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    Johnson Floats Voting on Senate Ukraine Bill, With Conservative Policies as Sweeteners

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    The Republican speaker has weighed bringing up a $95 billion Senate-passed bill to aid Ukraine and Israel in tandem with a separate package geared toward mollifying G.O.P. critics.Shortly after congressional leaders met with Japan’s prime minister in Speaker Johnson’s ceremonial office in the Capitol on Thursday morning, the conversation turned to Ukraine aid.Mr. Johnson was in the middle of another agonizing standoff with the ultraconservatives in his conference, after they had blocked legislation to extend a major warrantless surveillance law that is about to expire. His chief Republican antagonist, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, had intensified her threat to oust him. But on Ukraine, he offered his counterparts an assurance.“We’re going to get this done,” he vowed.His comments, confirmed by multiple people familiar with the meeting, were consistent with what Mr. Johnson has been saying for weeks, both publicly and privately: that he intends to ensure the House will move to assist Ukraine, a step that many members of his party oppose.Even as right-wing Republicans have sought to ratchet up pressure on their speaker, Mr. Johnson has continued to search for a way to win the votes to push through a Ukraine aid. He is battling not only stiff resistance to the idea among House Republicans, but also mounting opposition among Democrats to sending unfettered military aid to Israel given the soaring civilian death toll and humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.Mr. Johnson has yet to make any final decisions on how he plans to structure a new round of American military assistance to Ukraine.Some Republicans have increasingly expressed interest in structuring the aid as a loan, an idea that Mr. Johnson has publicly floated and that former President Donald J. Trump previously endorsed. Mr. Trump raised again the idea again after a private meeting with Mr. Johnson at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Friday.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 Expresses Regret for Calling an Undocumented Immigrant ‘an Illegal’

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      President Biden expressed regret on Saturday for using the word “illegal” to describe an undocumented immigrant who has been charged in the killing of a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia, agreeing with his progressive critics that it was an inappropriate term.Mr. Biden used the word during an unscripted colloquy with Republicans during his State of the Union address on Thursday night, and then came under fire from immigration supporters who consider the term dehumanizing. Among those who said he should not have used it were several congressional Democrats.“I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal’; it’s ‘undocumented,’” Mr. Biden said on Saturday in an interview with Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC, during which he addressed his disagreements with former President Donald J. Trump.“And look, when I spoke about the difference between Trump and me, one of the things I talked about in the border was his, the way he talks about ‘vermin,’ the way he talks about these people ‘polluting the blood,’ ” he said, adding, “I talked about what I’m not going to do. What I won’t do. I’m not going to treat any, any, any of these people with disrespect.”He continued: “Look, they built the country. The reason our economy is growing. We have to control the border and more orderly flow, but I don’t share his view at all.”Mr. Capehart asked if that meant he regretted using the word “illegal.”“Yes,” Mr. Biden answered.The president’s reply went further than when he was first asked about the matter by reporters on Friday. He did not explicitly take back the term at that point, noting that the immigrant charged in the murder in Georgia was “technically not supposed to be here.”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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      After Carroll Verdict, Haley Says ‘America Can Do Better’ Than Trump or Biden

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      Nikki Haley criticized Donald J. Trump on Friday, saying, “America can do better than Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” after a Manhattan jury had ordered the former president to pay $83.3 million for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll.It was the latest iteration of Ms. Haley’s new attack line against Mr. Trump, portraying another Trump presidency as just as bad for the country as another four years of President Biden. Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, began making similar statements after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida dropped out of the race on Sunday, leaving her as the last serious threat to Mr. Trump’s candidacy.“Donald Trump wants to be the presumptive Republican nominee and we’re talking about $83 million in damages,” Ms. Haley wrote on social media, adding that Mr. Trump’s legal troubles continued to be a distraction. “We’re not talking about fixing the border. We’re not talking about tackling inflation.”Ms. Haley is preparing for what may be the final stand of her presidential campaign, facing off against Mr. Trump next month in a critical primary in her home state of South Carolina. Ms. Haley has largely avoided commenting on Mr. Trump’s legal cases, but the former president leads her by wide margins in polls, and she appears to be turning up the heat in an effort to catch him.Mr. Trump lashed out on social media soon after the verdict, attacking the civil trial as a “Biden Directed Witch Hunt” despite the fact that Ms. Carroll sued Mr. Trump in 2019, before he had left office and while Mr. Biden was just one of many Democratic presidential candidates.The verdict was an extraordinary moment for a front-runner in a presidential nominating contest. A jury penalized Mr. Trump $83.3 million for defamation just three days after he had won a second nominating contest — in New Hampshire, by 11 percentage points. Mr. Trump also faces 91 felony counts in four separate criminal cases.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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      With Deal Close on Border and Ukraine, Republican Rifts Threaten to Kill Both

