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      Trump’s Republican Hit List at CPAC Is a Warning Shot to His Party

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentLatest UpdatesTrump AcquittedHow Senators VotedSeven Republicans Vote to ConvictAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump’s Republican Hit List at CPAC Is a Warning Shot to His PartyIn his first public appearance since leaving office, Donald Trump went through, by name, every Republican who supported his second impeachment and called for them to be ousted.Former President Donald J. Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday that he would not form a new party, then called for ousting Republicans who had backed his second impeachment.CreditCredit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJonathan Martin and Published More

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      If There Was a Republican Civil War, It Appears to Be Over

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyIf There Was a Republican Civil War, It Appears to Be OverThe party belongs to Trump for as long as he wants it.Opinion ColumnistFeb. 17, 2021A Trump supporter wearing a paper mask of the former president’s face at a rally in Pennsylvania in 2018.Credit…Damon Winter/The New York TimesThat there is a backlash against the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump of inciting a mob against Congress is not that shocking. What is shocking is how fast it happened.Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, for example, was immediately censured by the Louisiana Republican Party. “We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the vote today by Senator Cassidy to convict former President Trump,” the party announced on Twitter. Another vote to convict, Richard Burr of North Carolina, was similarly rebuked by his state party, which censured him on Monday. Senators Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania are also in hot water with their respective state parties, which see a vote against Trump as tantamount to treason. “We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing or whatever he said he’s doing,” one Pennsylvania Republican Party official explained. “We sent him there to represent us.”That this backlash was completely expected, even banal, should tell you everything you need to know about the so-called civil war in the Republican Party. It doesn’t exist. Outside of a rump faction of (occasional) dissidents, there is no truly meaningful anti-Trump opposition within the party. The civil war, such as it was, ended four-and-a-half years ago when Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president.If there’s a conflict, it’s less a war and more a small skirmish with an outmatched and outnumbered opponent. Seventy-five percent of Republicans want Trump to continue to “play a prominent role in the Republican Party,” according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University, and 87 percent say he should be allowed to “hold elected office in the future.” A recent survey from Morning Consult likewise shows Trump far ahead of his rivals in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, with 54 percent support versus 12 percent for the runner-up, Mike Pence.The Republican Party belongs to Trump for as long as he wants it. Its most prominent politicians will follow his lead and attempt to build on his example. His children and in-laws will have a place as heirs to his legacy. If Trump decides to seek the White House for a second term, the nomination is almost certainly his to lose.What does it mean, in practice, for Trump to retain this strong a hold over the Republican Party? Since “Trumpism” isn’t a policy platform as much as it is a singular devotion to the man himself, a Trumpified Republican Party is one in which candidates do everything they can to shape themselves in his image. Just look at the candidates who would like to be president, if Trump doesn’t run. Most of them were, at some point before he became president, critics, with harsh words for Trump’s policies, personality and proclivities. These days, however, they’re his biggest fans.Ted Cruz has adopted a version of Trump’s Twitter presence, using the platform to stoke anti-liberal resentment and attack perceived cultural enemies. The Texas senator, who by virtue of his legislative seat and second-place finish in the last Republican primary, is one of the most high-profile politicians in the country. But he has more to say about personnel changes at Disney than the problems facing his constituents.Nikki Haley hasn’t tried to emulate Trump, but she knows not to keep too much distance between them. In December, when Trump was still working to overturn the election through the courts, the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor defended him to Politico’s Tim Alberta. “He believes he’s following that oath,” Haley said of the then-president. “This would be different if he was being deceptive.” Just a few weeks later, after the attack on the Capitol, when it looked for a moment like Republicans might break with Trump, she told a crowd at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting that “His actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.” But when it was clear that Trump was still in command of the party, she switched gears. “Give the man a break!” she said in an interview on Fox News in late January arguing against impeachment.Even state and legislative candidates are borrowing from Trump and aligning themselves with his political movement. Here where I live, in Virginia, Amanda Chase and Kirk Cox, Republican candidates for governor, are running on guns and “cancel culture,” with Chase still treating Trump as if he were the rightful president. Josh Mandel, running for Senate in Ohio, reintroduced himself to voters as a pro-MAGA Republican. “I’m going to Washington to advance a Trump America First Agenda and to stand up for economic freedom and individual liberty,” he told Fox News.The impeachment trial was the Republican Party’s last chance to rid itself of Trump. Had 10 more Republicans joined their colleagues in the Senate, the former president would have been on the way to being barred from future office. Presidential hopefuls like Cruz (or Josh Hawley or Marco Rubio) would have cleared out at least one obstacle to their ambition. But, in a repeat of the 2016 primary, no one wants to take the risk of losing his supporters and thus any chance at the nomination or the White House.Just as it was five years ago, the hope is to come ahead somehow without confronting Trump, to win his voters without challenging his status among Republicans. Maybe, if Trump leaves politics to monetize his post-presidency, this will work. So far, that is not looking likely; Trump still speaks as if he is the party and the party is him. In a statement attacking Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, Trump bragged that he was responsible for what Republican success there was last year. “In 2020, I received the most votes of any sitting president in history, almost 75,000,000. Every incumbent House Republican won for the first time in decades, and we flipped 15 seats, almost costing Nancy Pelosi her job.”With Trump’s grip on the party and its image what it is, the outcome we’re most likely to see is the one we already experienced: a Republican Party with Trump at its head, committed to nothing but his insatiable ego.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Trump Calls on G.O.P. to Replace McConnell

