it’s all a performance for the cameras, not about meeting regular people and listening to their concerns,” said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.This year, Mr. Trump’s rivals hoped it still did matter. In Merrimack, N.H., volunteers and supporters backing Mr. DeSantis waited to walk with their candidate in the Fourth of the July parade there, standing near a dance troupe in hot pink shirts, a wooden float filled with members of the Bektash Shrine Clowns and a yellow school bus decorated as the boat from the Boston Tea Party.But it was another Republican presidential hopeful, Mr. Scott, who caused a stir first, showing up on the parade route trailed by a passel of photographers and television cameras.“Hopefully some of those voters will become our voters,” Mr. Scott told reporters when asked his thoughts on the people in DeSantis and Trump gear who were coming up to shake his hand. “But at the end of the day, we thank God that we have folks that are committed to the country, committed to the concept that the conservative values always work.”Outside a pancake breakfast in Merrimack, N.H., former Representative Will Hurd of Texas and his wife, Lynlie Wallace, mixed with runners at a road race.Mr. Hurd, a moderate Republican and a fierce critic of Mr. Trump’s who is trying to get his fledgling presidential campaign out of the starting gate, said he had just finished touring the northern border near Vermont, which he said faces problems similar to those at the southern border in his home state: low resources and increased drug trafficking. Those were the sorts of issues he wanted to tackle, he said. But for now, he added, he was just happy to simply be out shaking hands.“Today is about meeting people, right?” Mr. Hurd said. “Not everybody is doom scrolling on social media or consuming cable news.”And Trump? “I’m sure people are thankful he’s not out,” he said. “He comes with a lot of baggage.”If there were glimmers of hope for the dark horses, it came from voter acknowledgment of that baggage, which now includes felony charges in New York connected to the payment of hush money to a porn star and federal felony charges in Miami accusing him of misusing highly classified documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.Senator Tim Scott joked with a Trump supporter before walking in the July Fourth parade in Merrimack, N.H., on Tuesday.Reba Saldanha/Associated Press PhotoIn Iowa, Jim Miller, 73, was sitting along the Urbandale parade route with his wife and other family members. He said he had voted for Mr. Trump twice but had been disappointed in his attitude. He wants a candidate who puts being American ahead of being a Republican or a Democrat.Asked to compare Mr. Pence with Mr. Trump, Mr. Miller said: “Not even close. I’d take Pence any day.”As for Mr. Burgum, he expressed an understanding of just how steep his climb would be to even get into contention for his party’s presidential nomination. The name recognition challenge is “familiar,” he said. But he also noted that people had underestimated him when he left a lifelong career in the private sector to run for governor in 2016.He won that race by 20 percentage points, and he has not been seriously challenged in North Dakota since.Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota in Iowa last month. Mr. Burgum was among a number of Republican presidential hopefuls who spent the July Fourth holiday in New Hampshire.Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressNot everyone was in the dark on his campaign. A volunteer, Maureen Tracey, 55, rushed up from the back of the room to ask for a selfie with him. She said she liked Mr. Burgum because, like Mr. Trump, he seemed “different from a politician.” But unlike Mr. Trump, she added, Mr. Burgum seemed to be someone she could trust.Mr. Trump “has hurt too many people, and when you hurt so many people, there is no trust,” Ms. Tracey said.Mr. Burgum, contrasting himself with the highest-profile Republican in the race, Mr. Trump, without mentioning him, said that he had decided to run because the country needed a leader who would work for every American, regardless of political affiliation.“Republicans, Independents, Democrats — they all drive on the U.S. roads, they all go to U.S. schools, they all get health care in America,” he said. “Today’s the day to really reflect on that.”Ann Hinga Klein More

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      Trump Won’t Campaign at a July 4 Parade, but Other Republican Hopefuls Will

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      But for early-state G.O.P. voters hoping for more attention on Independence Day, the pickings will be plentiful: Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis and others will be on the trail.It’s the final Fourth of July before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary — still more than six months away, yes. But all the same, the Republicans vying for their party’s presidential nomination will be on the trail, waving to supporters from parades, shaking hands with voters and taking selfies.But not the front-runner: Donald J. Trump will be conspicuously absent on the 247th anniversary of the nation’s independence.Mike Pence is headed to Iowa, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida will do double duty with two parades in New Hampshire, the state that is also drawing Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, a dark-horse candidate, among others.The former president has upended the traditional expectations of Iowa and New Hampshire voters. For decades they have prided themselves on their discernment of presidential candidates and have demanded to get to know them personally before casting the first ballots in the nation.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign, objected to the notion that the former president is avoiding retail politics over the Fourth of July holiday, pointing to Mr. Trump’s rally in South Carolina on Saturday, which, he said, counted as Independence Day weekend. Mr. Trump also appeared at the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia on Friday, and he even dropped by Pat’s King of Steaks, a cheese steak palace that has been a mainstay for politicians in Philly for decades.And this Friday the former president will be in Council Bluffs, Iowa.But on the actual anniversary of the nation’s birth?