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      A divided G.O.P. coalesced behind a bit of legislative extortion: No Ukraine aid without a border crackdown. Now they are split over how large a price to demand, imperiling both initiatives.Senator James Lankford, the Oklahoma Republican and staunch conservative, this week trumpeted the immigration compromise he has been negotiating with Senate Democrats and White House officials as one shaping up to be “by far, the most conservative border security bill in four decades.”Speaker Mike Johnson, in contrast, sent out a fund-raising message on Friday denouncing the forthcoming deal as a Democratic con. “My answer is NO. Absolutely NOT,” his message said, adding, “This is the hill I’ll die on.”The Republican disconnect explains why, with an elusive bipartisan bargain on immigration seemingly as close as it has been in years on Capitol Hill, the prospects for enactment are grim. It is also why hopes for breaking the logjam over sending more U.S. aid to Ukraine are likely to be dashed by hard-line House Republicans.The situation encapsulates the divide cleaving the Republican Party. On one side are the right-wing MAGA allies of former President Donald J. Trump, an America First isolationist who instituted draconian immigration policies while in office. On the other is a dwindling group of more mainstream traditionalists who believe the United States should play an assertive role defending democracy on the world stage.The two wings coalesced last fall around a bit of legislative extortion: They would only agree to President Biden’s request to send about $60 billion more to Ukraine for its fight against Russian aggression if he agreed to their demands to clamp down on migration at the United States border with Mexico. But now, they are at odds about how large of a price to demand.Hard-right House Republicans, who are far more dug in against aid to Ukraine, have argued that the bipartisan border compromise brokered by their counterparts in the Senate is unacceptable. And they bluntly say they do not want to give Mr. Biden the opportunity in an election year to claim credit for cracking down on unauthorized immigration.Instead, with Mr. Trump agitating against the deal from the campaign trail, they are demanding a return to more severe immigration policies that he imposed, which stand no chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate. Those include a revival of the Remain in Mexico policy, under which migrants seeking to enter the United States were blocked and made to stay elsewhere while they waited to appear in immigration court to plead their cases.While Senate G.O.P. leaders have touted the emerging agreement as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a breakthrough on the border, hard-right House members have dismissed it as the work of establishment Republicans out of touch with the G.O.P. base.“Let’s talk about Mitch McConnell — he has a 6 percent approval rating,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said of the Senate minority leader. “He wouldn’t be the one to be listening to, making deals on the border.”She said that after Mr. Trump’s decisive win in the Iowa caucuses, “It’s time for all Republicans, Senate and the House, to get behind his policies.”As for the proposed aid to Ukraine, Ms. Greene is threatening to oust Mr. Johnson from the speakership if he brings it to the floor.“My red line is Ukraine,” she said, expressing confidence that the speaker would heed her threat. “I’m making it very clear to him. We will not see it on the House floor — that is my expectation.”House Republicans have opposed sending money to Ukraine without a deal on immigration.Emile Ducke for The New York TimesThe situation is particularly fraught for Mr. Johnson, the novice House speaker whose own sympathies lie with the far right but who is facing immense institutional pressures — from Mr. Biden, Democrats in Congress and his fellow Republicans in the Senate — to embrace a deal pairing border policy changes with aid to Ukraine.Mr. Johnson has positioned himself as a Trump loyalist, quickly endorsing the former president after winning the gavel, and said that he has spoken regularly to the former president about the Senate immigration deal and everything else. After infuriating hard-right Republicans on Thursday by pushing through a short-term government funding bill to avert a shutdown, the speaker has little incentive to enrage them again and defy the wishes of Mr. Trump, who has disparaged the Senate compromise.“I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media this week.Democrats already have agreed to substantial concessions in the talks, including making it more difficult for migrants to claim asylum; expanding detention and expulsion authorities; and shutting down the intake of migrants when attempted crossings reach a level that would overwhelm detention facilities — around 5,000 migrants a day.But far-right Republicans have dismissed the compromise out of hand, saying the changes would still allow many immigrants to enter the country each year without authorization.Election-year politics is playing a big role. Representative Bob Good, Republican of Virginia and the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, said passing the Senate bill would give “political cover” to Mr. Biden for his failures at the border.