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      Inside Trump’s Decision to Skip the G.O.P. Debate

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      Fox News leaned on the former president privately and publicly to join the debate. But all the while he was proceeding with a plan for his own counterprogramming.On a cool August night on the crowded patio of his private club in New Jersey, former President Donald J. Trump held up his phone to his dinner companions.The Republican front-runner was having dinner with a Fox News contributor and columnist, Charlie Hurt, when a call came in from another member of the Fox team. The man on the other end of the line, Mr. Trump was delighted to show his guests, was Bret Baier, one of the two moderators of the first Republican debate on Wednesday, according to two people with knowledge of the call.It was Mr. Trump’s second Fox dinner that week. The night before, he had hosted the Fox News president, Jay Wallace, and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, who had gone to Bedminster, N.J., hoping to persuade Mr. Trump to attend the debate. Mr. Baier was calling to get a feel for the former president’s latest thinking.For months, Fox had been working Mr. Trump privately and publicly. He was keeping them guessing, in his patented petulant way. But even as he behaved as if he was listening to entreaties, Mr. Trump was proceeding with a plan for his own counterprogramming to the debate.The former president has told aides that he has made up his mind not to participate in the debate and has decided to post an online interview with Tucker Carlson that night instead, according to people briefed on the matter.Upstaging Fox’s biggest event of the year would be provocation enough. But an interview with Mr. Carlson — who was Fox’s top-rated host and is at war with the network, which is still paying out his contract — amounts to a slap in the network’s face by Mr. Trump. The decision is a potential source of aggravation for the Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, who privately urged him to attend, including in her own visit to Bedminster last month.But Mr. Trump’s primary motive in skipping the debate is not personal animosity toward Ms. McDaniel but a crass political calculation: He doesn’t want to risk his giant lead in a Republican race that some close to him believe he must win to stay out of prison.But that’s not the only reason.‘They Purposely Show the Absolutely Worst Pictures of Me’Mr. Trump’s relationship with Fox — a long-running saga that has been both lucrative and, more recently, extremely costly for the network — is the other issue that looms large in his thinking about the debate, according to people familiar with the president’s conversations. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the campaign.His professed hatred of Fox — and the animus he often privately expresses about the chairman of Fox Corporation, Rupert Murdoch — is mixed with his recognition of Mr. Murdoch’s power and a grudging acknowledgment that the network can still affect his image with Republican voters.“Why doesn’t Fox and Friends show all of the Polls where I am beating Biden, by a lot,” Mr. Trump posted on his website, Truth Social, on Thursday morning, venting about the network’s morning show. He added: “Also, they purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not.”Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier are co-hosts of the first Republican primary debate, which will be held Wednesday evening in Milwaukee.Leah Millis/ReutersThe Fox team working on the debate has prepared two sets of plans for Wednesday night: One for if Mr. Trump shows up and another for if he doesn’t. Mr. Baier has spoken to Mr. Trump at least four times over the phone to make his case. Mr. Trump has explained his reluctance, but always left the door open to a late change of plans, according to the people familiar with the calls.Fox executives expect the audience for Wednesday’s debate to be lower than the record 25 million who watched the first Republican debate in August 2015, even if Mr. Trump shows up, though his presence would almost certainly boost interest.“President Trump is ratings gold, and everyone recognizes that,” said Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s communications director.Mr. Trump has tried to use his leverage to get friendlier coverage. During his dinner with the two Fox executives, Mr. Wallace and Ms. Scott, Mr. Trump needled them about the network’s coverage of him. He told them he was skeptical that Mr. Murdoch — whom Mr. Trump has known for decades — was not dictating the daytime political coverage that the former president found egregious.Mr. Trump, who has often complained about what he contends is Fox’s glowing coverage of Gov. Ron DeSantis, dismissed a recent interview Mr. Baier conducted with Mr. DeSantis as “soft.” Mr. Trump also told the Fox executives he couldn’t believe they had fired Mr. Carlson.Mr. Baier, who helped moderate Mr. Trump’s first-ever political debate in August 2015 and has golfed with him, has a complicated relationship with the former president.Mr. Baier, who will co-host Wednesday’s debate with Martha MacCallum, interviewed Mr. Trump in June, an encounter Mr. Trump first called “fair” but then complained was “unfriendly.” That change of heart came after news coverage pointed out the harm Mr. Trump may have caused himself legally with his answers about matters related to one of the federal cases against him.A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, said the network “looks forward to hosting the first debate of the Republican presidential primary season offering viewers an unmatched opportunity to learn more about the candidates’ positions on a variety of issues which is essential to the electoral process.”‘Maybe I Should Just Go’Mr. Trump’s top advisers oppose his participation in the debate to avoid giving his rivals a chance to elevate themselves at his expense and close the wide gap between them in the polls.But until earlier this past week, Mr. Trump was still privately toying with the idea of attending. In one conversation, Mr. Trump had said, “Maybe I should just go,” according to a person with knowledge of the call.The former president has been quizzing confidants lately about whether he should debate. He has fixated on former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is expected to be his harshest critic on the stage. And he has expressed a particularly intense disdain for the low-polling former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, suggesting privately that it would be almost insulting to share a stage with him, according to a person who spoke to Mr. Trump.Senior members of Mr. Trump’s team — Chris LaCivita, Jason Miller and Mr. Cheung — all plan to attend the debate. The Trump campaign has arranged for prominent surrogates, including members of Congress, to visit the “spin room” after the debate to make Mr. Trump’s case.But as of Friday, Mr. Trump appeared to have lost interest in attending the debate, according to people with knowledge of his thinking. And he is now planning to attempt to upstage the event by participating in the interview with Mr. Carlson, though the exact timing and online platform remain unclear.Trump’s Presence, Despite His AbsenceThe Fox News team is considering integrating video of Mr. Trump into their questioning on debate night. Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Baier and Ms. MacCallum plan to make Mr. Trump a major figure in the two-hour program — whether he shows up or not.The Fox team has prepared questions to ask Trump rivals about his most recent criminal indictment, which was handed down by a grand jury in Georgia. They are also considering integrating video of Mr. Trump into their questioning, according to people familiar with the planning.The questions will begin immediately. Candidates will not be allowed to make opening statements. They will, however, be allotted 45-second closing statements. Each answer will be limited to one minute, with a sound like a hotel front desk’s bell alerting candidates that their time has expired. (Fox has retired the doorbell-like chime it used in the last debates after it sent some dogs into barking fits.)Unlike when Mr. Trump skipped a Fox debate in Iowa in January 2016, just before the caucuses there, Fox has had more time to prepare for Mr. Trump’s absence.This year, the Republican National Committee updated its rules to require candidates to sign a pledge no later than 48 hours before the debate, including commitments to support the party’s nominee regardless of who it is and to not participate in any future debates not sanctioned by the R.N.C.Mr. Trump has not signed the pledge. R.N.C. officials have told people that no candidate, including Mr. Trump, will be allowed onstage without signing it. But Mr. Trump is far from principled on the matter. He has already signed a similar pledge vowing to “generally believe in” and “intend to support the nominees and platform” of the G.O.P. in 2024 in order to qualify for the South Carolina primary ballot, according to a party official in the state.In 2016, Fox did not know until the last minute possible that he was not going to show up. And even once the debate started, the hosts and producers were bracing for the possibility that he might arrive in the middle of the broadcast and demand to be allowed on the stage. More

