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      G.O.P. Faces Trump Indictment: Loyalty or Law and Order

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      The candidates challenging Donald Trump have to decide how to run against the indicted former president. And it could determine where the party goes from here.The federal indictment of former President Donald J. Trump has left the Republican Party — and his rivals for the party’s nomination — with a stark choice between deferring to a system of law and order that has been central to the party’s identity for half a century or a more radical path of resistance, to the Democratic Party in power and to the nation’s highest institutions that Mr. Trump now derides.How the men and women who seek to lead the party into the 2024 election respond to the indictments of the former president in the coming months will have enormous implications for the future of the G.O.P.So far, the declared candidates for the presidency who are not Mr. Trump have divided into three camps regarding his federal indictment last Thursday: those who have strongly backed him and his insistence that the indictment is a politically driven means to deny him a second White House term, such as Vivek Ramaswamy; those who have urged Americans to take the charges seriously, such as Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson; and those who have straddled both camps, condemning the indictment but nudging voters to move past Mr. Trump’s leadership, such as Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.The trick, for all of Mr. Trump’s competitors, will be finding the balance between harnessing the anger of the party’s core voters who remain devoted to him while winning their support as an alternative nominee.Mr. Trump is due to appear in court on Tuesday in Florida. The danger for Republicans, after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, is that encouraging too much anger could lead to chaos — and to what pollsters call the “ghettoization” of their party: confined to minority status by voters unwilling to let go of the fervent beliefs that have been rejected by the majority.That point was laid bare Sunday by a new CBS News/YouGov poll that found 80 percent of Americans outside the core Republican voter base saw a national security risk in Mr. Trump’s handling of classified nuclear and military documents, while only 38 percent of likely Republican primary voters discerned such a risk.In the same poll, only 7 percent of Republicans said the indictment had changed their view of the former president for the worse; 14 percent said their views had changed for the better; and the majority, 61 percent, said their views would not change. More than three-quarters of Republican primary voters said the indictments were politically motivated.A separate ABC News/Ipsos poll showed that 61 percent of Americans viewed the charges as serious, up from 52 percent in April when pollsters asked about the mishandling of classified documents. Among Republicans, 38 percent said the charges were serious, also up, from 21 percent in this spring. But only about half of Americans said Mr. Trump should be charged, unchanged from April.“Base voters see the double standard in politics. I continue to hear, ‘When are they going to indict the Bidens?’” said Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina Republican Party chairman and senior adviser to Ms. Haley, a former South Carolina governor and Mr. Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. But, he added, “65 percent of our primary voters are just tired of all the drama and I think are looking for a new generation of Republicans to take us out of the wilderness.”Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, campaigning in Iowa early this year. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesMs. Haley has embodied that balancing act, saying in one statement, “This is not how justice should be pursued in our country,” and also, “It’s time to move beyond the endless drama.”Mr. Trump’s closest rival for the 2024 nomination, Mr. DeSantis, the governor of Florida, captured the same spirit when he mused on Friday that he “would have been court-martialed in a New York minute” if he had taken classified documents during his service in the Navy. He was referring to Hillary Clinton — who has returned as a Republican boogeyman this week — and her misuse of classified material as secretary of state, but the double meaning was clear, just as it was when he said, “There needs to be one standard of justice in this country. Let’s enforce it on everybody.”Those urging voters to read the charges facing Mr. Trump — the mishandling of highly classified documents on some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and his subsequent steps to obstruct law enforcement — are a lonelier group in the broader Republican Party. Just two former governors running for president — both former prosecutors — Mr. Christie of New Jersey and Mr. Hutchinson of Arkansas, are aligned with a scattering of other leaders like Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, who was the only Republican senator to vote to remove Mr. Trump from office twice.But their voices are likely to be amplified in the coming days by a media eager to give them a microphone. Mr. Christie will hold a town-hall meeting on CNN on Monday night, while Mr. Hutchinson, the longest of long shots for the nomination, has given a flurry of interviews.“The Republican Party should not dismiss this case out of hand,” Mr. Hutchinson said in an interview. “These are serious allegations that a grand jury has found probable cause on.”On Sunday morning, Mr. Trump’s former attorney general, William P. Barr, weighed in on Fox News Sunday, saying he was “shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were.” “If even half of it is true, he’s toast,” Mr. Barr said. “It is a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning. This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here — a victim of a witch hunt — is ridiculous.”The critics of Mr. Trump also have an appeal that goes to the center of the party’s identity: law and order. Republicans are still attacking Democrats on the rise of street crime after the pandemic even as they attack the F.B.I., the Justice Department, the special prosecutor and the federal grand jury system.“If Congress has the ability to have oversight over the Department of Justice, I encouraged them to do it vigorously and fairly and ask all the questions they need,” Mr. Christie said on CNN. “But what we should also be doing is holding to account people who are in positions of responsibility and saying, if you act badly, there has to be penalties for that. There has to be a cost to be paid.”But voters eager to believe the dark tales spun by Mr. Trump of a nefarious “deep state,” of “Communists” bent on the destruction of America, are receiving encouragement from candidates who are ostensibly Mr. Trump’s rivals. For them, the calculation appears to be capturing the former president’s voters if his legal troubles finally end his political career.“I am personally deeply skeptical of everything in that indictment,” Mr. Ramaswamy, a wealthy entrepreneur and author, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, adding, “I personally have no faith whatsoever in those vague allegations.”Other candidates were less blunt but equally willing to challenge the integrity of the justice system, a system, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said, “where the scales are weighted” against conservatives.The language of Trump supporters after his indictment last Thursday has alarmed some experts.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesIn truth, the conservative world is divided. Some figures have, predictably, rallied around Mr. Trump with irresponsible rhetoric that appeared to call for violence.“If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card-carrying members of the N.R.A.,” said Kari Lake, the failed candidate for governor of Arizona.More surprisingly were the voices on the Trumpist right who have voiced their concerns — over the charges and over their impact on the Republican Party’s future. When Charlie Kirk of the pro-Trump Turning Point USA called for every other Republican candidate for the presidency to drop out of the race in solidarity with Mr. Trump, Ann Coulter, the right-wing bomb thrower, responded, “That’s nothing! I’m calling on EVERY REPUBLICAN TO COMMIT SUICIDE in solidarity with Trump!” — acknowledging that rallying around the former president could send the party to oblivion.Mike Cernovich, a lawyer and provocateur on the right, criticized the indictment as a “selective prosecution,” but also said, “Trump walked into this trap.”How the party, and its 2024 candidates, respond will matter, to the country and to the party’s political fortunes. The core Republican voter might stand with Mr. Trump, but most Americans most likely will not. It is a dilemma, acknowledged Clifford Young, president of U.S. public affairs at the polling and marketing firm Ipsos.“For the average American in the middle, they’re appalled,” he said, “but for the base, not only is support being solidified, they don’t believe what is happening.” “Heck,” he added, “they believe he won the election.” More

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      Where the GOP Presidential Candidates Stand on Climate Change

