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    Trump Is Mainstream, Whether We Like It or Not

    Hunker down, America. Here we go again.The presidential election is still a year and a half away. But on Wednesday evening, Donald Trump will elbow his way back into the campaign mainstream. At a town hall event in New Hampshire hosted by CNN, the former president will field questions from audience members and the network anchor Kaitlan Collins.The whole spectacle sounds downright chilling. The event will be live, leaving Mr. Trump more or less free to inject his lies straight into viewers’ veins. He will be coming off the E. Jean Carroll verdict, upping his odds of saying something awful about women or witch hunts and how everyone is always out to get him. And even if he dials down the crazy, his re-emergence on a major prime-time platform raises vexing questions. After everything this antidemocratic, violence-encouraging carnival barker has put America through, are we really going to treat him like a normal candidate this time? How can CNN and other media outlets justify giving him a megaphone from which to dominate and degrade the political landscape? Have we learned nothing from the past eight years?Short answer: We have in fact learned much about Mr. Trump and the threat he poses to American democracy. But trying to shut him out of the public discussion or campaign process would bring its own dangers. Not only would it play into the politics of victimhood that he peddles with such infuriating effectiveness. It risks further undermining public faith in the democratic process — making the system look too weak to deal with one aspiring autocrat — and even the process itself. As with so much about the MAGA king, there are no easy fixes.Nothing that Mr. Trump has done so far legally prevents him from pursuing, or serving, another term in the White House. Yes, many voters consider his double impeachments, his role in the Jan. 6 riot and his glut of legal troubles to be disqualifying. But many others do not. Polls consistently put the former president at the front of the current Republican presidential pack. A recent CBS News-YouGov survey gave him a whopping 36 point advantage over Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida (58 percent to 22 percent) among likely G.O.P. primary voters. No other contender cracked double digits. As for the general election, a new ABC News-Washington Post poll showed him with a six-point edge — seven points with undecided leaners — over President Biden.While early polling has its shortcomings, it does serve as a reminder of Mr. Trump’s enduring appeal for millions of Americans. He is a serious contender for the White House — even, heaven help us, a formidable one. To treat him otherwise would be a breach of duty by the news media, democratic institutions and voters.It’s not as though Mr. Trump can be stuffed in a storage closet like a bunch of classified documents. Today’s mediascape includes a host of conservative players eager to fawn all over him in the hopes of making his fans theirs as well. Just think of the embarrassing tongue bath he received from Tucker Carlson in their April sit-down. Such slobberfests should not be the primary means by which voters assess Mr. Trump. He needs to be put through his paces, like any horse in the race.Just to be clear: No one is daft enough to think that Mr. Trump and CNN are linking arms out of a selfless, high-minded commitment to the public good. They are using each other. Under new leadership, the network is looking to rebuild its reputation, and ratings, as a less crusading, more balanced news source.As for the former president, CNN is just one piece of his grand media strategy. His team has been talking up how their guy wants to push the reset button on his relationship with the fourth estate. Journalists from mainstream outlets are being invited to travel on his campaign plane. And the campaign is negotiating with other top outlets, including NBC, for face time with the candidate.This is the least surprising move ever. Mr. Trump has always been a media creation. Without the “fake news” he so loves to bash, he’d just be another failed real estate scion hawking mediocre steaks and worthless degrees from his “university.”More specifically, Mr. Trump’s people are flogging the idea that his willingness to play with the media is proof of his bravery and manliness. “Going outside the traditional Republican ‘comfort zone’ was a key to President Trump’s success in 2016,” one toady recently told The Hill. “Some other candidates are too afraid to take this step in their quest to defeat Joe Biden and are afraid to do anything other than Fox News.”Take that, “Pudding Fingers” DeSantis.More targeted still: Mr. Trump’s canoodling with CNN twists the knife in the gut of Fox News, which of late has not been obsequious enough for his taste. This isn’t simply an issue of personal spite. Threatening/scaring/cajoling Fox News back into line is important to Mr. Trump’s 2024 fortunes. Whatever the network’s recent drama, there is no other conservative platform like it.It’s hard to know how Mr. Trump’s forays beyond his MAGA bubble will go, especially starting out. The guy was an appalling president, but he has always been a top-notch pitchman with a freaky sort of charisma. And a huge part of running for — and even being — president is compelling salesmanship. That said, he is out of practice interacting with people who aren’t there simply to lick his boots. He has spent the past couple of years largely cocooned in a fantasyland of his own creation, which can be tough to come back from.That makes these early appearances all the more important. CNN has as much on the line on Wednesday as the candidate — maybe more. This is about