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      We Still Have to Worry About the Supreme Court and Elections

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Campaign to Subvert the 2020 ElectionKey TakeawaysTrump’s RoleGeorgia InvestigationExtremist Wing of G.O.P.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyWe Still Have to Worry About the Supreme Court and ElectionsThe justices are about to consider whether the Voting Rights Act applies to policies that restrict the vote.Contributing Opinion WriterFeb. 25, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Damon Winter/The New York TimesWhen the Supreme Court on Monday rejected Pennsylvania Republicans’ after-the-fact effort to invalidate late-arriving mailed ballots, it was tempting to suppose that the country’s courthouse doors had finally closed on this most litigated of presidential elections.If only it were that simple.True, in denying the Republicans’ petitions, the court didn’t issue an opinion. Of the four votes necessary to accept a case, these two cases (treated by the court as one) garnered only three. So for the official record, the only outcome in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. DeGraffenreid and in Corman v. Pennsylvania Democratic Party was “denied.”But the three justices who would have accepted the cases — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — issued dissenting opinions that provide both a road map and a rationale for the Supreme Court’s future intervention in the quintessentially state matter of how to conduct elections.Remember Bush v. Gore, the case that decided the 2000 presidential election, in which five justices voted to overturn the Florida Supreme Court’s handling of a statewide recount? That decision was based on a theory of equal protection so wacky that the majority opinion insisted that “our consideration is limited to the present circumstances” — that is to say, don’t dare invoke this poor excuse for an opinion as a precedent.That didn’t stop Justice Thomas from citing Bush v. Gore in his dissenting opinion on Monday, and he did so in a particularly shameless fashion. The language he cited wasn’t even from the Bush v. Gore majority opinion, but rather from a separate concurring opinion filed in that case by only three of the majority justices, who argued that the Florida Supreme Court had violated the U.S. Constitution by substituting its will for that of the state Legislature. Justice Thomas invoked that minority portion of the decision to assert that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was constitutionally out of bounds when, citing both the Covid-19 pandemic and the collapse of the Postal Service as its reasons, it added three postelection days for lawful receipt of mailed ballots.He went on to warn that fraud was “more prevalent with mail-in ballots,” citing as evidence a 1994 Federal District Court case, an article in this newspaper from 2012 and the 2018 Republican ballot-harvesting fraud in North Carolina. Such occurrences, he said, raise “the likelihood that courts will be asked to adjudicate questions that go to the heart of election confidence.” This was the reason, he argued, that the Supreme Court should have taken and decided the Pennsylvania cases before the next election cycle.In his inventory of ballot fraud, Justice Thomas of course could not refer to fraud in the 2020 election, because there wasn’t any. Not a problem:We are fortunate that many of the cases we have seen alleged only improper rule changes, not fraud. But that observation provides only small comfort. An election free from strong evidence of systemic fraud is not alone sufficient for election confidence. Also important is the assurance that fraud will not go undetected.In other words, Justice Thomas would have it both ways: If there was fraud, the court needed to intervene, and if there was no fraud, the court needed to intervene because the fraud might simply be undetected. Despite his disclaimer, the entire structure of his opinion, suggesting that something bad had happened even if no one could prove it, is fairly read as validating the essence of the Trump narrative.Justice Alito, in a separate dissenting opinion that Justice Gorsuch also signed, was more circumspect about the fraud issue. His emphasis was the urgency of stopping state courts from substituting their judgment for that of the legislatures. He said that even though the election was over and late ballots were too few to have made a difference in Pennsylvania’s vote totals, state courts could be expected to behave in the same way in the future unless the Supreme Court used this occasion to stop them.There are several things to note about the Pennsylvania cases. The most obvious is the absence of a fourth vote. In an initial round in the Pennsylvania cases, in mid-October, Justice Brett Kavanaugh had provided Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch with a fourth vote to grant a stay of the state court decision. But a stay requires five votes rather than four. With Amy Coney Barrett not yet confirmed, the eight justices divided 4 to 4, and the stay was denied without opinions. Justice Kavanaugh withheld his vote on Monday, without explanation. Maybe he decided this was a propitious time to offer some cover for Chief Justice John Roberts, who has voted in nearly all the election cases this fall with the three remaining liberal justices.Justice Barrett was also silent. During her confirmation hearing, Senate Democrats had pressed her to promise recusal from any election cases, given that President Donald Trump had said he needed a prompt replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg so that he would have a majority of justices voting his way in any election disputes. Justice Barrett did not recuse herself from the Pennsylvania case. Perhaps her decision not to provide the fourth vote her dissenting colleagues needed was a kind of de facto recusal, in recognition that the optics of voting to hear a last-ditch Trump appeal would be awkward, to say the least.The deeper question raised by Monday’s development is why Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch are so intent on what would seem to be a counterintuitive goal for conservatives: curbing the power of state courts. I’m cynical enough to think it has to do with how these three understand the position of state legislatures and state courts in today’s political climate. It’s been widely reported that Republican-controlled legislatures are rolling out bills by the dozens to restrict access to the polls, aimed at discouraging the kind of turnout that produced Democratic victories in Georgia last month. The vote-suppression effort has become so aggressive that some Republicans are starting to worry about voter backlash, according to a recent Washington Post article.State courts, on the other hand, are capable of standing in the way of this strategy. When state high-court judges are elected, as they are in many states, they typically run in statewide races that are not subject to the gerrymandering that has entrenched Republican power in states that are much more balanced politically than the makeup of their legislatures reflects. What better way to disable the state courts in their democracy-protecting role than to push them to the sidelines when it comes to federal elections.So there is no way the Supreme Court is finished with elections. Next Tuesday, as it happens, the justices will hear a crucial voting rights case. The case, from Arizona, asks the court to decide for the first time how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 applies to policies that restrict the vote, through such measures as voter ID requirements.Section 2, which pertains nationwide, is the major remaining provision of the Voting Rights Actfollowing the Supreme Court’s dismantling of the act’s Section 5, in the 2013 Shelby County case. That section barred certain states and smaller jurisdictions from making changes in their election procedures without first receiving federal permission, known as “preclearance.” Section 5 provided vital protection in parts of the country where racism had not released its grip on the levers of power.The issue now is whether Section 2 can be deployed to fill that gap. It prohibits any voting practice that “results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” It has typically been used to challenge redistricting plans that dilute the electoral power of racial and ethnic minorities. The question of whether it can be useful in challenging the wave of vote-suppression schemes, which can present complex problems of proof, hands the justices arguably the most important civil rights case of their current term.With the country exhausted and still reeling from the turmoil of the 2020 election and its bizarre aftermath, the urge not to think about elections for a while is powerful. I share it. But it’s a luxury the Supreme Court hasn’t given us, not now, not as long as some justices have more to say.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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Donald Trump to address CPAC on future of Republican party