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      While many of them acknowledge that climate change is real, they largely downplay the issue and reject policies that would slow rising temperatures.As wildfires in Canada have sent masses of smoke over the United States this week, engulfing much of the Northeast in a yellow haze of hazardous air pollution, scientists are clear that we are seeing the effects of climate change. But the Republicans campaigning for the presidency have largely downplayed the issue and rejected policies that would slow rising temperatures.On Wednesday, even as the country experienced one of its worst days on record for air quality, with New York City especially hard-hit, former Vice President Mike Pence said in a town-hall event on CNN that “radical environmentalists” were exaggerating the threat of climate change.His response reflected what has become a pattern among Republican officials. Many of the candidates acknowledge that climate change is real, in contrast to party members’ years of outright denial. But they have not acknowledged how serious it is, and have almost universally rejected the scientific consensus that the United States, like all countries, must transition rapidly to renewable energy in order to limit the most catastrophic impacts.Here is a look at where some of the major Republican candidates stand.Donald J. TrumpAs president, Donald J. Trump mocked climate science and championed the production of the fossil fuels chiefly responsible for warming the planet.He rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations, mostly aimed at reducing planet-warming emissions and protecting clean air and water; appointed cabinet members who were openly dismissive of the threat of climate change, including Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency; and withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, under which almost every country had committed to try to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.President Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement and undid many of Mr. Trump’s policies, but the damage may not be fully reversible. A report last year from researchers at Yale and Columbia found that the United States’ environmental performance had plummeted in relation to other countries as a result of the Trump administration’s actions.Mr. Trump has given no indication that his approach would be different in a second term. He has repeatedly minimized the severity of climate change, including claiming falsely that sea levels are projected to rise only ⅛ of an inch over 200 to 300 years. But according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sea levels are rising by that amount every year.Ron DeSantisGov. Ron DeSantis leads a state, Florida, that is on the front lines of climate change: It has been hit hard by hurricanes, which are becoming more frequent and more severe as the Atlantic Ocean gets warmer.But Mr. DeSantis has dismissed concern about climate change as a pretext for “left-wing stuff” and said on Fox News last month, “I’ve always rejected the politicization of the weather.”He has, however, taken significant steps to fortify the state against stronger storms and rising waters. Among other things, he appointed the state’s first “chief resilience officer” and backed the Resilient Florida Program, which has sent hundreds of millions of dollars to vulnerable communities to fund projects like building sea walls and improving drainage systems.Scientists support these sorts of adaptation efforts, because the climate has already changed enough that even aggressive emission reductions will not avert all the effects. But they are also clear that such measures are not enough on their own.Nikki HaleyNikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, has acknowledged that climate change is real and caused by humans, but she has generally rejected governmental efforts to reduce emissions. Her advocacy group Stand for America said that “liberal ideas would cost trillions and destroy our economy.”As ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, Ms. Haley was closely involved in withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement. At the time, she said, “Just because we pulled out of the Paris accord doesn’t mean we don’t believe in climate protection.” Over the next three years, the Trump administration systematically reversed climate protections.But Ms. Haley has supported greater use of carbon capture technology to remove carbon from the air. She and some other Republicans — including another presidential candidate, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota — have presented this as a way to limit climate change while continuing to use fossil fuels. Many experts agree that carbon capture could be a powerful tool, but it is unlikely to be sufficient on its own, in part because of its high cost.Mike PenceMr. Pence has acknowledged that climate change is real. He said during the 2016 campaign, “There’s no question that the activities that take place in this country and in countries around the world have some impact on the environment and some impact on climate.”But that assertion falls short of the scientific consensus that human activity is the primary driver of climate change. He has also downplayed the severity, like in his comments this week that “radical environmentalists” were exaggerating climate change’s effects. And as vice president, Mr. Pence had a hand in Mr. Trump’s defiantly anti-climate agenda, including defending the decision to withdraw from the Paris accord by saying Mr. Trump had stood up for “America first.”Mr. Pence’s political organization, Advancing American Freedom, has denounced “the left’s climate radicalism” and called for a rejection of “climate mandates.” It has also called for expediting oil and gas leases and taking other steps to “unleash the full potential” of fossil fuel production in the United States.Tim ScottSenator Tim Scott of South Carolina has also acknowledged that climate change is occurring, once telling The Post and Courier, his home-state newspaper: “There is no doubt that man is having an impact on our environment. There is no doubt about that. I am not living under a rock.”At the same time, he has opposed most policies that would curb carbon dioxide emissions. During the Obama administration, Mr. Scott challenged a regulation that would have required utilities to move away from coal and adopt wind, solar and other renewable power. During the Trump administration, he argued for dumping the Paris Agreement. And last year, he voted against President Biden’s expansive climate and health legislation that will invest about $370 billion in spending and tax credits over 10 years into clean energy technologiesChris ChristieChris Christie acknowledged the reality of climate change before many of his fellow Republicans did. “When you have over 90 percent of the world’s scientists who have studied this stating that climate change is occurring and that humans play a contributing role, it’s time to defer to the experts,” he said in 2011.As governor of New Jersey, he announced a moratorium on new coal-plant permits, filed a successful petition with the E.P.A. to demand reduced pollution from a coal plant along the Pennsylvania border and signed offshore wind power legislation. But state regulators in his administration didn’t approve any wind projects — and at the same time, Mr. Christie withdrew New Jersey from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate cap-and-trade partnership, and vetoed state legislators’ efforts to rejoin it.He also said in 2015 that climate change, while real, was “not a crisis.” Last year, he called for increases to domestic oil production.Asa HutchinsonAsa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, has not spoken much about climate change. But when he has, he has generally stuck to the Republican Party line, rejecting government efforts to reduce emissions.He criticized President Barack Obama’s power plant regulations and, in 2019, praised the Trump administration for its environmental deregulation. Shortly after Mr. Biden was elected president in 2020, Mr. Hutchinson joined several other Republican governors in pledging to sue if the federal government mandated emission reductions.“Our power companies have voluntarily embraced sources of alternative energy without heavy-handed regulation from government,” he said at the time.Vivek RamaswamyVivek Ramaswamy began his presidential campaign by claiming that “faith, patriotism and hard work” had been replaced by “secular religions like Covidism, climatism and gender ideology.” In an interview with The New York Times, he defined “climatism” as “prioritizing the goal of containing climate change at all costs.”He is also an outspoken opponent of environmental, social and governance investing, or E.S.G., in which financial companies consider the long-term societal effects — including climate-related effects — of their investment decisions.Mr. Ramaswamy supports using more nuclear power and has painted a conspiracy theory for why many environmentalists oppose it. “The problem with nuclear energy is it’s too good,” he claimed on Twitter this April. “And if you solve the ‘clean energy problem’ activists lose their favorite Trojan Horse for advancing ‘global equity’ by penalizing the West.”But many environmental activists cite concerns about the safe storage of nuclear materials and the potential for accidents as the reason for their opposition — though they are by no means united in their stance, and many support nuclear power as a carbon-free source of energy.Doug BurgumGov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota has pushed harder to address climate change than most Republicans by actively identifying carbon neutrality as a goal: In 2021, he announced that he wanted North Dakota to reach it by 2030.He wants to do so through carbon-capture programs alone, without transitioning away from fossil fuels. (Climate scientists are skeptical that this is possible, even as they agree the technology holds promise.)Mr. Burgum, who created a tax incentive for one form of carbon capture, argued in an interview with Future Farmer magazine in 2021 that his policies showed “North Dakota can reach the end goal faster with innovation and free markets and without the heavy hand of government mandates and regulation.” More

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      Who’s Running in the Republican Presidential Primary?