“Democrats want to look like they care about the border, then run out the clock so Biden wins re-election,” Mr. Good said. “It would be terrible for the country to give political cover to the facilitators of the border invasion.”Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, said that while Mr. Johnson broke with the right on federal spending because he feared a government shutdown, “I think on the immigration issue, there’s more unity.”Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican, warned that the immigration compromise was a “unique opportunity” that would not be available to Republicans next year, even if they were to win majorities in both chambers of Congress and win back the White House.“The Democrats will not give us anything close to this if we have to get 60 votes in the U.S. Senate in a Republican majority,” he said.Speaker Mike Johnson has positioned himself as a Trump loyalist. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesMany mainstream House Republicans believe that Mr. Johnson would be making a terrible mistake if he heeded the advice of the most far-right voices and refused to embrace an immigration deal. They argue that doing so would squander an opportunity to win important policy changes and the political boost that would come with showing that Republicans can govern.“Big city mayors are talking about the same thing that Texas conservatives are talking about,” said Representative Patrick T. McHenry, Republican of North Carolina, a close ally of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. “Take the moment, man. Take the policy win, bank it, and go back for more. That is always the goal.”But for some Republicans, taking the policy win is less important than continuing to have a political issue to rail against in an election year.“It’s worse than doing nothing to give political cover for a sham border security bill that does nothing to actually secure the border,” Mr. Good said.Mr. Burchett, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy, rolled his eyes when asked about Mr. McHenry’s entreaties not to make the perfect the enemy of the good.“McHenry’s leaving,” he said of the congressman, who has announced he will not run for re-election next year. More

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      To Win Iowa, Trump Turns to Allies Like Marjorie Taylor Greene

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      With the former president busy defending himself in court from 91 felony charges, his campaign has deployed high-profile conservatives to help fill the gaps in Iowa.Less than a week before Iowans decide whether to slingshot Donald J. Trump toward another presidential nomination, his schedule looks like this: Go to Washington for an appeals court hearing on Tuesday. Pop into Iowa for a Fox News town-hall event on Wednesday — and then make an expected return to court on Thursday, this time in New York.He is not scheduled to hold another rally in Iowa until Saturday, two days before the caucuses.As Mr. Trump flits between the presidential trail and the courtroom, his campaign has deployed a web of high-profile conservative allies to help fill the gaps and make his case across the state, a strategy that the former president may be more likely to turn to this year as his legal issues keep him occupied.Over the last months, Mr. Trump’s campaign has set up smaller rallies with Republican luminaries who, among the president’s right-wing base, have achieved a kind of political celebrity.To start its efforts in January, the campaign last week held events with Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Eric Trump, one of Mr. Trump’s sons. This week, Ben Carson, Mr. Trump’s former secretary of housing and urban development, is scheduled for two appearances in eastern Iowa.Before a winter storm hit Iowa and disrupted travel, the campaign had also planned to hold events on Monday and Tuesday with Roseanne Barr, the actress and outspoken Trump supporter; Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, Mr. Trump’s former press secretary; and Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008.Mr. Trump’s use of campaign surrogates is a notable example of an old campaign tactic. Political candidates have long leaned on prominent allies to help them, given the logistical challenges of making pitches to voters in early-voting states that hold closely scheduled contests.“It’s a way to draw interest from caucusgoers and give them the opportunity to hear from other people,” said Jimmy Centers, a Republican strategist in Iowa who is unaligned in the race. “And it can be a draw in some cases to maybe get people out.”On Monday, while Gov. Ron DeSantis was in Florida attending to his day job, his wife, Casey, and Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a hard-right lawmaker, were traveling through southeastern Iowa at events held by Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting the DeSantis campaign.Other candidates were bringing well-known figures who have endorsed them to stump at their events. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, appeared over the weekend with Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire. The biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is expected to campaign later in the week with the right-wing commentator Candace Owens and the YouTube star and boxer Jake Paul.But as a former president who enjoys broad support, Mr. Trump is able to draw on a far deeper roster of conservative stars. Mr. Centers said Mr. Trump’s slate of surrogates tended to be people who were “more top of mind” for likely Republican caucusgoers.Many of Mr. Trump’s surrogates are eager to align themselves with his supporters or to display their loyalty to Mr. Trump. In some cases, they may be positioning themselves for potential positions in a future Trump cabinet. (Ms. Noem has said she would consider being Mr. Trump’s running mate.)And surrogates like Ms. Noem, Ms. Greene and Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who held an event in Cedar Rapids last month, are themselves big draws for audiences.Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, whose state borders Iowa, has also been promoting Mr. Trump’s candidacy before the caucuses.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesBrian Duckett, 59, who attended Mr. Gaetz’s event, said he had been moved by the push from the campaign and the Florida congressman for Mr. Trump’s supporters to play a more active role in the caucuses.“I’ve never done that before, and I want to do it this time,” Mr. Duckett said.Last Wednesday, Ms. Noem drew hundreds of people to a 30-minute speech in Sioux City, just across the border from her home state. The same day, Mr. DeSantis himself held events nearby that were attended by just dozens.Mr. Trump’s surrogates are often able to help him appeal to specific segments of voters, speaking more directly to their concerns in a different way from Mr. Trump. The campaign hopes that this can help drive turnout and deliver Mr. Trump a decisive victory in the caucuses.Ms. Noem drew on being a wife, mother and grandmother as she shared personal stories to encourage the audience to caucus for Mr. Trump. And she mentioned her state’s proximity to Iowa to portray herself as someone who understood residents’ concerns about the prices of groceries and gasoline.“It’s dramatic for a state like Iowa,” Ms. Noem said of gas prices. “It’s dramatic for a state like my state of South Dakota, where it’s a long ways to drive anywhere.”Ms. Greene, an ultraconservative congresswoman who rose to power as a firebrand in Mr. Trump’s mold, was well positioned to address their party’s far-right flank.Speaking in Keokuk, a city at Iowa’s southeastern tip, Ms. Greene on Thursday proudly called herself a “MAGA extremist,” then railed against establishment Republicans, saying she had been “pretty let down” by them during Mr. Trump’s first term.“We were, too,” a man called out in response.“A common thing,” she agreed.The same day, Eric Trump worked a crowd of more than 150 people in Ankeny, in suburban Des Moines. He rattled off his father’s accomplishments. Then he, too, drew on his own particular advantages.“Should we call Donald Trump and see if he picks up the phone?” the younger Mr. Trump asked the audience. Moments later, the former president’s voice filled the room as his son held his phone up to the microphone.“I just want to say, I look forward to seeing you on Friday, we love you all, and I hope my son is doing a great job,” the elder Mr. Trump said.Max Anderson, 23, said at the Ankeny event that Mr. Trump’s steady stream of surrogates gave the former president’s pitch more credibility. He added that he thought the phone call reflected well on Mr. Trump’s character.“It shows that he takes care and loves his people — especially his kids,” Mr. Anderson said.Leah McBride Mensching More

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      Stefanik? Noem? Haley?! The Trump V.P. Chatter Has Begun.

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      With presidential primaries, it ain’t over till it’s over. Still, given the Republicans’ enduring devotion to their MAGA king, it’s best to mentally prepare oneself for the likelihood that the guy who has long been the prohibitive front-runner will, in fact, win the nomination. And a particularly juicy part of that preparation is obsessing over who Donald Trump will pick as his new pain sponge — erm, running mate — and what that choice could tell us about his strategy and state of mind this time around.Will Mr. Trump go with a white man who has displayed MAGA fealty? That would be the easiest, most comfortable fit for a guy who favors unchallenging mini-mes. Many people think he should go bolder, picking a Latino or Black man — paging Tim Scott! — in an effort to deepen the inroads he has already made with these demographics.And then there is the woman option, which is the one that most intrigues me.The Trump years have not helped the G.O.P.’s longstanding lady troubles. Many suburban soccer moms and other moderate Republican women aren’t so crazy about the former president’s ultratoxic politics. And the Trump-stacked Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 did little to improve the situation. Could a woman on the ticket help Mr. Trump win back some of these defectors, who may have soured on President Biden? Even if some women could not bring themselves to go full Trump, might they at least feel less driven to turn out to oppose him? Also, how pro-MAGA could a female V.P. pick be and still serve as a bridge to non-MAGA women? How non-MAGA could she be and still satisfy Mr. Trump?I am not the only one noodling over such matters. Steve Bannon, part of Mr. Trump’s original political brain trust, in an appearance last month on “The Sean Spicer Show,” said he thinks Mr. Trump will choose a female running mate this time and ticked through multiple boldfaced names he considered promising options: Kristi Noem, Elise Stefanik, Kari Lake, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Nancy Mace and Marsha Blackburn. He also declared Nikki Haley a nonstarter, warning that she would be “a viper” in the administration and vowing that any attempt to “force” her onto the ticket would lead to a big fight.A serpent in the Trump garden! How delicious. How biblically twisted.While obviously not the only women in the possible selection pool — in fact, I feel compelled to toss in Marjorie Taylor Greene — several of these are among the most discussed. Each brings with her a unique mix of pros and cons, in terms both of the more traditional measures by which