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      Former president Donald Trump will address the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in Florida next week, about the future of the Republican party and the conservative movement, a source familiar with the plan told Reuters on Saturday.
      The CPAC meeting will be held in Orlando, Florida from 25 to 28 February, with Trump speaking on the final day, Reuters reported.
      “He’ll be talking about the future of the Republican party and the conservative movement,” the source reportedly said. “Also look for the 45th president to take on President [Joe] Biden’s disastrous amnesty and border policies.”
      Trump lost the presidency to Biden, who beat him by 306-232 in the electoral college and more than 7m ballots in the popular vote. The former president has refused to accept that result but now lives at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
      Last week he survived a second impeachment, for inciting the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January, as part of his attempt to overturn his defeat.
      Seven Republican senators voted to convict, 10 short of the figure needed but indicative of a party split between supporters of Trump and an establishment seeking to move on.
      Ten House Republicans voted to impeach and Trump has expressed anger their way. On Tuesday he aimed fire at Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, the most senior elected Republican.
      The loss of the White House to Biden and control of the Senate, which Democrats picked up in a pair of upset Georgia election runoff victories last month, coupled with the rise of extreme rightwing figures who vocally support Trump, has left Republican leaders on edge as they plot how to win Congress back in 2022.
      Trump and McConnell parted ways in the weeks after the November election, with Trump angered that the Kentucky Republican recognised Biden as the winner in mid-December. They have not spoken since, a former White House official said this week.
      The gap widened when McConnell declared after the Senate acquittal that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol attack and open to criminal prosecution. In return, Trump called McConnell “a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and said that if Republicans stay with him “they will not win again”.
      Polling shows that though thousands have left the party since the Capitol attack, a clear majority of those left support Trump and would vote for him if he entered the primary for the presidential nomination in 2024.
      It was also reported this week that the former White House strategist Steve Bannon thought Trump was suffering from early onset dementia while in office.
      A number of top Republicans who are considered possible candidates for the 2024 presidential nomination are also due to speak at CPAC, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota.
      Two notable figures not on the CPAC speaker list are former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and former Vice-President Mike Pence.
      Another anonymous source told Reuters Trump had rebuffed a request by Haley to meet with him recently after she was critical of him in a Politico article.
      Pence’s life was threatened by the Capitol mob, when he refused to go along with Trump’s attempts to overturn the election.
      Conservatives and CPAC attendees were slow to accept Trump when he first ran for office, leading him to withdraw from the event during the 2016 primaries. But he has come to dominate the event, offering red meat to a party base apparently entirely in his thrall.
      “Do you remember I started running and people would say, ‘Are you sure he’s a conservative?’” he asked its audience in 2018. “I think now we’ve proved that I’m a conservative, right?” More