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      Whenever I want to put myself to sleep at night, I run through the names of all the former vice presidents. OK, sorta peculiar. It might be time for a break. Maybe I’ll just try making a list of Republican candidates for president.Back when Donald Trump announced it all seemed sorta life-as-usual, but now the race is definitely on. There are currently somewhere between 12 and 400 Republicans eyeing the White House.All the major names are men except Nikki Haley, who’s arguing that “it’s time to put a badass woman in the White House.” Well, yeah. There’s very little chance Haley’s campaign is going anywhere, but I think we can all agree she could really perk things up.We’re also expecting some energy from the newly announced candidate Chris Christie. Rather than dodging the whole Donald Trump matter whenever possible, Christie stresses that he’s running to save the country from a former close colleague who he now calls a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog.”And that’s just the beginning! On Wednesday we acquired Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota. His great claim to fame is having built a software company that he sold for over $1 billion. Warning: Do not call Burgum a billionaire. (“Not even close!”) He’s really not into that. You’ll hurt his feelings.Vivek Ramaswamy doesn’t have that problem since he’s reportedly worth only $600 million or so (biopharmaceuticals). Still, he’s invested at least $10 million in the race so far and it’s gotten … well, hey, we’re talking about him.Ramaswamy, who’s 37, went to Harvard around the same time as Pete Buttigieg and has claimed that Buttigieg is “like the Diet Coke to my Coca-Cola.” Where do you think he came up with that one? Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.OK, and let’s see … there’s Perry Johnson. Ever heard of Perry Johnson? He did run for governor of Michigan last year but got thrown off the Republican primary ballot for invalid petition signatures. Which must have been a little embarrassing for someone who made his fortune building a firm that promises to help your company meet business quality standards.Johnson used a pinch of his money running an ad during the Super Bowl celebrating, um, himself. (“Perry Johnson: Quality guru. Governor for a perfect Michigan.”) Fans who lost interest in the game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals were free to contemplate the suggestion that they give thanks to Johnson “when your car door closes just right.”Didn’t work. But they do say he’s a really great bridge player. Just remember him that way. Perry Johnson … I bid two no-trump.You don’t need any previous government experience in your bio to be on the campaign trail. Ryan Binkley of Texas is out meeting and greeting in Iowa, and he’s never done anything remotely like this before. Although he claims he started thinking about running for president around eight years ago. So it’s not like he hasn’t been mulling.Binkley bills himself as a pastor and — wait for the shock — super fiscal conservative. He’s also the chief executive and co-founder of Generational Group, an investment banking firm that specializes in mergers and acquisitions.Are you picking up on a theme here, people? We have a very crowded field of superrich candidates. (Don’t call them billionaires!) And while sitting on piles of cash will not necessarily make you president, it sure does help open a lot of doors.There actually are some candidates who don’t seem to have a ton of money. We haven’t gotten to Larry Elder, a California talk radio host who did very well against other Republicans in the Gov. Gavin Newsom recall election. Which was certainly a great triumph for Elder except for the part about Newsom beating the entire recall idea back by huge margins.Or Asa Hutchinson, the 72-year-old former governor of Arkansas. OK, not necessarily a new broom. But you will so impress your friends when you say, “… And let’s not forget about Asa Hutchinson.”I guess Senator Tim Scott really ought to be up higher. He is the best known Black candidate in the field so far and he is having adventures. Got into a fight on TV over Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, much to the audience’s irritation. (“Do not boo. This is ‘The View,’” urged Whoopi Goldberg.)Mike Pence is a sorta interesting challenge. You will remember that when Trump lost the 2020 election, Pence had an allegedly ceremonial role certifying the results. Which he did, guaranteeing a normal transfer of power and getting to hear the Jan. 6 crowd of rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”Should we be grateful? I mean, yeah, sure, when it comes to writing his obituary. But do you want to root for Pence this time around? He’s extremely conservative, especially on social matters. (“Well, I think defending the unborn first and foremost is more important than politics. I really believe it’s the calling of our time.”)Sigh. Will the Republican field get any bigger? Or is it going the other way? I was watching one of the TV news channels the other day and suddenly a headline flashed:“Breaking News: Sununu Passes on Presidential Campaign.”Yes — shocker of the week! — the governor of New Hampshire has decided he’s not going to try for the nomination. Possibly the highest-ranking Republican in the country who definitely doesn’t want to give it a shot.Guess you’ll all have to stop saying, “Yeah, but wait until Chris Sununu gets in there.”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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      Takeaways From Nikki Haley’s CNN Town Hall

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      The former South Carolina governor, who also served as United Nations ambassador under Donald Trump, emphasized her experience and vision. Will it be enough for her to stand out?Nikki Haley, who was the first prominent Republican to announce a challenge to former President Donald J. Trump in the 2024 race, has yet to see her presidential campaign catch fire. On Sunday night, she had a fresh opportunity to make the case for her candidacy during a 90-minute CNN town hall in prime time, in an effort to emerge from the low single digits in polls where she has been mired.Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump, was well versed on policy issues, consistently upbeat and evenly tempered. Although she drew contrasts with Mr. Trump, she dodged opportunities to make him — or even President Biden — into a political punching bag.At the end of the night, an audience member praised her demeanor as “a breath of fresh air,” earning applause from the house full of Iowa Republicans. But that also meant that there were few shoot-out-the-lights moments that could win Ms. Haley headlines and a new look from primary voters, who now face a growing field of Republicans who are in — or soon to enter — the race.On policies both foreign (like Ukraine) and domestic (such as Social Security), Ms. Haley’s positions were a throwback to typical Republican Party stances before its populist takeover by Mr. Trump. Her reasoned manner was also an anomaly in a race where Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida compete with displays of dominance. Both factors have made Ms. Haley, the only woman in the Republican race, an also-ran so far.Here are some takeaways from the event on Sunday night.“I think it’s important to be honest with the American people,” Nikki Haley said on Sunday night.