Pence, Mike

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      Mike Pence, the Indictment and the Chaos of Donald Trump

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      What if he’s president again? Who will be around for that, inside a second Trump administration, when he asks why the military can’t shoot protesters in the legs, or when he wants to withdraw all military dependents from South Korea and throw Asia into an economic crisis?Nobody, outside his supporters, wants to talk about the eventuality — not probable but definitely not impossible — that Donald Trump will be re-elected. His former cabinet secretaries don’t. The people — the foreign ministers and former national security officials — at the Aspen Security Forum don’t.And the closer you get to presidential campaign events, elections can become a kind of dreamscape, a contained universe where meta attacks are signaled yet nothing seems that weird about Mr. Trump’s dominance. After Friday night’s Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines — a fund-raiser for the Iowa Republican Party, held in the city’s convention center — the candidates hosted after-parties off a long hallway, producing an animatronicesque gallery effect.In one room, for about an hour, Mr. Trump stood grinning and shaking hands and posing for photos, with an ever-replenishing line of dozens waiting to get in, and dozens wandering out, ice cream in hand and wearing “TRUMP COUNTRY” stickers. In the next room, Senator Tim Scott, a putting green and cornhole game. In the next, Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami and a live band, with a foursome playing dominoes, red wine on the table. Through another door, at a more subdued valence, you could see Mike Pence talking to little groups of people, mostly older couples, a father and son, a nod, a hand on a shoulder, a photo. Nikki Haley signed books and posters in the hall, and 20-something aides holding red “DESANTIS 2024” signs roamed, directing people to his room, where Republicans threw baseballs at pyramids of Bud Light cans. Step, repeat.This looked fun and vaguely normal — like something from the past. In reality, Mr. Pence is disappearing, politically, before our eyes. Mr. Scott says he can hold only the rioters who were violent, and not Mr. Trump, responsible for the events of Jan. 6. The physical distance between all three of them on Friday night was roughly the distance that separated that mob from Mr. Pence, or the mob from the Senate chamber, that day.That wasn’t that long ago. You can read all about it, across 45 pages in the federal indictment against Mr. Trump for events some of which unfolded in public. We know what happens to people around Mr. Trump. To preserve influence, those hired by him either exist on a total MAGA wavelength, or else have to dodge or lie sometimes to beat back chaos. And in the indictment, the frayed and unnerving interpersonal dynamics abound: Consider the case of Co-conspirator 4, whose description matches Jeffrey Clark, and who prosecutors say kept pressing to send a letter claiming the Justice Department had concerns — or had even found — “significant irregularities” in the 2020 election.It’s hard not to flash back and then forward, to that surreal period when politicians joined the first administration and to think about the even more uncertain future. Recall the photo of Mitt Romney and Mr. Trump eating dinner after the 2016 election; despite having opposed Mr. Trump’s nomination, there was Mr. Romney, offering himself as secretary of state. Mr. Romney’s expression captured a strong public sentiment toward people who joined the Trump administration: at best, it was seen as a slightly embarrassing exposure of the pursuit of power and personal ambition.The last year of the Trump administration concentrated how bad and complex this situation was: The government transformed into a body that had to handle crisis, but also one in which officials’ intentions could not be always known by the public, and one in which the act of joining government service came with deep personal repercussions. The pandemic required, for instance, a massive collaboration across departments and the private sector to produce a vaccine. Things had to stop, or start, with government employees at moments of intense crisis.And, in books, committee depositions and now in this latest indictment, the months after the 2020 election sound especially abysmal — a White House ghost town deserted by people tired of dealing with Mr. Trump and his break with reality about election’s outcome. They left behind a few panicked people who remained grounded in reality like former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Mr. Pence, and then Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and the rest. Again and again, people describe desperate circumstances, arguments about doing things like seizing the voting machines, or trying to persuade Mr. Trump to call off the riot. According to prosecutors, at 7:01 p.m. on Jan. 6, Mr. Cipollone called Mr. Trump and asked him to withdraw his objections to certification; Mr. Trump refused. Would there be more Clarks or Cipollones in a future administration? The idea for many around Mr. Trump is to use a second administration as a path to clearing out parts of the government and reorganizing it around a stronger executive, with true