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      What Trump’s Debate Stunt Says to Republican Voters

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      It’s hard to think of a more childishly on-brand stunt than Donald Trump’s effort to sabotage the first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential race.The MAGA king refusing to put on his big-boy pants and share the stage with his opponents is one thing. But counterprogramming some sad sideshow to siphon attention away from the first major candidate forum of the cycle — and with Tucker Carlson, no less? That’s a whole different level of petulant and needy, and it speaks to his staggering disregard for voters and their right to accurately assess the field. The electorate, especially Trump-skeptical Republicans, should demand better.I get why Mr. Trump isn’t eager to climb into this sandbox. Debating is hard, and he is out of practice. He participated in only two debates during the 2020 cycle, the first of which was the stuff of campaign legend — but in a bad way. (Proud boys, stand back and stand by!) At some point during Wednesday’s two-hour event he would need to talk about something other than his grievances. He hates doing that, and has always been kind of lousy at it. Much of the primary field he is now facing is younger, sharper, hungrier and actually cares about policy and governance. And while few people have Mr. Trump’s razzle-dazzle, at least a couple of his opponents have solid media chops. (Ramaswamy, baby!)Mr. Trump may well be correct to assume he has more to lose than gain from these matchups. But it bears remembering that debates aren’t supposed to be primarily for the benefit of the candidates strutting and fretting upon the stage. They are meant to provide voters with a meaty opportunity to judge their options side-by-side, to listen to them field tough questions, to compare their policies and priorities and visions of leadership. The point is to help the electorate make an informed choice.This is the case for every presidential hopeful. It is all the truer for Mr. Trump, who is dominating the Republican herd. Sure, he’s done the job before. But his performance was … well, unsettling enough that he lost re-election — and then handled the loss rather poorly. Some Republican voters, especially all those suburban women he needs to win back, might care to hear why he thinks they should give him another chance, especially now that he is up to his comb-over in legal trouble. His high-handed decision to skip this debate risks underscoring to these voters how unserious he is about winning their support and expanding his base even a whit, versus staying comfortably focused on his MAGA fans.Mr. Trump’s participation would reveal much about the other candidates as well. How would the field handle it when he started spewing his conspiracy nonsense? Who would call him out? (If these debate strategy memos are any indication, not Pudding Fingers DeSantis.) Would anyone be able to wrest the spotlight from him?Even with Mr. Trump missing, there will be much awkward talk of him. (Or so Fox News’s debate moderators promise.) You would think that, if he were in fighting form, he would want to be on hand to keep the pretenders to his throne in line — or, more precisely, to humiliate his critics face-to-face. I mean, lobbing fat jokes at Chris Christie from afar can provide Mr. Trump only so much satisfaction, particularly since Mr. Christie has been calling him a liar, a coward, and a con artist of late.Instead, the former president is taking the cheap and entitled way out, fulfilling at least one of Mr. Christie’s critiques. After weeks of being tiresomely coy about his debate-night plans, he has decided to sit down with the disgraced pundit Tucker Carlson, The Times reported on Friday. The man is notoriously fickle, so who knows when — or even if — this will actually happen. Let’s hope it doesn’t. I’m sorry, but we already watched Mr. Carlson give Mr. Trump a thorough bootlicking back in April, not long before Fox News gave Mr. Carlson the boot, in fact, and it was sad. Worse than watching Don Jr.’s videos-for-hire on Cameo. No one needs to see more of that.The Republican debaters, meanwhile, will be left to struggle with the thorny challenge of how to prevent Mr. Trump from hijacking the event in absentia. His antidemocratic inclinations and parade of indictments will have to be addressed. But then everyone really should move on to other issues, leaving the attention-thirsty former president in the shadows. If a Trumpless debate winds up being all about Mr. Trump anyway, he is the winner.This election cycle is still young, and there will be other debates. The next one, in fact, was announced just last week. (Mark your calendars for Sept. 27!) Republican voters who are feeling even slightly ambivalent about a Trump nomination/coronation should make clear that they expect him to start showing up — and soon, before the field has been whittled way down.Sure, the MAGA faithful don’t care about such niceties as accountability. But they do not constitute the majority of the Republican Party. The non-MAGA masses can take this primary in another direction if they choose. Many of those voters have reservations about Mr. Trump’s fitness for office — or at least about his electability. (The guy has been responsible for an awful lot of losing since 2016.) They deserve to take his measure directly against the field’s alternatives. And they are in a position to punish him if he cannot be bothered to even try.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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      Trump Plans to Skip GOP Debate for Interview With Tucker Carlson