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesIt was very different from the Trump town hall.Compared with CNN’s explosive, much-criticized town-hall-style event with Mr. Trump last month, this one was a throwback to earlier, less combative times. There was no audience jeers whipped up from the stage and no forceful interrogation of the candidate. Jake Tapper, the anchor who moderated, asked Ms. Haley follow-up questions and added occasional clarifications to her statements, but he did not veer into fact-checking.Trump and DeSantis continue to be the focus.The two big red elephants in the room, Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis, were mostly mentioned indirectly, but those two Republican presidential contenders were present nonetheless. Ms. Haley repeated her position that in order to save Social Security and Medicare, it would be necessary to raise the retirement age for young workers and to limit benefits for the wealthy. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis, who once supported similar changes, now say they won’t touch the programs.“I think it’s important to be honest with the American people,” Ms. Haley said. “We are in this situation. Don’t lie to them and say, ‘Oh, we don’t have to deal with entitlement reform.’ Yes, we do.”Ms. Haley also criticized Mr. DeSantis for his attacks on Disney as a “woke” company. She had no beef with the Florida governor’s criticism of Disney’s opposition to what critics call his “Don’t Say Gay” law, and even said she would have gone further than that law to prevent talk of gender and sexuality in schools. But she called Mr. DeSantis “hypocritical” for accepting tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions from Disney before turning on the company, and for using taxpayer dollars to sue it. “Pick up the phone deal with it,” she said. “Settle it the way you should, and I just think he’s being hypocritical.”Haley sought to find the sweet spot for Republicans on social issues.On social issues including abortion, gun restrictions and transgender rights, which animate much of the Republican voting base, Ms. Haley toed a conservative line. She defended, for example, leading the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord while at the United Nations. (President Biden rejoined the accord in 2021.) But she displayed less of the punitive rhetoric on the issues that Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have made crucial to their messages.Ms. Haley deflected on whether she supported a federal six-week abortion ban such as the one her home state of South Carolina recently passed. Any national restrictions, she said, would require 60 senators to approve, which she said was so remote that the question barely merited consideration.In the most stirring moment of the night, Ms. Haley described persuading reluctant Republican lawmakers in South Carolina to remove the Confederate battle flag from the State Capitol after the massacre by a white supremacist of Black worshipers at the Mother Emanuel church in Charleston in 2015.She agreed with barring transgender girls from school sports and even seemed to suggest that allowing “biological boys” in girls’ locker rooms was connected with the high rate of teenage girls who have considered suicide.At the same time, she acknowledged that “we do need to be humane” about transgender children. In South Carolina schools when she was governor, Ms. Haley said, principals made private bathroom accommodations for them. “They were safe, and the majority of the student body didn’t even have to deal with it,” she said.Haley made a strong contrast with Trump and DeSantis on foreign policy.Ms. Haley also carved out differences with Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis on foreign policy issues, as she has in the past. The former U.N. ambassador disputed Mr. DeSantis, who has called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute” — a characterization he has since walked back — and she dismissed Mr. Trump’s refusal to say whether Ukraine should win the war.She said both positions represented a naïve trust in Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. “If Ukraine pulls out,” Ms. Haley said, “then we’re all looking at a world war.”Asked by Mr. Tapper about Mr. Trump’s congratulating North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, for recently ascending to a leadership role in the World Health Organization, Ms. Haley called Mr. Kim, whose flattering letters Mr. Trump once praised, a “thug.”“There is no reason we should ever congratulate the fact that they are now vice chair of the World Health Organization,” Ms. Haley said. More

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      Republican Presidential Candidates Attend Iowa Roast and Ride

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      Eight presidential hopefuls, with Donald Trump absent, spoke at an annual political rally in Des Moines to highlight their conservative bona fides.As the politicians and Republican Party officials tossed out the red meat on Saturday at an event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Wayne Johnson, a 70-year-old farmer and financial consultant from Forest City, Iowa, had some quieter thoughts about the next president he would like to see.The violence in American schools and public places, the tribalism in politics, the negativity of the nation’s elected officials — “If a leader can take us in a positive direction, people will follow,” Mr. Johnson said.His wife, Gloria, jumped in. “I really don’t care about people’s sexual habits and I don’t want to hear about it all the time,” she said with exasperation about her party’s focus on social issues like transgender care and L.G.B.T.Q. rights. “Politicians are taking positions on ‘woke’ that have more to do with sex than promoting our country in a positive way.”The event, called “Roast and Ride” — an annual motorcycle and barbecue-infused political rally sponsored by Iowa’s junior Republican senator, Joni Ernst — laid bare divisions in the party, with some attendees focusing on pocketbook issues and tone and others looking for a candidate who will take on Democrats on a social and cultural front.Saturday’s gathering featured eight presidential hopefuls, prominent and obscure, declared and undeclared. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor; Mike Pence, the former vice president who will formally announce his run on Wednesday; Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina; and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, were there, along with hundreds of Iowa Republicans who will cast the first ballots of the Republican nomination season in February.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina at the event in Des Moines on Saturday.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe politicians had their pitches, waltzing across a stage festooned with flags and stacked with hay bales to rail against “deep state” bureaucrats, “woke” corporations, and liberals indoctrinating and confusing America’s children. Their biggest target, unsurprisingly, was President Biden, for all manner of failings, from Afghanistan and the southern border to transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.For the presidential hopefuls, winning over Iowa Republicans — with their strong religious bent and tradition of political engagement — is the imperative first step toward wresting the G.O.P. from the front-runner for the nomination, Donald J. Trump, the one major candidate who did not make the trip on Saturday.The candidates in attendance tried to differentiate themselves from one another.The next president, Mr. Pence assured, will “hear from heaven, and he’ll heal this land.”Ms. Haley agreed, “We’ve got to leave the baggage and the negativity behind.”Mr. DeSantis chose a culture-war analogy, evoking Winston Churchill, who once vowed to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets. Mr. DeSantis promised on Saturday to fight “woke ideology” in the halls of Congress and in the boardrooms, saying, “We will never surrender.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida at the event on Saturday.