more than real-time fact-checking the candidate, though it must be established early and firmly that no disinformation will go unrebutted. Mr. Trump cannot be allowed to grandstand or slither away from awkward topics: He needs to face tough and skeptical questioning from the get-go.I do wish that CNN had waited a bit longer before relaunching Mr. Trump. Firing up the prime-time campaign coverage machine this early in the cycle isn’t healthy for the American psyche under normal circumstances, much less with this singularly toxic character in the mix.But now that the Trump Show is back, the media — everyone really — needs to be demanding more from this season than past ones. The former president should be expected to undergo the same vetting rituals as other candidates: debates, town halls, non-softball interviews, candidate cattle calls — the works. He cannot be left to the fuzzy realm of social media and schmoozing with Sean Hannity-style sycophants.Voters deserve the opportunity to take a clear measure of this man’s candidacy, no matter how nauseating some of us may find that process.Source photographs by Sophie Park for The New York Times and ozgurdonmaz, via Getty Images.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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    Chris Christie Taunts Trump as ‘Afraid’ of Presidential Debates

    Mr. Christie, who is weighing a presidential bid, also called Donald Trump “a child” for fixating on the 2020 election and said “he doesn’t have a lot of serious answers” for the nation’s problems.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, one of the few potential Republican presidential candidates willing to attack Donald J. Trump directly, laced into the former president on Wednesday over his reported reluctance to participate in presidential debates.“Obviously, he’s afraid,” taunted Mr. Christie, a Trump defender-turned-critic, in an interview with the conservative media personality Hugh Hewitt. “He’s afraid to get on the stage against people who are serious.”Mr. Trump, the current Republican poll leader, appears likely to skip at least one of the first two debates of the 2024 Republican presidential nominating contest, indicating that he does not want to elevate lower-polling rivals. A number of them — most notably Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is expected to announce his campaign soon — have been reluctant to confront Mr. Trump frontally, a sign of the sway he continues to hold over much of the Republican base.“If he really cares about the country — and I have deep questions about that — but if he really cares about the country, then he’s going to get up there, and he shouldn’t be afraid,” Mr. Christie said. He added: “If, in fact, his ideas are so great, if his leadership is so outstanding, then his lead will only increase if he gets on the stage, not decrease.”Asked for comment, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, replied, “Who?”He said that Mr. Christie “has no idea what he is talking about and should stick to being a talking head instead of trying to play pretend candidate.”In the interview, Mr. Christie — who is currently polling at 1 to 2 percent — also indicated that he would make a decision about his own presidential plans in the next two weeks.“The presidency is not a scripted exercise, and so that’s why I think debates are important,” Mr. Christie said.He suggested that Mr. Trump, who continues to lie about the integrity of the 2020 election, was reluctant to debate “because he doesn’t have a lot of serious answers for the problems that are facing the country right now. All he wants to do is go back and reprosecute the 2020 election because his feelings are hurt. He’s a child in that regard.” More

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    Trump Likely to Sit Out One or Both of First Two G.O.P. Debates

    In private comments to aides and confidants, Donald J. Trump has indicated he does not want to breathe life into his Republican challengers by sharing a debate stage with them.The leading Republican candidate for president, Donald J. Trump, is likely to skip at least one of the first two debates of the 2024 Republican presidential nominating contest, according to five people who have discussed the matter with the former president.Last month, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, announced that Fox News would host the first G.O.P. primary debate in Milwaukee in August. The second debate will be held in Southern California at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.In private comments to aides and confidants in recent weeks, Mr. Trump has made it clear that he does not want to breathe life into his Republican challengers by sharing the stage with them. Mr. Trump has led his nearest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by around 30 percentage points in recent polls. All other contenders are polling in single digits.“I’m up by too many points,” one associate who spoke with Mr. Trump recalled him saying.One adviser stressed that the situation was fluid, particularly given how early it remains in the 2024 race and with Mr. DeSantis not yet even a declared candidate. Mr. Trump may find it hard to stay away from a stage where others are criticizing him, and some senior Republicans expect that he will ultimately join the debates. He has long credited the debates in the 2016 campaign, both in the primary and the general election, for his victories.Mr. Trump has long credited the debates in the 2016 campaign, both in the primary and the general election, for his victories. Sophie Park for The New York TimesStill, if Mr. Trump opts out of some primary campaign debates — as he did once before in 2016 — he will shrink the viewing audience and limit his rivals’ chances to seize a breakout moment on the debate stage. The visibility such moments offer is hard to come by in a race in which Mr. Trump almost monopolizes the news media’s attention.For Mr. Trump, denying his low-polling rivals access to a massive television audience is part of his calculations in potentially skipping the debates, according to the people who have discussed the matter with him. In 2015, Fox News drew an audience of 24 million for the first primary debate of the 2016 campaign. It was, at the time, the biggest viewership for a nonsports event in cable television history.