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    City of Miami Racially Gerrymandered Voting Districts, Judge Finds

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    The federal judge threw out the city’s voting map, rejecting the rationale that city commissioners have used for more than 20 years.The City of Miami unconstitutionally gerrymandered voting districts by race and ethnicity, a federal judge found on Wednesday, throwing out the city’s voting map and rejecting the way city commissioners have tried to hold on to power for more than two decades.Judge K. Michael Moore of the Federal District Court in Miami wrote that commissioners had used redistricting rationale since 1997 to draw five districts with the explicit intent of having voters elect three Hispanic commissioners, one Black commissioner and one non-Hispanic white commissioner.“Sorting voters on the basis of race, as the city did here, deprives Miamians of the constitutional promise that they receive equal protection under the law,” Judge Moore wrote. “These are the serious harms that the city perpetuated, and Miamians suffered. Today, the court permanently prevents the city from racial gerrymandering any longer.”The ruling comes as scandal has roiled City Hall.Mayor Francis X. Suarez, who briefly sought the Republican presidential nomination, has been dogged by controversies over undisclosed work for clients outside City Hall. Last year, a jury held Commissioner Joe Carollo liable for more than $63 million in damages for siccing inspectors on two businessmen as political retribution.A former commissioner, Alex Díaz de la Portilla, faces bribery and money laundering charges in a case involving a city land deal. (He has pleaded not guilty.) Another former commissioner, Sabina Covo, has been under investigation for bribery. (She has denied wrongdoing.) The city attorney, Victoria Méndez, has been accused in a lawsuit of being involved in a house-flipping scheme with her husband. (She has denied involvement or wrongdoing.)As a result of Judge Moore’s ruling, the city could be forced to hold a special election or to draw a new voting map. The next municipal elections are supposed to take place in November 2025. Commissioners, who are nonpartisan, serve staggered four-year terms.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Ron DeSantis Isn’t Beating Donald Trump

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      As he flails to reverse a polling decline that is beginning to resemble a rockslide, Gov. Ron DeSantis must be feeling a little clueless about why his political fortunes are crumbling so quickly. Attacking wokeness and bullying transgender people seemed to work so well in Florida, so why aren’t national Republicans in awe of the divisions he’s deepened? Making repeated appearances with racial provocateurs never stopped him from getting elected as governor, so why did he have to fire a young aide who inserted Nazi imagery into his own video promoting Mr. DeSantis’s presidential campaign?But the political bubble inhabited by Mr. DeSantis is so thick — symbolized by the hugely expensive private-plane flights that are draining his campaign of cash, since he and his wife, Casey, won’t sit with regular people in a commercial cabin — that he has been unable or unwilling to understand the brushoff he has received from donors and potential voters and make the changes he needs to become competitive with Donald Trump in the Republican primaries.For years, Mr. DeSantis has created an entire political persona out of a singular crusade against wokeness, frightening teachers and professors away from classroom discussions of race, defending a school curriculum that said there were benefits to slavery, claiming (falsely) that his anti-vaccine crusade worked and engaging in a pointless battle with his state’s best-known private employer over school discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity. He had the support of the Florida Legislature and state Republican officials in most of his efforts and presumably believed that an image of a more effective and engaged Trump would help him beat the real thing.But it’s not working. A Monmouth University poll published on Tuesday showed Mr. Trump with a 20-point lead over Mr. DeSantis in a head-to-head match, and the advantage grew to more than 30 points when all the other candidates were thrown in. Major donors have started to sour on him, and The Times reported on Thursday that they are disappointed with his performance and the management of his campaign, which he says he will somehow reboot.“DeSantis has not made any headway,” wrote the poll’s director, Patrick Murray. “The arguments that he’d be a stronger candidate and a more effective president than Trump have both fallen flat.”The most obvious fault in his strategy is that you can’t beat Donald Trump if you don’t even criticize him, and Mr. DeSantis has said little about the multiple indictments piling up against the former president or about his character. Granted, there are downsides to a full-frontal attack on Mr. Trump at this point, as other Republicans have become aware, and Mr. DeSantis still needs to establish some kind of identity first. But he can’t become an alt-Trump without drawing a sharp contrast and holding Mr. Trump to account for at least a few of his many flaws. There are graveyards in Iowa and New Hampshire full of candidates who tried to ignore the leader through sheer force of personality, and even if he had one of those, Mr. DeSantis hasn’t demonstrated the skills to use it. Both men will speak Friday night at the Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines, and if Mr. DeSantis leaves his rival unscathed, it’s hard to imagine how he goes the distance.The deeper problem, though, is that Mr. DeSantis is peddling the wrong message. Only 1 percent of voters think that wokeness and transgender issues are the country’s top problem, according to an April Fox News poll — essentially a repudiation of the governor’s entire brand. Race issues and vaccines are also low on the list.Lakshya Jain, who helps lead the website Split Ticket, which is doing some really interesting political analysis and modeling, said Mr. DeSantis misinterpreted what Florida voters were saying when they re-elected him by a 19-point margin in 2022.“The economy was doing well in Florida, and Democrats didn’t put up a good candidate in Charlie Crist,” Mr. Jain told me. “I’m not sure the majority of Florida voters really cared what he was saying on wokeness. It’s not really an issue people vote on.”The economy, naturally, is what people care most about, but Mr. DeSantis hasn’t said much about his plans to fight inflation (which is already coming down) or create more jobs (which is happening every month without his help). Clearly aware of the problem, he announced on Thursday that he would unfurl a Declaration of Economic Independence in a major speech in New Hampshire on Monday (a phrase as trite and tone-deaf as the name of his Never Back Down super PAC).That appears to be the first fruit of his campaign reboot, but there are good reasons he doesn’t like to stray from his rigid agenda, as demonstrated by his occasionally disastrous footsteps into foreign policy. Bashing Bidenomics means he’ll immediately have to come up with an excuse for why inflation is so much higher in Florida than the nation as a whole. Though the national inflation rate in May was 4 percent compared with a year earlier, it was 9 percent in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area for the same period and 7.3 percent in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area.The primary reason for that is the state’s housing shortage, an issue that Mr. DeSantis largely ignored during his first term and has only belatedly taken a few small steps to address. When the issue inevitably comes up on the campaign trail, you can bet that Mr. DeSantis will find some way of blaming it on President Biden. That way he can quickly pivot to his preferred agenda of rewriting Black history, questioning science and encouraging gun ownership.He really can’t help himself; just this week he said he might hire the noted anti-vaccine nut Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to work at the Food and Drug Administration or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Then he got into an online fight with Representative Byron Donalds, Florida’s only Black Republican member of Congress, over the state’s astonishingly wrong curriculum on slavery, and a DeSantis spokesman called Mr. Donalds a “supposed conservative.”Great way to expand your base. Remind me: When does the reboot start?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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      Francis Suarez, Miami Mayor, Is Running for President: What to Know