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesIowa has moved more decisively from swing state to deep red than perhaps any other state, voting for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, only to shift firmly to Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020. Mr. Trump’s eight-percentage-point victory there in 2020 nearly matched Mr. Obama’s nine-point margin 12 years before.But voters in the audience did not all have the same priorities, interests or solutions. A Republican presidential beauty pageant eight months before the Iowa caucuses will attract only the most ardent partisans, and candidates understand they are reaching out to the edges of their party, not the center.Many voters expressed concern about the economy, especially inflation, a subject most of the presidential candidates barely touched. Ron Greiner, a health insurance salesman from Omaha, was incensed that none of the candidates mentioned the Affordable Care Act — once a reliable target of Republican attacks — or health care at all.Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, at the event on Saturday.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesAnd while Ms. Johnson might be tired of all the talk of transgender issues, others leaped to their feet when Ms. Haley called transgender women competing in women’s sports “the biggest women’s issue of our day.”Jackson Cox, a 17-year-old who will vote for the first time in 2024, drove from Albert Lea, Minn., to hear the candidates he will choose from. Top of mind for him are the taxpayer dollars he said were being wasted before they reach American troops fighting for freedom in Ukraine — never mind that no U.S. troops are fighting in Ukraine. Contrary to the conservative consensus, he argued that the United States should be doing more, not less, for Ukraine.Diane Bebb, 66, of New London, Iowa, fretted over inflation, gas and food prices, and the “help wanted signs” for jobs that seemingly could not be filled.“We could start producing oil again, to help the economy and get prices down,” she said, though she wasn’t sure how more oil exploration would fill all those job openings.Her twin sister, Dione Cornelius of Bagley, Iowa, jumped in to reject the idea of backfilling the labor force with more immigrants.“They’re taking all the benefits, free health care and all that kind of stuff,” Ms. Cornelius protested.Mike Clark, 74, a semiretired acoustics consultant, worried that “the rule of law is disappearing,” not so much because of crime in the nation’s streets but because of an out-of-control F.B.I. and Justice Department pursuing Mr. Trump.“Big push for the one-world government, that’s what worries me most,” Mr. Clark said, referring to a common subject of conspiracy theories. He recommended the book “The Creature From Jekyll Island,” which pushes conspiracy theories about the founding of the Federal Reserve.Amid that cornucopia of concerns, the one issue that seemed to be most broadly felt was the porous border with Mexico. “What are we going to do with all these people?” asked Karen Clark, 81, of Des Moines.Beyond that, Iowa conservatives seemed torn. They conceded that unemployment was so low that jobs in the state weren’t being filled, but asserted that the economy was a wreck.Bill Dunton, 68, said he had been coming from his home in Toledo, Iowa, to Ms. Ernst’s Roast and Ride on his Harley-Davidson for six years. His credit card debt was just about paid off, he said with relief. He was particularly proud of the Chevy Silverado High Country diesel pickup truck he bought in 2021, which “was made for pulling.”But, he said with conviction, “the economy has gone” to pieces, using an expletive to describe it.Mr. Dunton also spoke of his ordeal with Covid-19, hospitalized for 28 days on huge tanks of supplemental oxygen, which he was still tethered to a month and a half after his discharge. Yet, he added, “I think we way overreacted” to the pandemic.Responding to the multiplicity of maladies on Iowans’ minds will present a challenge for the presidential hopefuls. But after the program, Mr. Johnson said he was impressed with his choices, and he will have time to watch the race unfold.“It’s a long run,” he noted. “Time has a way of revealing truth.” More

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      Nikki Haley’s Husband Will Deploy to Africa for Year With National Guard

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      Michael Haley, a major in the South Carolina Army National Guard, served in Afghanistan in 2013.The husband of Nikki Haley, the Republican presidential candidate and former governor of South Carolina, is preparing to deploy to Africa with the Army National Guard, a military tour that is expected to last a year and for most of the G.O.P. primary race.The deployment of Michael Haley, a major in the National Guard, was confirmed on Friday by a person familiar with his plans. The person asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.The deployment, his second in an active-duty role overseas, was first reported by The Associated Press.It will overlap with much of the Republican nominating competition, which has picked up speed in recent weeks as more candidates join the field. The first contests are scheduled for early next year.“Our family, like every military family, is ready to make personal sacrifices when our loved one answers the call,” Ms. Haley said in a statement on Friday. “We could not be prouder of Michael and his military brothers and sisters. Their commitment to protecting our freedom is a reminder of how blessed we are to live in America.”In 2013, Major Haley deployed to Afghanistan’s Helmand Province with the South Carolina Army National Guard, which he joined in 2006. When the National Guard put out a call this spring for officers to go to Africa, he stepped forward, the person familiar with his plans said, without specifying which country or countries in Africa.Since entering the presidential race in February, Ms. Haley has significantly trailed behind former President Donald J. Trump in polling, including in South Carolina, an early primary state.Ms. Haley, who was an ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, has emphasized her foreign policy credentials and experience as South Carolina’s governor.In a break with Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, another rival for the nomination, Ms. Haley has defended American involvement in the war in Ukraine. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have been critical of it. More

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      Democrats Want Trump? They’re Out of Their Minds

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      Did we learn nothing from 2016?That, you may recall, was when Donald Trump’s emergence as the Republican presidential nominee seemed like some cosmic joke. Some cosmic gift. Oh, how Democrats exulted and chortled.Donald Trump?!?Hillary Clinton could start working on her inauguration remarks early.Or so many of us thought. We got “American carnage,” two impeachments and a deadly breach of the U.S. Capitol instead.And yet some Democrats are again rejoicing at the prospect of Trump as his party’s pick. They reason that he was an unproven entity before but is a proven catastrophe now and that his troubles with the law, troubles with reality, egomania and megalomania make him an easier opponent for President Biden, who beat him once already, than Gov. Ron DeSantis, Senator Tim Scott or another Republican aspirant would be. Perhaps they’re right.But if they’re wrong? The stakes of a second Trump term are much, much too high to wager on his weakness and hope for his nomination. The way I size up the situation, any Republican nominee has a decent shot at the presidency: There are enough Americans who faithfully vote Republican, lean Republican or are open to a Republican that under sufficiently favorable circumstances, the party’s candidate wins. And the circumstances in November 2024 are neither predictable nor controllable — just as they weren’t in November 