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      DeSantis Is Letting Trump Humiliate Him

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      Watching the nascent Republican primary race, I have a sickening sense of déjà vu. As much as I abhor Donald Trump’s opponents, I’m desperate for one of them to prevail. Trump might be easier for Joe Biden to beat, but anyone who gets the Republican nomination has a chance of being elected, and the possibility of another Trump term is intolerable. So it’s harrowing to see Trump abetted, again, by the cowardice of his opponents.Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who was supposed to stop Donald Trump, is deflating before even entering the race, with his poll numbers softening and donors fretting. Trump, meanwhile, seems more buoyed than hindered by his ever-proliferating scandals, and is racking up endorsements at DeSantis’s expense. There are several explanations for why this is happening, including the backlash to Trump’s indictment, DeSantis’s near total lack of charisma, and concern among Republican elites about the sweeping abortion ban he just signed. But there’s another dynamic at work here, and I think it’s the big one: Like Trump’s 2016 rivals, DeSantis is making the mistake of believing that the primary race is about issues, while Trump instinctively understands that it’s about dominance.Dueling super PAC attack ads about Social Security and Medicare illustrate DeSantis’s problem. The ad from the Trump camp is inspired by reporting about DeSantis eating pudding with his fingers on an airplane. Over a nauseating video of a man messily consuming chocolate pudding with his hands, the spot says, “DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements.” But the policy argument is just an excuse for the disgusting visuals; the point is not to disagree with DeSantis, but to humiliate him.The ad from DeSantis’s allies misses this point entirely. It attempts to fact-check the claims in the pro-Trump spot with video of DeSantis promising to protect Social Security, then tries to turn the tables by airing a clip of Trump saying that “at some point” he’ll “take a look” at entitlements. “Trump should fight Democrats, not lie about Governor DeSantis,” the ad continues — whining about Trump’s aggression rather than countering it.This approach didn’t work in 2016 and it’s not working now. Witness the parade of Florida Republicans turning their back on DeSantis and bending the knee to Trump with their endorsements.Republican attempts to outflank Trump from the right, a strategy tried by Ted Cruz in 2016, are also falling flat again. Before Mike Pence’s speech to the National Rifle Association last week, Politico reported that the former vice president was aiming “to get to the right of Donald Trump on guns, bringing debates the two once had behind closed doors in the White House into the public eye.” Pence ended up getting booed by the crowd and then mocked by his former boss.The upcoming Republican primary race, like the last one, is going to be fought on a limbic level, not an ideological one. It will be about who is weak and who is strong. That’s why, if Republicans want a non-Trump candidate in 2024, they’re going to have to find someone willing to tear him down. I understand that this is made difficult by the fact that Republican primary voters often seem excited by Trump’s most repulsive qualities, including his authoritarianism, rapacious greed, incitements to violence, friendly relations with white supremacists and antisemites, and the corruption that’s already led to multiple felony charges. It’s also hard to tar Trump as a loser when so much of the right-wing base believes the fantasy that in 2020 he actually won.Nevertheless, it’s worth thinking about how Trump would take on a candidate like Trump. I don’t think he’d do it with passive-aggressive sniping, like when DeSantis, while attacking the New York district attorney Alvin Bragg for indicting Trump, worked in a dig about the ex-president paying “hush money to a porn star.” Trump, faced with an opponent who had Trump’s own flaws, would just blast away at them all until he found something that stuck.Trump’s approach to DeSantis’s war on Disney is instructive. Until approximately five minutes ago, DeSantis’s willingness to do battle with ostensibly “woke” corporations — even a giant of Florida tourism like Disney — was part of his appeal. But Trump didn’t try to show that he’d be even harder on Disney than DeSantis has been. Instead, he trolled DeSantis by taking Disney’s side, taunting the governor for getting “destroyed” by Disney and speculating that the company would stop investing in Florida. There is, so far, little sign that this is hurting Trump, even though the right has spent months demonizing Disney, a company Tucker Carlson