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    J.D. Vance Says He’ll Be Disappointed if Trump Doesn’t Pick Him for V.P.

    Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio has long been considered one of Donald J. Trump’s top running mate choices and worked as hard as anyone to win the job — raising money for the campaign, speaking with a seemingly endless stream of cable news reporters and even sitting in the Manhattan courtroom with the former president to demonstrate his support.Now, as Mr. Trump’s increasingly theatrical selection process enters its final phase, Mr. Vance acknowledged Wednesday that he would feel a tinge of dejection if he were not the pick.“I’m human, right?” Mr. Vance said in an interview on Fox News. “So when you know this thing is a possibility, if it doesn’t happen, there is certainly going to be a little bit of disappointment.”Mr. Trump has said he would announce his pick closer to the Republican National Convention next month, but his campaign has fed speculation that an announcement could happen as soon as this week.Mr. Vance and other top contenders for the job, including Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, have been invited to join Mr. Trump in Atlanta on Thursday for the former president’s first debate this year with President Biden, campaign aides said. Mr. Vance’s interview is the first of a series announced by Fox News on Tuesday that will feature a handful of the leading prospects. Mr. Burgum and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina will also appear in the coming days to essentially pitch themselves to viewers on their qualifications to be vice president, alongside their significant others.Mr. Vance and his wife, Usha, sat for an interview at their home in Ohio. When asked about what issue she may focus on if she became “second lady,” Ms. Vance laughed off the question, saying it was “getting a little ahead of ourselves there.”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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    How the Media Is Covering Justice Merchan in Trump’s Criminal Trial

    Conservative media has been preoccupied for weeks with Justice Juan M. Merchan, the New York judge presiding over the Manhattan criminal trial against former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Trump has long attacked Justice Merchan and his family in social media posts and on his campaign website. But Justice Merchan did not earn a starring role in conservative media until after he issued a formal gag order against the former president, forbidding attacks against various people involved in the trial, including jurors and witnesses.Since then, right-wing commentators, most prominently on Fox News, have condemned the judge nearly daily in their coverage of the trial. They have painted Justice Merchan’s rulings as biased, decried small donations he made to Democrats in 2020 and suggested that his connection to his daughter, a Democratic political consultant, made him unfit to oversee the case. Liberal outlets have focused less on Justice Merchan, instead centering their coverage of the trial on the charges against Mr. Trump and the figures in his orbit. But some smaller outlets have praised Justice Merchan for clamping down on Mr. Trump.Here’s how it has played out:FROM THE RIGHTBreitbartIn addition to covering the trial as straight news, Breitbart has devoted significant attention to what Republicans see as Justice Merchan’s pro-Democratic bias.Justice Merchan donated $35 to groups that supported Democrats during the 2020 election, including $10 to a group called “Stop Republicans.” That, along with his daughter’s role as a consultant for Democratic candidates, has prompted Mr. Trump to call on the judge to recuse himself. (A state ethics panel last year dismissed a complaint against Justice Merchan with a warning over his donations. Justice Merchan has denied any wrongdoing.)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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    Judge Fines Ex-Fox News Reporter, Catherine Herridge, for Not Revealing Sources