2016. If Trump is in the running, Trump is in the running.So I flinch at thoughts and remarks like those of Senator Debbie Stabenow, the Michigan Democrat, who told Politico in late April: “Trump’s obviously an extremely dangerous person who would be very dangerous for the country. But I’m confident that President Biden could beat him.” She added that “politically, for us, it’s helpful if former President Trump is front and center.” The headline on that article, by Burgess Everett and Sarah Ferris, was “Dems Relish Trump-Biden Rematch.”The headlines on other reports that month: “Why a Trump-Biden Rematch Is What Many Democrats Want in 2024” (The Wall Street Journal) and “Trump or DeSantis? Democrats Aren’t Sure Who They’d Rather See Biden Face in 2024” (NBC News).Granted, those three articles appeared before the Washington Post/ABC News poll that shook the world. Published on May 7, the survey gave Trump a six-point lead over Biden in a hypothetical matchup and showed that voters regard Trump, 76, as more physically fit and mentally sharp than Biden, 80.Over the weeks since, I’ve noticed a muting of Democrats’ confidence that Biden can roll over Trump. But I still hear some of Biden’s supporters say that they’d prefer Trump to, say, DeSantis, who can define himself afresh to many voters, or to Scott, whose optimism might be a tonic in toxic times.And I worry that many Democrats still haven’t fully accepted and seriously grappled with what the past seven years taught us:There is profound discontent in this country, and for all Trump’s lawlessness and ludicrousness, he has a real and enduring knack for articulating, channeling and exploiting it. “I am your retribution,” he told Republicans at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year. Those words were chilling not only for their bluntness but also for their keenness. Trump understands that in the MAGA milieu, a fist raised for him is a middle finger flipped at his critics. DeSantis, Scott, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley — none of them offer their supporters the same magnitude of wicked rebellion, the same amplitude of vengeful payback, the same red-hot fury.Trump’s basic political orientation and the broad strokes of his priorities and policies may lump him together with his Republican competitors, but those rivals aren’t equally unappealing or equally scary because they’re not equally depraved.He’s the one who speaks of Jan. 6, 2021, as a “beautiful day.” He’s the one who ordered Georgia’s secretary of state to find him more votes. He’s the one who commanded Pence, then his vice president, to subvert the electoral process and then vilified him for refusing to do so and was reportedly pleased or at least untroubled when a mob called for Pence’s execution. He’s the one who expends hour upon hour and rant after rant on the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him — a fiction that’s a wrecking ball aimed at the very foundations of our democracy. His challengers tiptoe around all of that with shameful timidity. He’s the one who wallows happily and flamboyantly in this civic muck.There are grave differences between the kind of threat that Trump poses and the kind that his Republican rivals do, and to theorize a strategic advantage to his nomination is to minimize those distinctions, misremember recent history and misunderstand what the American electorate might do on a given day, in a given frame of mind.I suspect I’d be distraught during a DeSantis presidency and depressed during a Pence one. But at least I might recognize the America on the far side of it.Forward this newsletter to friends …… and they can sign up for themselves here. It’s published every Thursday.The Ears Have ItGetty ImagesI was never much of a listener. It just wasn’t how I took in information. I read. And read. I seemed to register and retain facts and ideas better if they came through my eyes, and I organized my consumption of news and words around that inclination — until a freak stroke about five and half years ago and a marked deterioration of my eyesight forced me to test myself, to stretch, to change.Now I’m all about my ears. I consume perhaps twice as many audiobooks as I do printed ones. I get a fair share of my morning news via podcasts. So I’m not merely grateful for the iOS app for audio journalism that The Times recently introduced; I’m more like ecstatic.It combines, in one terrifically user-friendly place, Times podcasts and narrated articles from all the fields that this news organization so ambitiously and enterprisingly covers — politics, culture, food and more. It’s a sonic storehouse of journalists, including Opinion columnists, whose literary voices you may be well familiar with but whose actual voices you’ve yet to discover. It includes the archive of “This American Life.” And it has audio versions of stories from top magazines beyond the ones that The Times puts out.It’s a convenience, and a mercy, for those of us whose daily rituals or physical quirks make listening an important alternative to reading. It’s available for Times news subscribers, and you can start exploring it by downloading the New York Times Audio app here.For the Love of SentencesMike Segar/ReutersIn The Guardian, Emma Beddington served notice to friends about just how much she enjoys their visits to her and her husband’s home: “We don’t have many guests, because I get funny when people use my mugs, and offer a welcome along the lines of the peregrine falcon nest boxes I watch on webcams: a few strewn pebbles, dismembered pigeon corpses, me hunched and glaring in a corner, covered in viscera.” (Thanks to Steve Verhey of Ellensburg, Wash., for his, um, eagle-eyed notice of this.)Also in The Guardian, Jay Rayner appraised the more-is-more culinary sensibility of a dish at Jacuzzi, which was opened recently in London by the Big Mamma group: “I would have been happy with simple ribbons of that pasta with that ragu, but going to a Big Mamma restaurant in search of simplicity is like going to a brothel hoping to find someone to hold your hand.” (Robert Tilleard, Salisbury, England)In The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., Josh Shaffer marked Memorial Day by recalling a 22-year-old soldier from Raleigh who died in battle in 1918: “Harry Watson got all the honors a young lieutenant could expect on the Western Front — a hasty burial under a fruit tree, laid shoulder to shoulder with three other men.” Shaffer concluded his excellent article by noting that Watson “is recognized as Raleigh’s first casualty in ‘the world war.’ But more would follow — casualties and wars alike.” (Barry Nakell, Chapel Hill, N.C.)In The Washington Post, Matt Bai challenged the idea that candidates for vice president never affect the outcomes of presidential races: “I’d argue that Sarah Palin mattered in 2008, although she was less of a running mate than a running gag.” (Anne Pratt, Millbrook, N.Y.)Also in The Post, Ron Charles noted the publication of “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” by Senator Josh Hawley: “The book’s final cover contains just text, including the title so oversized that the word ‘Manhood’ can’t even fit on one line — like a dude whose shoulders are so broad that he has to turn sideways to flee through the doors of the Capitol.” (Sue Borg, Menlo Park, Calif.)In The New Yorker, Anthony Lane reflected: “As career moves go, the path from neo-Nazism to horticulture has not, perhaps, received the attention it deserves. That strange omission is rectified by ‘Master Gardener,’ the new movie from Paul Schrader.” (Trudy McMahon, Danville, Calif., and Liz Nichols, Oakland, Calif.)In The Times, A.O. Scott eulogized the writer Martin Amis: “He tapped at the clay feet of his idols with the chisel of his irreverent wit, even as he clambered onto their shoulders to see farther, and more clearly, than they ever could.” (Gerrit Westervelt, Denver)Also in The