“In his mind there’s not enough candidates who are polling close enough to him,” said a person familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with the former president. “And that if he does a debate this early with candidates who are polling in the single digits, there’s no upside for him.”Another motivation for Mr. Trump is revenge: The former president has a history with the two institutions hosting the first two Republican candidate debates.Mr. Trump has told advisers that the second debate is a nonstarter for him because it will be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The chairman of the library’s board of trustees, Frederick J. Ryan Jr., also serves as the publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post, a fact that Mr. Trump regularly brings up.Mr. Trump is also sour that the Reagan library has invited numerous other leading Republicans to speak at its events over the past two years, including his presidential rival Mr. DeSantis, but has never extended an invitation to Mr. Trump, according to two people familiar with his thinking.The library started a speakers series in 2021 called “Time for Choosing,” and invitees have included Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina; Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador; and, more recently, Mr. DeSantis. A spokesperson for the library said no former president has been included in the series.One reason Mr. Trump may skip the first debate is its timing — he believes it’s too early, and has told aides he does not want to debate in August. Another reason is the host, Fox News.In 2015, Fox News drew an audience of 24 million for the first primary debate of the 2016 campaign. At the time it was the biggest viewership for a nonsports event in cable television history.John Taggart for The New York TimesMr. Trump has been warring with Fox News since the conservative network announced on election night in 2020 that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the state of Arizona. While the former president maintains warm relationships with several prime-time hosts — especially Sean Hannity, a reliable Trump booster — Mr. Trump’s overall relationship with Rupert Murdoch’s television network has deteriorated as the network showered Mr. DeSantis with praise over the past two years while constricting its coverage of Mr. Trump.“Why would I have Bret Baier” question me, Mr. Trump told an associate, explaining a reason to skip the Fox News debate. Mr. Trump was furious with Mr. Baier, a Fox host, over his coverage of the 2020 election, in which Mr. Baier refuted many of the election-fraud claims made by the Trump team.Mr. Trump has also mentioned his previous skirmish with the former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in his private conversations with associates as a reason not to agree to a debate hosted by the network.In the first Republican debate of the 2016 campaign cycle, Ms. Kelly asked Mr. Trump about demeaning things he’d said about women. Mr. Trump viewed this as a declaration of war from Fox News’ management. He later attacked Ms. Kelly in crude and sexist terms.And Mr. Trump has obliquely raised a more specific issue in some other recent discussions about the upcoming debates, acknowledging that there will be questions about the charges filed against him in Manhattan — falsifying business records in connection with payments to a porn star — that could change the character of the debates.Mr. Trump has negotiated with CNN to hold a town hall-style event, the type of event the network has held with Mr. Biden and with former Vice President Mike Pence. For Mr. Trump, taking part in the CNN event is a shot at both Fox and Mr. DeSantis, who refuses to engage with the mainstream media. Even as Mr. Trump attacks mainstream media coverage and calls reporters the “enemy of the people,” the former fixture of New York City’s tabloids routinely invites a handful of mainstream reporters on board his private plane, where he holds court and provides fodder for news stories.A campaign official, speaking with anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the private deliberations, said Mr. Trump’s decision to leave the traditional Republican “comfort zone” was key to his victory in 2016 and contended that some candidates were now “afraid” to do anything other than Fox News.The Trump campaign had warned the Republican National Committee not to announce any debates before Labor Day, because Mr. Trump had no intention of debating before then, according to two people familiar with the conversations. But last month, Ms. McDaniel, the chairwoman, announced on “Fox and Friends” that the network would host the first debate in August. A campaign official insisted that despite the logistical issues, the Trump team has a good working relationship with the party chairwoman.For the party committee, operating outside of Mr. Trump’s demands and appearing neutral is seen as a positive development, according to a person familiar with Ms. McDaniel’s thinking. An R.N.C. official declined to comment.Ms. McDaniel also said that the R.N.C. would ask all debate participants to pledge they would support the party’s eventual nominee — no matter who that person is. Advisers to Mr. Trump were unsure whether he would agree to such a pledge.The Republican National Committee has not yet set the criteria for candidates to qualify for debates, but that criteria is expected to involve a combination of polling averages and total individual donors. The committee has also said that if specific conditions are not met, it wants the eventual nominee to sign a pledge saying the nominee will not participate in general-election debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The R.N.C. has been actively looking at alternative options.Shane Goldmacher More