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      Mr. Suarez, who is entering the Republican presidential race, is a cryptocurrency enthusiast who holds a largely ceremonial job as mayor of Miami.Francis X. Suarez, the two-term mayor of Miami who formally announced his entry into the 2024 presidential race on Thursday, is presenting himself as a fresh face for the Republican Party: a 45-year-old in a field led by a septuagenarian, and a Cuban American in a party whose elected officials are overwhelmingly white.In a speech at the Reagan Library in California on Thursday evening, brimming with callbacks to decades-old Republican catchphrases like George H.W. Bush’s “thousand points of light,” Mr. Suarez declared his candidacy with a reference to one more — and to his own catchphrase from a Twitter post he made in 2021 in response to a venture capitalist who suggested moving Silicon Valley to Miami.“I believe America is still a shining city on a hill whose eyes of the world are upon us and whose promise needs to be restored,” he said, a day after filing paperwork for his run. “And I believe the city needs more than a shouter or a fighter. I believe it needs a servant. It needs a mayor. My name is Francis Suarez, and I am here to help.”Here are five things to know about Mr. Suarez.His current job is largely ceremonial.Mr. Suarez was elected as mayor in 2017 with 86 percent of the vote and re-elected in 2021 with 79 percent of the vote — striking margins made possible by the fact that he faced only token opposition. (Miami’s mayoral elections are officially nonpartisan.)He will be running largely on his mayoral experience, since the only other elected office he has held was on the City Commission, not a job known for kick-starting presidential campaigns. But the Miami mayoralty is part time and largely ceremonial.Mr. Suarez’s main powers are vetoing legislation and hiring and firing the city manager. He does not have a vote on the City Commission. Shortly after taking office, he put forward a proposal to give himself more power, including authority over Miami’s budget and work force, but voters soundly rejected it.This distinguishes Mr. Suarez from other sitting or former mayors who have run for president, who already faced long odds. The three who ran prominent campaigns for the Democratic nomination in 2020 — Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., and Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio of New York City — had more authority than Mr. Suarez does.He is enthusiastic about Silicon Valley and cryptocurrency.In 2021, Mr. Suarez drew headlines for announcing that he would take his salary in Bitcoin and for suggesting that Miami pay city workers, accept tax payments and invest public funds in Bitcoin, too.He praised a deal in which the cryptocurrency exchange FTX — founded by the now-disgraced Sam Bankman-Fried — acquired naming rights to Miami’s N.B.A. arena. (The deal was terminated this year after FTX collapsed.)Mr. Suarez embraced cryptocurrency before the industry’s tumult last year.Marco Bello/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe also promoted a branded cryptocurrency called MiamiCoin. Part of the proceeds went into city coffers, and Mr. Suarez suggested it could eventually allow Miami to eliminate taxes. The initial results were promising, but the currency’s value soon plummeted, and the exchange that had hosted it suspended trading of MiamiCoin this year.Mr. Suarez continued to support cryptocurrency even as the industry crashed last year. “I call them tsunamis of opportunity,” he told The Washington Post. “And we have two options. We can take out a surfboard and surf the wave like a tsunami. Or we can hide and try to run from it and pretend it’s not there and potentially get washed away.”He has been accused of influence peddling.Mr. Suarez has come under fire over reports that he was paid tens of thousands of dollars by a company looking for help advancing a luxury condominium project.The Miami Herald reported last month that a developer, Location Ventures, had paid Mr. Suarez — who is a real estate lawyer — at least $170,000 to consult for it and “to help cut through red tape and secure critical permits.” This month, The Herald reported that the F.B.I. was investigating “whether the payments constitute bribes in exchange for securing permits or other favors from the mayor” for a project in the Coconut Grove neighborhood.Mr. Suarez has denied wrongdoing and dismissed The Herald’s reporting as a product of political bias. In an interview on Fox News a few days before he announced his campaign, he suggested that his moves toward a presidential run had motivated journalists to attack him after “an unblemished 13 years in public service.”He has sometimes bucked the Republican line.Mr. Suarez did not vote for Donald J. Trump’s re-election as president in 2020. Nor did he vote for Ron DeSantis for Florida governor in 2018; he voted for Mr. DeSantis’s Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum, and said he supported Mr. Gillum’s calls for a higher minimum wage because a “basic standard of living” was “a fundamental human right.”Mr. Suarez voted for Andrew Gillum, a Democrat, in the 2018 Florida governor’s race.Steve Cannon/Associated PressIn early 2021, he criticized Mr. DeSantis for forbidding local leaders to enforce mask mandates as Covid-19 cases surged, telling CBS News that he had tried unsuccessfully to reach Mr. DeSantis and persuade him to let officials “institute things that we think are common-sense, that we think are backed up by science, that we can demonstrate are backed up by science.”And two years earlier, he co-wrote a New York Times opinion essay with Ban Ki-moon, the former secretary general of the United Nations, emphasizing the damage climate change was already doing in Miami. “There isn’t a single aspect of our daily lives that isn’t affected by climate change,” he and Mr. Ban wrote.He opposed Trump in 2020, but defends him now.When other Republicans have changed their minds about Mr. Trump, it has generally been to oppose him after previously supporting him, à la Chris Christie. Mr. Suarez has gone in the opposite direction: Though he did not vote for Mr. Trump in 2020, he has said he will in 2024 if Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee.He told Fox News this month that he was motivated by “a fear of Joe Biden’s America.”“It’s an America where the poor get poorer, it’s an America where America gets weaker, and it’s an America where the possibility of China being the lone superpower is something that frightens me to no end,” he said.“What has changed and what has happened is we’ve gotten a taste of what a dysfunctional government can do to destroy our country in a short period of time,” Mr. Suarez added, “and if you take that out into the future, it is incredibly scary.”When Mr. Trump was indicted in New York this year, Mr. Suarez told The Miami Herald that he saw the Manhattan district attorney’s decision to pursue the case as “a slippery slope.” After Mr. Trump’s second indictment this month, he went further, saying in the Fox News interview that it “feels un-American.”Patricia Mazzei More