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      The former president’s apparent decision to skip the first debate is a major affront both to the Republican National Committee and to Fox News, which is hosting the event. Former President Donald J. Trump plans to upstage the first Republican primary debate on Wednesday by sitting for an online interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, according to multiple people briefed on the matter.In the past 24 hours, Mr. Trump has told people close to him that he has made up his mind and will skip the debate in Milwaukee, according to two of the people briefed on the matter. Mr. Trump is notoriously mercurial, and left himself something of an out to change his mind with an ambiguous post on his website, Truth Social, on Thursday. He wrote that he’s polling well ahead of his rivals and added, “Reagan didn’t do it, and neither did others. People know my Record, one of the BEST EVER, so why would I Debate?”For weeks, the former president has been quizzing aides, associates and rally crowds about what he should do. Until earlier this week, Mr. Trump had been giving people the impression he was considering a last-minute surprise appearance on Wednesday.Still, people close to him had said for months that he was unlikely to take part in the first two Republican debates, both of which are sponsored by the Republican National Committee. And Mr. Trump’s apparent decision to skip the first debate of the presidential nominating contest is a major affront to both the R.N.C. and Fox News, which is hosting the event. The exact timing and platform of the interview with Mr. Carlson remain unclear, but if it goes ahead as currently planned, the debate-night counterprogramming would serve as an act of open hostility.The chairwoman of the R.N.C., Ronna McDaniel, has privately urged Mr. Trump to attend the debate, even traveling to his private club in Bedminster, N.J., last month to make her pitch in person. And Fox News has been drawn into a public battle not only with Mr. Trump but with Mr. Carlson, who is still on contract and being paid by Fox despite having his show taken off the air. Fox sent Mr. Carlson a cease-and-desist letter after he aired a series of videos on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The Trump campaign’s conversations with Mr. Carlson — and the possibility of counterprogramming — have previously been reported by multiple news organizations.Spokesmen for the Trump campaign, the R.N.C. and Fox News did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Carlson also did not respond to requests for comment.Fox News executives and personalities have been lobbying the former president, both publicly and privately, to participate in the debate. But Mr. Trump has been openly attacking Fox and has privately vented his animosity for the chairman of Fox Corporation, Rupert Murdoch.Even so, Mr. Trump has privately also given top executives and anchors at Fox the impression that he was open to and even seriously considering their entreaties.Earlier this month, Mr. Trump hosted for dinner the Fox News president Jay Wallace and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, who had gone to Bedminster hoping to persuade Mr. Trump to come to the debate. They left the dinner believing there was a decent chance he would show up, according to two people familiar with the dinner.Mr. Trump’s apparent decision to skip the debate comes on the heels of his fourth criminal indictment. The latest indictment came from the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney, who accused Mr. Trump of taking part in a criminal conspiracy to subvert the transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election in the state. More

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      A Majority of Americans Support Trump Indictments, Polls Show

