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    Lisa Murkowski Says She Won’t Vote for Trump

    Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said in an interview released on Sunday that she would not vote for former President Donald J. Trump. She also did not rule out the possibility of leaving the Republican Party.In the interview, which Ms. Murkowski gave to CNN, she said that she would “absolutely” not support Mr. Trump in the general election in November. She said that she wished Republicans had nominated someone whom she could vote for, but that she “certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.”Asked whether she might leave the party and become an independent, she said that she considered herself “very independent-minded” and added, “I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.” But she did not give a yes-or-no answer, saying: “I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times. Let’s just leave it at that.”If Ms. Murkowski left the Republican Party, it would be welcome news for Democrats facing a brutally difficult map in the Senate elections in November. Three of their current seats are up for election in red states, and several more are up for election in swing states. There are almost no opportunities to pick up seats currently held by Republicans, and there’s no room for error, given their very narrow majority.Ms. Murkowski, who has served in the Senate for more than 20 years, has long been more moderate than many Republicans. Among other positions that are rare in her party, she supports abortion rights, and she has long been critical of Mr. Trump, including in voting to convict him in his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.But most elected Republicans, even those who denounced Mr. Trump after Jan. 6, have fallen back in line behind him as it has become clear that he will be the party’s nominee for president.Ms. Murkowski’s declaration that she will not vote for Mr. Trump puts her in the company of a small number of prominent anti-Trump Republicans, among them Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming.“No, no, no, absolutely not,” Mr. Romney said last month when asked by CNN whether he would vote for Mr. Trump. More

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    Former Trump Aide Alyssa Farah Griffin Becomes a Liberal Favorite

    Now and then during an election cycle, a Republican pundit becomes something of a hero to Democrats.Peggy Noonan, a conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, filled that role in the months leading up the 2008 election, after she had pilloried the second Bush administration over its invasion of Iraq and criticized Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee.Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt, veterans of John McCain’s failed 2008 presidential campaign, reached pundit primacy on MSNBC excoriating the tea party activists then in ascendance.A rising star of the current season is Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former communications director for President Trump who is now a co-host of ABC’s “The View” and a regular commentator on CNN.Ms. Farah Griffin, who resigned from the Trump administration in December 2020, garnered wide attention with a tweet she posted on Jan. 6, 2021: “Dear MAGA — I am one of you. Before I worked for @realDonaldTrump, I worked for @MarkMeadows & @Jim_Jordan & the @freedomcaucus. I marched in the 2010 Tea Party rallies. I campaigned w/ Trump & voted for him. But I need you to hear me: the Election was NOT stolen. We lost.”Three years later, Ms. Farah Griffin, 34, spends many of her nights at the CNN headquarters in the Hudson Yards district of Manhattan, bantering with Van Jones, David Axelrod and other liberal commentators.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    John Avlon targets New York Republicans in US House campaign: ‘They’re scared’