compared to a “sex offender.” Consistent displays of dominance matter more to Republicans than consistent displays of principle.This doesn’t mean that Republican candidates should try to copy Trump’s insult comic act; they’ll almost certainly fail if they do. But they need to be, to use a Trumpish word, tough. As House speaker, Nancy Pelosi managed to repeatedly emasculate Trump not because she imitated him, but because she treated him like a petulant child. Most of Trump’s would-be Republican rivals, on the other hand, are treating him like an unstable father, fantasizing about supplanting him even as they cower in fear of his wrath.An exception is the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who understands that you can’t beat Trump without fighting him. “I don’t believe that Republican voters penalize people who criticize Trump,” he told Politico, adding, “If you think you’re a better person to be president than Donald Trump, then you better make that case.” Whether Christie can make it is hard to say, given that he’s already abased himself before Trump more than once. But he’s right that no one’s going to defeat Trump until they stop acting scared of him.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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      Misinformation Defense Worked in 2020, Up to a Point, Study Finds

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      Nearly 68 million Americans still visited untrustworthy websites 1.5 billion times in a month, according to Stanford researchers, causing concerns for 2024.Not long after misinformation plagued the 2016 election, journalists and content moderators scrambled to turn Americans away from untrustworthy websites before the 2020 vote.A new study suggests that, to some extent, their efforts succeeded.When Americans went to the polls in 2020, a far smaller portion had visited websites containing false and misleading narratives compared with four years earlier, according to researchers at Stanford. Although the number of such sites ballooned, the average visits among those people dropped, along with the time spent on each site.Efforts to educate people about the risk of misinformation after 2016, including content labels and media literacy training, most likely contributed to the decline, the researchers found. Their study was published on Thursday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.“I am optimistic that the majority of the population is increasingly resilient to misinformation on the web,” said Jeff Hancock, the founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab and the lead author of the report. “We’re getting better and better at distinguishing really problematic, bad, harmful information from what’s reliable or entertainment.”“I am optimistic that the majority of the population is increasingly resilient to misinformation on the web,” said Jeff Hancock, the lead author of the Stanford report.Ian C. Bates for The New York TimesStill, nearly 68 million people in the United States checked out websites that were not credible, visiting 1.5 billion times in a month in 2020, the researchers estimated. That included domains that are now defunct, such as theantimedia.com and obamawatcher.com. Some people in the study visited some of those sites hundreds of times.As the 2024 election approaches, the researchers worry that misinformation is evolving and splintering. Beyond web browsers, many people are exposed to conspiracy theories and extremism simply by scrolling through mobile apps such as TikTok. More dangerous content has shifted onto encrypted messaging apps with difficult-to-trace private channels, such as Telegram or WhatsApp.The boom in generative artificial intelligence, the technology behind the popular ChatGPT chatbot, has also raised alarms about deceptive images and mass-produced falsehoods.The Stanford researchers said that even limited or concentrated exposure to misinformation could have serious consequences. Baseless claims of election fraud incited a riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. More than two years later, congressional hearings, criminal trials and defamation court cases are still addressing what happened.The Stanford researchers monitored the online activity of 1,151 adults from Oct. 2 through Nov. 9, 2020, and found that 26.2 percent visited at least one of 1,796 unreliable websites. They noted that the time frame did not include the postelection period when baseless claims of voter fraud were especially pronounced.That was down from an earlier, separate report that found that 44.3 percent of adults visited at least one of 490 problematic domains in 2016.The shrinking audience may have been influenced by attempts, including by social media companies, to mitigate misinformation, according to the researchers. They