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      ‘The last straw’: the US families ending love affair with grocery chain after Capitol riot

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      Wendy Mize’s family grew up on Publix, disciples to the giant supermarket chain’s empirical marketing slogan: “Where shopping is a pleasure”. As infants, her three daughters wore diapers bought from the Publix baby club. As children, they munched on free cookies from the bakery. There were even perks for the family’s pets, who are proud members of Publix Paws.But now the decades-long love affair is over. After a member of Publix’s founding family donated $300,000 to the Donald Trump rally that preceded January’s deadly Capitol riots, Mize is pulling out of what she says has become “an abusive, dysfunctional relationship”, and joining others in a boycott of the Florida-based grocery chain that operates more than 1,200 stores across seven south-eastern states.“It was the last straw,” said Mize, 57, an advertising copywriter from Orlando whose youngest twin daughters are now 19. “Insurrection at the Capitol, images of the police officer with his head being crushed, individuals dressed as Vikings on the floor of the Senate… we’re not going to call this normal. [Publix] are a private company and it is their business how they want to contribute their money, but it’s also my right to decide where I want to spend my dollars.”Publix is an institution in Florida, the company growing from Depression-era roots in the 1930s to a regional behemoth with 225,000 workers today, and its founding Jenkins family now worth $8.8bn, according to Forbes. It prides itself on a family-friendly image, luring customers with prominent buy-one-get-one deals and a range of popular sandwich subs, and boasts of being the largest employee-owned company in the US.Yet the company and its founders have donated often and generously to partisan, conservative causes, including more than $2m alone by Publix heiress Julie Jenkins Fancelli, daughter of the late company founder George Jenkins, to the Republican National Committee and Trump’s failed re-election campaign.In a brief statement on 30 January, to date the company’s only comment about Fancelli, Publix attempted to distance itself from her. Yet her funding of the Trump gathering that formed the insurrection’s opening act, and revealed by the Wall Street Journal to have been channelled through the rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, was just the latest in a series of controversies and missteps that left some shoppers holding their noses as they filled their carts, or others like Mize pulling out altogether.Three years ago, in the aftermath of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17, Publix temporarily halted political donations after an outcry over its bankrolling of Adam Putnam, a self-confessed “proud National Rifle Association sellout”, for state governor.Parkland survivors, led by the activist David Hogg, and their supporters staged “die-ins” at Publix supermarkets in several locations, protesting the company’s donation of $670,000, through its political action committee, to Putnam’s campaign. Putnam, as Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, had strongly opposed stricter gun laws following the shooting.He was also the state official responsible for regulating Publix’s 800 stores in Florida, but ended up losing the Republican primary to the current governor Ron DeSantis, a staunch Trump ally and another recipient of the company’s political benevolence.Earlier this year, Publix donated donated $100,000 to a political action committee looking to secure DeSantis’s re-election in 2022. Soon after, the governor awarded Publix a lucrative and exclusive contract to distribute Covid-19 vaccines in numerous stores. The governor’s office, which denied impropriety, has since added other retailers, including Walmart and Winn Dixie, to its approved distribution chain. But the controversy did not sit well with some observers.“This is, plain and simple, dirty pay-to-play politics, corruption made possible by having a manipulative governor who kept Covid-19 infection data secret and is now doing the same with vaccine distribution,” the Miami Herald columnist Fabiola Santiago wrote.“He isn’t working for us, but on behalf of his re-election campaign. And this is exactly the type of politician Publix aids and abets by financing their careers.”Others point to the juxtaposition of Publix being at the forefront of vaccine distribution in Florida while failing to enforce in-store mask wearing in some areas of the state, and defending a damaging wrongful death lawsuit from the family of an employee in Miami who died of Covid complications after being told not to wear a mask.A judge in Tampa last week threw out the company’s demand to reduce the lawsuit to a worker’s compensation claim after the company asked for 70-year-old deli worker Gerardo Gutierrez’s death last April to be classified as a workplace accident.Gutierrez’s family insists he contracted the infection from a colleague after employees were banned from wearing masks by workplace regulations later reversed. Publix has said it does not comment on pending litigation, and did not respond to other questions from the Guardian for this article.“They were very slow adapting to the pandemic, and the new pandemic rules,” said Craig Pittman, author of several books on Florida culture who has chronicled Publix’s rise to become the state’s premier grocery retailer. “But the thing with Publix is it does lots of little things that people like, they make a big deal of the fact they’ll carry your groceries to the car and won’t accept the tip, they give free cookies to the kids in the bakery, if you ask for a sample they’ll give it to you no questions asked.“So for a long time people have been willing to overlook some of the less savory aspects of the story, a number of sexual and racial discrimination lawsuits filed by employees, and this whole thing about them or their heirs donating to various politicians. “Corporate messaging experts say Publix is walking a tightrope in its handling of the Fancelli crisis.“What Publix does is take the middle path, they minimize responsibility, and by noting that Mrs Fancelli’s actions were essentially those of a private citizen not involved in the company, they’re saying, ‘Look, we don’t have control here,” said professor Josh Scacco of the University of South Florida’s department of communication.“Publix assesses the situation as: ‘We don’t have responsibility, or responsibilities beyond guilt by association’. [But while] there is separation between the person at the checkout, the person behind the deli counter, the manager of a store, the CEO, and then the political action committee, ultimately they all come under the umbrella of Publix.”Scacco also believes the furore mirrors the increasingly partisan nature of corporate America, where even the purchase of guava and cheese square from a Publix bakery has become a political statement.“President Trump, for example, would tweet out support for a particular company and brand approval immediately polarized, Republicans like that company, Democrats dislike that company,” he said. “That is the risk that companies face being so closely tied to a particular leader or set of leaders.“It’s also partly why there was such a rush immediately after 6 January for many of these companies to say, ‘We are not donating to individuals in Congress who voted to overturn the election result, we’re just not going to do it’.”Mize, and her family, meanwhile, are working through their Publix break-up with a mixture of grief and relief. “This time I just thought, ‘Enough. It’s not going to be business as normal’.” More

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      Palm Beach council to decide whether Trump can live at Mar-a-Lago