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      Trump visita la Pequeña Habana y recuerda la corrupción en América Latina

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      Los republicanos han comparado cada vez más los casos judiciales del expresidente con la corrupción y la opresión política en la región.Después de su comparecencia del martes, el expresidente Donald Trump visitó la Pequeña Habana, en Miami, en su más reciente intento de presentarse como un hombre perseguido por sus adversarios políticos.Fue un intento nada sutil de buscar la solidaridad de los latinos de Florida y de otros lugares.La visita de Trump al restaurante Versailles, un punto de referencia emblemático de la diáspora cubana, coincidió con la comparación, cada vez más frecuente, que hacen los republicanos de su caso con la corrupción y la opresión política en los países latinoamericanos.Afuera del juzgado federal de Miami donde se hizo la comparecencia, Alina Habba, abogada y vocera de Trump insinuó que él no era diferente de los disidentes políticos de Latinoamérica.“La persecución y enjuiciamiento de un opositor político importante es el tipo de cosas que se ven en dictaduras como Cuba y Venezuela. En esos sitios, es un lugar común que los candidatos rivales sean juzgados, perseguidos y encarcelados”, señaló.El día previo a su comparecencia, Trump afirmó que los latinos del sur de Florida se solidarizaban con él porque están familiarizados con los gobiernos que persiguen a sus adversarios.“En verdad pueden verlo mejor de lo que lo ven las demás personas”, dijo en una entrevista con Americano Media, un medio conservador en idioma español del sur de Florida.Trump ha contado con un apoyo relativamente fuerte entre las comunidades latinas, sobre todo en el sur de Florida. Eduardo A. Gamarra, profesor de Política y Relaciones Internacionales en la Universidad Internacional de Florida que también forma parte del Instituto de Estudios Cubanos, comentó que la narrativa urdida por Trump y sus partidarios, aunque falsa, era astuta.“Se ve reforzada por los medios locales, por mucho de lo que la campaña de Trump y otros republicanos están diciendo: que este gobierno, el de Biden, se está comportando como se comportan las repúblicas bananeras, así que eso ha resonado con mucha intensidad aquí. A nivel político, es buena, pero no es veraz”, afirmó el académico.Gamarra, quien nació en Bolivia, destacó que Trump también había intentado obtener el apoyo de los electores latinos al arremeter contra el socialismo y el comunismo. Lamentó la manera en que Trump y sus aliados habían mencionado a Latinoamérica en muchas ocasiones.“Es una narrativa muy poco afortunada. Creo que solo difunde los estereotipos existentes sobre Latinoamérica. Es mucho más complejo que solo la imagen de la república bananera”, dijo.La breve aparición de Trump en el restaurante fue la más reciente de él y de una larga lista de políticos que incluye a los expresidentes Bill Clinton y George W. Bush. En 2016, el restaurante recibió a Trump y a Rudy Giuliani juntos después del primer debate del exmandatario contra Hillary Clinton.Paloma Marcos, quien ha sido ciudadana estadounidense desde hace 15 años y es oriunda de Nicaragua, llegó al Versalles con una gorra de Trump y un letrero que decía “Estoy con Trump”.Comentó que muchos nicaragüenses como ella tenían afinidad por el expresidente, porque está contra el comunismo. También agregó que la gente como ella, así como los cubanos y venezolanos, habían visto que esa forma de gobierno destrozaba a sus países de origen.“Sabe él que siempre lo hemos apoyado acá. Los latinos estamos bien concientizados”, dijo Marcos. “Hemos podido quitarnos el velo, digamos, un despertar”.La reverenda Yoelis Sánchez, pastora en una iglesia local y oriunda de la República Dominicana, dijo que cuando le pidieron que fuera al restaurante Versalles a orar con Trump no dudó en acudir. Varias personas religiosas, entre evangélicas y católicas, oraban con él mientras su hija cantaba.Comentó que había orado “para que Dios le dé fortaleza y le ayude”, comentó. “Y que toda la verdad salga a la luz”. Y añadió que estaban “preocupados por el bienestar de él”.Sánchez, que vive en Doral, una ciudad que forma parte del condado de Miami-Dade y donde Trump tiene un club de golf, no era ciudadana en 2020. No quiso decir si planea votar por él en 2024.“No creo que haya venido porque le interese el voto latino solamente”, dijo. “Sino el voto de todas las personas que estamos de acuerdo en mantener los valores bíblicos”. Y añadió que como él, “los latinos de por sí nos identificamos con lo que es la familia, la vida”.Trump enfrenta acusaciones penales relacionadas con el mal manejo de documentos clasificados y la posterior obstrucción de los intentos de recuperarlos por parte del gobierno. En Estados Unidos no tiene precedentes el enjuiciamiento federal a un expresidente, pero muchos presidentes latinoamericanos han sido juzgados tras dejar el poder.El actual presidente de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, pasó más de un año en la cárcel después de salir de la presidencia la primera vez. El año pasado, la expresidenta de Argentina, Cristina Fernández, fue sentenciada a seis años por corrupción. En Perú, Alejandro Toledo fue extraditado hace poco para enfrentar una acusación de soborno. El exmandatario, Alberto Fujimori, está cumpliendo una condena de 25 años en prisión.Arnoldo Alemán, de Nicaragua, es uno de los pocos expresidentes que fue arrestado en un caso de corrupción a pesar de que su propio partido estaba en el poder.“Es algo que se ve mucho en Latinoamérica, sobre todo en Perú y ahora en El Salvador”, comentó Mario García, un cliente habitual del Versailles a quien le hizo gracia ver a Trump en el restaurante. “Pero en nuestros países, en Latinoamérica, hay justificación porque lo roban todo” los presidentes, explicó García y afirmó que creía que el gobierno estaba persiguiendo a Trump porque no tiene “otra manera de detenerlo”.García señaló que no pensaba que Trump fuera al Versailles en busca de los votos de los latinos. “Los votos de aquí ya los tiene. Es muy bonito rodearse de cariño cuando a uno todo el mundo lo está atacando”.Maggie Haberman More