believers underneath him. Jonathan Swan has written extensively about those plans, most recently in an article about the expansive efforts Trump allies want to undertake, like placing the Federal Trade Commission under presidential control, or using Schedule F to fire federal employees. The idea for the next term, in Mr. Trump’s telling, is also retribution.This only ups the anxiety around, basically, who might be involved in such an administration and what the broader American public would tolerate from them. In his book, “Why We Did It,” Tim Miller debates this question with Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former White House communications official. “Governing is happening under him whether we want it to be or not,” she argues, citing the prospect of whatever goon would serve instead of her, which Mr. Miller concedes is true. But, he counters: “This logic is circular. It justifies anything! Alyssa was a flack; she wasn’t securing loose nukes.” She counters again, ticking off different things people had talked Mr. Trump out of: invoking the Insurrection Act during the George Floyd protests or firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper.In these circumstances, the line between “responsible influence, working to contain the worst impulses in private” and “passive bystander” and “amoral chump” is difficult to discern.Mr. Pence’s experience highlights the dangers for the individual and the public. In his book, Mr. Esper describes the way Mr. Pence represented a sane, normal presence in meetings. But, Mr. Esper writes, he could never discern how much their boss even considered the vice president’s views: “He was part cheerleader and part sounding board, though I could never tell how much influence he really had with Trump. He often didn’t say much in meetings that the president attended, and he rarely disagreed with Trump in front of us.”Mr. Trump’s first vice president ended up trapped inside the Capitol with a mob calling for his death by hanging. Now people talk about the other Republican presidential candidates as though they might be his running mate this time around, as though all this didn’t just happen. And now, as Mr. Pence runs for president himself, the reward for coming through in a central moment of American history is a kind of surround-sound aversion.At first, at that dinner in Iowa last week, Mr. Pence talked brightly, in the expectation of applause, which came, sort of, at muted levels, muted even for the kinds of things — like his abortion politics — that resulted in applause for others.This was tepid, indifferent clapping, a kind of subtle hell worse than booing, where people who knew you have forgotten you. Mr. Pence kept talking, the delivery staying even and polished, the brightness fading, talking about restoring civility. “So I thank you for hearing me out tonight,” he said, almost somber.On Tuesday evening, Mr. Pence was one of few Republican candidates to put the situation plainly: “Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.” At the moment, Mr. Pence has not yet qualified for the debates, and is polling badly.As Mr. Trump told him when he balked at the idea of returning votes to the states, according to the indictment, “You’re too honest.”Katherine Miller is a staff writer and editor in Opinion.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Trump Jan. 6 Indictment Relies Heavily on House Panel’s Work

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      The special House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol created the road map for the charges against the former president.In taking the monumental step of charging a former president with attempting to steal an American election, Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel, relied on an extraordinary narrative, but one the country knew well.For a year and a half, the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol introduced Americans to a sprawling cast of characters and laid out in painstaking detail the many ways in which former President Donald J. Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. In doing so, it provided a road map of sorts for the 45-page indictment Mr. Smith released on Tuesday.“In a lot of ways, the committee’s work provided this path,” said Soumya Dayananda, who served as a senior investigator for the House Jan. 6 panel. “The committee served as educating the country about what the former president did, and this is finally accountability. The congressional committee wasn’t going to be able to bring accountability; that was in the hands of the Department of Justice.”Mr. Smith’s document — while far slimmer than the 845-page tome produced by the House investigative committee — contained a narrative that was nearly identical: An out-of-control president, refusing to leave office, was willing to lie and harm the country’s democracy in an attempt to stay in power.With televised hearings drawing millions of viewers, the panel introduced the public to little-known lawyers who plotted with Mr. Trump to keep him in power, dramatic moments of conflict within the Oval Office and concepts like the “fake electors” scheme carried out across multiple states to try to reverse the election outcome. Its final report laid out specific criminal charges that a prosecutor could bring against the former president.But Mr. Smith, with the