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      Recent polls conducted before the Georgia indictment showed that most believed that the prosecutions of the former president were warranted.Former President Donald J. Trump’s blistering attacks on prosecutors and the federal government over the cascade of indictments he faces do not appear to be resonating much with voters in the latest polls, yet his grip on Republicans is further tightening.A majority of Americans, in four recent polls, said Mr. Trump’s criminal cases were warranted. Most were surveyed before a grand jury in Georgia indicted him over his attempts to subvert the 2020 election, but after the federal indictment related to Jan. 6.At the same time, Mr. Trump still holds a dominant lead over the crowded field of Republicans who are challenging him for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who continues to slide.The polls — conducted by Quinnipiac University, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, ABC News/Ipsos and Fox News — showed that Americans remain divided along party lines over the dozens of criminal charges facing Mr. Trump.The takeaways aligned with the findings of a New York Times/Siena College poll last month, in which 22 percent of voters who believed that Mr. Trump had committed serious federal crimes said they still planned to support him in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with Mr. DeSantis.Here are key findings from the recent polling:Most say a felony conviction should be disqualifying.In the Quinnipiac poll, 54 percent of registered voters said Mr. Trump should be prosecuted for trying to overturn the 2020 election. And seven out of 10 voters said that anyone convicted of a felony should no longer be eligible to be president.Half of Americans, but only 20 percent of Republicans, said that Mr. Trump should suspend his presidential campaign, according to the ABC News/Ipsos poll. This poll, which surveyed American adults, was the only one of the four surveys conducted entirely after Mr. Trump’s indictment in Georgia.When specifically asked by ABC about the Georgia case, 63 percent said the latest criminal charges against Mr. Trump were “serious.”Republicans, by and large, haven’t wavered.The trends were mixed for Mr. Trump, who is a voracious consumer of polls and often mentions them on social media and during campaign speeches. He has continually argued that the indictments were politically motivated and intended to short-circuit his candidacy.In a hypothetical rematch of the 2020 election, Mr. Trump trailed President Biden by a single percentage point in the latest Quinnipiac poll, 47 to 46 percent. Mr. Biden’s advantage was 5 percentage points in July.At his campaign rallies, Mr. Trump has frequently boasted how the indictments have been a boon for his polling numbers — and that rang true when Republicans were surveyed about the primary race.In those polls that tracked the G.O.P. nominating contest, Mr. Trump widened his lead over his challengers, beating them by nearly 40 points. His nearest competitor, Mr. DeSantis, had fallen below 20 percent in both the Fox and Quinnipiac polls.Mr. DeSantis, who earlier this month replaced his campaign manager as he shifts his strategy, dropped by 6 to 7 percentage points in recent months in both polls.Trump participated in criminal conduct, Americans say.About half of Americans said that Mr. Trump’s interference in the election in Georgia was illegal, according to the AP/NORC poll.A similar share of Americans felt the same way after Mr. Trump’s indictments in the classified documents and the Jan. 6 cases, but the percentage was much lower when he was charged in New York in a case related to a hush-money payment to a porn star.Fewer than one in five Republicans said that Mr. Trump had committed a crime in Georgia or that he broke any laws in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.When asked by Fox News whether Mr. Trump had engaged in illegal activity to overturn the 2020 election, 53 percent of registered voters said yes.But just 13 percent of Republicans shared that view.A plurality of those surveyed by ABC (49 percent) believed that Mr. Trump should be charged with a crime in Georgia.Support for the Justice Department’s charges.Fifty-three percent of U.S. adults said that they approved of the Justice Department’s decision to bring charges against Mr. Trump for his attempts to reverse his electoral defeat in 2020, The A.P. found.At the same time, the public’s confidence in the Justice Department registered at 17 percent in the same poll. More

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      Are the Elite Anti-Trumpers the ‘Bad Guys’?