    The journalist, Catherine Herridge, had reported on an F.B.I. investigation of a scientist’s Chinese ties. She was held in contempt of court.A federal judge held a veteran investigative reporter in contempt of court on Thursday for not revealing her sources for articles she wrote about a scientist who was investigated by the F.B.I.The journalist, Catherine Herridge, formerly of CBS News and Fox News, was ordered to pay $800 a day until she divulged the information. The judge, Christopher Cooper of U.S. District Court in Washington, stayed the fine for 30 days to give Ms. Herridge time to appeal.The case, which has alarmed First Amendment advocates, relates to a series of articles that were written by Ms. Herridge and her colleagues in 2017, while she worked at Fox News. The articles revealed that the F.B.I. had investigated the scientist, Dr. Yanping Chen, a Chinese American who is the president of the University of Management and Technology in Arlington, Va., over suspicions of Chinese military ties and whether she had lied on U.S. immigration forms.The F.B.I. ended its investigation without bringing charges against Dr. Chen, a year before Ms. Herridge and her colleagues published and aired their reporting.In 2018, Dr. Chen sued the F.B.I. and other government agencies, accusing them of violating the Privacy Act by leaking information to Ms. Herridge. The Privacy Act has protections for personal information collected by federal agencies.Judge Cooper ruled last year that Ms. Herridge must reveal her confidential sources. On Thursday, he held her in civil contempt for disobeying that order. He said he had not issued the order lightly, deciding that Dr. Chen’s need for the information overcame Ms. Herridge’s First Amendment protections.“Herridge and many of her colleagues in the journalism community may disagree with that decision and prefer that a different balance be struck, but she is not permitted to flout a federal court’s order with impunity,” Judge Cooper wrote in Thursday’s ruling.A lawyer for Ms. Herridge did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ms. Herridge, who left Fox in 2019 to join CBS News as a senior investigative correspondent, was among nearly two dozen CBS News journalists who were laid off by the network this month.“Holding a journalist in contempt for protecting a confidential source has a deeply chilling effect on journalism,” a Fox News spokeswoman said in a statement. “Fox News Media remains committed to protecting the rights of a free press and freedom of speech and believes this decision should be appealed.”Gabe Rottman, a senior lawyer at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement on Thursday that while he disagreed with the ruling against Ms. Herridge, “it’s a relief that Judge Cooper is enabling her to pursue an appeal without the financial pressure of daily fines.”“The court’s opinion makes clear that the answer here has to be Congress passing a federal shield law,” Mr. Rottman said. More

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    Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview Puts Him Back on Center Stage, for Now

    Mr. Carlson’s interview with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia put him back on center stage for the first time since his Fox News show was canceled.Last spring, it seemed Tucker Carlson might have reached the end of his fiery path through American media and politics.Fox News canceled his top-rated show, depriving Mr. Carlson of his nightly platform in prime time. But it kept him under a contract, worth more than $15 million a year, that prohibited him from taking a job with a rival.Under the old rules of the legacy media, Mr. Carlson would have been off the air and out of sight through the end of the 2024 election, when his contract runs out. But Mr. Carlson is no typical television star. And what was once normal in his industry is increasingly archaic, shattered by the new rules — or lack thereof — of the fractured online media world.In landing an exclusive interview with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — released on Thursday on the social network X and Mr. Carlson’s own streaming site, Tucker Carlson Network — the host returned, at least for a moment, to the center of American politics.The two-hour interview gave him a bullhorn to an American audience just as many congressional Republicans worked to block a vital lifeline of American military aid to Ukraine.It also accomplished Mr. Carlson’s goal of recapturing the spotlight. For the first time since his defenestration from Fox, his name was once again on the lips of major national and international figures, the kind of buzz on which Mr. Carlson has long thrived.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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    On Live TV, Guardian Angels Tackle Man Sliwa Misidentified as Migrant

    “We’ve got to take back 42nd Street,” Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the anti-crime group, said on “Hannity” as the Guardian Angels pushed a man to the ground.The Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa was being interviewed live from Times Square on Tuesday night by the Fox News host Sean Hannity when their exchange took a startling turn.The topic was what both men seemed to agree was a migrant-fueled wave of crime and chaos that they claimed had overtaken New York amid a surge of arrivals into the city from the southern border over the past two years.Suddenly, Mr. Sliwa had a prime-time example. As he spoke, the half-dozen red-jacketed Angels flanking him slipped out of the frame.“Our guys have just taken down one of the migrant guys right here on the corner of 42nd and Seventh where all this is taking place,” Mr. Sliwa said, pointing off camera.“Can you pan the camera?” Mr. Hannity asked his cameraman.The cameraman swung around and captured the Angels confronting a slightly built man in a hooded sweatshirt, throwing him to the ground and putting him in a headlock.“He is out of control,” Mr. Sliwa said as the camera turned away and Mr. Hannity shifted to criticizing President Biden over his administration’s border policies.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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    Biden to Sit Out Super Bowl Interview