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentLatest UpdatesTrump AcquittedHow Senators VotedSeven Republicans Vote to ConvictAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump, in Scorching Attack on McConnell, Urges G.O.P. to Replace HimThe former president, breaking an unusually long silence, called the Senate minority leader a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and called on Republicans in the chamber to find a new leader.Former President Donald J. Trump meeting with Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, in the Oval Office last year. They were wary political allies throughout Mr. Trump’s term in office.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesMaggie Haberman and Feb. 16, 2021Updated 9:13 p.m. ETFormer President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday made a slashing and lengthy attack on Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, calling him a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and arguing that the party would suffer losses in the future if he remained in charge.“If Republican senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again,” Mr. Trump said.The 600-word statement, coming three days after the Senate acquitted him in his second impeachment trial, was trained solely on Mr. McConnell and sought to paint Mr. Trump as the best leader of the G.O.P. going forward.The statement did not include any sign of contrition from Mr. Trump for his remarks to a crowd of supporters who then attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. Nor did it include any acknowledgment of his role during the violent hours in which his own vice president and members of Congress were under threat from the mob of Trump supporters.Rather, Mr. Trump chose to focus on Mr. McConnell as he broke an unusually lengthy silence by his standards, after being permanently barred from his formerly favorite medium — Twitter — last month because of tweets that he posted during the Capitol riot.Mr. McConnell’s office declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s attacks on Tuesday, but the senator has left little mystery about his contempt for the former president. Shortly after he joined the majority of Republican senators on Saturday in voting to acquit Mr. Trump on the House impeachment charge of “incitement of insurrection,” Mr. McConnell excoriated Mr. Trump, laying the blame for the deadly riot at his feet and suggesting that further investigations of the former president could play out in the judicial system.“There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” Mr. McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor.His comments were widely interpreted as an attempt to minimize Mr. Trump’s brand of politics within the Republican Party and to appeal to donors who have said they are rejecting the party after some senators voted against certifying President Biden’s victory.Mr. McConnell wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed article and gave an interview to the paper’s news section suggesting he might get involved in primaries for 2022 as part of an effort to win back the majority.In private, Mr. McConnell has said he believed the impeachment proceedings would make it easier for Republicans to eventually purge Mr. Trump from the party. And he expressed surprise, and mild bemusement, at the hatchet-burying mission made to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Fla., by Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader.In public, Mr. McConnell has sharply criticized Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extremist freshman and Trump devotee from Georgia, while defending Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming after her vote to impeach the former president.What Mr. McConnell has not done, though, is openly declare political war on Mr. Trump in the fashion that the former president did to him on Tuesday. While telling associates he knew he would have to oppose the former president in some primaries next year, he had hoped to unify his caucus by turning attention to Mr. Biden.But if Mr. McConnell wasn’t eager to begin an open and protracted feud with Mr. Trump, at least not yet, the freshly acquitted, ever-pugnacious and newly deplatformed former president was happy to do so. One person close to Mr. Trump said his initial version of the statement was more incendiary than what was released publicly.In the statement, Mr. Trump resorted to insults about Mr. McConnell’s acumen and political abilities, and faulted him for Republicans’ loss of their Senate majority.“The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political ‘leaders’ like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm,” Mr. Trump said. “McConnell’s dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality, has rapidly driven him from majority leader to minority leader, and it will only get worse.”Mr. Trump offered up some new taunts: “The Democrats and Chuck Schumer play McConnell like a fiddle — they’ve never had it so good — and they want to keep it that way!” he said. “We know our America First agenda is a winner, not McConnell’s Beltway First agenda or Biden’s America Last.”While Mr. McConnell has faulted the former president for the party’s losses last month in both Senate races in Georgia, Mr. Trump maintained that it was because Republican voters were angry that the party’s officials had not done more to address his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.Mr. Trump claimed credit for Mr. McConnell’s victory in his own Senate race last year and took a swipe at Mr. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, who worked for the Trump administration as the transportation secretary.“McConnell has no credibility on China because of his family’s substantial Chinese business holdings,” Mr. Trump said. “He does nothing on this tremendous economic and military threat.” “He will never do what needs to be done, or what is right for our country,” Mr. Trump said, adding that “where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First.”After Mr. Trump made his statement on Tuesday, some of Mr. McConnell’s longtime supporters suggested that they knew bait when they saw it.