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      Readers react to David Brooks’s suggestion that the elite are partly to blame for Trumpism.To the Editor:Re “What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?,” by David Brooks (column, Aug. 4):I am sick and tired of people like Mr. Brooks telling me that I am the problem or the “bad guy” because I am educated (and no, I was not educated at an Ivy League school, and neither of my parents finished high school) to justify the fact that 35 percent of the population are fervent supporters of Donald Trump, no matter what he says or does.Moreover, Mr. Trump is also part of the elite, but his supporters simply ignore this. This is not because he identifies with them in any way (as a golden-haired billionaire living in a mansion), but because Fox, Newsmax, and other right-wing TV and radio media outlets, right-wing militias and Trump puppet politicians in Congress essentially brainwashed them with their daily dose of propaganda about how the “left wing socialists and communists,” “elites,” the “woke,” etc., are all conspiring to take their country and only Donald Trump can stop them.In my opinion, this is the biggest problem, Mr. Brooks, not educated Americans who as you correctly state are “are earnest, kind and public spirited.”So, let’s not beat ourselves up because the other side has been completely brainwashed, does not accept facts, scientific and otherwise, is obsessed with conspiracies and lives in a right-wing echo chamber.Michael HadjiargyrouCenterport, N.Y.To the Editor:While I grew up in a small Midwestern town in a middle-class family, education has offered me a satisfying life with a secure retirement. Many of my classmates who chose a more blue-collar life path have endured more struggles, starting with military service in Vietnam. I am quite confident that many of them today support Donald Trump, at least partly for the reasons that David Brooks suggests.Mr. Brooks’s column was a brilliant, moving description of the unspoken arrogance of many of us who are left-leaning. I believe that some sincere humility and understanding with regard to the concerns of many who feel left behind would go a long way to healing some of our divisions. Thanks to Mr. Brooks for his insight.David MahanSebring, Fla.To the Editor:Fine: I’ll accept David Brooks’s plea that we not blame the logic-defying viability of Donald Trump on the wrongheadedness of tens of millions of Americans. I get the class resentment. I share the rage against excessive political correctness and the feeling that immigration is unchecked and overwhelming. I see his point that the elite stoke these resentments by voicing our support for the nonelite while spending most of our energy and resources protecting our own class privilege.But let’s not gloss over the main factor here: Mr. Trump is the latest version of a leader who is little more than a self-obsessed expert at exploiting and inflaming the fear and resentments of the masses to benefit his own power and ego. Such a leader cares nothing about those who harbor these resentments, and certainly does not share the same fears.On a more practical note, those who resent wokeism are shooting themselves in the foot by supporting someone who so many Americans, elite and otherwise, would vote for over their proverbial dead bodies.Brian SmithDayton, OhioTo the Editor:The irony behind the case that David Brooks makes for Donald Trump’s support is that this support is based entirely on words (primarily offensive) and not actions. What did Mr. Trump do as president to help his supporters and make their lives better?His major accomplishment was the tax reform enacted in 2017, which heavily favored the rich and elites (including himself). His supporters love the way he attacks his “enemies” and anyone who disagrees with him and feel he speaks for them. The lack of actual benefits they have enjoyed seems not to matter.Ellen S. HirschNew YorkTo the Editor:Donald Trump, as loathsome as he is, has done one significant service for this country. He has made clear the great social divide that David Brooks describes in his excellent column. Now, how to fix it?As a former naval officer and Vietnam veteran, I would suggest universal national service, with almost no exemptions. Being forced to live with, eat with, work with people from all over the country would teach all of us to be more tolerant. This would not just be military service; it would include working in national parks, teaching in underserved schools, and many other forms of service to the nation.The only thing standing in the way is a timid Congress. Is there anyone in Congress brave enough to take this on?Jeffrey CallahanClevelandTo the Editor:David Brooks makes a familiar and not unreasonable argument about how the fear, resentment and sense of alienation that fuel the cult of Trumpism proceed from economic and cultural realities for which liberal elites are, in large part, responsible.When Mr. Brooks asks, however, whether anti-Trumpers should consider whether they are the “bad guys,” he embarks on an analysis that completely excludes millions of people like me who find Donald Trump and Trumpism appalling, without being “elite” at all.I was raised in a row home in northeast Philly by a single mom who was a cop. My dad was a union construction worker. I’ve been a musician and a bartender for most of my adult life. In short, I’m hardly part of the elite class that Mr. Brooks seems to equate with the anti-Trump movement, and yet I’m passionately anti-Trump!Maybe this particular piece simply wasn’t aimed at people like me, and that’s fine. But all too often I see this oversimplified, false duality that leaves out all the decent working-class people who have themselves been hurt by neoliberal policies and narratives, and yet would never channel their frustration into an odious movement like Trumpism. When we condemn Mr. Trump and his followers, we do so with a clean conscience.James A. LeponeTelford, Pa.To the Editor:David Brooks identifies the privileges enjoyed by the highly educated class and the resentment of the less educated class that might cause them to be ardent supporters of Donald Trump. Mr. Brooks concludes with a warning that history is the graveyard of classes with preferred caste privileges.What he fails to consider is that in the United States his identified “upper” class encourages, both by words and action, members of the “lower” class to join it. Nothing would make those with college or graduate degrees happier than if every capable child joined their class. This differs very much from any true caste system.Jack SternSetauket, N.Y.To the Editor:David Brooks’s column gave me a new perspective regarding why people support this obvious con man named Donald Trump. Although Mr. Brooks makes excellent points regarding the anger that people feel, is it not the Democrats who advocate and pass legislation regarding the minimum wage, infrastructure, child care, education, the environment, middle-class tax relief, financial assistance with community colleges and technical schools, etc., all for the benefit of working- and middle-class Americans?Mr. Trump and the current crop of Republicans have done nothing to help these people. In light of this, isn’t propaganda from Mr. Trump and his followers, as well as the cynical right-wing media, also to blame for this misplaced anger and anti-democratic sentiment?We’re not the bad guys. Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch are.Phillip L. RosenVenice Beach, Calif.To the Editor:David Brooks does an excellent job of setting up a straw man to bring down. Most liberals aren’t part of the “elite,” no matter how many right-wingers parrot that lie.Exit polls from 2020 found that Joe Biden outpaced Donald Trump significantly among voters making less than $100,000 a year, while Mr. Trump did better among those making $100,000 or more. Mr. Trump is no friend to the working class, and polls like these give me confidence that a majority of the working class recognizes this. And any member of the working class who supports him or today’s extreme-right Republican Party is going against their own best interests.It’s liberals and Democrats (usually but not always the same) who support policies to empower workers and reduce economic inequality, and the other side doesn’t give a damn. Liberals are not the elite and are not the enemy of the working class.Trudy RingBend, Ore. More