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    Trump Weighs Skipping Primary Debates

    He took swipes at President Biden, Ron DeSantis and the Reagan presidential library during an event in New Hampshire.Former President Donald J. Trump used a campaign rally on Thursday in New Hampshire to add to his arguments that it was not worth his time to debate his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, casting himself as the party’s undeclared nominee.Standing in front of several hundred supporters in a New England state that was a springboard for his election in 2016, Mr. Trump said that he held a commanding polling advantage in the 2024 Republican primary, months before any voting would begin. He has been posting similar themes on his social media site, Truth Social.He said that giving his G.O.P. rivals, like Gov. Ron DeSantis, an opening on a debate stage made no sense.“Why would you do that?” he told the crowd at a DoubleTree hotel in Manchester. In 2019, then as president, he considered skipping any presidential debates for the 2020 race before ultimately debating the Democrats’ nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr.And on Thursday he jumped straight to the general election, saying, “I do look forward to the debate with Joe.”Mr. Biden declared on Tuesday that he would seek a second term. His predecessor claimed at his rally, without evidence, that the video Mr. Biden released to announce his re-election campaign “took supposedly seven takes to get it right.” The video features a montage of scenes from Mr. Biden’s presidency and only a few short clips where he spoke to the camera.Citing a recent Emerson College poll, Mr. Trump noted that 62 percent of G.O.P. primary voters indicated that they would support him, compared with 16 percent for Mr. DeSantis, who has not yet declared his candidacy. No other Republican was in double digits.“He’s crashing and burning,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. DeSantis, suggesting that he had benefited in the past from his association with Mr. Trump but that he was now struggling to get a foothold on his own.Mr. Trump has never shied away from broadsides against other Republicans, something Ronald Reagan famously frowned upon in what became known as the 11th Commandment. And in New Hampshire, Reagan’s presidential library was a target for Mr. Trump, who questioned its selection as the venue for the second G.O.P. primary debate. He pointed out that Frederick J. Ryan Jr., the publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, another frequent Trump target, was chairman of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute.Representatives for the institute did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and The Post declined to comment.Separately on Thursday in Manhattan, lawyers for Mr. Trump appeared in a federal courtroom to defend him in a case brought by E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist, who has accused Mr. Trump of raping her nearly three decades ago.Mr. Trump, who has denied the accusation, avoided mentioning the trial during the rally. However, he bemoaned his various other legal entanglements and alluded to his indictment this month by a New York grand jury on charges that he had concealed hush-money payments to a former porn star.He faces further legal peril. A federal investigation, in the hands of a special counsel, is investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his defeat at the polls in 2020 and also his role in the events that led to the storming of the Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. And a Georgia prosecutor is in the final stages of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse the election results in that state.While Mr. Trump has opened up a polling lead, the Republican field is fluid and appears likely to expand. It includes Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and a United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration; Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas; and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.Another Republican who is entertaining a run is New Hampshire’s governor, Chris Sununu, who recently said that Mr. Trump’s losing streak could continue in 2024. He has cited Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020 and Republican midterm losses in 2018 and 2022.Mr. Trump bristled at G.O.P. skeptics, singling out Mr. Sununu, whose name elicited boos from the crowd.“Isn’t he a nasty guy?” Mr. Trump said, criticizing Mr. Sununu’s decision to run for re-election as governor instead of for Senate during last year’s midterm elections.Mr. Sununu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

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    Fox News to Host First Republican Presidential Primary Debate