“Trump going total mean girl ought to feed the cable beast for weeks,” Janet Mullins Grissom, the senator’s first chief of staff, wrote on Twitter.Others in Mr. McConnell’s intensely loyal circle of advisers, however, did not want such a bald attack to go unanswered.“It seems an odd choice for someone who claims they want to lead the G.O.P. to attack a man who has been unanimously elected to lead Senate Republicans a history-making eight times,” said Billy Piper, another former top McConnell aide. “But we have come to expect these temper tantrums when he feels threatened — just ask any of his former chiefs of staff or even his vice president.”Mr. Trump’s reference to Ms. Chao’s family was also a line of attack that Mr. McConnell and his inner circle have long denounced as racist when it comes from Democrats.The former president’s statement was the longest one he has issued since leaving office on Jan. 20. He has been mindful that he is the target of multiple investigations, people close to him said, and has been advised against appearing to taunt prosecutors or people who might sue him in civil courts. Still, Mr. Trump’s ability to stay silent through situations that anger him tends to last only so long.Mr. Trump’s advisers are discussing backing nearly a dozen candidates in primaries against the Republicans who voted in favor of impeachment, a move that would only deepen Mr. Trump’s friction with Mr. McCarthy. Not all of Mr. Trump’s aides think this is a wise course of action.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Don’t Care for This Impeachment? Wait Until Next Year

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentLatest UpdatesTrump AcquittedHow Senators VotedSeven Republicans Vote to ConvictAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPolitical MemoDon’t Care for This Impeachment? Wait Until Next YearLeaders of both political parties suggest that impeachments, Electoral College standoffs and Supreme Court nomination blockades may become frequent fights in American politics.Representative Jamie Raskin, center, and other House impeachment managers spoke on Saturday after the Senate voted to acquit former President Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesFeb. 16, 2021Updated 4:17 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — The second season of impeachment had ended less than a day earlier, but Republicans were already talking about next season. It sounded ominous.“I don’t know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if the Republicans take over the House,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said Sunday morning on Fox News.Mr. Graham seemed to be suggesting that the vice president might be punished because she had expressed support for a bail fund for Black Lives Matter protesters in Minnesota last summer. “She actually bailed out rioters,” Mr. Graham charged. That statement was false, but his threat was plain: Republicans can impeach, too.In recent days, former President Donald J. Trump’s defenders have darkly accused Democrats of opening a “Pandora’s box” of partisan retribution — leading to a kind of anything-goes future in politics, where impeachments get volleyed back and forth between the two parties like a tennis match, depending on which side controls Congress. “Partisan impeachments will become commonplace,” said Bruce L. Castor Jr., one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, as he argued the former president’s case before the Senate on Tuesday.There’s an element of plausibility here, given the hyperpartisan fervor that’s gripped American politics. But in the ensuing environment, Republicans seem to be saying that even the most outlandish accusations against a president — such as those hurled at President Biden by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia in her first days in Congress — should be treated the same as what Democrats impeached Mr. Trump over.In a broader sense, officials of both parties have suggested that regular impeachments may just become one of several regular features of a new and bitter normal in our politics. Previously rare or unthinkable measures could simply start happening all the timeDemocrats argue that, in fact, Republicans have opened several Pandora’s boxes in recent years. They have taken unprecedented actions, led by Mr. Trump, that have abused certain norms to a degree that has destabilized a set of once-reliable government traditions. Senate Republicans’ blockade of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016, for instance, cast doubt on any future president’s ability to fill a Supreme Court vacancy when the opposing party controlled the Senate.By refusing to concede an election he clearly lost, and then maintaining repeatedly it had been stolen from him, Mr. Trump shattered what had been an undisturbed American custom ensuring a peaceful transfer of power between administrations.Mr. Trump’s false claims have persuaded a majority of Republican voters that Mr. Biden had not been legitimately elected, and led 147 Republican members of the House and the Senate to vote against the Jan. 6 certification of Electoral College votes. This level of support to overturn the election result raises the prospect of whether the once-pro forma exercise of certification might now devolve every four years into a heated partisan spectacle — or, worse, riots.Two of former President Trump’s impeachment lawyers, Michael van der Veen and Bruce Castor, spoke on Saturday after the trial concluded.Credit…Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesIt was the deadly assault on the Capitol, of course, that set into motion Mr. Trump’s second impeachment proceeding. His lawyers attributed the rebuke not to their client’s actions on Jan. 6 but rather to his opponents’ irrational “hatred of President Trump.” They implied impeachment was a vindictive and frivolous maneuver.Democrats bristle at such notions — that they have overused and thus cheapened the power of impeachment, a tool that has been employed only four times in 244 years, but twice in the last 14 months. They agreed that impeachment should be reserved for extraordinary circumstances, but argued that Mr. Trump had engaged in an extraordinary degree of dereliction.“Look, there’s a reason there’s been two impeachments of the same man,” said Senator Robert P. Casey Jr., Democrat of Pennsylvania, in an interview Friday, on the eve of the final vote. “Trump has engaged in conduct that presidents of either party would never engage in.”It’s not like anything about this has been fun, he added. “The last thing I wanted to do these last five days is sit there and listen to this hour after hour instead of working on a full range of issues,” he said.Mr. Casey and others suggest that the Republican Party is now dominated by a former president who has convinced much of the party that any opposition to them is driven by “bad, sick and corrupt people” and should be met with extreme tactics.