noted that 5.6 percent of the visits to untrustworthy sites in 2020 originated from Facebook, down from 15.1 percent in 2016. Email also played a smaller role in sending users to such sites in 2020.Other researchers have highlighted more ways to limit the lure of misinformation, especially around elections. The Bipartisan Policy Center suggested in a report this week that states adopt direct-to-voter texts and emails that offer vetted information.Social media companies should also do more to discourage performative outrage and so-called groupthink on their platforms — behavior that can fortify extreme subcultures and intensify polarization, said Yini Zhang, an assistant communication professor at the University at Buffalo.Professor Zhang, who published a study this month about QAnon, said tech companies should instead encourage more moderate engagement, even by renaming “like” buttons to something like “respect.”“For regular social media users, what we can do is dial back on the tribal instincts, to try to be more introspective and say: ‘I’m not going to take the bait. I’m not going to pile on my opponent,’” she said.A QAnon flag on a vehicle headed to a pro-Trump rally in October. Yini Zhang, a University of Buffalo professor who published a study about QAnon, said social media companies should encourage users to “dial back on the tribal instincts.”Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesWith next year’s presidential election looming, researchers said they are concerned about populations known to be vulnerable to misinformation, such as older people, conservatives and people who do not speak English.More than 37 percent of people older than 65 visited misinformation sites in 2020 — a far higher rate than younger groups but an improvement from 56 percent in 2016, according to the Stanford report. In 2020, 36 percent of people who supported President Donald J. Trump in the election visited at least one misinformation site, compared with nearly 18 percent of people who supported Joseph R. Biden Jr. The participants also completed a survey that included questions about their preferred candidate.Mr. Hancock said that misinformation should be taken seriously, but that its scale should not be exaggerated. The Stanford study, he said, showed that the news consumed by most Americans was not misinformation but that certain groups of people were most likely to be targeted. Treating conspiracy theories and false narratives as an ever-present, wide-reaching threat could erode the public’s trust in legitimate news sources, he said.“I still think there’s a problem, but I think it’s one that we’re dealing with and that we’re also recognizing doesn’t affect most people most of the time,” Mr. Hancock said. “If we are teaching our citizens to be skeptical of everything, then trust is undermined in all the things that we care about.” More

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      Cómo hacer que Trump desaparezca

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      Después de llevar más de tres décadas dentro y alrededor de la política, ahora dedico la mayor parte de mi tiempo a lidiar con preguntas políticas en las aulas y en grupos de enfoque. Hay un enigma que me fascina más que los demás: ¿por qué Donald Trump sigue suscitando tanta lealtad y devoción? Y, a diferencia de 2016, ¿puede ganar la candidatura en 2024 un republicano distinto que comparta en gran medida la agenda de Trump, pero no su personalidad?Para responder a estas preguntas, he organizado más de 12 grupos de enfoque con votantes de Trump de todo Estados Unidos; el más reciente fue para Straight Arrow News, el miércoles de la semana pasada por la noche, para entender su mentalidad tras la histórica imputación del expresidente en Manhattan. Muchos se sentían ignorados y olvidados por la clase política profesional antes de Trump, y ahora victimizados y ridiculizados por simpatizar con él. Al igual que los votantes en las primarias republicanas en todo el país, los participantes en los grupos de enfoque siguen respetándolo, la mayoría sigue creyendo en él, casi todos piensan que les robaron las elecciones de 2020 y la mitad sigue queriendo que vuelva a presentarse en 2024.Sin embargo, hay una posible vía para otros aspirantes republicanos a la presidencia.Empieza con una reflexión más detenida sobre sobre las reglas que incumplió y los paradigmas que destruyó Trump en su campaña de 2016, y sobre todos sus errores voluntarios desde entonces. Es un fiel reflejo de los cambios de actitud y económicos que se han producido en Estados Unidos en los últimos 8 años. Y requiere aceptar que vapulearlo e intentar diezmar su base no va a funcionar. Los votantes de Trump están prestando la máxima atención a todos los candidatos. Si creen que la misión de un candidato es derrotar al que consideran