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      Ron DeSantis Accepts Gavin Newsom’s Challenge to Debate on Fox News

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      The California governor had taunted his Florida counterpart for months. Now, with his presidential campaign struggling, Mr. DeSantis agreed to a debate hosted by Sean Hannity.Since last September, Gavin Newsom, the ambitious, proudly liberal governor of California, has been tauntingly challenging Ron DeSantis, the ambitious, proudly conservative governor of Florida, to a debate. He would even agree, he said, to let the right-wing Fox News host Sean Hannity moderate.On Wednesday, Mr. DeSantis accepted.“You heard Gavin make the offer,” Mr. Hannity said on his show. “Your answer is?”“Absolutely,” a smiling Mr. DeSantis replied. “I’m game. Let’s get it done. Just tell me when and where.”In a letter last week, Mr. Newsom had outlined his proposed terms: a date of Nov. 8 or 10; a location in Georgia, Nevada or North Carolina; and a focus “on the impact of representation at the state level.”Nathan Click, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom, said in a statement late Wednesday: “November 8th or 10th. DeSantis should put up or shut up. Anything else is just games.”Such an event would, perhaps, be a mutually agreeable proposition for two men eager for as much attention as they can get.Mr. Newsom has made no secret of the fact that he is interested in running for president, perhaps as soon as 2028. And Mr. DeSantis’s own presidential campaign is being drowned out by the inescapable presence of former President Donald J. Trump, who led him by more than 35 percentage points in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll on the Republican primary, and whose three criminal indictments have dominated the news for months.Both Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Newsom have sought to present themselves as the platonic ideal of a governor of their party, and their state as a haven.Mr. DeSantis has moved Florida sharply to the right, signing laws that ban abortion after six weeks and restrict transgender rights, and advertising his rejection of public health measures during the pandemic. Mr. Newsom has signed extensive climate measures, sought to make California a “sanctuary” for abortion access for people from out of state and recently called for a constitutional amendment to enact gun regulations.Last year, Mr. Newsom ran ads in Florida telling voters there, “Freedom is under attack in your state.” In June, Mr. DeSantis accused Mr. Newsom of having a “fixation” on Florida and dared him to announce a primary challenge to President Biden.From the perspective of the current presidential race, though, Mr. Newsom is not exactly the sparring partner Mr. DeSantis would prefer. The man he actually needs to defeat to have a chance of becoming president — Mr. Trump — is threatening to skip the Republican debate this month.Shane Goldmacher More

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      A Pro-Trump Crowd, Sensing Disloyalty, Drowns Out Dissent