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      As the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump loomed in Washington on Tuesday, a matter even more important to his immediate future was being discussed some 990 miles to the south by the town council of Palm Beach, Florida: whether the former president can continue living at Mar-a-Lago.The council will hear their attorney’s opinion on whether it can stop Trump living at his club. Nearly 30 years ago, in 1993, a Trump lawyer told the town the New York property magnate would be prohibited from living at Mar-a-Lago, if the town allowed him to convert it from a residence to a club.The promise, however, was not included in a written agreement which may now take precedence.Technically, Trump is an employee of the corporation that owns Mar-a-Lago – and the written agreement only bars members from living there. Under town regulations, a club can provide onsite housing to employees. Trump moved into Mar-a-Lago on 20 January, the day he left office.In December, the south Florida town received a letter from an attorney representing a Mar-a-Lago neighbor, demanding it stop Trump living there. The unnamed neighbor believes Trump’s residency will decrease property values.Trump and former first lady Melania Trump changed their residency from New York City to Mar-a-Lago in 2019. The Trump Organization has issued a statement saying: “There is no document or agreement in place that prohibits President Trump from using Mar-a-Lago as his residence.”Trump owns two other homes near Mar-a-Lago, which he bought for $10m in 1985 from the estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the owner of General Foods. The 126-room mansion had deteriorated after her death in 1973, when she left it to the government as a possible presidential vacation home. The government gave it back in 1981.Trump spent millions upgrading the property while living there part-time. By the early 1990s, however, he was in financial distress. He told the town he could no longer afford the $3m annual upkeep and it was unfair he shouldered the costs alone. He proposed subdividing the property and building mansions. The town rejected the proposal.In 1993, Trump and the town agreed he could turn the estate into a private club limited to 500 members. The initiation fee is now $200,000. Annual dues are $14,000. Members can stay for no more than seven consecutive days and 21 days a year – but there is no prohibition on employees living there.According to Palm Beach Post articles from 1993, Trump’s attorney Paul Rampell told the town council that Trump would be treated like any other member.“Another question that’s often asked to me is whether Mr Trump will continue to live at Mar-a-Lago,” Rampell said. “No, except that he will be a member of the club and therefore will be entitled to the use of guest rooms.”The length of Trump’s stays at Mar-a-Lago before his presidency are unknown, but they often exceeded seven days while he was in office and added up to more than 21 days a year.Trump clashed frequently with the town before he became president. Neighbors complained about noise, traffic and a car lot-sized US flag and its 80ft pole, which Trump erected in 2006 without proper permits. Trump got a shorter pole and agreed to have his foundation give $100,000 to veteran charities.He then put the pole on a mound, so it would still rise to 80ft.Despite the public squabbles, Trump performed well in November’s election among his neighbors – in Mar-a-Lago’s precinct, he got 62% of the vote. More

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      What We Know About Trump Allies Like Sarah Huckabee Sanders Running for Office