su héroe, ese candidato fracasará. Sin embargo, si alguien que aspira a ser candidato o candidata en 2024 los convence de que quiere escucharlos y aprender de ellos, le darán una oportunidad. Marco Rubio y Ted Cruz no entendieron esta dinámica cuando atacaron a Trump en 2016, y por eso fracasaron.De modo que podemos considerar esto un manual de estrategia para los posibles candidatos republicanos, para los votantes de su partido y para los conservadores independientes que quieren a alguien distinto de Trump en 2024; una hoja de ruta estratégica basada en la experiencia con los partidarios de Trump durante los últimos 8 años. Esto es lo que he aprendido de estos grupos de enfoque e investigación.En primer lugar, para vencer a Trump hace falta humildad. Y empieza con reconocer que no puedes ganarte a todos los votantes. No puedes ganarte ni siquiera a la mitad: el apoyo a Trump dentro del Partido Republicano no solo es amplio, sino también profundo. Pero he descubierto, basándome en mis grupos de enfoque desde 2015, que alrededor de un tercio de los votantes de Trump dan prioridad al carácter del país y a las personas que lo dirigen, y eso basta para cambiar el resultado en 2024. No se trata de vencer a Trump compitiendo ideológicamente con él. Se trata de ofrecer a los republicanos el contraste que buscan: un candidato que defienda su agenda, pero con decencia, civismo y un compromiso con la responsabilidad personal y la rendición de cuentas.En segundo lugar, Trump se ha convertido en su propia versión del tan odiado establishment político. Mar-a-Lago se ha convertido en la Grand Central Terminal de los políticos, militantes acérrimos, lobistas y élites desfasadas que han ignorado, olvidado y traicionado al pueblo que representan. Peor aún, con la incesante recaudación de fondos, dirigida a menudo a las personas que menos pueden permitirse donar, Trump se ha convertido en un político profesional que refleja el sistema político para cuya destrucción fue elegido. Durante más de siete años, ha utilizado las mismas consignas, las mismas arengas, las mismas bromas y los mismos lemas. A algunos votantes de Trump les parece bien así. Pero hay una clara forma de atraer a otros votantes republicanos firmemente centrados en el futuro, en vez de volver a litigar por el pasado. Comienza con un simple discurso de campaña en esta línea, más o menos: “Podemos hacerlo mejor. Debemos hacerlo mejor”.En tercer lugar, sé consciente de que el agricultor medio, el pequeño empresario o el veterano de guerra tendrán más peso para el votante de Trump que los famosos y los poderosos. Los avales o los anuncios de campaña de los miembros del Congreso generarán menos apoyos que los testimonios emocionales de personas que, como a muchos partidarios de Trump, les hicieron caer, se levantaron y ahora están ayudando a otras a hacer lo mismo. Solo tienen que ser auténticos —y poder decir que votaron a Trump en 2016 y en 2020— para que no se les pueda pegar la etiqueta del movimiento “Nunca Trump”. Su mejor mensaje: el Trump de hoy no es el Trump de 2015. Con otras palabras: “Donald Trump me respaldó en 2016. Ahora, todo gira en torno a él. Yo no abandoné a Donald Trump. Él me abandonó a mí”.En cuarto lugar, elogia la presidencia de Trump, pero al mismo tiempo critica a la persona. Los grupos de enfoque sobre Trump son increíblemente instructivos para ayudar a diferenciar entre el apasionado apoyo que sus iniciativas y sus logros inspiran a la mayoría de sus votantes y la vergüenza y la frustración que les provocan sus comentarios y su conducta. Por ejemplo, a la mayoría de los republicanos les gusta su discurso duro sobre China, pero les desagrada su actitud intimidatoria en el ámbito nacional. Así que aplaude a su gobierno antes de criticar al hombre: “Donald Trump fue un gran presidente, pero no siempre fue un gran modelo a seguir. Hoy, más que nunca, necesitamos carácter, no solo valor. No tenemos que insultar a la gente para plantear un argumento o marcar la diferencia”.En quinto lugar, enfócate más en los nietos. Millones de votantes de Trump son personas mayores, muy mayores. Adoran a sus nietos, así que habla concretamente de ellos, y sus abuelos también te escucharán: “Confundimos la altisonancia con el liderazgo, la condena con el compromiso. Los valores que enseñamos a nuestros hijos deberían ser los que veamos en nuestro presidente”.La inminente votación sobre el techo de deuda es el gancho perfecto. El aumento del déficit anual con Trump es el tercero mayor, en relación con el tamaño de la economía, de cualquier gestión presidencial estadounidense. Mucho antes de la COVID-19, la Casa Blanca de Trump les dijo a los congresistas republicanos que gastaran más, y ese gasto contribuyó a la actual crisis de deuda. Trump dirá que actuó con responsabilidad fiscal, pero los números no mienten. “No