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      A day after former President Donald J. Trump headlined the Turning Point conference in Florida, two of his Republican opponents were booed and heckled at the same event.Not long ago, the names on the marquee would have been right at home on Fox News: Stephen K. Bannon, Tucker Carlson and Roger J. Stone Jr.But Fox News ousted Mr. Carlson three months ago, and Mr. Bannon, Mr. Stone and a boisterous pro-Trump crowd at the Turning Point Action Conference were eager to take shots at the conservative network, arguing that it has not been sufficiently supportive of former President Donald J. Trump as he seeks to regain the office he lost in 2020.At the two-day gathering, with thousands of pro-Trump activists in attendance this weekend in South Florida, jeers flew on Sunday at the mention of Rupert Murdoch, the Fox media mogul, as well as Speaker Kevin McCarthy.Donald J. Trump spoke to roughly 6,000 attendees for more than an hour and a half on Sunday.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesAnd after Mr. Trump spoke to this crowd on Saturday, any of his Republican rivals for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination took the stage at their own peril.In a speech on Sunday, Mr. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s onetime chief strategist who was found guilty of contempt of Congress, suggested that Mr. Murdoch had been using Fox News to hype Republican governors from battleground states to undermine Mr. Trump’s candidacy. He cited Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mr. Trump’s main rival in the party, who trails him by roughly 30 percentage points in national polls, as a cautionary tale.“Come on down,” Mr. Bannon said. “Bring it because we’ll destroy you just like we destroyed DeSantis.”Mr. Bannon — the host of a right-wing podcast, which he has used to promote election falsehoods and conspiracy theories — criticized Fox News for its lack of coverage of the pro-Trump conclave and called Mr. Trump’s political battles a “jihad.”“Donald Trump is our instrument for retribution,” he said.While Fox News did not carry the event on its main network, it did show conference speeches by Mr. Trump and the other Republican candidates on Fox Nation, its subscription streaming service. A Fox Corporation spokesman declined to comment on behalf of Mr. Murdoch.Two of Mr. Trump’s long-shot Republican opponents — Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor; and Francis X. Suarez, the mayor of Miami — experienced the wrath of Mr. Trump’s supporters firsthand on Sunday when they were heckled and booed.When Mr. Suarez, whom The Miami Herald has reported as being under F.B.I. investigation in a corruption case, stepped up to the microphone, a few people in the crowd yelled “traitor.”He responded by mentioning his Cuban American heritage and saying that dissenting voices were welcome in America, unlike in his ancestors’ home country.A woman yelling at Francis X. Suarez, the Miami mayor and Republican presidential candidate.Saul Martinez for The New York Times“It’s OK to have a little bit of hate,” Mr. Suarez told the crowd.Saul Martinez for The New York Times“It’s OK to have a little bit of hate,” Mr. Suarez said. Later, he asked conservative activists to chip in to his campaign.Mr. Hutchinson paused his remarks as the crowd began chanting Mr. Trump’s name, and one of his biggest applause lines came when he mentioned his successor in the Arkansas governor’s office: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mr. Trump’s onetime White House press secretary.Contending with cross-talk for much of his speech, Mr. Hutchinson said that Republicans needed to have respect for people with different opinions.At the conference, attendees could attach sticky notes to cutouts of the Republican candidates’ heads.A man placed one with a homophobic slur on the face of Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s former vice president. Later, it appeared to have been removed. But a number of stickers branding Mr. Pence a “traitor” for refusing to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, covered his face.On a cutout of Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Mr. Trump’s United Nation’s ambassador, one sticky note said: “Woman in Politics? Cringe.”At the event’s apex on Saturday, about 6,000 people filled the Palm Beach County Convention Center to hear Mr. Trump speak for nearly 100 minutes. Mr. Carlson ruminated about his dismissal from Fox News in April.Roger J. Stone Jr. speaking to the pro-Trump crowd.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesIn a speech on Sunday, Mr. Stone, who had a felony conviction pardoned by Mr. Trump, claimed that federal prosecutors had offered him a deal to dredge up dirt implicating Mr. Trump in wrongdoing and recalled a predawn F.B.I. raid at his home in South Florida in 2019 during which he was arrested.“I said, ‘You can go to hell,’” he said. More