    To John Avlon’s knowledge, “the National Republican Congressional Committee didn’t feel compelled to weigh in when any of the other candidates in the Democratic primary got in the race. But they did for me. And I think that’s because they’re scared.”The race is in New York’s first congressional district, a US House seat represented by a Republican, Nick LaLota, in an area that trended towards Joe Biden in 2020 and is thus one of many Democratic targets in the state this year. Avlon announced his run on Wednesday.“I think they thought they were going to have a relatively easy race, maybe facing the candidate who had been defeated before. But I think when they saw me getting in the race, they recognised that changes the calculus.”Avlon, 51, is no unknown quantity: he has written four books on politics and history, was for five years editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast and, until this month, was a contributor and anchor at CNN.The primary comes first. Nancy Goroff contested the seat on the eastern end of Long Island in 2020 and is in again. So is James Gaughran, a former state senator. There’s plenty of time for things to get testy but Gaughran welcomed Avlon to the race, telling Politico: “I’ve watched him a lot on CNN, and I’ve actually become a big fan. His advocacy – particularly pointing to the issues we have in this country of trying to save this country from Donald Trump, is spot on.”Avlon laughs. “That was very kind of Jimmy. And by the way … don’t we want to see more of that? Don’t we want to see more, ‘Let’s have a civil conversation, disagree where we disagree, find the areas where we agree, and be civil and constructive and not tear each other down in primaries, because it distracts the focus from the real work to be done, which is winning a general election.’”Republicans have not been quite so welcoming to Avlon. The NRCC said it looked forward “to litigating this smug, liberal hack’s past so voters can see just how left he and the rest of the modern Democrat [sic] party have become”.A LaLota spokesperson piled in, calling Avlon “a Manhattan elitist without any attachments to Long Island other than his summer home in the Hamptons” and claiming NY-1 “has a history of rejecting out-of-state and Manhattan elitists, from both sides of the aisle, who parachute into the district”.Avlon has homes in Sag Harbor and Manhattan. LaLota, a graduate of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, lives in Amityville – outside his district.Avlon says: “I don’t think it’s remotely credible to attack me as radical far left. That’s the kind of cut-and-paste political attack that people realise is just fundamentally false. And I think the reality is that Nick LaLota has been a Donald Trump flunky, doing whatever he says rather than solving problems on behalf of people in Suffolk county. You know, he’s far too far right for this swing district.”Twice, Avlon mentions as a model the centrist Tom Suozzi’s Democratic win this month in NY-3, the seat formerly held by the notorious George Santos, the sixth House member ever expelled. Twice, Avlon cites as motivation farcical scenes in Washington DC in which Senate Republicans sank their own border and immigration deal, Trump having made clear he wants to campaign for president against the backdrop of a “border crisis”, real or confected.House Republicans have since refused to consider a foreign aid package without attendant border reform.Avlon says: “When LaLota attacked Senator James Lankford [of Oklahoma, the Republican negotiator] for trying to solve the border crisis with a bipartisan solution, he just revealed himself as part of the problem, not part of the solution of our politics. I want to be part of the solution.”To some Democrats, “centrist” has become a dirty word. Not to Avlon. He has distanced himself from No Labels, the group he co-founded in 2010, left a decade ago and now accuses of a “reckless gamble with democracy” in its flirtation with a presidential campaign. But the political centre is still where he wants to be, “particularly in swing districts [like NY-01] as a matter of practicality but I think also on principle.“If the larger goal is to win elections, we still need to find a way to reunite America. That’s a lofty goal. I’m not saying that’s why I’m running. But once we break this fever, we need to find a way to come together again. I do believe in the power of unifying leaders in divided times and the best American politics is that which focuses on what unites us, not what divides us.”Avlon’s third book, from 2017, was Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations. The historian Richard Norton Smith called it “a stake through the heart of political extremism”, a subject Avlon knows well, also having written Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America (2010) and presented Reality Check with John Avlon: Extremist Beat for CNN.“There’s a fundamental importance in building broader community and building a big tent,” he says. “The Democratic party is the last big tent party. The Democratic party, unfortunately, is the only functioning political party in America, because the other party is set to re-nominate a guy who tried to destroy our democracy, and is using election lies as a litmus test for loyalty. I don’t think you can underscore that enough.“But in the larger sense, democracy depends upon reasoning together. That requires common facts and identifying common ground and focusing on how you solve common problems. And that’s about putting country over party.”Avlon’s own marriage is bipartisan. His wife, Margaret Hoover, is a TV host and political commentator whose great-grandfather, Herbert Hoover, was the unlucky president hit by the Great Depression.Avlon is “proud of her and her family and the work she does to defend and extend his legacy. When Margaret and I are on air together or doing something onstage together, I hope it serves as a reminder that people can disagree agreeably – again, that partisan politics shouldn’t define every aspect of our lives, especially our personal lives. We can have honest disagreements, as long as it’s accompanied by an assumption of goodwill.”Avlon also started out working for a Republican: Rudy Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York City, long before he became Trump’s attack dog. As speechwriter and policy director, Avlon was there on 11 September 2001, when the towers fell.“September 11 is one of the defining moments in my life,” he says. “And I don’t think that’s unusual. I think New Yorkers understand how it defined our collective character. And I think some folks have slipped into a certain 9/11 amnesia. And I’ve warned against the wisdom of that, in a lot of segments, on air and written.“I’ll always be proud of the work we did in those days. My team and I were responsible for writing the eulogies for 343 firefighters, for police officers and Port Authority workers. And I think that memory, and the example they set by running into the fire, and the way we were briefly able to unite as a nation, in the aftermath, those are all core parts of my character and my experience.“And I think folks in Suffolk county will understand that, because they’ve experienced it themselves or they’ve been touched by it themselves. You don’t have to be retired police officer or firefighter to understand the importance of that day and its aftermath to our communities. It’s just part of who I am.” More