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      Francis Suarez, Miami Mayor, Enters 2024 Presidential Race

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      Mr. Suarez, a 45-year-old Cuban American elected overwhelmingly as mayor of Miami, is presenting himself as a fresh Republican face but faces allegations of influence peddling.Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami filed the paperwork for a presidential campaign on Wednesday, setting him up to join an increasingly crowded field of candidates jockeying to overtake former President Donald J. Trump for the Republican nomination.Mr. Suarez, a 45-year-old Cuban American elected overwhelmingly twice to his post leading one of Florida’s biggest cities, is presenting himself as a fresh face for a party that has struggled in three consecutive elections as general-election voters soured on Mr. Trump. He is scheduled to give a speech on Thursday night at the Reagan Library in California.Supporters of Mr. Suarez announced a super PAC on Wednesday in tandem with his filing, beginning with an initial “six figure” ad buy in three early-voting states: Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. The committee, SOS America PAC, is starting off on solid financial footing, with almost $6 million left over from its previous iteration.Its first ad — which opens with a sarcastic “warning” screen reading, “This video contains graphic content that liberals may find disturbing” — shows footage of violent crime and a burning police car, calling this “Joe Biden’s America” and promoting Miami’s declining violent crime rate under Mr. Suarez.The Republican field has grown to nearly a dozen hopefuls aiming to take on the front-runner, Mr. Trump, who was charged this month in a federal case concerning classified documents. Mr. Suarez is also taking on Ron DeSantis, the governor of his home state, who has consistently been Mr. Trump’s top rival but who is also well behind in available polling.But Mr. Suarez is little known outside his state, and he is facing emerging allegations of influence-peddling on behalf of a real estate development company.Who’s Running for President in 2024?See who is in, and who else might run.Mr. Suarez grew up in Miami politics, with his father, Xavier L. Suarez, serving two stints as mayor in the 1980s and 1990s. The elder Mr. Suarez was later elected to the Miami-Dade County Commission, where his terms overlapped with his son’s time in office.The younger Mr. Suarez served as a Miami city commissioner before being elected mayor in 2017 with 86 percent of the vote. In 2021, he was re-elected with 79 percent of the vote.While the city’s voters traditionally skew Democratic in national elections, that doesn’t hold true for local elections, and the mayoral post is listed as nonpartisan on ballots.Nobody has been elected to the White House, or even received a major party’s nomination, directly from a mayor’s office — though Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., population roughly 100,000, came closer than most in the 2020 Democratic primaries, winning Iowa and placing second in New Hampshire, but slid and dropped out before Super Tuesday.Miami, with a population of roughly 450,000, gives Mr. Suarez a considerably larger starting point. But the Miami mayoralty is a part-time and largely ceremonial job.Mr. Suarez can veto legislation and hire and fire the city manager, but he does not have a vote on the five-member City Commission, and in 2018, he failed to persuade voters to give him strong-mayor powers. After clashing with city commissioners, he began to turn away from day-to-day legislative matters.Mr. Suarez’s national profile began to rise after he became one of the first elected officials to contract Covid in March 2020. He documented his illness in online videos, giving people a peek into a virus that most, at the time, knew very little about.Later that year, when a venture capitalist floated the idea on Twitter of moving Silicon Valley to Miami, Mr. Suarez replied, “How can I help?” — a response that vaulted him into the tech scene and a broader conversation about how leaders could best market their cities.He soon emerged as a cryptocurrency enthusiast and darling of tech workers who moved to Miami during the pandemic. Even before the crypto industry descended into crisis last year, critics accused him of being more interested in crisscrossing the country to speak at conferences than tackling the city’s most pressing issues, such as unaffordable housing.This spring, Mr. Suarez has come under fire over reports that he was paid large sums of money by a company looking for help advancing a luxury condominium project. In a series of articles, The Miami Herald reported that Mr. Suarez had received at least $80,000 to consult for the developer, Location Ventures, and then that the developer had paid him $170,000 “to help cut through red tape and secure critical permits.”This month, The Herald reported that the F.B.I. was investigating the developer’s hiring of Mr. Suarez.Shane Goldmacher More