podemos permitirnos estos déficits. No podemos permitirnos esta deuda. No podemos permitirnos a Donald Trump”.En sexto lugar, hay un rasgo de la personalidad sobre el que coinciden casi todos: la aversión a la imagen pía que se da en público mientras en privado se hace gala de la falta de honradez. En una palabra: la hipocresía. Hasta ahora, eso no les ha funcionado a los adversarios de Trump, pero eso es porque los ejemplos no tenían ninguna relevancia personal para sus votantes. Durante su campaña de 2016, Trump criticó a Barack Obama varias veces por sus ocasionales rondas de golf, y prometió no viajar a costa de los contribuyentes. ¿Cuál fue el historial de Trump? Cerca de 300 rondas de golf en sus propios campos en solo cuatro años, que costaron a los esforzados contribuyentes unos 150 millones de dólares en seguridad adicional. Esto quizá parezca una nimiedad, pero si se lleva al escenario del debate, puede ser letal. “Mientras más de la mitad de Estados Unidos gana lo justo para vivir al día, él estaba practicando su juego corto. Y ustedes lo pagaron”.En séptimo lugar, no saldrás elegido solo con los votos de los republicanos. El candidato exitoso deberá atraer también a los independientes. En 2016, Trump prometió a sus votantes que se cansarían de ganar. Pero alejó a los independientes hasta el punto de que abandonaron a los republicanos y se unieron a los demócratas, dándole a Estados Unidos a Nancy Pelosi como presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes en 2018, a Biden como presidente en 2020 y a Charles Schumer como líder de la mayoría en el Senado también en 2020. Un solo escaño en el Senado en 2020 habría paralizado por completo la agenda demócrata. La mayoría de los candidatos avalados por Trump en las reñidas elecciones de mitad de mandato de 2022 perdieron, algo que pocas personas (incluido yo) se esperaban. Si Trump es el candidato en 2024, ¿están seguros los republicanos de que se ganará esta vez a los independientes? Seguramente el expresidente perderá si los republicanos creen que un voto por Trump en las primarias significa que Biden ganará en las generales.Y, en octavo lugar, tienes que penetrar en la caja de resonancia conservadora. Necesitas al menos a una de estas personas de tu parte: Mark Levin, Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, Newt Gingrich y, por supuesto, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity y Laura Ingraham. Gracias a la demanda de Dominion, todos sabemos qué dicen los presentadores de Fox News en privado. El reto es conseguir que sean igual de sinceros en público. Eso requiere un candidato tan duro como Trump, pero más comprometido públicamente con la ideología conservadora tradicional, como acabar con el despilfarro de Washington y la capacidad de sacar el trabajo adelante. “Algunas personas quieren hacer una declaración. Yo quiero hacer un cambio”.Entre los probables rivales republicanos de Trump que aspiran a la candidatura, nadie está cerca aún de hacer todas estas cosas, o alguna de ellas. Ron DeSantis solo ha criticado suavemente a Trump, y ha preferido lanzar un ataque total contra Disney. No pasa nada. Tiene tiempo de sobra para poner orden en sus mensajes. Pero cuando él y sus compañeros se suban al escenario del primer debate republicano, en agosto, tendrán una sola oportunidad para mostrar que merecen el puesto al demostrar que entienden al votante de Trump.Para ser claros, si Trump se presenta con una campaña exclusivamente basada en su hoja de servicios en el gobierno, probablemente gane la candidatura. Hasta ahora, ha demostrado ser incapaz de hacerlo. La mayoría de los republicanos aplauden sus éxitos en materia de economía y política exterior, y su impacto en la burocracia y el poder judicial, sobre todo en comparación con su predecesor y ahora su sucesor.Pero ese no es el Donald Trump de 2023. Muchos dejan de celebrarlo cuando se les pide que evalúen las declaraciones públicas de Trump y su conducta, que sigue manteniendo. En 2016, la campaña consistía en lo que Trump podía hacer por ti. Hoy, consiste en lo que se le está haciendo a él. Si se desquicia cada vez más, o si sus oponentes se centran en sus tuits, sus arrebatos y su personalidad destructiva, un considerable número de republicanos podría elegir a otra persona, siempre y cuando den prioridad a asuntos básicos y de eficacia probada, como unos impuestos más bajos, una menor regulación y menos Washington.Los republicanos quieren casi todo lo que hizo Trump, sin todo lo que Trump es y dice.Frank Luntz es moderador de grupos de enfoque, profesor y estratega de comunicación que trabajó para candidatos republicanos en elecciones anteriores. More

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      How to Make Trump Go Away