“The expectation from our base is for retribution,” said former Representative Tom Rooney, a Republican of Florida who did not seek re-election in 2018, in part to escape the extreme partisanship that has overtaken Congress. When asked if his former Republican colleagues would move to impeach Mr. Biden next year if they won back the House, even for something minor, Mr. Rooney rated the prospect as “absolutely possible.”“It might not necessarily be what some of those guys want to do, but it might be what the base expects,” he said. “People want Armageddon.”Let the healing begin!Or not. For as much as Impeachment II ended on Saturday with a significant number of Republican senators (seven) voting to convict Mr. Trump — and was accompanied by tough statements from some who voted not guilty, including the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell — other defenders of the former president turned their focus to a bitter future of impeachment roulette.Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, suggested on Friday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might start looking around for a good impeachment lawyer (because, really, what would partisan Armageddon be without the Clintons?).Mr. Rubio framed his statement around a somewhat tortured rhetorical question: “Is it not true that under this new precedent, a future House facing partisan pressure to ‘lock her up’ could impeach a former secretary of state and a future Senate forced to put her on trial and potentially disqualify from future office?”It was not exactly clear whether Mr. Rubio was criticizing Mr. Trump for whipping up his supporters into a frenzy that led to irrational demands to imprison Mrs. Clinton, or whether he was accusing Democrats of acting irrationally themselves by impeaching Mr. Trump a second time in two years.What was evident, however, was that Mr. Rubio was assuming the worst intentions by the opposition — and the feeling appears extremely mutual. Cable and social media chatter have been awash in bleak scenarios.“If Republicans take Congress, they could not only impeach Biden and/or Harris,” Jon Favreau, a speechwriter for President Obama, tweeted on Sunday, “they could potentially succeed in overturning the results of the 2024 election.”Not everyone believes partisanship has reached the point where Election Day will now merely become the start of a two-month brawl every four years that will build to a potentially ugly climax in January.“I don’t think we’re there yet,” said Brendan Buck, a Republican media strategist and former top leadership aide to two former Republican speakers of the House, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and John A. Boehner of Ohio. He said that many House Republicans wound up voting against Mr. Biden’s Electoral College certification only because they knew it would not pass. If the result was more in doubt, he contended, they would have voted to certify.Trump supporters climbed the walls of the Capitol on Jan. 6.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesStill, Mr. Buck allowed that the current political and media environment rewarded behavior by lawmakers — and candidates — that is extreme or even unheard-of. “We’re in an era where you need to make loud noises and break things in order to get attention,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you’re breaking — as long as you’re creating conflict and appeasing your party, anything goes.”Mr. Trump himself is the exemplar of anything goes, both in terms of how effective and destructive the approach can be, said Adam Jentleson, who was a deputy chief of staff to former Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, and author of “Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy,” a new book about legislative leadership dynamics.Mr. Jentleson said Republicans had abandoned any coherent policy goals in lieu of pursuing a “negative partisanship” agenda — which he defines as “doing simply whatever will terrorize your opponents the most.” In essence, Trumpism.This shows no signs of abating anytime soon. “That’s clearly what Republicans will continue to run on,” Mr. Jentleson said. “And that includes impeaching whoever is in power on the other side.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      North Carolina Republicans Censure Richard Burr Over Impeachment Vote

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentLatest UpdatesTrump AcquittedHow Senators VotedSeven Republicans Vote to ConvictAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNorth Carolina Republicans Censure Richard Burr Over Impeachment VoteThe senator, who is retiring, is one of seven Republicans who voted with Democrats to find Donald J. Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection at the Capitol.Senator Richard Burr on the last day of the Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump.Credit…Erin Scott/ReutersFeb. 16, 2021, 12:15 a.m. ETThe North Carolina Republican Party voted unanimously on Monday to censure Senator Richard M. Burr for voting to convict former President Donald J. Trump in his second impeachment trial.The rebuke was the latest fallout for the seven Republicans who sided with Democrats in an unsuccessful effort to find Mr. Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters rampaged through the Capitol.The vote by Mr. Burr, 65, who will retire after three terms in the Senate, came as a surprise after he had earlier voted against moving forward with the impeachment trial because of a Republican challenge that the Senate lacked jurisdiction to try a former president.The North Carolina Republican Party said in a statement on Monday that the decision to censure Mr. Burr had been made by its central committee.The party “agrees with the strong majority of Republicans in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate that the Democrat-led attempt to impeach a former president lies outside the United States Constitution,” the statement said.Mr. Burr released a brief statement in response saying that it was a “truly sad day” for Republicans in his state.