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySarah Huckabee Sanders Is Running for Office. Will Other Trump Allies Follow?The names of Lara Trump, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and others have been floated as potential political candidates. Here’s what we know about the chances they could run and their considerations.Sarah Huckabee Sanders has already started to build a statewide operation in her campaign for governor of Arkansas.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesJan. 25, 2021, 8:22 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who served as White House press secretary under former President Donald J. Trump, announced Monday that she was running for governor in Arkansas, her home state, competing for a seat once held by her father.“I took on the media, the radical left and their cancel culture, and I won,” Ms. Sanders, 38, said in a nearly eight-minute video, signaling that she planned to frame herself not as a policy-driven candidate but as a vessel for Republican rage, in a test of the endurance of Mr. Trump’s grievance politics.Ms. Sanders, who was encouraged by Mr. Trump to run when she left the White House in 2019 and had long planned her announcement, is one of several former Trump officials and family members whose names have been floated for political races of their own. But as of now, she appears to be alone in hatching firm plans for a campaign after Mr. Trump’s defeat.Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, is in the process of moving to Florida, where there had been talk of a potential primary challenge to Senator Marco Rubio, her onetime partner on a child care tax credit. While she is not ruling anything out, she is unlikely to seek office.While her sister-in-law, Lara Trump, had been eyeing an open Senate seat in North Carolina, her home state, in 2022, it is now less clear if she will enter the race.Vice President Mike Pence is still wondering if he can carry the Trump mantle in a Republican presidential primary in 2024, a gambit that would depend on Mr. Trump’s choosing not to run or being convicted in the coming Senate impeachment trial.Ms. Sanders may be a unique case study. She is stepping over both the Arkansas lieutenant governor and the state attorney general, who waited their turn and supported Mr. Trump but who can’t claim as close a connection to him as Ms. Sanders can. Mr. Trump was expected to endorse her on Monday night, an adviser to the former president said. She also has powerful family connections in the deep-red state, where the only race that really matters is the Republican primary.“The Republican base is not interested in serious governing candidates,” said Tim Miller, who served as an adviser to former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida. “They want people who will ‘own the libs,’ and Sarah is perfect for that.”While a grievance-first strategy may be ruinous to the party’s chances in swing states like Pennsylvania and Virginia, it resonates in a conservative state like Arkansas. “Pro-coup Trumpism is a meal ticket to success in a Republican primary,” Mr. Miller said.Ms. Sanders has already started to build a statewide operation, and because of her father, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, she has high name recognition and a political identity in Arkansas beyond an association with Mr. Trump.Here are other Trump officials and family members who have been seen as possible contenders for higher office, but who may face a more difficult path.Lara Trump is married to former President Donald J. Trump’s son Eric.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesLara TrumpMs. Trump, 38, the president’s daughter-in-law, who emerged during the 2020 presidential campaign as a fierce defender of Mr. Trump, has been eyeing an electoral future of her own in North Carolina, her home state. She and her husband, Eric Trump, have yet to relocate their family from New York, but in the months leading up to the presidential election, she had been actively considering a rare Senate seat that will open there in 2022, when Senator Richard Burr retires at the end of his term, people familiar with her plans said.Ms. Trump’s combativeness was seen as potentially appealing to Republican primary voters. During the 2020 campaign, she went where Ivanka Trump would not: repeating Mr. Trump’s ad hominem attacks on Hunter Biden and casting doubt on the integrity of the election. Political strategists have compared her to Kelly Loeffler, the recently defeated Georgia senator, but say that she has more skill on the campaign trail.The upsides of a Lara Trump candidacy were that she would immediately have more name recognition and an ability to raise cash online that would most likely dwarf that of the more experienced Republicans in the race. Her last name already prompted Mark Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina who served as Mr. Trump’s final White House chief of staff, to say publicly that he would not run for Senate in the state, a race that his advisers had expected him to consider.But since Mr. Trump’s defeat, it is less clear whether his daughter-in-law will enter the race, perhaps a concession to the fact that simply aligning herself with the former president to win the Republican primary would not gird her for the potential backlash in a general election in a swing state.Ivanka Trump, the former president’s elder daughter, served as a senior aide in his White House.