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      After more than three decades in and around politics, I now spend most of my time grappling with political questions in the classroom and in focus groups. There is one conundrum that fascinates me above others: Why does Donald Trump still generate such loyalty and devotion? And unlike 2016, can a different Republican win the nomination in 2024 who largely shares Mr. Trump’s agenda but not his personality?To answer these questions, I have hosted more than two dozen focus groups with Trump voters across the country, the most recent for Straight Arrow News on Wednesday night to understand their mind-sets in the aftermath of his historic indictment in Manhattan. Many felt ignored and forgotten by the professional political class before Mr. Trump, and victimized and ridiculed for liking him now. Like Republican primary voters nationwide, the focus group participants still respect him, most still believe in him, a majority think the 2020 election was stolen, and half still want him to run again in 2024.But there is a way forward for other Republican presidential contenders as well.It begins by reflecting more closely on Mr. Trump’s rule-breaking, paradigm-shattering campaign in 2016 and all of his unforced errors since then. It accurately reflects the significant attitudinal and economic changes in America over the past eight years. And it requires an acceptance that pummeling him and attempting to decimate his base will not work. Trump voters are paying laserlike attention to all the candidates. If they think a candidate’s mission is to defeat their hero, the candidate will fail. But if a 2024 contender convinces them that he or she wants to listen to and learn from them, they’ll give that person a chance. Neither Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz understood this dynamic when they attacked Mr. Trump in 2016, and that’s why they failed.So consider this a playbook for potential Republican candidates and for G.O.P. voters and conservative independents wanting someone other than Mr. Trump in 2024, a strategic road map based on informed experiences with Trump voters for the past eight years. This is what I’ve learned from these focus groups and research.First, beating Mr. Trump requires humility. It starts by recognizing that you can’t win every voter. You can’t win even half of them: Mr. Trump’s support within the Republican Party isn’t just a mile wide, it’s also a mile deep. But based on my focus groups since 2015, roughly a third of Trump voters prioritize the character of the country and the people who run it — and that’s enough to change the 2024 outcome. It’s not about beating Mr. Trump with a competing ideology. It’s about offering Republicans the contrast they seek: a candidate who champions Mr. Trump’s agenda but with decency, civility and a commitment to personal responsibility and accountability.Second, Mr. Trump has become his own version of the much-hated political establishment. Mar-a-Lago has become Grand Central Terminal for politicians, political hacks, lobbyists, and out-of-touch elites who have ignored, forgotten and betrayed the people they represent. Worse yet, with incessant fund-raising, often targeting people who can least afford to give, Mr. Trump has become a professional politician reflecting the political system he was elected to destroy. For more than seven years, he has used the same lines, the same rallies, the same jokes and the same chants. That’s perfectly fine for some Trump voters. But there’s a clear way to appeal to other Republican voters firmly focused on the future rather than on re-litigating the past. It starts with a simple campaign pitch along these lines: “We can do better. We must do better.”Third, recognize that the average farmer, small business owner and veteran will hold greater sway with the Trump voter than the famous and the powerful. Having endorsements or campaign ads from members of Congress will generate less support than the emotional stories of people who, just like so many Trump supporters, were knocked down, got back up and are now helping others to do the same. They just need to be authentic — and be able to say that they have voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020 — so the Never Trump label won’t stick. Their best message: the Trump of today is not the Trump of 2015. In other words: “Donald Trump had my back in 2016. Now, it’s all about him. I didn’t leave Donald Trump. He left me.”Fourth, compliment Mr. Trump’s presidency while you criticize the person. Trump focus groups are incredibly instructive in helping differentiate between the passionate support most Trump voters feel for his efforts and his accomplishments and the embarrassment and frustration they have with his comments and his behavior. For example, most Republicans like his tough talk on China, but they dislike his bullying behavior here at