“His campaign will have an overwhelming presence in various parades and patriotic events in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, engaging with voters and Americans who are sick of Joe Biden’s failed leadership,” Mr. Cheung said.But Mr. Trump himself will be spending the day with his family, Mr. Cheung said.“I’m sure people are thankful he’s not out,” former Representative Will Hurd of Texas, a recent entrant in the Republican primary race, quipped outside a pancake breakfast in Merrimack, N.H. “He comes with a lot of baggage.”Former President Donald J. Trump during a rally on Saturday in Pickens, S.C.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFor early-state Republican voters hoping for more personal attention on the Fourth, the pickings will be plentiful — just not Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence, the former vice president, will walk the parade route in Urbandale, Iowa, then meet voters 35 miles north in Boone, Iowa, on Tuesday.Both Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Scott will be at the July 4 parade in Merrimack, as will several other Republican presidential hopefuls: Mr. Burgum, Mr. Hurd, the entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy, and Perry Johnson, a Michigan businessman. Marianne Williamson, a long-shot challenger of President Biden for the Democratic nomination, will be there too, as well as at an earlier parade in Wolfeboro — where Mr. DeSantis will also be.Mr. Biden will be using a bit of presidential prerogative to host active-duty military families for barbecue at the White House. He will also have military and veteran families, caregivers and survivors on the White House lawn for Washington’s traditional fireworks — but not before some politicking at an event with the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association.Mr. Trump’s campaign evinces no concern that his absence from the stage will give his rivals any room to make up ground in the Republican primaries. After queries about his July 4 plans, his team released a memo Monday afternoon highlighting his campaign’s plans to celebrate the holiday in Iowa and New Hampshire — and calling out his dominant position in Republican primary polling.Republican veterans don’t see much of an opening for Mr. Trump’s rivals either.“He definitely plays by a different set of rules,” said David Kochel, a longtime Republican adviser and strategist in Iowa. Mr. Trump has made some recent adjustments with unscheduled stops at restaurants like Pat’s and, after his arraignment on the first federal felony charges ever levied on a former president, at Versailles, Miami’s beloved Cuban restaurant. He will be appearing with virtually the entire G.O.P. field at the Republican Party of Iowa’s biggest fund-raiser, the Lincoln Dinner, on July 28.“But,” Mr. Kochel said, “his celebrity and the fact that he was president gives him more flexibility.”The retail politics tradition in Iowa and New Hampshire may well be overrated, an artifact of a time before super PACs saturated airwaves, social media reached voters’ phones and celebrity pervaded the zeitgeist, regardless of who was in the diners and pizza joints.“Retail has always been mostly theater, but now it’s all a performance for the cameras, not about meeting regular people and listening to their concerns,” said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.Mr. Burgum got a taste of the hill he has to climb on Tuesday when Nelson Disco, 88, a retired engineer, asked him at a pancake breakfast in Merrimack, N.H., what he was running for and which party he was registered with.“You’ve got some competition,” Mr. Disco exclaimed, as the North Dakota governor told him he was running for president.For someone like Mr. DeSantis, who joined the primary campaign relatively late, appearances like his two July 4 parades do demonstrate that he is putting in the effort and taking New Hampshire seriously, said Mr. Cullen, who is now a Republican consultant in the state.As for the former president, “Can you imagine Trump walking in the Wolfeboro Fourth of July parade?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”Limiting Mr. Trump’s public appearances and emphasizing large rallies over glad-handing with a few dozen supporters may help to preserve the former president’s celebrity and mystique among his faithful while projecting confidence. And Republican primary voters already know how they feel about the former president. His fate in the primary contest may depend more on external factors — like his indictments in two cases and the trials that may ensue, as well as other inquiries he is facing — than on his power of persuasion at an Iowa Pizza Ranch.Mr. Cheung insisted, even as he outlined a relatively sparse schedule for Mr. Trump,“It would be incorrect to write that he will be sparing retail politics and limiting public appearances.” But the rest of the Republican field, with weaker field operations and later starts, do not have that luxury, said Dave Carney, another New Hampshire Republican consultant and veteran organizer.For those laboring to break out of the pack, Mr. Trump’s absence on July 4 presented a moment to introduce themselves to at least a few voters in person.“Today is about meeting people, right?” Mr. Hurd said. “Not everybody is doom scrolling on social media or consuming cable news.” More

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      Few of Trump’s G.O.P. Rivals Defend Justice Dept. Independence