“My party’s leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the Republican Party and the founders of our great nation,” he said.Mr. Trump was acquitted on Saturday by a vote of 57 guilty to 43 not guilty that fell short of the two-thirds threshold for conviction. The result was not a surprise because only six Republicans had joined Democrats in clearing the way for the case to be heard by narrowly rejecting a constitutional objection.Of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict, Mr. Burr is not the only one to face rebuke. The Republican Party of Louisiana, for instance, said after the impeachment vote that it was “profoundly disappointed” by the guilty vote from its home-state senator, Bill Cassidy.Of the seven, only Mr. Burr and Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, who is also retiring, will not face voters again. Mr. Toomey was rebuked by several county-level Republican officials in his state in recent days.Neither senator was particularly vocal in criticizing Mr. Trump while he was in office.In 2019, Mr. Burr, then the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, subpoenaed testimony from Donald Trump Jr. as part of his work conducting the only bipartisan congressional investigation into Russian election interference. The former president’s son responded by starting a political war against Mr. Burr, putting him and the Intelligence Committee on their heels.On the day of the vote in the impeachment trial, Mr. Burr laid out his rationale for his guilty vote by saying that the president “bears responsibility” for the events of Jan. 6.“The evidence is compelling that President Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against a coequal branch of government and that the charge rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors,” he said. “Therefore, I have voted to convict.”The chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, Michael Whatley, released a statement the same day calling Mr. Burr’s vote to convict “contradictory.”“North Carolina Republicans sent Senator Burr to the United States Senate to uphold the Constitution and his vote today to convict in a trial that he declared unconstitutional is shocking and disappointing,” Mr. Whatley said.Mr. Burr’s impeachment vote added fuel to speculation that Lara Trump, Mr. Trump’s daughter in-law, will seek the North Carolina Senate seat that Mr. Burr will vacate after the 2022 election. Ms. Trump, who is married to Eric Trump, grew up in the state and has been floating herself as a possible Burr successor for months.Ms. Trump, 38, is a former personal trainer and television producer who grew up in Wilmington, N.C. A senior Republican official with knowledge of her plans said that while the Jan. 6 riot had soured Ms. Trump’s desire to seek office, she would decide over the next few months whether to run as part of a coordinated Trump family comeback.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Mitch McConnell Is So Over Trump That He Voted to Absolve Him

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe conversationMitch McConnell Is So Over Trump That He Voted to Absolve HimOn the impeachment front, it was an exciting — if sometimes perplexing — weekend.Gail Collins and Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are opinion columnists. They converse every week.Feb. 15, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Alexander Drago/ReutersBret Stephens: What a wild week, Gail. Should we feel pleased that seven Republican Senators voted to convict Donald Trump of incitement — six more than in the last impeachment — or appalled that the other 43 didn’t?Another way of putting the question is whether the G.O.P.’s cup is 14 percent full or 86 percent empty.Gail Collins: It was certainly an interesting show. It’ll be a long time before I forget Mitch McConnell’s speech about the “outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.”It was, by McConnell standards, very passionate. Of course it’d have been a heck of a lot more moving if he hadn’t just voted against any punishment.Bret: The other day I listened to a Malcolm Gladwell podcast on the Yiddish word “chutzpah.” The word has two distinct connotations. In its American usage, it suggests audacity, as in, “It took a lot of chutzpah for her to walk into her boss’s office back in 1962 and demand a raise, but — guess what? — she got it!” In the Israeli sense, it usually means gall and shamelessness, as in, “First the boy murders his parents. Then he pleads for mercy in court because he’s an orphan.”Anyway, McConnell’s speech was chutzpah in the Israeli sense. He wanted to have his outrage and eat it, too. He wanted to ease whatever conscience he has left by denouncing Trump in a way that had no consequences, while using a legal dodge to advance his political interests in the way that really matters. Just pathetic.Gail: Maybe we can call it the McConnell Two-Step.Bret: Or maybe the “Mitch Macarena.” Where is Ted Sorensen when you need him to ghostwrite “Profiles of Invertebrates?” It’s the story of today’s Republican Party and conservative establishment, minus Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Lisa Murkowski and the other brave ones.Gail: But about the G.O.P’s cup — I ought to ask you. Where do you see your party going from here? Engineering a post-Trump turnaround or just sticking to the same brain-dead script that’ll probably force you to vote Democratic again in 2024?Bret: Gail, it isn’t my party any longer, and you’re obviously delighting in the thought of my being forced to vote for Democratic presidential candidates for three election cycles in a row. It might suggest a pattern.Right now I’m working on a longish piece making the case that America needs a Liberal Party, albeit in the European sense of the term. I mean parties that are for free markets, civil liberties and small government, without being hostile to immigration and cultural change.Gail: If that means a three-party system, we’re going to have a lot to fight about.Bret: We should fight more. As for the G.O.P., it’s probably a lost cause. My guess is that Trump’s luster will fade in the party because a lot of Republicans know he’s crazy and are ashamed of what happened on Jan. 6. But Trumpism as the politics of nativism, rage and conspiracy theory is going to be a dominant strain in the G.O.P., especially if Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton or one of the Trump kids is the next nominee.Gail: Eric for president!Credit…Jessica Mcgowan/Getty ImagesBret: To return to Yiddish: Oy vey. Of course there’s Nikki Haley. But after reading Tim Alberta’s long profile of her in Politico, I can’t decide whether she’s crazy like a fox or too clever by half.Gail: What do you think her slogan would be: Served the Trump administration loyally except secretly she always hated him?Bret: From a political standpoint, she’s played her cards pretty astutely. She might be the only potential G.O.P. candidate who can unite the party. She’s smart, charismatic, has a great personal story, did the right thing as governor of South Carolina by getting rid of the Confederate flag from the State