    The candidates will face off in August in Milwaukee. Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel says they will be asked to agree to a loyalty pledge before they take the stage.Fox News will host the first official debate of the 2024 Republican presidential primary in Milwaukee in August, the Republican National Committee’s chairwoman announced on Wednesday.“We are going to host the very first debate with Fox News. It will be a Fox News Republican primary debate,” Ronna McDaniel said on the network’s flagship morning program, “Fox and Friends,” adding that all participants will be asked to agree to a party loyalty pledge to support the eventual nominee.Donald J. Trump, the former president and current polling front-runner for the nomination in 2024, has refused to say whether he would support a nominee other than himself. In a February radio appearance, he said his support “would have to depend on who the nominee was.”Ms. McDaniel explained the reason for the pledge: “Let me ask you this, as R.N.C. chair, and we’re hosting R.N.C. debates with Fox, if I said I wouldn’t support the nominee of our party I’d be kicked out,” she said. “So why would we host a debate stage without every candidate saying I’m going to support whoever the voters choose, and the voters want that.”“It’s about beating Joe Biden,” she added.Ms. McDaniel did not say how the party would determine who qualifies for the debate stage. In 2020, the Democratic National Committee required candidates to report a minimum number of small donors or meet a certain polling level.“We’ll put that criteria out soon,” Ms. McDaniel said — but she did not expect to need more than one debate to accommodate a large field, as the party did initially in 2016 and Democrats did in 2020.“Right now I don’t see there being two stages but I could be wrong on that. The field’s forming later than usual,” she explained.Both the Republican convention and first debate will be in Milwaukee, signaling Wisconsin’s significance in the party’s path back to the White House. On Tuesday, Democrats announced their national convention would be in Chicago.In addition to Mr. Trump, Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and a former United Nations ambassador, Asa Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas, Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and author, and Perry Johnson, a businessman and failed candidate for governor of Michigan, have entered the Republican primary race. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina announced an exploratory committee on Wednesday.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is widely expected to announce a run in the coming months, as is Mike Pence, the former vice president.Ms. McDaniel announced two other debate partners: Young America’s Foundation, which is led by Scott Walker, the former Wisconsin governor, and Rumble, a right-wing online streaming service.“We’re getting away from Big Tech,” she said. More

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    The Woman Shaking Up Italian Politics (No, Not the New Prime Minister)

    Daughter of Italian and Jewish American parents, Elly Schlein wants to remake the center-left opposition to Giorgia Meloni, if only her party can survive it.ROME — Growing up in Switzerland, Elly Schlein felt a little lost.“I was the black sheep. Because my brother and sister seemed to be more sure of what they would do,” the politician recalled. She watched Italian neorealist cinema and American comedies, played Philip Glass on the piano, pet her dwarf bunny named after Freddie Mercury, listened to the Cranberries and ultimately got involved in her school’s politics. “It took a lot more time for me to find my way,” she said.Last weekend, Ms. Schlein, 37, found her way into the center of the debate about the future of the European left when she stunned the liberal establishment and reordered Italy’s political landscape by winning a primary election to become the first woman to lead the country’s center-left Democratic Party. She is promising, she said in her new office headquarters on Wednesday, to “change deeply” a party in the midst of an identity crisis.It is hard to embody change in Italy more than Ms. Schlein.A woman in a relationship with a woman, she is the daughter of a Jewish American father; granddaughter of an Italian antifascist partisan; proud native of Lugano, Switzerland; former volunteer for Barack Obama; collaborator on an award-winning documentary about Albanian refugees; fan of “Naked Gun” movies; shredder of Green Day chords on her electric guitar; and fervent progressive eager to make common international cause with “A.O.C.,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.With her election, Ms. Schlein has catapulted Italy, which long seemed a Country for Old Men, into markedly different territory. A female opposition leader now is pitted against the first female prime minister, the right-wing nationalist Giorgia Meloni.Ms. Schlein grew up in Lugano, Switzerland, and described herself as the “black sheep” of her family. Andrea Wyner for The New York Times“It’s a different scenario now,” said Ms. Schlein, who had the professorial air of her professor parents as she leafed through newspapers. “And an interesting one, because I’ve always said that we don’t need just a female leadership. We need a feminist leadership.”The two women could hardly be more different. Ms. Meloni, who called Ms. Schlein to congratulate her, was raised by a single mother in a working-class neighborhood of Rome, was a youth activist in post-Fascist parties and came to prominence on an anti-migrant, Italy-first platform. Her battle cry: “I’m Giorgia, I’m a woman, I’m a mother, I’m a Christian!”Explore The Times’s Saturday ProfilesThey are shaping the world around them. These are their stories.Going Gray: The prominent news anchor Lisa LaFlamme was unceremoniously dismissed not long after she stopped dyeing her hair — setting off debates across Canada.Reclaiming His Voice: While on a rescue mission in Ukraine, an