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      in Elections

      DeSantis Confronts a Murdoch Empire No Longer Quite So Supportive

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      The Florida governor has faced tough questions and critical coverage lately from Fox News and other conservative outlets, in a sign of growing skepticism.In March, as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida laid the groundwork for his presidential run, he joined the Fox News host Brian Kilmeade to play a nationally televised game of catch on his hometown baseball field outside Tampa.The questions Mr. DeSantis faced were as relaxed as the tosses.“Locker room gets you ready for the press, right?” Mr. Kilmeade asked. “Because your teammates, if they like you a lot, they rip you all the time.”At the time, Mr. DeSantis was seen by many in the Republican Party as the strongest possible alternative to former President Donald J. Trump, who had repeatedly attacked the network and had seen his relationship with its owner, Rupert Murdoch, evaporate.Four months later, with Mr. DeSantis’s campaign having failed to immediately catch fire against Mr. Trump, Fox News is not taking it quite so easy on Mr. DeSantis anymore.Over the last week, he has confronted noticeably tougher questions in interviews with two of the network’s hosts, Will Cain and Maria Bartiromo, who pressed him on his anemic poll numbers and early campaign struggles. It was a striking shift for a network that for years has offered Mr. DeSantis a safe space as a congressman and a governor.Other outlets in Mr. Murdoch’s media empire have also been slightly less friendly of late.A recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal criticized a tough immigration bill that Mr. DeSantis signed into law in May. And The New York Post, which hailed the governor as “DeFuture” on its front page last year, has covered his lagging poll numbers, as well as the backlash to a video his campaign shared that was condemned as homophobic.Mr. DeSantis was always bound to be subjected to more scrutiny as a candidate, rather than a candidate in waiting. His decision to challenge Mr. Trump — who remains a favorite of Fox News’s audience and some of its hosts, including Ms. Bartiromo — was also certain to result in sideswipes from fellow Republicans.But taken together, the signs of skepticism from previously friendly conservative megaphones suggest that Mr. Murdoch’s media empire might now be reassessing him as the early shine comes off his campaign.Rupert Murdoch’s news outlets are less determinative of outcomes in Republican politics than they once were, but they remain influential.Victoria Jones/Press Association, via Associated PressEven if Mr. Murdoch’s outlets as a whole are less determinative of outcomes in Republican politics than they once were, they remain influential, and G.O.P. candidates and major party donors still pay close attention to their coverage.Whether Mr. Murdoch wants to see Mr. DeSantis as the nominee is unclear. Some of Mr. DeSantis’s moves — like his ongoing punitive battle with Disney — are unlikely to have pleased the business-minded Mr. Murdoch, who nearly a decade ago called for federal officials to make immigration reform a priority.The media mogul likes to watch political races play out, even live-tweeting reactions to one of the Republican presidential debates during the 2016 election. Mr. Murdoch has privately told people that he would still like to see Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia enter the race, according to a person with knowledge of the remarks. And he has made clear in private discussions over the last two years that he thinks Mr. Trump, despite his popularity with Fox News viewers, is unhealthy for the Republican Party.A spokesman for Mr. Murdoch and a spokesman for Fox did not respond to an email seeking comment.Mr. DeSantis’s campaign declined to comment. Privately, his advisers say that tougher questions were always expected and that the governor plans to continue holding interviews with Fox hosts who may challenge him.Republican voters view Mr. DeSantis favorably overall, but he has been unable to meaningfully narrow the polling gap between him and Mr. Trump since entering the race, even as he remains the former president’s leading challenger. Mr. DeSantis has also continued to show an awkward side in unscripted exchanges where he is challenged — a contrast with Mr. Trump, a no-holds barred campaigner who seems to enjoy combative interviews.The tide has not completely shifted. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page took a new jab at Mr. Trump for adjusting his policy positions depending on which audience he is addressing, and gave Mr. DeSantis a slight boost by comparing him favorably.For Fox, navigating its coverage of Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Trump and an already bitter Republican presidential primary race is just one challenge.This spring, the network paid dearly for its airing of Mr. Trump’s false election claims, settling a defamation lawsuit related to its coverage of the 2020 presidential contest for a staggering $787.5 million. Further legal dangers lie ahead.Less than a week after the settlement, Fox dismissed Tucker Carlson, its most popular prime-time host, in an earthquake for the conservative media ecosystem. The network now faces persistent concerns about dipping ratings and upstart competitors that are eager to claw away Fox viewers who want a more pro-Trump viewpoint.Although Mr. Trump still appears on Fox News, his relationship with the network remains hostile, to the extent that people close to him say there is little chance he will participate in the first Republican presidential debate, which Fox News is hosting next month. (Mr. Trump, who leads in national polls by roughly 30 percentage points, also does not want to give his rivals a chance to attack him in person, those people said.)Mr. DeSantis, who typically shuns one-on-one interviews with mainstream political reporters, has a long and positive history with Fox News.Mr. DeSantis with his wife, Casey, after winning the Florida governor’s race in 2018. For years, he has enjoyed a friendly relationship with Fox News. Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesAs a congressman, he co-hosted the show “Outnumbered” several times. In 2018, he announced his run for governor on “Fox & Friends.” During the coronavirus pandemic, Sean Hannity of Fox News praised Mr. DeSantis in an interview, saying: “I’m an idiot. I should be in Florida. You should be my governor.”And after declaring his candidacy for president in a glitch-ridden livestream on Twitter seven weeks ago, Mr. DeSantis immediately went on Fox for an interview, although the network did poke fun at his technical difficulties.Mr. Trump himself raged earlier in the year about what he perceived as Fox’s excessively friendly treatment of Mr. DeSantis. “Just watching Fox News. They are sooo bad,” Mr. Trump wrote on his TruthSocial site in May. “They are desperately pushing DeSanctimonious who, regardless, is dropping like a rock.”He has also taken digs at features in The New York Post, including one in which the writer Salena Zito did a lengthy interview with Mr. DeSantis in his hometown, Dunedin, Fla. — an article Mr. Trump denounced as a “puff piece.” (The Post, once one of Mr. Trump’s favorite papers, has ripped into him.)Mr. Trump was undoubtedly more pleased last Thursday when Mr. Cain, the Fox host, pressed Mr. DeSantis on his poll numbers, asking the governor why he was so far behind.In response, Mr. DeSantis suggested that he was being unfairly attacked both by the “corporate media” and, somewhat incongruously, by the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has criticized him for his hard-line stances on immigration.“So I think if you look at all these people that are responsible for a lot of the ills in our society, they’re targeting me as the person they don’t want to see as the candidate,” explained Mr. DeSantis, adding that his campaign had “just started.”Mr. Cain tried again, saying that he believed Mr. DeSantis had “done a wonderful job” as governor but that “there are those that say there’s something about you that’s not connecting, for whatever reason, not connecting with the voter.”Mr. DeSantis wove around the question and noted that his campaign had raised $20 million in its first six weeks.“We’re in the process of building out a great organization, and I think we’re going to be on the ground in all these early states,” he said.Mr. Cain is no dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporter. He has talked about voting against Mr. Trump in 2016. But when Mr. DeSantis joined Ms. Bartiromo, who relentlessly pushed the former president’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, for an interview on Sunday, he surely expected to be challenged.“You’ve done a great job pushing back against ‘woke,’ we know that,” Ms. Bartiromo said after allowing Mr. DeSantis to hit his usual talking points for several minutes. “But I’m wondering what’s going on with your campaign. There was a lot of optimism about you running for president earlier in the year.”Mr. DeSantis forced out a laugh as Ms. Bartiromo read negative headlines about his campaign. He then jumped into a rebuttal that focused on his efforts to build strong organizing operations in Iowa and New Hampshire.“Maria, these are narratives,” he said. “The media does not want me to be the nominee.”Jonathan Swan More