House soon after the Charleston church slaughter, and was effective as U.N. ambassador. If she wins the nomination she’d be a formidable challenger to the Democratic nominee, whoever that winds up being.Gail: Wow, Kamala vs. Nikki.Bret: Interesting that Kamala ’24 already seems like a foregone conclusion. Shades of Hillary ’08?Back to Haley. Her dodges and maneuvers are a bit too transparent. And her brand of mainstream Republican conservatism is just out of step for a party that is increasingly out of its mind.Gail: Still, you’ve got me obsessing about an all-female presidential race.Bret: About time.Gail: But back for a minute to the Senate. Do you think they should have called witnesses so the country could have listened to a description of Trump ignoring the real physical danger to Mike Pence and other top Republicans, and defending the rioters when he was begged to call them off?Bret: Not really, no. What more does the country need to know than the evidence the House managers presented? Calling witnesses would have dragged out the trial for weeks on end, forcing us all to watch those despicable Trump lawyers. And we both know it wouldn’t have changed the result.Gail: Yeah, and we really need to get on to Biden’s agenda. There’s a rumor about some kind of pandemic …Bret: Also, the trial introduced the country to some new Democratic stars. Stacey Plaskett deserves an immediate promotion to a big administration job. And Jamie Raskin should be a future contender for attorney general. That he was able to perform with so much grace under pressure, after a terrible family tragedy, made him that much more admirable.Gail: Agreed.Bret: So it’s time for the country to move on. Since I’m grooving on Jewish tropes today, let’s just say, “Trump Came, He Tried to Destroy Us, We Won, Let’s Eat.”Let me switch subjects on you this time. Should Andrew Cuomo be impeached for being, er, highly parsimonious with the truth about the nursing home Covid deaths?Gail: This is Andrew Cuomo. Punishment would be not letting him run for a fourth term in 2022. But New York definitely needs a new crop of executives. Try mentioning Bill de Blasio to a socially distanced friend and watch eyes glaze over from six feet away.Bret: Or, in my case, head exploding. De Blasio is to managerial competence what Yogi Berra was to the syllogism. He’s the guy who redeems the memory of Abe Beame. He makes Trump’s handling of the coronavirus situation seem relatively competent. He’s the nation’s unintentional uniter, bringing everyone from Cuomo to Ted Cruz together into shared contempt.Gail: I thought I was good at complaining about de Blasio, but you win the medal.Bret: I’m keeping fingers crossed that Andrew Yang or some other reasonably competent character can bring the city back from moving further toward 1970s-style insolvency, disorder, crime and decay.Gail: Here’s my last question, Bret. In a couple of weeks it’ll be March. Which won’t change much, pandemic-wise. But as it starts to get warmer, do you think we’ll all start to feel more optimistic? Walking through parks, picnics on the terrace? Our last Trumpian chapter over?Bret: I’m enjoying this continual blanket of snow and wouldn’t mind if it stretched into April. Maybe it will help everyone chill out and calm down. And it’s an excellent excuse for doing as little exercise as possible and binge-watching this French spy thriller, “The Bureau,” that an old friend of mine just got me into.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Why Seven Republican Senators Voted to Convict Trump

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentliveLatest UpdatesKey Takeaways From Day 5How Senators VotedTrump AcquittedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Seven Republican Senators Voted to Convict TrumpThe Republicans who broke with their party to find Donald J. Trump guilty were an eclectic group, bound by their shared lack of concern about retribution from the former president or his followers.Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is one of the seven Republicans who voted on Saturday to impeach former President Donald J. Trump.Credit…for The New York TimesFeb. 14, 2021, 6:57 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The seed for Senator Bill Cassidy’s decision to find Donald J. Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection was planted one day last fall, when he received an email from a friend that was full of the then-president’s false claims about a stolen election.Alarmed that Mr. Trump’s lies were gaining credence, Mr. Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, became part of a small minority in his party — and one of only a few officials in the South — to acknowledge President Biden’s victory. Months later, after Mr. Trump’s campaign to overturn the election culminated in the Capitol riot, Mr. Cassidy was one of only seven Republican senators who voted on Saturday to convict him.Taken at face value, Mr. Cassidy — a conservative, newly re-elected physician with a quirky streak — has little in common with the other six senators who broke with their party and found Mr. Trump guilty in the most bipartisan vote for a presidential impeachment conviction in United States history. Most were facing intense backlash on Sunday from Republicans in their states livid about the vote, as have the 10 House Republicans who supported the impeachment last month.But the senators were united by a common thread: Each of them, for their own reasons, was unafraid of political retribution from Mr. Trump or his supporters.“Two are retiring, and three are not up until 2026, and who knows what the world will look like five years from now,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “It looked pretty different five years ago than it did today. All seven of them have a measure of independence that those who have to run in 2022 in a closed Republican primary just don’t have.”For Mr. Cassidy, it was a sense of outrage at the former president’s actions, starting long before the assault on Jan. 6, that played the dominant role. In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Cassidy said Mr. Trump had “trumpeted that lie” about the election for months, then sat by for hours as lawmakers and his own vice president were under attack in the Capitol and did nothing — other than to call Republican senators to ask them to continue challenging the election results.“That anger simmers in the background,” Mr. Cassidy said. “My whole life, reading about great men and women who sacrifice for our country, who sacrifice so that we could have the freedoms that we have here today — and the idea that somebody would attempt to usurp those and destroy them?”