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    Can the MAGA Shrew Be Tamed?

    Maureen Dowd has a cold.Hmmm.Not quite the same ring as “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” Gay Talese’s legendary 1966 Esquire profile of the crooner.Nonetheless, I did catch a cold in arctic Des Moines. So on caucus night, I stayed in my hotel room watching TV and munching on Cheez-Its, flipping between wins and losses in Hollywood and Iowa.There wasn’t any custom Louis Vuitton on display in the frozen tundra of Iowa, but there were some parallels — beyond the abysmal turnout for both shows.The Emmys did a tribute to “The Sopranos” and James Gandolfini. Donald Trump, who loves to style himself as a tough mob don, facing down a RICO charge, recently bragged about a character reference he’d gotten from Sammy (the Bull) Gravano, once a hit man for John Gotti.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    Inside CNN’s Debate Over Airing Trump’s Iowa Caucus Victory Speech

    Tensions within CNN over coverage of former President Donald J. Trump burst into the open on Thursday during an internal call with the network’s journalists, as an executive candidly questioned the approach of the channel’s new chief executive, Mark Thompson.CNN aired roughly 10 minutes of Mr. Trump’s victory speech after he won the Iowa caucuses on Monday before cutting away. The decision to cut him off prompted derision from the former president and his allies, although critics on the left questioned why CNN had taken Mr. Trump live in the first place, given his tendency to spread falsehoods and conspiracies. MSNBC chose not to take any of his remarks live.Mr. Thompson opened his morning conference call on Thursday by acknowledging a debate within his newsroom, saying he believed the network had a journalistic obligation to broadcast the remarks of the leading Republican candidate for president.After a period of silence, a senior vice president of programming, Jim Murphy, jumped in, telling Mr. Thompson that the network had given Mr. Trump too much airtime when the network aired Mr. Trump’s live news conference last week after his civil fraud trial. Mr. Murphy said that CNN should cover Mr. Trump’s comments when he makes news, not when he is repeating political talking points.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    DeSantis, Once a Darling of Conservative News Media, Now Rails Against It