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesIvanka TrumpIn October, when Ivanka Trump described herself as “pro-life, and unapologetically so,” her comment was seen as the surest sign to date that the ambitious, spotlight-seeking Trump daughter was serious about a career of her own in Republican politics.Over the past four years, Ms. Trump, 39, has undergone a political transformation, from a registered New York Democrat to what she has described as a “proud Trump Republican.” During the 2020 campaign, she was considered by Trump campaign officials to be the top surrogate for her father, often speaking on his behalf to suburban women. For years, she has promoted articles and had her staff pitch stories about how she rivaled top Democratic presidential candidates in her fund-raising abilities.She is still packing up her mansion in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, but will relocate in the coming weeks to Florida, where her advisers say she is weighing her options when it comes to elected office. That includes not popping a trial balloon about a potential primary challenge next year to Mr. Rubio, who Republican critics note could be vulnerable because he did not vote to sustain any objections to the state’s electors.Other observers have dismissed that scenario as a difficult way to begin a political career and said Mr. Rubio needed to take it less seriously after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. Running for state office is off the table for Ms. Trump because Florida law requires seven years of residency. Some people who know her say that her ambitions are higher, that she likes the ring of “first female president” and that there’s simply no downside to keeping her name afloat.She has surprising allies promoting it for her. “Ivanka would be a terrific candidate, with her presence, grace and beauty,” said Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief White House strategist who received a pardon from Mr. Trump. Once an enemy of Ms. Trump’s in the White House, he is now intent on propping her up. “She’s also the most populist because she’s fully focused on working families,” he said.“From Huckabee to Lara Trump to Don Jr. to Kayleigh McEnany, this is the new vanguard of the MAGA movement,” Mr. Bannon added. “I anticipate these people will be either running in 2022 or 2024.”Ms. McEnany, for her part, has already relocated to her home state, Florida, and there was briefly some talk of her mounting her own bid for the Senate, a person familiar with those conversations said. But it’s not clear how serious it was.Donald Trump Jr. has spent time campaigning for Republicans around the country in recent years.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesDonald Trump Jr.Over the past four years, Donald Trump Jr., 43, the president’s eldest son, has carved out a political lane for himself as a top surrogate and fund-raiser who can channel the emotional center of the MAGA movement. With 11 million followers on his various social media streams, he has been seen as a key player in the Republican messaging ecosystem, someone with a strong connection to his father’s supporters and to conservative voters who are passionate about the Second Amendment.His advisers insist that he’s not interested in being a candidate anytime in the near future — partly because there is not a clear office for him to run for right now. That hasn’t stopped strategists from floating his name as a potential candidate in states including Montana and Florida. For now, the advisers said, he wants to stay engaged and relevant politically, along with his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, helping to elect conservatives he likes and to take down the ones he doesn’t.On Monday he tweeted an article from The Federalist, a right-wing publication, that called for Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming to “Step Away From Leadership For GOP Voters.” He also vowed to help Ms. Sanders win her race.Before serving as Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows was a congressman from North Carolina.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMark MeadowsMr. Meadows, 61, has told people he has ruled out running for office again. But his friends and his own wife don’t believe him, or don’t want to. Others say they haven’t been able to get a straight answer out of him about his future plans. During his tenure in the White House, Mr. Meadows, the former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, competed with Vice President Mike Pence to be seen as the heir to the president’s agenda and as Mr. Trump’s right hand. He even slept at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center when the president was being treated there for the coronavirus.Mr. Meadows still lives in Washington and has no immediate plans to move back to North Carolina, his home state. His wife has speculated that he should run for president in 2024, according to people familiar with those conversations. But his friends have not ruled out a future run for Senate or governor in North Carolina, and Ms. Trump’s fading interest in the North Carolina Senate race could give him back an opening.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Melania Trump leaves Donald Trump alone in front of the cameras – video