running mates are often chosen and of the Trumpian particulars. So many factors to consider. So much to process. Here is a handy tip sheet, with an eye toward what each possible veep candidate says about Mr. Trump himself.Kari Lake. The former TV news anchor, former nominee for governor of Arizona and current Senate candidate clearly has the right stuff when it comes to MAGA zeal. It’s hard to find a Republican player with more passion or flair for promoting election-fraud claims. She is super media savvy, which Mr. Trump considers important, not to mention easy on the eyes — which we could all pretend doesn’t matter to him, but why bother? (Slamming a woman’s looks is a go-to Trump move.) She clearly knows how to throw a political punch, which is a quality generically valued in running mates and certainly one Mr. Trump fancies. She also hails from a crucial swing state, which once upon a time was considered a plus, though these days, who can say?She has no experience in public office, though, and little credibility with major donors or other establishment players. She is unlikely to hold much appeal for non-MAGA voters. And as weird as it sounds, she may be a smidge too flamboyantly Trumpy. Because the one thing you never want in a No. 2 — and which Mr. Trump in particular cannot abide — is someone who threatens to upstage the No. 1.Elise Stefanik. The chair of the House Republican conference is in no danger of ever outshining Mr. Trump. Her past as a more moderate, business-friendly Republican might offer comfort to some non-MAGA voters. Her leadership post has given her a national profile, and over the years she has worked aggressively to improve the party’s standing with female voters and to advance female candidates. She has solid relationships with the party elite, including big donors.While those establishment ties and history might raise some eyebrows in certain corners of Trump world, the congresswoman has undergone a total MAGA makeover in recent years. And there is little Mr. Trump loves more than having a former apostate grovel before him. As a bonus: Her assault on the heads of three elite universities during a December hearing on campus antisemitism, which played a role in the subsequent resignation of two of them, has given her a bit of conservative sparkle, at least for now. Mr. Trump appreciates someone who knows how to work the TV cameras.Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Mr. Trump surely considers the White House press secretary turned governor of Arkansas to be his political creation, which is one of his favorite kinds of people, as long as they don’t step out of line. (Just ask Meatball Ron DeSantis.) Ms. Sanders knows how to swim with the national media sharks. She hails from a traditional Republican (mini) dynasty and enjoys ties to the party establishment. She has proved herself willing to say pretty much whatever nonsense Mr. Trump wants, and there is zero chance she would outshine him.There is always a slight chance Ms. Sanders could have a problem with #PodiumGate, the kerfuffle over the $19,029.25 in taxpayer money she spent on … something — ostensibly a fancy lectern — that the Arkansas G.O.P. promptly reimbursed the state for after a journalist noted the purchase. But in Mr. Trump’s protective aura, she could probably just brush it off as witch hunting.Marsha Blackburn. An early, fervid Trump supporter, the Tennessee senator was buzzed about as a possible V.P. in 2016, back when she was just a lowly House member. She has decades of experience in Congress and knows how to navigate the party establishment and Washington’s corridors of power. She is plenty feisty and media savvy yet unlikely to overshadow Mr. Trump.That said, as a rock-ribbed conservative from a solidly red Southern state and (at least) a generation older than the other prime V.P. possibilities, she wouldn’t bring much in the way of balance to the table. Does Mr. Trump care anything about balance these days?Kristi Noem. The South Dakota governor has political experience both inside and outside Washington, where she served four terms in the House. She has impressive media skills and undoubtedly meets Mr. Trump’s attractiveness standards. She was one of his early endorsers this cycle, which speaks to his loyalty obsession, a move that raised her standing in the veepstakes guessing game. During the pandemic, she aggressively toed the it’s-no-big-deal, we’re-keeping-this-state-open line favored by conservative governors. And she obviously knows how to stroke the MAGA king’s ego, as so deftly captured by her gift to him of a $1,100 replica of Mount Rushmore with his face added. (I swear. That man is so basic.)Her tenure as governor has had its bumps, including a nepotism controversy. She also seems to really want the job, which isn’t always helpful to an aspiring veep. Last week she suggested Mr. Trump’s pick should be willing to tell him the truth — and that she filled the bill. Terrific! Except Mr. Trump might see this more as a bug than a feature. More generally, does he find it admirable or distasteful that she has long been seen as lobbying for the job and has even begun publicly issuing advice on the matter? She, like Mr. Bannon, recently smacked down the idea of Mr. Trump going with Ms. Haley.Nancy Mace. This may feel like a counterintuitive pick. The South Carolina congresswoman’s politics aren’t reliably MAGA, she has waffled on the loyalty thing, and she digs the limelight a little too much. Mr. Bannon nonetheless praised her “Trumpian attitude,” her “brashness,” her “set of titanium balls.”Marjorie Taylor Greene. The bomb-throwing congresswoman from Georgia is in many ways the female embodiment of Trumpism. She knows how to grab the media spotlight, and her belligerent, anti-elite, anti-expertise, anti-everything ’tude thrills the party base. Her attack-dog credentials are unimpeachable. She even voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results. So MAGA.She may, in fact, be a smidge too in your face. She doesn’t play well with the traditional wing of the party and, more recently, even managed to alienate fellow extremists in the House. Getting herself booted from the Freedom Caucus took some doing! And talk about a woman unlikely to win over voters beyond Mr. Trump’s existing fan base. Geesh.Which brings us to Nikki Haley.Let us first tackle the potential disqualifiers. The former governor of South Carolina may have served as Mr. Trump’s U.N. ambassador, but she does not rate well on his loyalty meter. Running against him? Criticizing his presidency? Suggesting competency tests for older pols? People have been put on his enemy’s list for less. Worse still, she could very well outshine him, at least in terms of basic intellect and verbal coherence.Still, refer to Mr. Trump’s love of humiliating and subjugating his critics: Having her serve as his No. 2 could tickle the Trump id. She has leadership experience and fits in with the establishment — though without being saddled with a congressional record, with all those pesky votes that can be weaponized by opponents. As an Indian American born to immigrant parents, she could help dilute the G.O.P’s image as the party of angry white racists. She’s attractive and media savvy and has foreign policy experience.Beyond that, a Trump-Haley ticket would signal that the former president is at least vaguely interested in soothing skittish, non-MAGA women. Ms. Haley is not looking to blow up the system. She is selling a more pragmatic, coalition-minded political approach and a more old-school Republicanism than what today’s base wants. Her selection would be a clear sign that Mr. Trump isn’t worried about making his MAGA base any happier. And why should he be? He is their adored, infallible leader.Still, it’s hard to see how Mr. Trump gets past that whole disloyalty thing with her. Especially after Mike Pence turned out to be such a disappointment to him in the end. And perhaps nothing would be a greater sign of Mr. Trump’s confidence in himself and his chances in November than if he went with his heart (like a Noem) rather than with a more calculated, conventional choice (like a Haley). The MAGA king isn’t one to let too much strategic thinking spoil his fun.Source photographs by Kevin Dietsch, Anna Moneymaker, Scott Olson and Christian Monterrosa/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images, Will Newton and Alex Brandon/Associated Press.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, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      Majorie Taylor Greene Book-Signing on Jan. 6 Stirs Backlash in Florida

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      A Florida venue canceled an event on Saturday featuring Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia congresswoman and acolyte of Donald J. Trump, after materials promoting the event advertised it, in part, as an occasion marking the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.The gathering was being organized by the Osceola County Republican Party in central Florida as a book-signing event for Ms. Greene. It was supposed to take place on Saturday at the Westgate Resorts in Kissimmee, Fla. But backlash ensued after State Representative Anna V. Eskamani, a Democrat, posted on social media a screenshot of a text that advertised the event as being on the “3rd Anniversary of Jan 6.”Ms. Greene has repeatedly downplayed, and at times defended, the deadly insurrection at the Capitol three years ago. She has elevated popular right-wing claims, which have been refuted, that the attack was orchestrated by F.B.I. agents. In November, she called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to create a new Jan. 6 select committee to investigate the original committee’s members.Ms. Greene addressed the change in venue on Friday night, writing on the social media platform X that she won’t be backing down to Democrats who she claimed “tried to shut down my book-signing, but the show must go on!!”Mark Cross, the chairman of the Osceola County Republican Party, said he had first received notice that the venue had pulled out on Thursday evening. He attributed the cancellation to a “combination of disinformation that was put out and a lot of miscommunication between parties.”The theme of the event was meant to honor Republican women, Mr. Cross said, and the event “just happened to be on Jan. 6.” He added, “We’re not going out of the way to celebrate Jan. 6 — it’s something that happened. It was a negative thing for everyone involved.” He noted that the group “didn’t pick the day.”A representative for the resort confirmed that the event was no longer taking place there but declined to elaborate. “Please be advised that Westgate was not made aware of the purpose of this event when we were approached to host a book-signing,” Westgate Resorts said in a statement to NBC News, which first reported on the event. The party’s book-signing for Ms. Greene will now take place on Saturday at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in St. Cloud, Fla., Mr. Cross said.The event was originally advertised as an opportunity for attendees to hear from Ms. Greene and receive signed copies of her book, “M.T.G.” Prices to attend started at $45 for general admission and went up to $1,000 for “super V.I.P.s,” who would be allowed to attend a “special private briefing on J6 and DC.”Ms. Eskamani said in an interview that she was sent screenshots of the text by two friends. She praised Floridians who had “created the backlash” that preceded the cancellation of the event at the resort.“When I saw that text message, my first reaction was, ‘Is this a joke?’” she said. “No one should be commemorating, in a celebratory fashion or even with a book-signing, Jan. 6.” More