home. So applaud the administration before you criticize the man. “Donald Trump was a great president, but he wasn’t always a great role model. Today, more than ever, we need character — not just courage. We don’t need to insult people to make a point, or make a difference.”Fifth, make it more about the grandchildren. Millions of Trump voters are old — really old. They love their grandchildren, so speak specifically about the grandkids and their grandparents will listen as well. “We mistake loud for leadership, condemnation for commitment. The values we teach our children should be the values we see in our president.”The looming debt ceiling vote is the perfect hook. The increase in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-largest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration. Long before Covid, Republicans in Congress were told by the Trump White House to spend more — and that spending contributed to the current debt crisis. Mr. Trump will say he was fiscally responsible, but the actual numbers don’t lie. “We can’t afford these deficits. We can’t afford this debt. We can’t afford Donald Trump.”Sixth, there’s one character trait that unites just about everyone: an aversion to public piety while displaying private dishonesty. In a word, hypocrisy. Until now, that hasn’t worked for Trump’s opponents, but that’s because the examples weren’t personally relevant to Mr. Trump’s voters. During his 2016 campaign, Trump condemned Barack Obama repeatedly for his occasional rounds of golf, promising not to travel at taxpayer expense. What was Trump’s record? Close to 300 rounds of golf on his own personal courses in just four years, costing hardworking taxpayers roughly $150 million in additional security. This may sound minor, but delivered on the debate stage, it could be lethal. “While more than half of America was working paycheck to paycheck, he was working on his short game. And you paid for it!”Seventh, you won’t be elected with Republicans alone. The successful candidate must appeal to independents as well. In 2016, Mr. Trump promised his voters that they would get tired of winning. But he alienated independents to such a degree that they abandoned Republicans and joined Democrats, giving America Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2018, President Biden in 2020, and Majority Leader Schumer in 2020. Just one Senate seat in 2020 would have brought the Democratic agenda to a complete halt. Most of Mr. Trump’s endorsements in highly contested races in 2022 lost in a midterms surprise that few people (including me) anticipated. If Mr. Trump is the nominee in 2024, are Republicans fully confident he will win independents this time? The ex-president surely loses if Republicans come to believe that a vote for Mr. Trump in the primaries means the election of Mr. Biden in the general.And eighth, you need to penetrate the conservative echo chamber. You need at least one of these on your side: Mark Levin, Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, Newt Gingrich and, of course, Tucker, Hannity or Laura. Thanks to the Dominion lawsuit, we all know what Fox News hosts say in private. The challenge is to get them to be as honest in public. That requires a candidate as tough as Mr. Trump, but more committed publicly to traditional conservative ideology like ending wasteful Washington spending — and the ability to get it done. “Some people want to make a statement. I want to make a difference.”Among the likely Republican rivals to Mr. Trump for the nomination, no one is coming close yet to doing some or all of this. Ron DeSantis has only mildly criticized Mr. Trump, preferring an all-out assault on Disney instead. No worries. He has plenty of time to get his messaging in order. But when he and his colleagues step onto the Republican debate stage in August, they will have but one opportunity to prove they deserve the job by proving they understand the Trump voter.To be clear, if Mr. Trump runs exclusively on his administration’s record, he probably wins the nomination. So far, he has proved himself incapable of doing so. Most Republicans applaud his economic and foreign policy successes and his impact on the bureaucracy and judiciary, particularly in comparison to his predecessor and now his successor.But that’s not the Donald Trump of 2023. The cheerleading stops for many when asked to evaluate Mr. Trump’s ongoing public comments and behavior. In 2016, the campaign was about what he could do for you. Today, it’s about what is being done to him. If he becomes increasingly unhinged, or if his opponents focus on his tweets, his outbursts and his destructive personality, a sizable number of Republicans could choose someone else, as long as they prioritize core, time-tested priorities like lower taxes, less regulation, and less Washington.Republicans want just about everything Mr. Trump did, without everything Mr. Trump is or says.Frank Luntz is a focus group moderator, pollster, professor and communications strategist who worked for Republican candidates in previous elections.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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      Así fue la audiencia en la que se formularon los cargos contra Trump