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      Arraigned, Again: Trump’s Federal Court Hearing in Miami

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      Michael Simon Johnson, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Diana Nguyen, Mary Wilson and Rachel Quester and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicDonald Trump was arraigned in Miami yesterday on 37 criminal counts covering seven different violations of federal law, including the handling of classified documents.Three New York Times journalists covered the proceedings: Glenn Thrush was inside the courtroom, Luke Broadwater reported from outside the courthouse, and Maggie Haberman was at Mr. Trump’s home in Bedminster, N.J.On today’s episodeLuke Broadwater, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.Glenn Thrush, who covers the Department of Justice for The New York Times.Maggie Haberman, a political correspondent for The New York Times.Donald Trump boarding a plane in Miami after making his court appearance. “I did everything right and they indicted me,” he said in a speech after his arraignment.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBackground readingMr. Trump, now twice indicted since leaving the White House, surrendered to federal authorities in Miami and pleaded not guilty, striking a defiant tone afterward.On the calendar for Mr. Trump, the Republicans’ 2024 front-runner: rallies and primaries mixed with court dates.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Luke Broadwater More

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      Trump Visits Versailles in Miami After Arraignment to Greet Supporters

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      Former President Donald J. Trump visited Little Havana in Miami on Tuesday immediately after his arraignment, his latest attempt to cast himself as a man persecuted by his political enemies.It was a not-subtle attempt to seek the sympathies of Latinos, in Florida and beyond.Mr. Trump’s visit to Versailles Restaurant, a landmark that is emblematic of the Cuban diaspora, came as Republicans have increasingly likened his indictment to corruption and political oppression in Latin American countries.Outside the federal courthouse where the arraignment took place in Miami, Alina Habba, a lawyer and spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, suggested that he was no different than political dissidents from Latin America.“The targeting, prosecution, of a leading political opponent is the type of thing you see in dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela,” she said. “It is commonplace there for rival candidates to be prosecuted, persecuted and put into jail.”The day before his arraignment, Mr. Trump said he believed Hispanics in South Florida were sympathetic to him because they are familiar with governments targeting rivals.“They really see it better than other people do,” he said in an interview with Americano Media, a conservative Spanish-language outlet in South Florida.Mr. Trump has enjoyed relatively strong support in some Latino communities, particularly those in South Florida. Eduardo A. Gamarra, a professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University who is also part of its Cuban Research Institute, said the narrative woven by Mr. Trump and his surrogates, while false, was a shrewd one.“It’s reinforced by local media, by much of what of the Trump campaign and other Republicans are saying: that this administration, the Biden administration, is behaving like the banana republics behave, so that’s resonated very intensely here,” he said. “It’s great politics, but it’s not true.”Mr. Gamarra, who was born in Bolivia, noted that Mr. Trump had also tried to win support from Latino voters by railing against socialism and communism. He lamented the way that Mr. Trump and his allies had repeatedly mentioned Latin America.“It’s a very unfortunate narrative,” he said. “I think it just sort of propagates the stereotypes about Latin America. It’s much more complex than simply the banana republic image.”Mr. Trump’s cameo at the restaurant was the latest for him and a long line of politicians that includes former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In 2016, the restaurant hosted Mr. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani together after Mr. Trump’s first debate against Hillary Clinton.Paloma Marcos, a native of Nicaragua who has been a U.S. citizen for 15 years, rushed to Versailles with a Trump hat and a sign that said, “I stand with Trump.”She said many Nicaraguans like her had an affinity for the former president, because he is against communism. She added that people like her, as well as Cuban and Venezuelans, saw how that form of government destroyed their home countries.“He knows we support him. The Latino community has had an awakening,” Ms. Marcos said. “The curtain has been pulled back.”The Rev. Yoelis Sánchez, a pastor at a local church and a native of the Dominican Republic, said she did not hesitate when asked to go to Versailles Restaurant to pray with Mr. Trump. Several religious people, including evangelicals and Catholics, prayed with him while her daughter sang.“We prayed for God to give him strength and for the truth to come out,” she said. “We are really concerned for his welfare.”Ms. Sánchez, who lives in Doral, Fla., which is part of Miami-Dade County and is where Mr. Trump owns a golf resort, was not yet a citizen in 2020. She would not say whether she plans to vote for him in 2024.“I don’t think he came here just because of the Latino vote,” she said. “He came because he wanted to meet with people who have biblical thinking — he’s pro-life and pro-family and Latinos identify with that.”Mr. Trump is facing criminal charges related to mishandling classified documents and then obstructing the government’s attempts to retrieve them. The federal indictment of a former president is unprecedented in the United States, but many Latin American presidents have been prosecuted after leaving office.Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, served more than a year in prison after he left office the first time. Argentina’s former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was sentenced to six years for corruption last year. In Peru, Alejandro Toledo was recently extradited to face a bribery charge. Its former leader, Alberto Fujimori, is serving 25 years in prison.Arnoldo Alemán of Nicaragua is one of the few former presidents who was arrested in a corruption case despite his own party being in power.“This is something you see a lot in Latin America, especially in Peru and now in El Salvador,” said Mario García, a regular at Versailles who was tickled to see Mr. Trump visit the restaurant. “But in those countries, they do it for a good reason: because the presidents get caught robbing money.” Mr. García said he believed the government was targeting Mr. Trump “because they don’t have any other way to get him.”Mr. García said he didn’t think Mr. Trump came to Versailles to court the Latino vote. “The votes here at Versailles are ones he already has,” he said. “He needs support. It’s nice to surround yourself with love when everyone is attacking you.”Maggie Haberman More