aspiring opera singer was shot in the lungs. His recovery is a marvel of medicine, chance and his own spirit.A Marxist Mayor: A Communist politician in Graz, Austria, wants to redistribute wealth. A focus on housing, her own modest lifestyle and a hard childhood have helped her popularity.Cleaning Up Senegal: Dressed head to toe in plastic, Modou Fall is a familiar sight in Dakar. His goal? Ridding the capital of the scourge of plastic bags.Princess Rita: A Texas rancher’s daughter landed a dream role as a Roman princess. A battle over the estate of her late husband has soured the reality.Ms. Schlein — who has Italian, Swiss and American passports — said she didn’t understand how being “a woman, a mother and a Christian helps Italians to pay their bills.” She added: “I am a woman. I love another woman. I am not a mother, but I am not less of a woman for this.”She argued that Ms. Meloni represented an ideology that viewed women merely for their reproductive and child-rearing roles. Ms. Meloni has “never described herself as an antifascist,” Ms. Schlein said, arguing that she instead threw red meat to her base with “inhuman” and “illegal” policies making it harder to save migrants at sea.Such liberal red meat is likely to sate the base of progressives and young voters that Ms. Schlein brought into the Democratic Party fold in last Sunday’s primary. But it did little for the left in the election Ms. Meloni won easily in September. Ms. Schlein’s party now has about half the support of Ms. Meloni’s.Moderate critics within Ms. Schlein’s own deeply divided party fear that she will fold its big tent by forfeiting the political center, driving the party to the far left, gutting it of its reputation for sober competence, and blending it with — or feeding it to — the reinvigorated, populist Five Star Movement.Supporters of Giorgia Meloni at a rally in September, in Rome. Ms. Schlein has criticized the prime minister for hurling red meat to her base with “inhuman” and “illegal” policies on migrants.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesBut Ms. Schlein is not convinced that denizens of an Italian middle even exist. “Where are they today?” she asked in her perfect English, noting that “when somebody had tried to represent them with new political options, it never went really well.” Instead, she saw the way forward as making “clear who we want to represent” — struggling Italians.She said she would spread “environmentalist and feminist” solutions to endemic Italian problems such as female unemployment and inequality in “clearly a patriarchal country.” She would make amends for “the mistakes made in the past,” especially during the leadership of former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, which led her to quit the Democratic Party nearly a decade ago.She would reintroduce labor protections, tax the rich, reconnect with trade unions, invest in a greener economy and push for gay and immigrant rights. This week, she visited the site of a deadly shipwreck of migrants in Calabria and effectively interrogated Ms. Meloni’s interior minister for appearing to blame the victims.“Rights, civil rights and social rights, for us are strictly interconnected,” she said in the interview, adding, “The left lost in the moment it became shy on these issues.”One major change on her agenda is to put her party in a position to win elections by making alliances with partners who agreed on critical progressive issues, such as the support of a universal income.“Five Star, of course,” she said. “They have a lot of support.”But Giuseppe Conte, the leader of Five Star, which has demonstrated a strong illiberal streak over recent years, was the prime minister who signed off on the crackdown of migrant rescue ships at sea. He has emerged as Italy’s main opponent to Ms. Meloni’s vow to keep sending weapons to Ukraine.Ms. Schlein with her assistant in her temporary office at the party headquarters in Rome.Massimo Berruti for The New York TimesFive Star’s position on Ukraine, Ms. Schlein said, “I don’t agree on.” She described her party as wholly supportive of Ukraine against the “criminal invasion” by Russia and noted it had voted to send arms over the next year, because “it’s necessary now.”Supporters of Ukraine, however, worry about Ms. Schlein’s ongoing commitment because of her talk of being a “pacifist” and what some consider her naïve argument that Europe somehow needed to convince China to force Russia to end the war.But she said she feels a personal connection to Ukraine. Her grandfather was from Ukraine, she said, and after he emigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Elizabeth, N.J., his family back home was almost certainly wiped out in the Holocaust. Her Italian grandfather, who eventually became a Socialist lawmaker, refused to wear the “black shirts of the Fascists” during his graduation and “was an antifascist lawyer” who, she said, would “defend Jews in trials.”That family history has made her keenly sensitive to “what nationalism has brought to the European continent,” she said, adding, with a reference to the Russian president, “This war is a nationalist war from Putin.”Ms. Schlein was herself not raised Jewish, though she called herself “particularly proud” of her Jewish ancestry. In a friendly interview during the campaign, she told an Italian website that her last name and pronounced nose, what she considers her defining physical feature, attracted odious anti-Semitic attacks. But, she noted, the nose was not Jewish, but “typically Etruscan.”The Colosseum lit up in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, in Rome, in February. Ms. Schlein described her party as wholly supportive of Ukraine against the “criminal invasion” by Russia.Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse, via Associated PressAsked about that comment, Ms. Schlein’s verbosity stalled. “I wouldn’t go back to that,” she said. “No, thanks.” When pressed on what an Etruscan nose looked like, she threw her hands up and acknowledged, “They don’t even exist!”The point, she said, was that she learned that being a “woman,” and “an L.G.B.T.Q.I.+ person” and “very proudly the daughter of a Jewish father” made her a prime target “from the extreme right or also from my extreme left sometimes.” Ms. Schlein declined in the interview to discuss her family or her partner in further detail.Ms. Schlein said addressing such injustices drew her into politics. A star pupil in her Lugano high school, she said, she wanted to take her talents to Italy, “because I’ve always felt that this country, the country of my mother, has strong potential that only needs to be freed.”She went to art school in Bologna. Then she dropped film for law and went from campus politics to the real thing — making powerful friends, gaining fluency in social media and doing stints in the European and Italian Parliaments along the way. When she quit the Democratic Party to protest the loss of its liberal way, she supported a movement to “occupy” the party.Now she occupies the leadership headquarters near the Spanish Steps, and after a short walk toward Ms. Meloni’s palace, Ms. Schlein, the progressive no one saw coming, entertained taking that place over, too.“Well,” she said. “We’ll see.” More

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    Republicans Will Hold Their First Presidential Debate in Milwaukee

    The debate is set for August, in the same city that will host the party’s 2024 convention.The Republican National Committee will hold its first presidential primary debate in Milwaukee in August, its debates committee decided in a vote on Thursday.The committee is seeking to have all candidates sign a loyalty pledge vowing to support the eventual nominee in order to be part of the debates.Milwaukee will also be the site of the Republican National Convention in 2024. Another location that had been under consideration for the first debate was the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, according to people briefed on the matter.“At this time, no other debates have been sanctioned, nor has the final criteria for the first debate been decided,” Ronna McDaniel, the R.N.C. chairwoman, said in an email to members on Thursday. “The committee will continue its work and will release updates as they become available.”Only two major candidates — former President Donald J. Trump and the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley — have entered the race for the Republican nomination. (Lesser-known candidates include Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and author, and Steve Laffey, a former mayor of Cranston, R.I.)But several more are expected to announce campaigns in the coming months. The field could eventually include Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Among the other issues the debate committee has been discussing is having candidates sign a pledge vowing to support the eventual nominee.Such a pledge came about during the 2016 campaign, after then-candidate Donald J. Trump, who had previously considered a third-party candidacy in 2000, declined during an early debate to join the other contenders in saying that they would back the nominee. Mr. Trump, already the front-runner in polls in the crowded field, claimed to be concerned about being treated “fairly” by the party.It is unclear whether he would sign such a pledge this time — or whether he would abide by it even if he lost the nomination.The R.N.C. is also interested in a donations requirement, meaning each candidate would need a specific number of individual donors in order to qualify for the debate stage. More

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    G.O.P. in Talks With Networks About Debates, and Even CNN Is Included

    Conversations between R.N.C. officials and television executives signal that the contours of the Republican nominating contest are shaping up.Despite a field of candidates who regularly bash the news media and a continuing tussle with the Commission on Presidential Debates, Republican leaders sat down last week with television executives in New York and posed a question:Do you want to host a debate?In an intriguing show of détente, the Republican National Committee has asked several major TV networks — including CNN, a regular Republican boogeyman — to consider sponsoring debates, an early sign that the party is making plans for a contested presidential primary.The debates would probably begin this summer, and Republicans are casting a wide net: Party officials are also in talks with executives from ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News, along with more-niche networks like Newsmax and NewsNation, according to several people who requested anonymity to describe discussions intended to be private. Political debates are highly prized in the TV news industry and the networks are expected to present proposals next month.“Our goal is to have incredibly successful debates that allow Republican primary voters to see, without any kind of bias, a full picture of what these candidates stand for,” David Bossie, the chairman of the party’s presidential debates committee, said in an interview.The conversations, led by Mr. Bossie and Ronna McDaniel, the R.N.C. chairwoman, have moved forward even as the Republicans’ slate of presidential contenders remains uncertain. They underscore a delicate balancing act for Republican leaders, who are reviewing media and messaging strategy after a poor showing in last year’s midterm races.Several Republican candidates in 2022 who spoke only with conservative outlets and podcasters were defeated in November — losses that raised questions about the power of partisan media to reach the swing voters who often determine the outcome of tight races.