prosecutorial heft of the Justice Department behind him, was able to unearth more evidence, including new details of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign against Vice President Mike Pence to use his role certifying the election on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn the results. At one point, according to the indictment, Mr. Trump told a balking Mr. Pence: “You’re too honest.”His indictment detailed how, when warned by a White House lawyer that Mr. Trump’s plan to refuse to leave office would lead to “riots in every major city,” Jeffrey Clark, then a Justice Department official, retorted, “That’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.” And it described how Mr. Trump implied to a top general that he knew he had lost the election, saying he would leave certain problems “for the next guy.”The Justice Department sought and received transcripts of the committee’s hundreds of interviews, but then advanced the investigation beyond what Congress had been able to accomplish. Its officials obtained at least a dozen more key interviews than Congress could, by winning court rulings to pierce through executive and attorney-client privileges that witnesses, including Mr. Pence, had previously invoked against testifying.But ultimately, Mr. Smith brought charges that had been recommended by the committee, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an act of Congress and conspiracy to make a false statement. He added an accusation of deprivation of rights under the color of law.“The Department of Justice’s indictment confirms the work of the committee,” said Thomas Joscelyn, another Jan. 6 committee staff member who wrote large portions of the panel’s final report.Over 18 months of work, the Democratic-led House committee assembled evidence that Mr. Trump first lied about widespread election fraud, despite being told his claims were false; organized false slates of electors in states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. as Mr. Trump pressured state officials, the Justice Department and Mr. Pence to overturn the election; and, finally, amassed a mob of his supporters to march on the Capitol, where they engaged in hours of bloody violence while Mr. Trump did nothing to call them off.The indictment continuously repeats evidence revealed during the course of the congressional inquiry, including the attempts of Mr. Trump and lawyers working for him to pressure local election officials in Georgia, Arizona and other states.The congressional panel also named several other Trump allies — including the lawyers Rudolph W. Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro and Mr. Clark — as potential co-conspirators with Mr. Trump in actions the committee said warranted Justice Department investigation. Mr. Smith listed six unidentified co-conspirators who worked with Mr. Trump to try to overturn the election whose actions were identical to the lawyers named in the committee’s report.As he read through the indictment on Tuesday, Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the Jan. 6 panel, said he circled new bits of evidence in the document that stood out to him. But over and over, he saw a familiar narrative.“Many of the crucial facts that surfaced during the Jan. 6 investigation reappear in this indictment,” Mr. Raskin said. “We told this story in time for these events not to be buried in ideology and deceit. It feels to me like a powerful vindication of the rule of law in America. And that’s what we were insisting on.” More

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      After Indictment, DeSantis Suggests Trump Can’t Get a Fair Trial in D.C.

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      Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raced to respond to news that former President Donald J. Trump had been indicted a third time not by opining one way or the other on the new federal charges, but by leveling an unusual attack at residents of the District of Columbia, where the case is being prosecuted.Suggesting that Mr. Trump could not get a fair trial if the jurors were residents of the nation’s capital, an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Mr. DeSantis called for enacting reforms to let Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, D.C. to their home districts.“Washington, D.C. is a ‘swamp’ and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality,” Mr. DeSantis wrote on Twitter. “One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicization of the rule of law. No more excuses — I will end the weaponization of the federal government.”The judge assigned to Mr. Trump, who was indicted on charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is Tanya S. Chutkan, a D.C. District Court judge who has routinely issued harsh penalties in Jan. 6-related cases against people who stormed the Capitol.The Republican candidates, who have sought to overtake the former president’s substantial lead in early polls with little success, have campaigned amid a backdrop of Mr. Trump’s legal battles that have sucked up valuable airtime and dominated media coverage. Here’s what the others said on Tuesday: Former Vice President Mike Pence, who was present at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and was the target of some rioters — and whom the indictment describes as a key target of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 election — said that the indictment “serves as an important reminder: Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.”Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, in a statement to The Times, echoed a common refrain among Republicans: that the Justice Department, under the Biden administration, had been weaponized against Mr. Biden’s political opponents. He referenced the case against Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden’s son, and said, “We’re watching Biden’s D.O.J. continue to hunt Republicans while protecting Democrats.”Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur and one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal defenders in the 2024 field, called the indictment “un-American.” He sought to absolve Mr. Trump of any responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and reiterated his previous promise that, if elected, he would pardon Mr. Trump. “The corrupt federal police just won’t stop until they’ve achieved their mission: eliminate Trump,” he said, and added: “Trump isn’t responsible for what happened on Jan 6. The real cause was systematic and pervasive censorship of citizens in the year leading up to it.”Former Representative Will Hurd of Texas, who has refused to pledge his support to Mr. Trump if he is the eventual nominee, was the first candidate to respond to the new indictment. “Let me be crystal clear: Trump’s presidential bid is driven by an attempt to stay out of prison and scam his supporters into footing his legal bills,” Mr. Hurd wrote. “His denial of the 2020 election results and actions on Jan. 6 show he’s unfit for office.”Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who is running an explicitly anti-Trump campaign, reiterated his earlier calls for Mr. Trump to quit his campaign, calling him “morally responsible for the attack on our democracy.” Mr. Hutchinson said that if Mr. Trump does not drop out of the race, “voters must choose a different path.” More

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      For Republican Candidates, Iowa G.O.P. Dinner Is a Hands-Off Trump Event

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      Almost every one of the former president’s 13 rivals who attended declined to go after the primary’s front-runner. He did not return the favor.Candidate after candidate at an Iowa Republican dinner on Friday avoided so much as mentioning the dominant front-runner in the race, former President Donald J. Trump.But when Mr. Trump took the stage after more than two hours of speeches by his lower-polling rivals, it took him less than three minutes to unleash his first direct attack of the night on his leading challenger, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Mr. Trump not only suggested that Mr. DeSantis was an “establishment globalist” but called him “DeSanctis,” which in Mr. Trump’s argot is short for the demeaning nickname DeSanctimonious and is so well-known that most attendees clearly got the reference. “I wouldn’t take a chance on that one,” Mr. Trump joked.The crowd of more than 1,200, which had warmly welcomed Mr. DeSantis when he spoke earlier, laughed and applauded throughout Mr. Trump’s riffs.In contrast, Mr. DeSantis hadn’t mentioned the former president at all. The one speaker who did criticize Mr. Trump, former Representative Will Hurd of Texas — who is so far from contention that he’s not even attempting to qualify for the first Republican debate next month — was booed off the stage.The dinner served as yet another reminder of Mr. Trump’s hold over Republican voters, despite his loss in 2020, the party’s struggles in the 2022 midterms and the weighty criminal charges he faces.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is running a distant second in the polls, well behind the former president.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesHosted by the Republican Party of Iowa, the event brought together 13 candidates for the nomination, from Mr. Trump to challengers like Mr. DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina. Also appearing were former Vice President Mike Pence, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and long shots such as the media commentator Larry Elder, who, in keeping with the general theme of the evening, referred to himself as a “Trump clone.”Each candidate spoke for 10 minutes to attendees at an event center in Des Moines, with Mr. Trump the last to appear. Organizers had said they would cut off the microphone of anyone who went over the time limit.They proved as good as their word when the evening’s second speaker, former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, breached the 10-minute mark and had to deliver the final words of his speech to a dead microphone with the country song “Only in America” playing loudly over him. (Mr. Hutchinson is polling at around 1 percent.)As the race takes shape five months ahead of the crucial Iowa caucuses, Mr. Trump is surging ahead of a fractured field of rivals who are largely reluctant to criticize him, cowed by his fiercely loyal base.But Mr. Trump’s legal troubles could still provide an opening for one of his rivals. The former president has now been indicted twice, and major new charges were added to one of those cases on Thursday. He also is expected to face two additional criminal cases. So far, however, the charges against him have seemed to coalesce Republican voters around his candidacy At the dinner, only Mr. Hurd, a former C.I.A. officer, dared to mention the charges, and he also contradicted Mr. Trump’s false assertion that he had won the 2020 election.