“It still angers me,” he continued. “It just angers the heck out of me.”Many Republicans privately shared Mr. Cassidy’s rage, but the fact that only seven of them were ultimately willing to find Mr. Trump guilty underscored the extraordinary fealty the former president still commands in the party. Even with Mr. Trump out of the White House, Republican lawmakers have been reluctant to cross the former president for fear of invoking his wrath and infuriating the primary voters who still adore him. All but one of the Republicans who voted to convict Mr. Trump will not face voters at the ballot box for years — or ever again, in the case of two who are set to retire in 2022.Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is the only one of the seven Republicans who faces re-election next year, making her vote to convict the most political risky of them all.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesMr. Cassidy won re-election in November, as did two others who voted to convict the former president — Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Ben Sasse of Nebraska — meaning they have five years before their names will appear on a ballot. Two others, Senators Richard M. Burr of North Carolina and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, are retiring. The other two, Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, have long since established their willingness to break with their party, and particularly with Mr. Trump.Ms. Murkowski is the only one of the group facing re-election next year, making her vote the most politically risky of them all.She famously returned to Washington even after losing a Republican primary in 2010 by defeating both the Republican and Democratic nominees in an audacious write-in campaign, and she has appeared untroubled by the potential political consequences of her vote.That might be partly influenced by a change in Alaska’s voting system: Voters in November approved a measure to eliminate party primaries and institute a ranked-choice contest in which any candidate could prevail, blunting the influence of the hard-right voters who decide most Republican primaries.At the Capitol on Saturday, Ms. Murkowski said she owed it to her constituents to vote the way she did. “If I can’t say what I believe that our president should stand for, then why should I ask Alaskans to stand with me?” she told reporters.And in a blistering statement on Sunday, Ms. Murkowski explained why she deemed Mr. Trump guilty.“If months of lies, organizing a rally of supporters in an effort to thwart the work of Congress, encouraging a crowd to march on the Capitol, and then taking no meaningful action to stop the violence once it began is not worthy of impeachment, conviction and disqualification,” she said, “I cannot imagine what is.”Republicans had regarded Ms. Murkowski as a senator who was likely to defect, along with Ms. Collins. The two have previously linked arms to break from their party on significant votes, including when they helped tank a Republican-led effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Ms. Collins was re-elected in November, triumphing in a brutal contest that few expected her to win, as voters reaffirmed their embrace of her long-held independent streak.“This impeachment trial is not about any single word uttered by President Trump on Jan. 6, 2021,” Ms. Collins said in a speech from the Senate floor on Saturday. “It is instead about President Trump’s failure to obey the oath he swore on Jan. 20, 2017. His actions to interfere with the peaceful transition of power — the hallmark of our Constitution and our American democracy — were an abuse of power and constitute grounds for conviction.”Republicans had regarded Senator Susan Collins of Maine as likely to defect.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesIn the weeks before the impeachment trial, Ms. Collins huddled in multiple Zoom meetings with a team of lawyers, including external advisers and members of her staff, to discuss the constitutionality of putting a former president on trial and whether Mr. Trump could mount a defense premised on his right to free speech, according to Richard H. Fallon Jr., a Harvard Law professor and adviser to Ms. Collins who participated in the discussions.“I don’t think there was any substantial disagreement at the end about the constitutional points,” he said.Mr. Cassidy’s vote to convict was less expected. A gastroenterologist who was re-elected easily in November to a second term, he is a reliable conservative. But he has shown an increasing willingness in recent weeks to buck his party in an attempt to work with Mr. Biden and his Democratic colleagues, and markedly less interest in humoring Mr. Trump.That approach has resulted in an intense fallout at home. The Louisiana Republican Party on Saturday moved to censure him for his vote, and Mr. Cassidy said people would be “aghast at how negative” the comments on his Facebook page had become.But he also said that he had received “a heck of a lot of support” in texts and calls from constituents — and that he expected that sentiment to grow.“The president spent two months building this up,” Mr. Cassidy said. “It’s going be hard; people just don’t flip on a deeply held belief from someone who they trust just like that. But the more the facts come out, the more that people will move to this position.”For his colleagues who are retiring, voters’ reactions were less of a concern. Neither Mr. Burr nor Mr. Toomey was a particularly vocal critic of Mr. Trump while he was in office, and both skewed fiercely conservative on policy matters, especially Mr. Toomey, a fiscal hawk and former president of the pro-business Club for Growth.But both have tangled with the former president in their own ways. As Mr. Trump continued to falsely claim that he had won the election, Mr. Toomey sharply pushed back and went so far as to blast his own colleagues for trying to overturn the results.Delegate Stacey Plaskett, Democrat of the Virgin Islands and one of the impeachment managers, reacted on Saturday as Mr. Cassidy voted to convict Mr. Trump.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMr. Burr, then the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, subpoenaed testimony from Donald Trump Jr. in 2019 as part of his work conducting the only bipartisan congressional investigation into Russian election interference. The former president’s son responded by starting a political war against the senator in an attempt to turn his party against him.Perhaps the most predictable votes came from two of Mr. Trump’s most biting critics in the Senate: Mr. Sasse and Mr. Romney, who was the only Republican to vote to convict Mr. Trump in his first impeachment trial.While the two senators have employed similarly scathing language to excoriate the former president, they are at very different points in their careers. Mr. Romney, 73, having tried and failed to reach the White House, has positioned himself as an elder statesman trying to steer the party from Mr. Trump’s influence regardless of the political fallout. Mr. Sasse, 48, a younger and ambitious up-and-comer, has staked his hopes on leading a post-Trump Republican Party.Now, Mr. Sasse is facing censure threats from the Nebraska Republican Party. An effort last year by a Republican legislator in Utah to censure Mr. Romney for his first impeachment vote fell flat after the state’s Republican governor defended the senator, who faces re-election in 2024.It is unclear how much the seven senators discussed the verdict before the vote on Saturday. But Mr. Cassidy quietly shared his decision with Mr. Burr during the closing arguments of the trial, surreptitiously passing the North Carolina Republican a note on the Senate floor.“I am a yes,” it read.Mr. Burr nodded in silent agreement.Emily Cochrane More