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is considered a likely presidential candidate.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesBut other leading Republicans found success in ignoring the mainstream press. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is viewed as a likely 2024 presidential contender, easily won re-election without submitting to interviews with nonpartisan outlets or local editorial pages. Former President Donald J. Trump, the only Republican who has declared his intention to run in 2024, continues to assail journalists.Gov. Ron DeSantis and His AdministrationReshaping Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has turned the swing state into a right-wing laboratory by leaning into cultural battles.2024 Speculation: Mr. DeSantis opened his second term as Florida’s governor with a speech that subtly signaled his long-rumored ambitions for the White House.Avoiding the Press: The governor easily won re-election despite little engagement with the mainstream media, but his strategy would face a big test if he pursued a presidential bid.Latino Evangelicals: The governor has courted Hispanic evangelical Christians assiduously as his national profile has risen. They could be a decisive constituency in a possible showdown with former President Donald J. Trump in 2024.In the interview, Mr. Bossie acknowledged that Republicans remained “incredibly skeptical that our presidential candidates can get a fair shake from what we consider the biased mainstream media.” But he said Republican leaders could still engage with national media outlets that conservative stars routinely criticize.“There are plenty of Republicans who consume their news just from the major networks,” Mr. Bossie said. “That’s why we have a broader outreach.”Mr. Bossie said he would “demand fair and unbiased moderators and questioners,” adding: “We are fighting for that fairness. Our goal is to have a debate without anybody even remembering who a moderator is, or if there was a moderator.”The R.N.C. is unlikely to turn to MSNBC to sponsor a primary debate, partly because the network’s left-leaning audience has little overlap with the primary electorate, according to a person with knowledge of the party’s plans. But the early talks have included NBC properties like CNBC, Telemundo and the NBC broadcast network.There is precedent for political parties bypassing specific networks. In 2019, Democratic officials refused to grant one of their primary debates to Fox News.“We cast a broad net to engage with interested and qualified organizations, though not every entity who submits a proposal will receive a debate,” Ms. McDaniel said in a statement.Aired to mass audiences by broadcast and cable networks, debates are a tradition that often produce pivotal moments in campaigns. For long-shot candidates, they can be hugely beneficial (Mr. Trump’s fiery exchange in 2015 with Megyn Kelly, a Fox News anchor at the time) or hugely destructive (Senator Elizabeth Warren’s dismantling of former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2020, effectively ending his presidential candidacy onstage).From left, Fox hosts Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier hosting a Republican presidential debate in 2015.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMichael R. Bloomberg, left, and Elizabeth Warren during the Democratic debate in 2020.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesNetworks typically foot the significant costs for holding a debate, including paying for the venue rental and production crew; in return, TV executives secure big ratings and big revenue. Primary debates in 2015 and 2019 broke viewership records. In the 2016 race, when both parties’ nominations were openly contested, CNN hosted more than a dozen primary debates and candidate forums; the network often made up to $2 million in profit from each event, according to a person with knowledge of internal financial figures.The electoral matchups also place news networks at the heart of the national conversation and highlight their civic role. Cable channels often choreograph days of Super Bowl-like coverage around a primary debate, complete with onscreen clocks counting down to the main event.Recently, however, debates have faced an uncertain future.The Republican Party last year formally boycotted the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonpartisan group that has sponsored every general election debate since 1988, deeming it “biased.” The R.N.C. has not backed away from that stance. (Primary debates are organized directly between political parties and media organizations, without the participation of the independent commission.) In the 2022 midterm elections, some high-profile Republican and Democratic candidates declined to appear on a debate stage with their opponents.Even if Republican officials finalized plans for a primary debate with a mainstream network, it is not clear if candidates who attack the news media, like Mr. Trump or Mr. DeSantis, would agree to participate.In 2020, Mr. Trump pulled out of the second of three scheduled general-election debates after the commission decided to hold the debate virtually because of concerns about the coronavirus; the event was canceled.In 2016, Mr. Trump withdrew from a Fox News debate on the eve of the Iowa caucuses after the network rejected his request that Ms. Kelly be removed as a moderator. Two months later, when Mr. Trump announced he would skip another Fox News debate in Utah, the network canceled the event altogether. More