Times, Michelle Cottle characterized Ron DeSantis as having “the people skills of a Roomba.” (Stephen Burrow, Teaneck, N.J., and Tim McFadden, Encinitas, Calif., among others)And David Mack explained the endurance of sweatpants beyond their pandemic-lockdown, Zoom-meeting ubiquity: “We are now demanding from our pants attributes we are also seeking in others and in ourselves. We want them to be forgiving and reassuring. We want them to nurture us. We want them to say: ‘I was there, too. I experienced it. I came out on the other side more carefree and less rigid. And I learned about the importance of ventilation in the process.’” (Laurie McMahon, Hinsdale, Ill.)To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.What I’m Writing and ReadingGettyOn the day when DeSantis formally entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination, The Times published this essay of mine about the puzzling ways in which his own actions contradict and undercut the initial case for his candidacy, which has “the Trump negativity minus the Trump electricity.”There were many excellent tributes to Tina Turner after her death last week but none with more soul, rhythm, blues, jazz and pop than Wesley Morris’s in The Times. It could have filled the entire For the Love of Sentences section, but I’m giving it its own special spotlight here.Ditto for Maureen Dowd’s column last weekend: a mother lode of vibrant prose, deserving of its own special shout-out for that reason, for its wisdom about the necessity of literature and the humanities and because reading or rereading it is your way of honoring Maureen for her just-acquired master’s degree in English literature from Columbia. Congratulations, my brilliant friend.On a Personal (by Which I Mean Regan) NoteFrank BruniIt’s customary for Regan to slow down in the late spring and summer, her interest in movement falling with the mercury’s rise, but there has been a steeper drop this year, and it’s not a function of her health, which is good. It seems to be a function of her age. She’s almost 9½ now, and her mix of breeds (Australian shepherd, Siberian husky) suggests a life span of 12 to 15. So she’s getting up there.I see that in her sleep, deeper and more frequent. I see that in her face, where the black fur is newly stippled with gray. But I see it mostly in her stillness. We’ll get a mile into her 8 a.m. walk, and she’ll sit down or turn around, ready to go back home. We’ll get 20 steps into her 5 p.m. walk, and she’ll do the same, her appetite for exercise having been sated by her morning constitutional. This doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens somewhat frequently, and why shouldn’t it? The squirrel chasing aside, she’s not the sprightly girl she once was.Occasionally I push her, because I want to keep her stimulated, fit and limber, and I’ve observed that she enjoys most outings once she surrenders to them: Her initial reluctance is as much idle reflex — she psyches herself out — as it is a considered assessment of her ability and vigor. Other times I heed her, because her body may well be telling her something and she’s passing that message along to me.Always I wonder at the line between her reality and my projection of my own situation. At 58, I may be in a place on the human life spectrum similar to hers on the canine one. I find myself wanting to slow down; I exhort myself to speed up, because deceleration can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, an irreversible lull, and because I want to maximize the years and energy that remain. When I coax Regan to put in five or six miles on a given day rather than two or three, am I in part coaxing myself, and does the effort have to do with a whole lot more than the physical distance that the two us cover?Just as I don’t know exactly what’s going on in her head, I don’t know exactly what’s going on in mine. We walk together through this fog, grayer each month, our gaits less swift, our mileage less ambitious, our devotion to each other a consolation beyond the ravages of time. More

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      Talk of Racism Proves Thorny for GOP Candidates of Color

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      As candidates like Tim Scott and Nikki Haley bolster their biographies with stories of discrimination, they have often denied the existence of systemic racism in America while describing situations that sound just like it.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina opened his presidential candidacy with a story of the nation’s bitter, racist past. It is one that he tells often, of a grandfather forced from school in the third grade to pick cotton in the Jim Crow South.A rival for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley, speaks of the loneliness and isolation of growing up in small-town South Carolina as the child of immigrants and part of the only Indian family around. Larry Elder, a conservative commentator and long-shot presidential candidate, talks to all-white audiences about his father, a Pullman porter in the segregated South, who carried tinned fish and crackers in his pockets “because he never knew whether he’d be able to get a meal.”Such biographical details are useful reminders of how far the G.O.P.’s candidates of color have come to reach the pinnacle of national politics, a run for the presidency. But in bolstering their own bootstrap biographies with stories of discrimination, they have put forth views about race that at times appear at odds with their view of the country — often denying the existence of a system of racism in America while describing situations that sound just like it.“I’m living proof that America is the land of opportunity and not a land of oppression,” Mr. Scott says in a new campaign advertisement running in Iowa, though he has spoken of his grandfather’s forced illiteracy and his own experiences being pulled over by the police seven times in one year “for driving a new car.”The clashing views of the role that race plays in America are a major theme of the 2024 election, underpinning cultural battles over “wokeness.”Yet behind the debate over structural racism — a codified program of segregation and subjugation that suppressed minority achievement long ago and, many scholars say, has left people of color still struggling — is a secondary debate over the meaning of the stories politicians tell about themselves.Mr. Scott has spoken of being pulled over frequently by the police, including seven times in one year.Allison Joyce/Getty ImagesThat has sometimes made the discussion of race in this presidential primary awkward but also revealing, and has underscored a central difference between the two parties. Republican candidates of color don’t see their pasts in their present, even if the two front-runners in the race for the Republican nomination, Donald J. Trump and Ron DeSantis, are elevating racial grievance to the center of conservative politics, through overt or covert appeals to white anger.“I know Nikki and Tim — both are brilliant — but for them not to be able to make the logical jump is troubling: Systemic racism is the issue,” said Bakari Sellers, a Democratic political commentator who served with Mr. Scott and Ms. Haley in the South Carolina legislature. “For them to recount their own experiences but close their eyes to the bigger picture, it’s troubling.”Mr. Elder, at an April gathering of evangelical Christians in West Des Moines, Iowa, spoke of his father, the Pullman porter who later became a cook in a segregated Marine Corps unit. When he returned from World War II, his father found he could not get a job in the whites-only restaurants of Chattanooga, Tenn., and struggled to find work in Los Angeles because he had no references from Tennessee.Mr. Elder’s father even asked to cook in Los Angeles restaurants for free, just to get references, and again was refused. He ended up with two jobs scrubbing toilets.