“One of the things we need in our elected leaders is for them to tell the truth, even if it’s unpopular,” Mr. Hurd said. “Donald Trump is not running to make America great again. Donald Trump is not running for president to represent the people that voted for him in 2016 or 2020. Donald Trump us running to stay out of prison.”The vast majority of the crowd did not agree. Boos rang out, and some attendees clattered their silverware to drown him out, a stark illustration of the risks of going after the former president.“Thank you, Will,” said the next speaker, Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami. “You just made it very easy for me.”Still, some voters said they had appreciated Mr. Hurd’s willingness to walk into the lion’s den.“I honestly think that it took a lot of courage to say what he said about Trump at the end of there,” said Caden Mohr, 19, an educator from Eagle Grove, Iowa, who is leaning toward supporting Mr. Trump.But beyond that tense moment, even veiled references to Mr. Trump were rare.In one instance, Mr. Pence, who served as Mr. Trump’s vice president but fell out with him — and his base — over the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, warned voters to “resist the politics of personality and the siren song of populism unmoored from conservative values.”Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa also spoke at the dinner, to a standing ovation.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesIf anyone is to stop Mr. Trump’s growing momentum, it may have to happen in Iowa, where Mr. Trump has feuded with the popular Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican who received a standing ovation when her name was mentioned by another speaker for the first time. Mr. Trump has also skipped events held by influential evangelical Christian leaders.Mr. DeSantis, in particular, has sought to capture the state’s evangelical voting bloc, running to Mr. Trump’s right on social issues and hitting him on his past support for gay rights. After fund-raising struggles and staff layoffs, Mr. DeSantis chose to begin a “reset” of his campaign with an Iowa bus tour this week.“We’re doing all 99 counties in Iowa,” Mr. DeSantis told the crowd, which gave him a deafening standing ovation as he concluded his remarks. “You’ve got to go meet the folks, so you’ll see me everywhere.”But Mr. Trump continues to hold a commanding lead in Iowa polls. A recent survey by Fox Business showed him leading the field with 46 percent of the vote, followed by Mr. DeSantis at 16 percent and Mr. Scott at 11. This week, Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Scott tussled over how the history of slavery is taught in Florida schools, as Mr. Scott seeks to supplant Mr. DeSantis as the leading alternative to the former president.Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, whose Iowa poll numbers have increased and who is now challenging Mr. DeSantis, was among the 13 candidates who spoke.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesOf the major Republican candidates, only Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, declined to attend the G.O.P. dinner on Friday. Mr. Christie has said he is not competing in Iowa, pinning his hopes on New Hampshire and South Carolina.Also appearing at the dinner were Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, the pastor Ryan Binkley and the businessman Perry Johnson.The crowd’s attention clearly drifted depending on the speaker.When Mr. Johnson mounted the stage an hour into the dinner, dozens of attendees left their tables, presumably to visit the bar or use the bathroom.One of the biggest standing ovations of the night was saved for Mr. Ramaswamy, a wealthy political newcomer who is campaigning aggressively in the early nominating states and on Friday promised that he stands for “revolution,” not reform.Teresa and David Hoover, a married couple from Marshalltown, Iowa, emerged captivated by Mr. Ramaswamy, saying he had a unique message for reaching future generations.“When we talk to our kids and our grandkids, he’s right on the money — they’re lost,” Ms. Hoover, 65, said. “They need to know what it means to be Americans again.”After the speeches, the campaigns hosted guests in hospitality suites.In Mr. DeSantis’s suite, staffers for his super PAC set up pyramids of cans of Bud Light, a company the governor has attacked for a marketing campaign that featured a transgender social media influencer.The beers weren’t for drinking. Instead, guests were offered buckets of baseballs to hurl at them.Ruth Igielnik More

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      Fact-Checking Mike Pence on the Campaign Trail