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      No Proud Boys at Trump Arraignment, but Colorful Crowds Show Up

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      In the days leading up to his arraignment in Miami, former President Donald J. Trump and several of his allies called on supporters to rally to his side.Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s longtime political adviser, called for protests, insisting that they should be peaceful. A Miami chapter of the Proud Boys — long associated with Mr. Stone — echoed the invitation, posting a flier on its Telegram page last week advertising an event at the federal courthouse on Tuesday morning.All of this raised the level of concern among civic leaders in the city, who issued calls for protesters to remain peaceful. In the end, their fears did not materialize. It did not appear that any Proud Boys showed up and about 500 people, including one with a pig’s head on a spear, answered Mr. Trump’s call to action.The atmosphere outside the building was circuslike. There was the Uncle Sam who sped around the courthouse grounds on a two-wheeled hoverboard singing pro-Trump songs, the woman with a unicorn horn affixed to her forehead who wore an “Aunt-ifa” shirt and chanted derisively about the former president, and the man in a black-and-white jail jumpsuit carrying a sign that read, “Lock Him Up.”That man in the jumpsuit later instigated the most hectic moment of the day, when he ran in front of Mr. Trump’s S.U.V. as it left the courthouse. The man, who was not immediately identified, was pushed out of the way by the police and later taken into custody. As officers took him away, a crowd of Trump supporters used the message on his sign to taunt him: “Lock him up!”As he left, Mr. Trump, sitting in the back seat of the S.U.V., flashed a thumbs up to supporters, some of whom sprinted after the vehicle as they cheered. He headed to the famous Cuban restaurant Versailles, where a smaller crowd of supporters awaited him, a rabbi and minister prayed for him and he briefly shook hands and posed for photos.It was the second time this year that Mr. Trump had called for protests at a court appearance, only to have his summons receive a kind of fizzled response. When he was arraigned in a separate case in April in Manhattan, the New York City Police Department mobilized in force over concerns about unrest, but the chaos never occurred.In Miami, too, on a blazingly hot day thick with humidity, the crowd was calmer than some had feared. Miami’s police chief, Manuel Morales, faced tough questions from reporters a day earlier on whether he was doing enough to keep the area safe during the court proceeding and why he did not plan to separate anti-Trump and pro-Trump demonstrators.“We know there is a potential of things taking a turn for the worse, but that’s not the Miami way,” he said in response.The Proud Boys, who were founded during Mr. Trump’s first campaign for office, have rallied for years on his behalf, often violently. During the 2020 election, Mr. Trump notably called out the group, urging them during a presidential debate to “stand back and standby.”Scores of Proud Boys took part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and federal investigators cracked down hard on them in the aftermath. The group’s former leader, Enrique Tarrio, who is from Miami, was convicted of seditious conspiracy along with three of his lieutenants for their role in the attack. Dozens of other Proud Boys have either been charged or questioned by the authorities.It is possible that the group never intended to take part in an event in Miami. It is also possible that the group has simply had enough of supporting Mr. Trump and suffering the consequences. After the violence at the Capitol, some high-ranking Proud Boys disavowed Mr. Trump, expressing anger at him for having left them standing on a limb.As temperatures reached nearly 90 degrees by lunchtime, trucks circled around the courthouse with flags and loudspeakers, and several people on foot with selfie sticks broadcast live video streams to thousands of viewers while weaving in and out of the crowds.“This is craaaazy,” shouted one pro-Trump streamer, Rafael Gomez, as he walked among the palm trees in front of the tall, shimmering courthouse. “Welcome to the banana republic of Miami!”Also seeking to capture an audience were more established conservative figures, such as the Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who held a news conference in front of the courthouse defending Mr. Trump and said that he would pardon his campaign rival if elected.In an interview after his news conference, Mr. Ramaswamy said that despite his defense, he would not have done what Mr. Trump is accused of. “I wouldn’t have taken the boxes,” he said. “I’m not a memento guy. Not my style.”The police largely stayed out of the way of the demonstrators, observing from close by while a helicopter circled overhead and jumping into the crowd only a few times when more hostile arguments sprouted up.At one point, however, Homeland Security and Miami Police Department officers urgently closed in and began clearing a large area of the courthouse grounds. They investigated a large TV that had been affixed to a pole on the sidewalk and that bore a message criticizing what it called “the Communist-controlled news media.” About an hour later, the police removed the television and reopened the area.Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami, a Republican who is mulling his own presidential bid, arrived in the early afternoon wearing a Miami Police Department polo shirt. He hugged several Trump supporters before shaking hands with a line of police officers. “I think, up until now, it’s a peaceful demonstration for people exercising their constitutional rights to express themselves, which we love about this country,” he said.Nearby, Carlos Brito, 66, sold American flags for $5. Mr. Brito, who immigrated from Cuba in 1980, said he supported Mr. Trump and criticized President Biden for sending money to support Ukraine while Americans struggled financially. “Look how much a cup of coffee costs here,” he said. “We need help here at home.”Scott Linnen, 61, a Trump critic from Miami, said he came to the courthouse because he had grown distraught over the direction of the country. As a gay man, he said he had seen a rise in anti-L.G.B.T.Q. rhetoric, hate speech and extremist behavior on the right.“This man tried to overthrow the 247-year-old American experiment,” he said of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “I don’t understand why more people’s hair isn’t on fire.”Luke Broadwater More