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      In Tense Election Year, Public Officials Face Climate of Intimidation

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      Colorado and Maine, which blocked former President Donald J. Trump from the ballot, have grappled with the harassment of officials.The caller had tipped off the authorities in Maine on Friday night: He told them that he had broken into the home of Shenna Bellows, the state’s top election official, a Democrat who one night earlier had disqualified former President Donald J. Trump from the primary ballot because of his actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.No one was home when officers arrived, according to Maine State Police, who labeled the false report as a “swatting” attempt, one intended to draw a heavily armed law enforcement response.In the days since, more bogus calls and threats have rolled in across the country. On Wednesday, state capitol buildings in Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi and Montana were evacuated or placed on lockdown after the authorities said they had received bomb threats that they described as false and nonspecific. The F.B.I. said it had no information to suggest any threats were credible.The incidents intensified a climate of intimidation and the harassment of public officials, including those responsible for overseeing ballot access and voting. Since 2020, election officials have confronted rising threats and difficult working conditions, aggravated by rampant conspiracy theories about fraud. The episodes suggested 2024 would be another heated election 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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      in Elections

      Trump May Not Need a Coup This Time

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      Gail Collins: Bret, I know you’re busy writing about your reporting trip to Israel, and I am looking forward to reading all your thoughts. But, gee, can we talk about the Times-Siena poll on the presidential race that came out on Sunday? Donald Trump is ahead in almost all the critical states.Yow. Pardon me while I pour myself a drink.Bret Stephens: Nice to be home. Please pour me one while you’re at it.For readers who don’t know the gory details of the poll, here they are: Across six battleground states, Trump leads President Biden 48 percent to 44 percent among registered voters. In the crucial swing states that Biden won last time, Trump is ahead in five — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania — while Biden leads only in Wisconsin. Biden is losing support from young voters, Hispanic voters, Black voters — constituencies Democrats have depended on for decades to overcome the longstanding Republican advantage among whites.Women voters favor Biden by eight percentage points, 50 percent to 42 percent, but men favor Trump by a far wider 18-point spread: 55 percent to 37 percent. (I guess that’s another definition for the term “manspreading.”) On the economy, voters prefer Trump over Biden by a 22-point margin. And a whopping 71 percent think Biden is too old to be president, as opposed to just 39 percent for Trump.Gail: Whimper, whimper.Bret: Basically, this poll is to Biden’s second-term ambitions what sunlight is to morning fog. Isn’t it time for him to bow out gracefully and focus his remaining energies on the crises of the moment, particularly Ukraine and the Middle East, instead of gearing up for a punishing campaign while setting the country up for Trump’s catastrophic comeback?Gail: Well, you and I both hoped he wouldn’t run for re-election. But he did, and he is — and as I’ve said nine million times, he’s only three years older than Donald Trump and appears to be in much better physical condition.Bret: For all we know, Biden may be physically fitter than Alex Honnold and mentally sharper than Garry Kasparov, even if he’s hiding it well. But this poll is pretty much voters yelling, “We don’t think so.” Ignore it at your peril.How about putting in a good word for Dean Phillips, the Minnesota representative challenging Biden? Or at least urging the Biden team to lose Kamala Harris in favor of a veep pick more Americans would feel confident about as a potential president, like Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary?Gail: I’m not gonna argue about perfect-world scenarios. Harris might not be your ideal potential president — or mine — but dumping her from the ticket would suggest some historic degree of bad performance. And she really hasn’t done anything wrong.Bret: Harris could well be the best vice president ever, though she’s also hiding it well. But the point here is that voters are underwhelmed, and her presence on the ticket compounds Biden’s already abysmal numbers.Gail: I’m tormented by this whole national vision of Biden as an aging dolt while Trump plays the energetic orator. As our colleagues Michael Bender and Michael Gold pointed out recently, Trump’s had “a string of unforced gaffes, garble and general disjointedness” in his speeches lately.Bret: Trump has always been the Tsar Bomba of idiocy. But too many people seem more impressed by his rhetorical force than appalled by his moral and ideological destructiveness.Gail: Why does Biden have this terrible image while Trump’s his old, fun-under-multiple-indictments self?Bret: That’s a great question. As a matter of law, I think Trump belongs in jail. The political problem is that the indictments help him, because they play to his outlaw appeal. He wants to cast himself as the Josey Wales of American politics. His entire argument is that “the system” — particularly the Justice Department — is broken, biased and corrupt, so anything the system does against him is proof of its corruption rather than of his. And tens of millions of people agree with him.Gail: This is the world that grew up around us when The Riddler was