    As the Iowa caucuses draw near, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has increasingly focused on a peculiar target as he looks to win the Republican nomination: the conservative news media ecosystem that supports former President Donald J. Trump.Desperate to make his case that he is a better candidate than Mr. Trump — while trailing by wide margins in recent polls — Mr. DeSantis seems to have turned on many of the news outlets that once promoted his candidacy, for being unfair in their coverage.“He’s got basically a Praetorian Guard of the conservative media — Fox News, the websites, all this stuff,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters outside his campaign headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa. “They just don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers. And they don’t want to have the ratings go down.”He added: “That’s just the reality. That’s just the truth, and I’m not complaining about it. I’d rather that not be the case. But that’s just, I think, an objective reality.”It was the most animated version of a message that Mr. DeSantis, despite saying he is not complaining, has delivered repeatedly over the last several days. While the former governor’s own criticisms of Mr. Trump are relatively muted, he has urged conservative news media to be more critical.Calling on the conservative news media to hold Mr. Trump more to account allows Mr. DeSantis to appear to be doing so himself, if not directly. But he and his team have also taken to attacking Fox News, which was glowing in its coverage of Mr. DeSantis until it circled the wagons for Mr. Trump once the former president was first indicted in March 2023.When Mr. DeSantis was a House member, he became a star among conservatives through appearances on Fox News. He soon built a supportive network with other conservative news outlets.The New York Post, which, like Fox News, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, declared him “DeFuture” after his successful re-election effort in 2022, making him a target for some Trump allies who portrayed him as the conservative news media’s establishment pick. He had grown used to being defended by conservative news media in his culture war fights, and by an army of online allies who would defend him on social media.But that was then. Mr. DeSantis’s standing in the race for the Republican nomination eroded over many months. Fox News hosted Mr. Trump just this week for a live town hall from Iowa.Mr. DeSantis, who once constantly criticized the mainstream news media, has shifted gears and gives interviews to mainstream outlets like CNN and even left-leaning networks like MSNBC.He now finds himself floating attack lines against onetime allies as he fights for second place in the caucuses before bringing them on the trail. To that end, Mr. DeSantis used his line about Mr. Trump’s Praetorian Guard during an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” before deploying it again on Friday. More

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    Trump’s Press Conference Aired as His Civil Fraud Trial Comes to a Close

    CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all carried a live news conference by Donald J. Trump on Thursday on the final day of his civil fraud trial, a stark reminder that the former president’s legal troubles offer a uniquely outsize media platform as he pursues the Republican nomination.His appearance lasted only a few minutes, but viewers were treated to an unfiltered fusillade of incendiary and misleading comments, with Mr. Trump assailing President Biden as a “crooked” politician who “could not string two sentences together.”Fraud charges against a former president are undoubtedly newsworthy, but Mr. Trump has seized on the legal proceedings as a chance to hog the media spotlight — a notable advantage over rivals like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Nikki Haley, who can struggle for similar airtime.Trump campaign aides took particular pleasure that CNN carried Mr. Trump live and allowed him to deliver his talking points, unmediated, to the American public. This framing — on Mr. Trump’s own terms, with TV cameras capturing his every word without real-time fact-checking — is exactly how Mr. Trump and his allies envisage they can exploit any criminal trials that might be held during the election season.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    How to Watch the Republican Debate Taking Place in Iowa

    Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis will meet on Wednesday night in Des Moines for the last Republican presidential debate before the Iowa caucuses on Monday.CNN will host the debate starting at 9 p.m. Eastern time.Where can I watch?CNN is broadcasting the debate on cable and will stream it free on CNN.com. Subscribers to the streaming service Max can watch via CNN Max.Which candidates will be there?Only three candidates — Mr. DeSantis, Ms. Haley and Donald J. Trump — met CNN’s qualification requirements. To make it onto the debate stage, candidates had to have at least 10 percent support in a minimum of three distinct polls of national Republican primary voters or Iowa Republican caucusgoers.Mr. Trump, the front-runner, has not attended any of the four previous Republican primary debates. He won’t attend this one either, leaving Mr. DeSantis, Florida’s governor, and Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, to face off one on one. Instead, Mr. Trump will join the Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum for a live town hall at the same time as the debate.In a departure from the four previous debates, the Republican National Committee is not a sponsor of the one on Wednesday. In December, the party decided it would stop participating in future debates, giving the hosting TV networks freedom to set their own qualification rules.Who are the moderators?Dana Bash and Jack Tapper, co-hosts of CNN’s Sunday show “State of the Union,” will moderate the debate.Is this the last primary debate?No. ABC News and WMUR, a Hearst television station in New Hampshire, will host a debate in that state on Jan. 18. And CNN plans to host another debate, also in New Hampshire, on Jan. 21. More