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      Los votantes del sur de Florida reflexionan sobre el caso de Trump

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      Los sentimientos encontrados entre algunos residentes sobre el expresidente y el caso en su contra reflejan la complicada política del estado.Como votante registrada en el condado de Palm Beach, Florida, Bette Anne Starkey sabe que existe la posibilidad de que la elijan para formar parte de un jurado en el caso penal federal contra el expresidente Donald Trump. Pero a pesar de que ha votado dos veces por Trump, en realidad no sabe cómo actuaría si fuese miembro del jurado que podría analizar el caso.Haciéndose eco del propio Trump, Starkey, una contadora de 81 años, usó la frase “cacería de brujas” en una entrevista para describir la acusación federal contra el expresidente, la cual lo acusa de sustraer de forma deliberada documentos clasificados de la Casa Blanca. Pero también le cuesta entender por qué Trump no devolvió los documentos cuando se los pidieron, y eso es parte de su indignación latente con el presidente número 45.“Estoy harta de escuchar sobre todas sus artimañas”, dijo.Sus comentarios reflejan los sentimientos complejos que Trump puede suscitar en estos días incluso entre los republicanos que votaron por él. Pero Starkey también es un reflejo de la política complicada y volátil del sur de Florida, el terreno de Trump, y el grupo de jurados que ofrece.El diverso y densamente poblado sur de Florida será el lugar donde se convocará a un jurado para juzgar la inocencia o culpabilidad de Trump si el caso llega a juicio, aunque no se ha determinado ni el lugar exacto del juicio ni el grupo de jurados.Partidarios del expresidente se reunieron el domingo cerca de Mar-a-Lago en Palm Beach, Florida.Saul Martinez para The New York TimesEl caso se presentó en la división judicial de West Palm Beach del Distrito Sur de Florida, lo que significa que el jurado podría ser seleccionado entre los votantes registrados en el condado de Palm Beach, hogar del resort Mar-a-Lago de Trump, donde ha vivido desde que dejó la Casa Blanca. En 2020, Trump perdió en el condado de Palm Beach ante el presidente Biden por casi 13 puntos porcentuales.Pero un grupo de jurados compuesto por votantes del condado de Miami-Dade, al sur de Palm Beach, también es una posibilidad, en particular si se determina que el juzgado federal en Miami, donde se espera que Trump haga una comparecencia inicial el martes, está mejor equipado para organizar el que probablemente será uno de los juicios penales más importantes en la historia de Estados Unidos.Trump perdió en Miami-Dade por solo siete puntos en las últimas elecciones y obtuvo un fuerte apoyo de los votantes hispanos en particular; más de dos tercios de los residentes del condado se identifican como hispanos, según datos del censo.Sin embargo, ambos condados se han vuelto más republicanos en los últimos años, y los candidatos de ese partido han tenido un éxito notable en las contiendas estatales. Trump ganó en Florida tanto en 2016 como en 2020, y el estado eligió dos veces al gobernador Ron DeSantis, quien es el principal rival de Trump para la candidatura presidencial republicana.Todo esto debería ofrecer cierto consuelo a los miembros del equipo de defensa de Trump, quienes saben que solo se necesita un voto para que el resultado sea un jurado dividido. Además, muchos habitantes del sur de Florida, al igual que estadounidenses en otras partes del país, creen que Trump es víctima de un trato injusto por parte de fuerzas poderosas en la izquierda política.George Cadman, un agente de bienes raíces de 54 años y padre de dos hijos, dijo que no ha seguido de cerca las noticias en los últimos meses. Afirmó que no había oído nada sobre los cargos federales contra Trump, lo que lo convierte, en cierto sentido, en un buen candidato para servir como jurado.El caso se presentó en la división de West Palm Beach del Distrito Sur de Florida, lo que significa que el jurado podría ser seleccionado entre los votantes registrados en el condado de Palm Beach, donde está el resort Mar-a-Lago de Trump. Saul Martinez para The New York TimesPero Cadman, que vive en el condado de Miami-Dade, en el sur, también dijo que apoya a Trump “100 por ciento” y que cree que las investigaciones previas sobre el expresidente tuvieron motivaciones políticas. Tras agregar que cree que la interferencia electoral de Rusia en 2016 y el escándalo sobre Trump y Ucrania fueron engaños, dijo que “sería muy cauteloso al tomar una decisión sobre lo que pienso al respecto”, refiriéndose al nuevo caso contra Trump.