more fun than Batman.Bret: Perfectly said. The good news in the Times-Siena poll is that Trump’s negatives are also very high. They’re just not as high as Biden’s. Which means Democrats could easily hold the White House with another candidate. But you seem reluctant to push the idea.Gail: Yeah, since Biden is very, very definitely running, I don’t see any point in whining about the fact that I wish he wasn’t. He’d still be 10 times a better president than Trump.Bret: I just refuse to believe Biden’s candidacy is inevitable. Democrats seem to have talked themselves into thinking that any primary challenge to Biden just guarantees an eventual Republican victory, since that’s what tends to happen to incumbent presidents, like George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. But the alternative is to watch Biden risk his single greatest accomplishment — defeating an incumbent Trump in the first place — by heedlessly running in the face of overwhelming public skepticism.Gail: What’s so frustrating is — Biden has a really fine record. The economy has picked up. He’s gotten a huge program passed for infrastructure projects like better roads and bridges. He’s always got the fight against global warming on his agenda. He stands up firmly for social issues most Americans support, like abortion rights.Bret: All the more reason for him to rest on his laurels and pass the baton to a younger generation. I can think of a half-dozen Democrats, particularly governors, who would trounce Trump in a general election just by showing up to the debate with a pulse and a brain. Let me just start with four: Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Jared Polis, Wes Moore ….Gail: I know Trump appears more energetic, but he’s really only a whole lot louder. Either way his multitudinous defects in character and policy really should make the difference.Bret: Hope you’re right. Fear you’re not.Gail: Sigh. Let’s change the subject. You’re in charge of Republicans — what’s your party going to do about the dreaded Senator Tommy Tuberville?Bret: For the record, I quit the G.O.P. more than five years ago.As for Tuberville, who is holding some 370 senior military promotions hostage because he objects to Pentagon policies on abortion, I suggest he should have a look at what just happened in Israel. The country just paid a dreadful price in lives in part because far-right politicians ignored the degradation of the country’s military readiness while they pursued their ideological fixations. I hope defense hawks like Lindsey Graham join forces with the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to change Senate rules and move the nominations to a vote.Speaking of Congress, your thoughts on the effort to censure Representative Rashida Tlaib over some of her rhetoric?Gail: Well, Representative Tlaib accused Israel of committing genocide. She’s also said that President Biden “supported” genocide of the Palestinians, a comment that was offensive to Biden while also, I think, hurting the Palestinian cause. But I wouldn’t want to see members of Congress distracted from the deeply serious issues at hand with a squabble about censorship, particularly one championed by folks like the dreaded Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.Bret: Readers won’t be surprised to know that I find Tlaib’s views wrong and repellent. Like Taylor Greene, she’s an embarrassment to her party and the House. But that’s exactly the reason I oppose efforts to censure her. One of the things that distinguishes free societies like America and Israel from dictatorships like Hamas’s in Gaza is that we stand for freedom of speech as a matter of course, while they suppress it. The right censure for Tlaib would be to get voted out of office, not muzzled by her colleagues.Gail: But let’s get back to that poll for a minute. I was fascinated by the fact that only 6 percent of the respondents identified themselves as union members. I think the unions have done great things for the working class and middle class in this country and I’m very much saddened by their dwindling influence.Bret: I’ve always been pro-union. They’re a powerful force for greater automation and an argument for free trade.Gail: Hissss …Bret: OK, that was my inner Alex P. Keaton speaking. But union leaders should at least stop to ask themselves why, if they’re so terrific, so many American workers are reluctant to join them. I feel that way about certain other self-regarding institutions, including much of the news media, that are so full of their own wonderfulness that they can’t figure out why people keep fleeing in droves.Gail: Bret, we’ve entered the November holiday season — really did enjoy the trick-or-treaters last week and was pleased to notice that the popular costumes in our neighborhood seemed to go more toward skeletons and ghosts than celebrities and pop culture heroes. On to Thanksgiving and then I’m gonna challenge you to come up with a list of things in the public world you’re thankful for.Bret: Pumpkin-spice lattes. Just kidding.Gail: Meanwhile, this is Republican debate week, featuring several people nobody’s really heard of and an absent Donald Trump. I guess your fave Nikki Haley is near the head of the pack, such as it is. Think she still has a whisper of a chance?Bret: Not sure. But you’ve somehow reminded me of a lovely poem by Adrienne Rich, which seems to capture both Haley’s candidacy and my daily struggles with coherent prose.You see a mantrying to think.You want to sayto everything:Keep off! Give him room!But you only watch,terrifiedthe old consolationswill get him at lastlike a fishhalf-dead from floppingand almost crawlingacross the shingle,almost breathingthe raw, agonizingairtill a wavepulls it back blind into the triumphantsea.It’s called “Ghost of a Chance.” Here’s me hoping Haley’s got more than that.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