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      The evolution of the Republican Party under the influence of former President Donald J. Trump calls into question a post-Watergate norm.Donald J. Trump has promised that if he wins back the presidency he will appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family.But he’s not the only Republican running for president who appears to be abandoning a long-established norm in Washington — presidents keeping their hands out of specific Justice Department investigations and prosecutions.Mr. Trump, who leads the G.O.P. field by around 30 percentage points in public national polls, wields such powerful influence that only a few of his Republican rivals are willing to clearly say presidents should not interfere in such Justice Department decisions.After Mr. Trump’s vow to direct the Justice Department to appoint a “real” prosecutor to investigate the Bidens, The New York Times asked each of his Republican rivals questions aimed at laying out what limits, if any, they believed presidents must or should respect when it comes to White House interference with federal law enforcement decisions.Their responses reveal a party that has turned so hard against federal law enforcement that it is no longer widely considered good politics to clearly answer in the negative a question that was once uncontroversial: Do you believe presidents should get involved in the investigations and prosecutions of individuals?Mr. Trump’s closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has flatly said he does not believe the Justice Department is independent from the White House as a matter of law, while leaving it ambiguous where he stands on the issue of presidents getting involved in investigation decisions.Mr. DeSantis’s spokesman, Bryan Griffin, wrote in an email that comments the governor made on a recent policy call “should be instructive to your reporting.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said the president can lawfully exert more direct control over the Justice Department and F.B.I. than has traditionally been the case.Jason Henry for The New York TimesIn the comments, Mr. DeSantis says that “the fundamental insight” he gleans from the Constitution is that the Justice Department and F.B.I. are not “independent” from the White House and that the president can lawfully exert more direct control over them than traditionally has been the case.“I think presidents have bought into this canard that they’re independent, and that’s one of the reasons why they’ve accumulated so much power over the years,” Mr. DeSantis said. “We will use the lawful authority that we have.”But the context of Mr. DeSantis’s remarks was mostly about a president firing political appointees and bureaucrats at the Justice Department and the F.B.I., not about a president ordering them to target specific people with investigations and prosecutions. Mr. Griffin did not respond when asked in a follow-up on this point.Mr. Trump has portrayed his legal troubles as stemming from politicization, although there is no evidence Mr. Biden directed Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Mr. Trump. Under Mr. Garland, Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and on Tuesday secured a guilty plea from Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, on tax charges.Especially since Watergate, there has been an institutional tradition of Justice Department independence from White House control. The idea is that while a president can set broad policies — directing the Justice Department to put greater resources and emphasis on particular types of crimes, for example — he or she should not get involved in specific criminal case decisions except in rare cases affecting foreign policy.This is particularly seen as true for cases involving a president’s personal or political interests, such as an investigation into himself or his political opponents.But even in his first term, Mr. Trump increasingly pressed against that notion.William P. Barr, left, Mr. Trump’s attorney general, refused Mr. Trump’s baseless demand that he say the 2020 election had been corrupt.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesIn the spring of 2018, Mr. Trump told his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, that he wanted to order the Justice Department to investigate his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, and James B. Comey Jr., the former head of the F.B.I. Mr. McGahn rebuffed him, saying the president had no authority to order an investigation, according to two people familiar with the conversation.Later in 2018, Mr. Trump publicly demanded that the Justice Department open an investigation into officials involved in the Russia investigation. The following year, Attorney General William P. Barr indeed assigned a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, John Durham, to investigate the investigators — styling it as an administrative review because there was no factual predicate to open a formal criminal investigation.Mr. Trump also said in 2018 and 2019 that John F. Kerry, the Obama-era secretary of state, should be prosecuted for illegally interfering with American diplomacy by seeking to preserve a nuclear accord with Iran. Geoffrey S. Berman, a former U.S. attorney in Manhattan whom Mr. Trump fired in 2020, later wrote in his memoir that the Trump Justice Department pressured him to find a way to charge Mr. Kerry, but he closed the investigation after about a year without bringing any charges.And as the 2020 election neared, Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham to file charges against high-level former officials even though the prosecutor had not found a factual basis to justify any. In his own memoir, Mr. Barr wrote that the Durham investigation’s “failure to deliver scalps in time for the election” eroded their relationship even before Mr. Barr refused Mr. Trump’s baseless demand that he say the 2020 election had been corrupt.Where Mr. Trump’s first-term efforts were scattered and haphazard, key allies — including Jeffrey B. Clark, a former Justice Department official who helped Mr. Trump try to overturn the 2020 election — have been developing a blueprint to make the department in any second Trump term more systematically subject to direct White House control.Against that backdrop, Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the long-shot G.O.P. challengers, has pledged to pardon Mr. Trump if Mr. Ramaswamy wins the presidency. He said that as a constitutional matter, he thinks a president does have the power to direct prosecutors to open or close specific criminal investigations. But he added that “the president must exercise this judgment with prudence in a manner that respects the rule of law in the country.”Vivek Ramaswamy said he would respect the post-Watergate norm regarding Justice Department independence.