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      The former first lady Melania Trump apparently spurned the conventions of her role by leaving Donald Trump alone in front of the cameras at Palm Beach airport after the couple left the White House for the final time ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration. Trump himself paused to wave at photographers, but his wife continued walking until she was firmly offscreen, leaving her husband alone and triggering speculation about the state of her marriage to the now former presidentMelania Trump’s photo snub prompts speculation over post-White House path Continue reading… More

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      Trump heads for new life in Florida, marking end of an era in New York

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      When Donald Trump leaves the White House on 20 January, reports indicate that he will not return to his home town of New York City but rather, reside at his Mar-a-Lago home in south Florida. Indeed, Trump formally changed his residency to the so-called Sunshine State in fall 2019.Trump’s seemingly permanent departure to a state known for its large population of elderly retirees marks the end of an era in New York, the city where he grew up and moved from its suburbs of Queens to become an icon of brash Manhattan style and wealth in the 1970s and 1980s.“He made his presence known on the island of Manhattan in the mid 70s, a brash Adonis from the outer boroughs bent on placing his imprint on the golden rock,” the New York Times reported in 1983. “Donald John Trump exhibited a flair for self-promotion, grandiose schemes – and, perhaps not surprisingly, for provoking fury along the way.”Trump’s flashiness arguably encapsulated the unapologetic financial excesses of the 1980s and beyond with him sticking his family name on seemingly everything he got his hands on. There have been 17 properties in New York City that bore Trump’s name over time, NBC News reported.Trump became a tabloid fixture, feeding the papers stories about himself, according to the Hollywood Reporter and other outlets. One of them was the famed New York Post cover about his relationship with Marla Maples, who became his second wife. The headline read: “Marla boasts to her pals about Donald: ‘BEST SEX I’VE EVER HAD.’”Trump even had a cameo in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Macaulay Culkin, as the star Kevin, asks him for directions to the lobby of the Plaza hotel, which Trump owned at that time.While Trump’s cultural cachet was bizarre, it had power. Director Chris Columbus said in a December interview with Insider that Trump “did bully his way into the movie” by demanding that he get a role in return for allowing shooting to take place at the Plaza.The majority of New Yorkers are not mourning Trump’s departure. They long seemed ready for it.When news emerged that Trump was changing his residency, Governor Andrew Cuomo said in as statement: “Good riddance. It’s not like Mr Trump paid taxes here anyway. He’s all yours, Florida.”Cuomo’s reaction encapsulated the feelings of many residents. New York is a blue state, and the city still more liberal; since Trump took office, there have routinely been demonstrations against White House policies outside his eponymous properties.New Yorkers’ dislike of Trump hit new highs last spring. His administration’s mishandling of coronavirus was felt especially deeply in New York City, an early US center of the pandemic. City and state officials begged a seemingly uninterested Trump for help.“How on earth do you think that New York City can get back on its feet without federal support?” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “Mr President, are you going to save New York City, or are you telling New York City to drop dead?”Cuomo, speaking of the coronavirus-spurred financial crisis in September, remarked: “Trump is actively trying to kill New York City. It is personal. I think it’s psychological. He is trying to kill New York City.”Since many New Yorkers feel this way, it’s not surprising that Trump and his clan have nothing left for them here, except for a sea of legal problems.De Blasio announced this week that New York City was cutting its contracts with Trump’s companies for his involvement in spurring a deadly attack on the Capitol. That means Trump will lose $17m in deals to run the Central Park Carousel, Wollman and Lasker skating rinks, and Ferry Point golf course in the Bronx, according to ABC News.Trump’s cronies speculate that Trump’s departure from New York City could also include his business interests, given his dislike of local and state officials, ABC News reported. Meanwhile, the Manhattan district attorney and state attorney general are investigating Trump’s financial dealings.Trump’s departure from the White House also means that civil litigation against him here might finally proceed, as he can no longer cite presidential duties in efforts to delay proceedings.Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, are not expected to be welcomed in New York City’s elite circles when they leave Washington, according to reports. They purchased a $30m property in Miami’s luxe Indian Creek village.Donald Trump Jr and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle are also relocating to Florida and are eyeing homes in Jupiter. “There is no way they can stay in New York. They’d be tortured in the streets,” a source told the New York Post of Junior’s impending move.As Trump and his family try building a new life, and potential Maga capital, in south Florida, the ostracism they faced in New York might follow them to some degree. Ivanka and Kushner might struggle with the south Florida social scene.The New York Post quoted a source saying: “The Indian Creek country club members are very picky and the word is that Javanka need not apply.”Even Trump’s appearance in Home Alone 2 has come into question, with Culkin supporting social media commentary in favor of removing Trump from the movie. More