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      Lara Trump for North Carolina Senate Seat? Trump’s Trial Is Renewing Talk

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeMurder Charges?The Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLara Trump for North Carolina Senate Seat? Trump’s Trial Is Renewing TalkSenator Richard M. Burr’s vote to convict the former president has intensified speculation that Ms. Trump might galvanize staunch Trump loyalists behind a possible bid for Mr. Burr’s seat in 2022.Lara Trump and her husband, Eric, attended the departure event for former President Trump on Inauguration Day before boarding Air Force One.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesAnnie Karni and Feb. 14, 2021Updated 5:22 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — A central issue in last week’s impeachment trial was whether former President Donald J. Trump deserves a political future. But his acquittal sparked speculation on Sunday about the electoral prospects of another Trump: his daughter-in-law, Lara.Senator Richard M. Burr’s decision to vote for the conviction of Mr. Trump incensed many Republicans in his home state of North Carolina, and in doing so reignited talk that Ms. Trump, a native of Wilmington, N.C., would seek the Senate seat Mr. Burr will vacate in 2022.“My friend Richard Burr just made Lara Trump almost the certain nominee for the Senate seat in North Carolina to replace him if she runs,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday.Ms. Trump did not respond to a request for comment. One senior Republican official with knowledge of her plans said that the Jan. 6 riot soured her desire to seek office, but that she would decide over the next few months whether to run as part of a coordinated Trump family comeback.If negotiating a post-Donald-Trump world has been a disorienting experience for Republicans around the country, it is especially acute in North Carolina, a state that has become a polarized, and nearly deadlocked, partisan battleground.Mr. Burr’s vote, and the torrent of criticism among North Carolina Republicans that came with it, appeared likely to sharpen the differences in the primary to succeed him between staunch Trump loyalists and Republicans who see a need to appeal to educated suburban voters in a state with steadily changing demographics.“The G.O.P. base is getting smaller,” said Paul Shumaker, a veteran party strategist in Raleigh.It was not just Mr. Burr’s vote that inflamed the party’s rank and file. While the state’s junior senator, Thom Tillis, who was re-elected last year, voted to acquit the former president, Mr. Tillis used his statement after the vote to all but invite prosecutors to indict Mr. Trump, saying the former president’s “ultimate accountability is through our criminal justice system.”Mr. Trump’s allies predict that such talk would prompt a revolt from the right that would result in the election of more pro-Trump candidates. And, the thinking goes, who could be more pro-Trump than an actual Trump?Ms. Trump, 38, a former personal trainer and television producer who graduated from Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington and from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, has been floating herself as a possible Burr successor for months.Another Republican, former Representative Mark Walker, a Trump ally, has already announced his candidacy, and Pat McCrory, a Republican former governor, is considering one. Mark Meadows, the former North Carolina representative and former Trump chief of staff, is also said to be in the mix.“We are going to take a very long look at all the candidates versus, you know, some kind of coronation,” said Mark Brody, a member of the Republican National Committee from Union County, outside Charlotte.Doug Heye, a former Republican National Committee spokesman who used to work for Mr. Burr, questioned whether Ms. Trump was willing to endure the tussle and tedium of running or serving. “Many people love the speculation and the attention, but being senator is a lot of hard work,” he said.First, however, there is the question of her residence. Ms. Trump currently lives with her husband, Eric, and their children in the northern suburbs of New York City and would have to move back..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1amoy78{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.Then there is the less straightforward question of branding. The Trump family name is a wild card — it will be a plus with loyalists and fund-raising nationally, but it could be a liability in a battleground that the former president won by a mere 1.3 percentage points in 2020. There is also a possibility Ms. Trump’s candidacy could help increase Democratic turnout, especially among the state’s large Black population.Or it might be a wash.“There is a myth that Trump voters will come out for Trump candidates or family members,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster and a veteran of campaigns in the South. “Cult members only come out in full force for the cult leader.”That Ms. Trump’s may-or-may-not-happen candidacy is generating buzz is, in itself, a reflection of the party’s anxiety over its future.Ms. Trump’s boosters, led by Mr. Graham, view her presence as a way to weaponize the backlash against Mr. Burr’s vote, seen as a betrayal sufficient to warrant a rebuke by the North Carolina G.O.P. over his “shocking and disappointing” decision.Others simply see Ms. Trump as a potentially well-funded candidate with the built-in advantage of sky-high name recognition.Representative Patrick McHenry, a Republican who represents the Greensboro area, downplayed the importance of Mr. Burr’s vote but said Ms. Trump would “be the odds-on favorite” if she runs.“No one comes close,” he said.Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More