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesAsked if he would pledge, regardless of his views on what the law may technically allow presidents to do, to obey the post-Watergate norm, Mr. Ramaswamy replied: “As a general norm, yes.”Two Republican candidates who are both former U.S. attorneys unequivocally stated that presidents should not direct the investigations or prosecutions of individuals. Tellingly, both are chasing votes from anti-Trump moderate Republicans.Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor who was a U.S. attorney in the George W. Bush administration, said he knew “just how important it is to keep prosecutors independent and let them do their jobs.”“No president should be meddling in Department of Justice investigations or cases in any way,” Mr. Christie added. “The best way to keep that from happening is with a strong attorney general who can lead without fear or favor.”And Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas governor and congressman who served as a U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration, said that “preserving an independent and politically impartial Department of Justice in terms of specific investigations is essential for the rule of law and paramount in rebuilding trust with the American people.”A spokesman for former Vice President Mike Pence, Devin O’Malley, was terse. He said a president could remove senior law enforcement officials and expressed some support for Justice Department independence. But he declined to add further comment when pressed.“Mike Pence believes that the president of the United States has the ability to hire and fire the attorney general, the F.B.I. director, and other D.O.J. officials — and has, in fact, pledged to do so if elected — but also believes the D.O.J. has a certain level of independence with regard to prosecutorial matters,” Mr. O’Malley said.Mr. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, through a spokesman, expressed some support for Justice Department independence.John Tully for The New York TimesMost other candidates running against Mr. Trump landed in what they apparently deemed to be a politically safer space of blending general comments about how justice should be administered impartially with vague accusations that the Biden-era Justice Department had targeted Republicans for political reasons.Many did not specifically point to a basis for those accusations. Among a broad swath of conservatives, it is taken as a given that the F.B.I. and Justice Department must be politically motivated against them on a variety of fronts, including the scrutiny over the 2016 Trump campaign’s links to Russia, the prosecution of people who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the Trump documents case.Matt Gorman, a senior communications adviser for Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, declined to say whether or not Mr. Scott believed presidents should interfere in specific investigations. He pointed only to Mr. Scott’s comments on the most recent “Fox News Sunday” appearance.In those remarks, Mr. Scott said: “We have to clean out the political appointments in the Department of Justice to restore confidence and integrity in the D.O.J. Today, we want to know that in our justice system, Lady Justice wears a blindfold and that all Americans will be treated fairly by Lady Justice. But today, this D.O.J. continues to hunt Republicans while they protect Democrats.”Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, also provided an ambiguous answer through her spokeswoman, Chaney Denton. She pointed to two specific conservative grievances with law enforcement: Seven years ago, Hillary Clinton was not charged over using a private email server while secretary of state, and the Trump-era special counsel, Mr. Durham, wrote a report this year criticizing the Russia inquiry.“The Department of Justice should be impartial, but unfortunately it is not today,” Ms. Denton said. “The Durham Report, the non-prosecution of Hillary Clinton, and other actions make it clear that a partisan double standard is being applied. The answer is not to have both parties weaponize the Justice Department; it’s to have neither side do it.”“The Department of Justice should be impartial,” a spokeswoman for Nikki Haley said, without getting into specifics.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesWhen specifically pressed, Ms. Denton declined to say whether Ms. Haley believes presidents should get involved in prosecutions or investigations of individuals.One recent entrant to the race, Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami, disavowed the post-Watergate norm, putting forward a premise that law enforcement officials are currently politically biased and so his White House interference would be to correct that purported state of affairs.“I certainly would not promise that I would allow a biased department operate independently,” he said in part of a statement. “I believe it is the president’s responsibility to insist that justice is delivered fairly without bias or political influence.”A spokesman for Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Lance Trover, was even more vague.“Gov. Burgum believes that citizens’ faith in our institutions is the foundation of a free and just society and will not allow them to be a political enforcement extension of the party in power as we have seen in failed countries,” he said. “If Americans have distrust in the Justice Department when he takes office, he will do what it takes to restore the American people’s faith in the Department of Justice and other bedrocks of our democracy.” More