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      in US Politics

      Hello, Mr Resident: Is Palm Beach ready for the Trumps to move in?

      by

      The men sported tuxedos, the women extravagant evening gowns. They crowded into Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, unmasked and without any pretence at social distancing. After cocktails and a luxurious dinner, the partygoers danced in the new year to the live music of rapper Vanilla Ice and Beach Boy veterans.
      “We shouldn’t be caged in our homes,” said Amber Gitter, a local estate agent who attended. No government should “tell you that you have to stay in and can’t work”.
      Once Trump leaves the White House this week, the two-times impeached president is expected to reside at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. It’s an unhappy prospect for many Palm Beachers who fear Trump’s presence and maskless Mar-a-Lago soirees will undermine the tiny town’s tranquility and its fight against the pandemic. The display of unbridled wealth and partying at Mar-a-Lago highlights the awkward and ugly reality of a rich elite that continues to party while its poor working-class neighbours struggle to survive.
      Trump in Florida
      Nestled on an island off the coast of Florida, Palm Beach is a fixture for America’s 1%. Tree-lined South Ocean Boulevard, which runs past Mar-a-Lago, is nicknamed billionaire’s row, the site of some of the world’s ritziest beachside mansions. Residents include cosmetic heiress Aerin Lauder, billionaire financier Stephen Schwarzman and, notoriously, the now-deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump is not even the wealthy community’s first experience with presidents – John F Kennedy used his family’s property as a winter White House.
      Trump divides his future hometown’s residents, as he does all Americans. While he won the town’s vote in the 2020 presidential election and more than 500 followers paid a reported $1,000 a ticket to attend the Mar-a-Lago new year party, the president has feuded with neighbours and local officials. In 2006, Trump erected a giant flagpole at Mar-a-Lago, which violated local zoning rules. The town began fining him $1,250 a day. Trump sued and kept his flagpole. Mar-a-Lago declined to comment on either the dispute or its maskless parties.
      During Trump’s Mar-a-Lago presidential visits, dozens of police and secret service officers protected the property. Barricades blocked off the main road, creating traffic jams. A group of angry neighbours has sought legal advice to block him from living at Mar-a-Lago full-time, the Washington Post first reported. More