    President Biden is sitting out the Super Bowl for the second year in a row.CBS said on Saturday that the White House had turned down a request for Mr. Biden to participate in a televised interview with its news division, which would have aired in the highly rated hours ahead of the big game on Feb. 11.In a tradition dating to 2009, presidents have recorded an interview with the network that broadcasts the Super Bowl, although there have been exceptions. Donald J. Trump did not appear on NBC in 2018. Last year, Mr. Biden declined to appear on Fox, home of cable hosts like Sean Hannity who are sharply hostile toward him.But the White House has been receptive to CBS News in the past. The president was interviewed by the “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell ahead of the 2021 Super Bowl, and he participated in two lengthy “60 Minutes” pieces, in 2022 and 2023, with the correspondent Scott Pelley.“We hope viewers enjoy watching what they tuned in for — the game,” Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, said in a statement on Saturday.The Super Bowl, typically the most-watched telecast of the year, offers an unusually large audience for a sitting president to address current events and advance his agenda to the public.And there is plenty of news for Mr. Biden to comment on. Starting on Friday, the United States carried out military strikes in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Three American soldiers were killed last Sunday in Jordan. The government just released a positive jobs report. And Mr. Biden is ramping up his re-election campaign as Mr. Trump has moved closer to clinching the Republican nomination.In 2021, Mr. Biden’s pregame interview with Ms. O’Donnell was seen live by about 10.2 million viewers; millions more viewed clips that aired on other CBS programs in the days surrounding the game.For this year’s event, CBS offered the White House about 15 minutes for an interview with Mr. Biden, with three to four minutes airing live during the pregame coverage on the network, according to a person familiar with the discussions.Mr. Biden has conducted fewer media interviews than his most recent predecessors. The president’s last major network interview took place in October, with Mr. Pelley of CBS. His State of the Union address is scheduled for March 7.Katie Rogers More

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    Biden Campaign Sharpens Its Post-Roe Message: Abortion Is About Freedom

    In events next week, the president and vice president will argue that abortion access is crucial to personal freedoms, and warn of what is at stake if Donald J. Trump is re-elected.President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will headline events next week centered around protecting abortion rights, throwing more heft behind an issue that has galvanized voters in the 18 months since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.On Monday, Ms. Harris will visit Wisconsin to begin a national tour focused on preserving access to reproductive health care as Republicans call for more restrictions. Then on Tuesday, she will join Mr. Biden at a rally for abortion rights in Virginia, where Democrats recently took control of the state legislature and have proposed to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution.Ms. Harris offered a preview of the administration’s election-year messaging to Americans when she visited “The View,” the most popular daytime talk show in the country.“We are not asking anyone to abandon their personal beliefs,” she said during an appearance on Wednesday, adding that “the government should not be telling women what to do with their bodies.”The idea that preserving access to abortion is tantamount to preserving personal freedoms has been embraced by Biden administration officials, lawmakers and activists who hope it will energize a flagging base and draw independent voters into the fold. They also want to contrast the administration’s policies with the political peril that the Republican Party faces by embracing hard-line measures.“I start from the place that most Americans believe that women should have the freedom to make their own decisions about health care, including abortion, without government interference,” Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota, who traveled to the Iowa caucuses as a surrogate for Mr. Biden, said in an interview. (About 69 percent of voters think abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, according to a Gallup poll last year.)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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    Ron DeSantis and Fox News, Old Friends, Hit Turbulence

    When the Fox News host Laura Ingraham urged Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida “to step aside and endorse Trump” on Tuesday night, it was the latest sign of a sharp deterioration of relations between the Republican presidential hopeful and the network that made him a star.Ms. Ingraham’s exhortation, in the wake of Mr. DeSantis’s second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, was met with mockery and derision by two of the governor’s most prominent aides.“Why would DeSantis take advice from the opposing campaign?” Christina Pushaw, the campaign’s rapid response director, wrote on X, to which Mr. DeSantis’s spokesman in the governor’s office, Jeremy Redfern, chimed in.“The Fox News PAC,” he wrote.It was the latest broadside from Mr. DeSantis’s inner circle against the cable network that until recently had been among the loudest advocates of his candidacy.But Mr. DeSantis lashed out last week, accusing Fox News of bias toward his rival, former President Donald J. Trump. Speaking to reporters in Iowa, Mr. DeSantis said that conservative media outlets, including Fox, had acted as “a Praetorian Guard” for Mr. Trump. “They just don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers,” Mr. DeSantis said, “and they don’t want to have the ratings go down.”The governor’s campaign manager denounced Fox as “full blown Trump TV, honesty thrown to the wind.” On caucus night, Ms. Pushaw assailed Fox News for projecting a victory for Mr. Trump only a half-hour after Iowans began to caucus. “Corporate media election interference,” she wrote on X.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