(En una llamada telefónica posterior, Cadman dijo que por mucho que le gustaba Trump, planeaba votar por el presidente Biden en 2024, porque el aumento del valor de las propiedades había beneficiado su trabajo como agente de bienes raíces).Muchos de los cubanoestadounidenses del sur de Florida aprendieron por las malas, durante y después de la Revolución Cubana, sobre el impacto de la política incluso en las vidas apolíticas. Y para algunos de los conservadores entre ellos, como Modesto Estrada, un empresario jubilado que llegó a Miami hace 18 años, vale la pena apoyar a Trump como un poderoso freno para los demócratas y las políticas liberales que, según Estrada, están “arruinando el país” pues disuaden a la gente de trabajar.Estrada, de 71 años, señaló que también se había descubierto que Biden y el ex vicepresidente Mike Pence tenían documentos gubernamentales confidenciales en su poder. (Sin embargo, Biden hasta ahora, a todas luces, ya devolvió los documentos a las autoridades tras descubrirlos, al igual que Pence). Al igual que muchas personas entrevistadas, Estrada confesó que le resultaría difícil ser un jurado imparcial en el caso.“Desde mi perspectiva personal, hasta el momento, no tienen nada contra él”, dijo sobre Trump. “Y no le va a pasar nada. No va a ir a la cárcel. El caso se va a desmoronar y eso es lo que espero que suceda”.Así como Estrada afirmó que su experiencia con una dictadura de izquierda había influido en su esperanza de que Trump sea declarado inocente, Viviana Domínguez, de 63 años, se refirió a su propia experiencia en su Argentina natal, la cual estuvo gobernada por una dictadura militar de derecha de 1976 a 1983, cuando expresó su aversión a Trump.Modesto Estrada apoya a Trump. “El caso se va a desmoronar y eso es lo que espero que suceda”, afirmó, sobre los cargos.Saul Martinez para The New York TimesDomínguez, una restauradora de arte que ha vivido en Miami durante 13 años, calificó a Trump como una “vergüenza” y agregó: “Creo que irá a la cárcel, pero no sé si eso sea una ilusión”.Domínguez describió el caso de los documentos y la todavía considerable base de apoyo de Trump, en términos de una inquietante flexibilización de los estándares cívicos. “Vimos todo eso en mi propio país, cuando las mentiras se hicieron cada vez más grandes”, afirmó. “El margen de tolerancia se hizo cada vez más amplio, de modo que nunca veías el límite. Hablaban de moralidad y de la familia, pero eran las personas más corruptas y obscenas del mundo. Es como un estado de locura”.Roderick Clelland, un veterano de la guerra de Vietnam de 78 años, de West Palm Beach, la ciudad más poblada del condado de Palm Beach, dijo que le preocupaban las implicaciones internacionales de lo que sentía que había sido una actitud laxa de Trump hacia los secretos nacionales.“El mundo entero nos está mirando”, afirmó Clelland. “Y algunos de esos documentos sobre otros países… ¿van a confiar en nosotros? La gente ha sido encarcelada por menos que eso. Así que no puedes simplemente violar la ley y salirte con la tuya. Por eso espero que haya un castigo”.Clelland tuvo cuidado de señalar que no odiaba a Trump. “Pero no me gusta su comportamiento y su actitud”, dijo.A pesar de haber votado dos veces por Trump, Starkey, quien es secretaria del Club Republicano de Palm Beaches, dijo que nunca ha sido una gran admiradora. Pero tanto en 2016 como en 2020, no pudo decidirse a apoyar al candidato más liberal. Por estos días está pensando en votar por Nikki Haley, exembajadora de las Naciones Unidas y exgobernadora republicana de Carolina del Sur. Aclaró que solo hablaba a título personal y no en nombre de su club.Sin embargo, Starkey dijo que la acusación formal contra Trump parecía una estrategia partidista en un momento en que la política estadounidense carece de gran parte de la cortesía entre los dos partidos que recuerda con cariño del pasado. Afirmó que esa era una de las razones por las que tendría dificultades si la eligieran para ser un eventual jurado en el caso. “¿Estás segura de que tienes todos los hechos a favor y en contra?”, se preguntó.Starkey dijo que estaba harta del drama que rodeaba la acusación y que sabía que muchas otras personas pensaban igual que ella.“Solo quiero que todo esto desaparezca”, dijo.Richard Fausset es un corresponsal radicado en Atlanta. Escribe sobre política, cultura, raza, pobreza y el sistema penal del sur de Estados Unidos. Antes trabajó para Los Angeles Times, donde fue corresponsal en Ciudad de México. @RichardFausset More