“There was something called slavery, the K.K.K., Jim Crow — that was codified,” Mr. Elder said in an interview. “Of course there was systemic racism.”But now?No, he replied, recalling the election and re-election of a Black president, Barack Obama.In the early years of the Obama presidency, talk of a post-racial society — where the color of one’s skin has no bearing on stature or success — was common. But later, an upsurge of white supremacist violence, including the massacre of Black parishioners at a Charleston church in 2015 during Mr. Obama’s second term, along with the murder of George Floyd in 2020, shattered that idealized post-racial notion for many people of color from all political persuasions.Larry Elder, a conservative commentator and long-shot presidential candidate, often talks to all-white audiences about his father, a Pullman porter in the segregated South. Rachel Mummey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“That’s part of the problem with Scott and Haley declaring there’s no racism,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University and the author of a book on Mr. Obama’s symbolism as a Black president. “You could have argued in 2006 and 2007 that racism was waning. That’s a lot less credible today.”Candidates of color are not the only ones who rely on bootstrap biographies to bolster their appeal. Stories of struggle, impoverished childhoods, working-class roots or ethnic identity are staples for candidates in both parties, from Abraham Lincoln to Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Mr. DeSantis and his “family of steelworkers.” But tales of racism and discrimination lend political biographies an added element of authenticity. Mr. Scott’s family story — “from cotton to Congress” — was the subject of his first campaign ad, unveiled last week.For Republican candidates of color, whose audiences are often almost entirely white, there is another factor, according to strategists: Placing racism safely in the past and trumpeting the racial progress of their own lifetimes relieves today’s G.O.P. voters from having to confront any racial animosity in their party. That can be a soothing message to Republicans who feel defensive about the party’s racial makeup and policies.“They’re saying this to make an overwhelmingly white Republican audience feel better about themselves,” said Stuart Stevens, a former Republican consultant who guided the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, Mitt Romney. “It’s a variation, oddly enough, of victim politics. People accuse you of being racist? ‘That’s unfair. Vote for me, therefore you’ll prove you’re not racist.’”Under Mr. Trump, the Republican Party accommodated white nationalists in its ranks and embraced once-taboo ideas like replacement theory.A Haley campaign spokeswoman, Chaney Denton, said: “In Nikki Haley’s experience, America is not a racist country, and she’s proud to say it. That’s fact, not strategy.” She added that “the only people who seem bothered by that” are “liberal race baiters.”Ms. Haley in New Hampshire in April. “I was the first minority female governor in the country,” Ms. Haley told an Iowa crowd this year. “I am telling you America is not a racist country. It’s a blessed country.”Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesAt an event on Wednesday morning sponsored by the news site Axios, Mr. Scott was pressed to describe racism that he had recently experienced, to which he had a ready response: being pulled over by police officers more than 20 times for “driving while Black,” which he said “weighs heavy on the shoulders.”“You find yourself in a position where you’ve done nothing wrong, but you are assumed guilty before proven innocent,” Mr. Scott said on Wednesday. But he added, “Racism is embedded in the hearts of individuals.”Many white Republicans also reject the idea that America is systemically racist.At a Haley event in February in Iowa, Charles Strange, a retired construction worker from North Liberty, Iowa, was more apt to see systemic issues impeding white people such as himself. “Structural barriers, let’s see,” Mr. Strange said. “Here’s a structural barrier: You got quotas for Blacks for education — a structural barrier for a white person.”The downplaying of systemic racism by candidates of color fits with the party’s push to stop the influence of “critical race theory” in how American history is taught and to defund programs that advance diversity in public colleges.Mr. DeSantis, who joined the presidential race last week, recently signed a law eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in higher education and paring back what he called “woke” academic programs. The Florida Department of Education blocked high schools in January from teaching an advanced placement course on African American studies, part of what the governor called an effort to combat “indoctrination” by the left. Elsewhere, Republican-led state and local governments are rewriting textbooks and ridding public libraries of stark racial lessons from the nation’s past.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has often made appeals to the grievances of white voters. Rachel Mummey for The New York Times“Of all the threats, there is this national loathing that has taken over our country, where people are saying America is bad or it’s rotten or it’s racist,” Ms. Haley told an Iowa crowd earlier this year. “I was the first minority female governor in the country. I am telling you America is not a racist country. It’s a blessed country.”Many Republican voters and local officials agree.“I’m not more racist than any Democrat, but they like to label and push that against us,” Gloria Mazza, the Republican chairwoman in Polk County, Iowa, said at a Scott event in West Des Moines. But Black audiences, even Republican ones, are far less receptive. Such difficulties for the party were on display recently for another Republican candidate of color, the entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy.Mr. Ramaswamy held a town-hall meeting on May 19 on the South Side of Chicago, ostensibly to discuss the migrant crisis that has divided the city. He often talks of his feelings of isolation as the son of Indian immigrants growing up in suburban Cincinnati, but says that the experience made him stronger, not a victim. He has also made eliminating affirmative action a central plank of a candidacy that centers on a critique of identity politics.Vivek Ramaswamy often talks of his feelings of isolation as the son of Indian immigrants growing up in suburban Cincinnati, but says that the experience made him stronger, not a victim. Scott Olson/Getty ImagesBut Black voters made clear they believed strongly that systemic issues, past and present, were holding them back. The discussion kept shifting from immigration to reparations for Black Americans, mass incarceration, disinvestment in Black neighborhoods and easily accessible, high-powered weaponry promoted by the firearms industry.“There’s all the money in the world to incarcerate us, and nothing to integrate us back into society,” Tyrone F. Muhammad, founder of the group Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change, said while looking straight at Mr. Ramaswamy, a fabulously wealthy investor. Mr. Muhammad added, “There are too many billionaires and millionaires in this country for it to look the way it looks.”Then Cornel Darden Jr. of the Southland Black Chamber of Commerce & Industry stood to confront Mr. Ramaswamy on affirmative action. “Those laws have been in place for 70 years,” Dr. Darden said, “and we’re going to defend them.”After months of telling largely white audiences America is not a racist society, Mr. Ramaswamy acknowledged bigotry and said race-based preferences were exacerbating it.“I do think anti-Black racism is on the rise in America today,” Mr. Ramaswamy said. “I don’t want to throw kerosene on that.”Maya King More