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      The former vice president has made misleading claims about abortion, fiscal policy and military spending.Since beginning his long-shot presidential campaign in June, former Vice President Mike Pence has struggled to gain traction among Republican primary voters.Mr. Pence has consistently polled in the single digits behind the two leading contenders: his onetime running mate, former President Donald J. Trump, and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. The former vice president has broken with them most starkly on their approaches to Social Security and Medicare. He has also carved out clear positions supporting a 15-week national abortion ban and wholeheartedly backing American involvement in the war in Ukraine.Mr. Pence has made some inaccurate claims along the way. Here’s a fact check of some of his recent remarks on the campaign trail.AbortionWhat Mr. Pence Said“I did, this week, call on every other candidate for the Republican nomination to support a minimum standard of a 15-week ban on abortion at the national level that would align American law with most of the countries in Europe that literally ban abortion after 12 to 15 weeks. Our laws at the national level today are more aligned with North Korea, China and Iran than with other Western countries in Europe.”— in a June interview on Fox News SundayThis is misleading. Mr. Pence’s comparison is overly simplistic and glosses over how abortion laws in Europe work in practice. It is also worth noting that many European countries are moving toward relaxing abortion restrictions, not imposing additional ones, as The Upshot has reported.Of some four dozen countries in Europe, almost all have legalized elective abortion before 10 to 15 weeks of pregnancy. All of these countries allow abortions after the gestational limit if the mother’s life is in danger and about half do so for cases involving sexual violence — two exceptions that Mr. Pence has said he also supports. But many also allow for broader exceptions, like the socioeconomic circumstances or mental health of the mother, which Mr. Pence’s proposal does not include.In Britain, for example, an abortion must be approved by two doctors, but those requests are generally granted up to 24 weeks. In Denmark and Germany, exceptions for gestational limits of 12 weeks are made for mental and physical health as well as living conditions.At least three countries also have more permissive gestational cutoffs than Mr. Pence’s proposal: Iceland at 22 weeks, the Netherlands at 24 weeks and Sweden at 18 weeks.In contrast, China allows elective abortions without specifying gestational limits in its national laws, according to the World Health Organization. China also has said in recent years that it will aim to reduce the number of “medically unnecessary” abortions, and at least one province has prohibited abortions after 14 weeks.North Korea’s laws on abortion are unclear. In 2015, the authorities issued a directive barring doctors from performing abortions, according to the World Health Organization, but “there are no documents after 2015” on the legality of the procedure.In the United States, after the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion last summer, the legal status of abortion varies widely from state to state. In some, the procedure is banned with no exceptions, and in others it is enshrined as a right with no gestational limits. A spokesman for Mr. Pence cited nine such states as exceptionally nonrestrictive.Fiscal policyWhat Mr. Pence Said“Well, first off, look, Joe Biden’s policy on our national debt is insolvency. And, sadly, my former running mate’s policy is identical to Joe Biden’s. Both of them say they’re not even going to talk about common sense and compassionate reforms to entitlements to spare future generations of a mountain range of debt.”— in the Fox News Sunday interviewThis is exaggerated. Asked about his calls to overhaul Social Security and Medicare, Mr. Pence criticized Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Biden’s approaches to the social programs as irresponsible. While both have said they would not cut benefits, only Mr. Biden has proposed tax increases to shore up both programs. But equating that position to one of accepting total insolvency is overstated.Currently, Social Security and Medicare both face financial shortfalls. The fund that pays for Social Security retirement benefits is projected to be depleted by 2033, and the fund that pays hospitals for Medicare patients will be exhausted in 2031. At those points, the funds will be able to pay for only 77 percent of retirement benefits and 89 percent of scheduled fees to hospitals.During the 2020 campaign, Mr. Biden proposed increasing taxes on high-income earners to pay for additional Social Security benefits. The extra funding would reduce the program’s financial shortfall, though the revenue would not close the gap entirely. While his latest presidential budget, released in March, does not mention that proposal, it does include a plan to extend the solvency of Medicare by 25 years by imposing higher taxes on the wealthy.Mr. Trump’s position on social safety net programs is a bit harder to pin down. In January 2020, he said he would be willing to consider cuts to the social safety nets “at some point” — though he quickly tried to walk back his comments and vowed to protect Social Security. His last presidential budget proposal, in February 2020, did not cut benefits to either program, but sought Medicare savings through a dozen tweaks like reducing payments to providers and reducing the cost of prescription drugs.More recently, Mr. Trump vowed in a speech in March at the Conservative Political Action Conference that “we are never going back” to proposals to raise the Social Security retirement age or cut Medicare benefits. But Mr. Trump has not yet outlined his stance on either program in more detail or addressed their solvency issues in this campaign cycle.The Pence campaign argued that neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden has a current plan for Social Security, and that Mr. Biden’s plan for Medicare just delays the financial shortfall.Mr. Pence has made misleading claims about abortion, fiscal policy and military spending.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesClassified documentsWhat Mr. Pence Said“I mean, when I informed the Department of Justice that we had classified materials potentially in our home, they were at my home. The F.B.I. was on my front doorstep the next day. And what we found out was that, when Joe Biden apparently alerted the Department of Justice, 80 days later, they showed up at his office.”— in a CNN town hall in JuneThis is exaggerated. Upon the discovery of classified documents in their personal residences, Mr. Pence and Mr. Biden both cooperated with government inquiries. Mr. Pence has a point that the Justice Department’s responses to the discoveries were not identical, but he is overstating the differences.In Mr. Biden’s case, the searches occurred a few weeks — not three months — after the discovery of classified documents. In Mr. Pence’s case, the search occurred about three weeks later.On Nov. 2, lawyers for Mr. Biden discovered classified documents at the offices of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank in Washington. On the same day, according to Biden administration officials, the lawyers alerted the National Archives and Records Administration, which is responsible for securing such documents. The next day, the National Archives retrieved the documents and referred the matter to the Justice Department. The F.B.I. searched the think tank in mid-November.On Dec. 20, Mr. Biden’s aides discovered a second set of classified documents at his home in Wilmington, Del. The same day, they alerted the U.S. attorney leading the investigation about the discovery. A month later, on Jan. 20, the F.B.I. searched the residence and seized additional documents. And on Feb. 1, the F.B.I. searched Mr. Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., but did not find additional classified documents.The discovery of classified documents in Mr. Biden’s possession prompted aides for Mr. Pence to search his home in Indiana out of caution. They found about a dozen documents with classified markings on Jan. 16 and alerted the National Archives to the discovery in a letter dated Jan. 18. The Justice Department, rather than the records agency, then retrieved the documents from Mr. Pence’s home on Jan. 19. Nearly a month later, on Feb. 10, the F.B.I. searched Mr. Pence’s home and found one additional document.The Pence campaign argued that the Justice Department, in directly requesting the documents from Mr. Pence, bypassed the standard procedures, which did not occur in Mr. Biden’s case.Unlike the Biden and Trump cases, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland did not appoint a special counsel to investigate Mr. Pence’s handling of classified materials. The Justice Department has also declined to prosecute Mr. Pence while the inquiry into Mr. Biden remains ongoing.Funding for the militaryWhat Mr. Pence Said“Since Joe Biden took office, he’s been working to cut military spending.”— at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa in JulyThis is false. Mr. Biden’s annual budgets have generally asked for more funding for the military, and actual spending has increased each year.Mr. Biden’s first budget, released in 2021, proposed $715 billion for the Pentagon, essentially keeping funding level. That was a 1.6 percent increase from the previous year and a 0.4 percent decrease when adjusted for inflation. In December of that year, he signed into law a $770 billion defense package.After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Mr. Biden’s proposals and congressional appropriators amped up military spending even more.The budget he released in 2022 requested $773 billion in military spending, a nearly 10 percent increase from the previous year. He eventually signed into law an $858 billion spending policy bill.And Mr. Biden’s latest budget, released in March, asked for $842 billion for the military, a 3.2 percent increase from the previous year, and $886 billion total for national defense. That legislation is currently going through the appropriations process in Congress. The Pence campaign argued that this amounted to a cut, as the rate of inflation outstrips the rate of increase.At the Iowa event, Mr. Pence cited Mr. Biden’s debt ceiling deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as an example of a proposed 1 percent cut to the military. Under that deal, military spending is set at the president’s proposed amount of $886 billion and would rise to $895 billion in 2025. But all spending, for both the military and domestic programs, would be subject to a 1 percent cut if Congress does not pass annual spending bills by January.We welcome suggestions and tips from readers on what to fact-check on email and Twitter. More

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      Which Presidential Candidates Are Leading the 2024 Money Race?

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      Federal disclosures on Saturday provided a first glimpse of the money race between the presidential candidates for 2024, showing who has amassed the most campaign cash so far. Cash on Hand on June 30 (in millions) Donald J. Trump $22.5 Tim Scott 21.1 Joseph R. Biden Jr. 20.1 Ron DeSantis 12.2 Vivek Ramaswamy 9.0 + […] More

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      Warning Signs for DeSantis and Poor Showing by Pence in 2024 Campaign Filings

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      Warning signs for Ron DeSantis were among the biggest developments of the latest campaign filings, which created a fuller financial picture of the 2024 field.As a fuller financial picture of the 2024 presidential race emerged with Saturday’s campaign filing deadline, trouble appeared to lurk below the surface for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Despite a strong overall fund-raising total of $20 million, Mr. DeSantis is spending hand over fist, and his dependence on large donors suggests a lack of grass-roots support. Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign recorded $17.7 million in fund-raising, nearly all of which was transferred from another committee that will not report its donors until later this month.In the meantime, President Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised almost as much money as all of the Republican candidates for president combined.Some of the more modest Republican earners — such as Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador — appear to have solid support and lean campaign operations built for the long haul. About a third of the $1.6 million haul by former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey came from smaller donors, which is high for Republicans and could speak to relatively broad appeal. Warning signs emerged for Republicans beyond Mr. DeSantis. Former Vice President Mike Pence brought in a paltry $1.2 million in contributions, raising questions about whether he can draw meaningful backing among Republicans.Then there are the self-funded candidates, whose campaigns will last as long as they are willing to spend their own fortunes — and for now at least, they are certainly spending a lot.Here are some initial takeaways from the filings, which detail fund-raising and spending from April 1 to June 30.DeSantis is reliant on big money … and he’s spending it fast.In the six weeks between his entry into the race and the end of the quarter, Mr. DeSantis raised $19.7 million for his campaign, $16.9 million of which came from contributions over $200, a sign of his dependence on big-dollar contributions.He is also spending that money — quickly.His filings Saturday showed that his campaign spent nearly $7.9 million in those six weeks. Top expenditures included $1.3 million earmarked for travel (several vendors appear to be private jet rental services); more than $1 million for payroll; and more than $800,000 apiece for digital fund-raising consulting, media placement and postage.It is a “burn rate” of about 40 percent, which is on the high end compared with the other Republican candidates. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina reported raising nearly $5.9 million in the second quarter, and spent $6.7 million. But he had more of a cushion: He carried $22 million from his Senate campaign into his presidential run.Mr. DeSantis reported $12.2 million in cash on hand at the end of June; Mr. Scott had $21 million.A full picture of Trump’s war chest is not yet clear.Mr. Trump is the runaway leader in polls of Republican candidates, and he has ample financial resources and fund-raising ability. But his exact cash situation is complicated.This month, the Trump campaign said the former president had raised more than $35 million in the second quarter through his joint fund-raising committee, which then transfers the money to his campaign and to a political action committee.His campaign’s filing on Saturday reported a total of $17.7 million in receipts — which includes contributions, transfers and refunds — almost all of which came in transfers from the joint fund-raising committee.Where is the rest of the reported $35 million? The joint fund-raising committee is not required to file its report until the end of the month. The New York Times reported last month that Mr. Trump has in recent months steered more of the money from the joint committee into the PAC, which he has used to pay his legal bills.Pence joins the stragglers.Bringing up the rear of the Republican pack are former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who raised about $500,000 in the second quarter, and Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman, who raised just $270,000.While these long-shot candidates were not expected to raise tons of money, observers might have expected more from former Vice President Mike Pence, who reported just $1.2 million in contributions.Mr. Pence has also spent very little — just $74,000, his filing shows. His campaign has not said whether he has reached the threshold of 40,000 unique donors, one of the requirements to appear on the Republican debate stage on Aug. 23.Self-funding candidates are also burning through cash.On Friday, the campaign of Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a wealthy former software engineer, filed its quarterly report, showing that he had raised $1.5 million in contributions and that he had lent $10 million to his campaign.Mr. Burgum’s campaign spent more than $8.1 million last quarter, including an eye-popping $6 million in advertising, the filings show. He had $3.6 million in cash on hand at the end of the month.Another Republican candidate, the wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, reported $2.3 million in contributions last quarter, as well as $5 million in loans from himself. Mr. Ramaswamy has lent his campaign $15.25 million since he entered the race in February; he has said he will spend $100 million of his own money on his bid.He may need to if he keeps up the spending. He spent more than $8 million from April through June, including $1.5 million on media placement and hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel. More