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      Estos son algunos de los momentos más importantes de la comparecencia del expresidente ante la corte.NUEVA YORK — El expresidente Donald Trump se sentó en silencio en la sala del juzgado de Manhattan, el martes, mientras los fiscales formulaban las acusaciones en su contra. El procedimiento fue su primera experiencia como acusado penal.Una transcripción de 32 páginas de la audiencia solo ofrece un indicio de las consecuencias dramáticas de la comparecencia y el largo proceso legal que se avecina. Es uno de los procesos judiciales más esperados del mundo. Y, sin embargo, solo lo vieron de primera mano las pocas decenas de personas que estuvieron presentes en la sala donde se dieron a conocer los delitos que se le imputan a Trump.A continuación, presentamos algunos de los momentos más importantes de la audiencia:La audiencia comienza y Trump hace su declaraciónEL TRIBUNAL: Vamos a instruir al señor Trump.EL SECRETARIO DEL JUZGADO: Donald J. Trump, el Gran Jurado del condado de Nueva York ha presentado la acusación formal 71543 del año 2023 en la que se le imputan los delitos de 34 cargos de falsificación de registros empresariales en primer grado. ¿Cómo se declara ante esta acusación formal: culpable o no culpable?TRUMP: No culpable.En la sala del tribunal, las persianas estaban cerradas cuando Trump entró cerca de las 02:30 p. m., con un traje azul marino, corbata roja y un semblante inexpresivo. Estuvo flanqueado por agentes judiciales armados, mientras caminaba por el pasillo hacia el frente. Se autorizó a los fotógrafos para que entraran al palco del jurado para tomarle una foto, y él giró la cabeza y miró fijamente a las cámaras hasta que los fotógrafos tuvieron que marcharse.La comparecencia de Trump no comenzó de inmediato. Se vio obligado a esperar unos 10 minutos, sentado en silencio en la mesa de la defensa, mientras un abogado que representaba a organizaciones de medios de comunicación pedía que se concediera a los periodistas más acceso al procedimiento. El exmandatario hizo una mueca de burla cuando ese abogado afirmó que se podía confiar en los periodistas profesionales.Cuando el abogado terminó de hablar, el juez Juan Merchan, quien en la transcripción es identificado como “El tribunal”, pidió que Trump compareciera. Al expresidente se le leyeron los cargos que se le imputaban: 34 delitos graves de falsificación de registros empresariales. En la silenciosa sala, Trump se inclinó hacia delante y, hablando por el micrófono de la mesa de la defensa, dijo que era no culpable.Un fiscal presenta el casoSR. CONROY: El acusado, Donald J. Trump, falsificó registros empresariales de Nueva York con el fin de ocultar una asociación delictiva para socavar la integridad de las elecciones presidenciales de 2016 y otras violaciones a las leyes electorales.Chris Conroy, fiscal de la oficina del fiscal del distrito de Manhattan, se levantó y comenzó a detallar los cargos. Se derivan del pago de una suma de dinero para silenciar a una actriz porno, Stormy Daniels, que Michael Cohen, quien era un colaborador de Trump, pagó en el periodo previo a las elecciones de 2016. Trump reembolsó el dinero a Cohen después de ser elegido. Los fiscales acusan al exmandatario de orquestar la creación de registros empresariales falsos relacionados con los reembolsos.La falsificación de registros empresariales solo es un delito grave en el estado de Nueva York cuando se comete con la intención de “cometer u ocultar” otro delito. Al decir que Trump había falsificado registros “para ocultar una asociación delictiva”, Conroy ofreció un posible avance del caso más amplio de la fiscalía contra Trump.Los miembros del equipo de la defensa recibieron copias de la acusación. Trump le entregó una copia a uno de sus abogados, Joseph Tacopina. El exmandatario fue la única persona en la mesa de la defensa que no aceptó una copia.Las recientes publicaciones de Trump en las redes sociales se incorporan al expedienteUn momento extraordinario sucedió cuando Conroy comenzó a referirse a las publicaciones recientes que Trump ha hecho en las redes sociales. El expresidente prometió que en caso de que lo acusaran habría “muerte y destrucción” y publicó lenguaje racista e imágenes amenazantes dirigidas contra el fiscal de distrito Alvin Bragg.SR. CONROY: Nos preocupa mucho el peligro potencial que este tipo de retórica supone para nuestra ciudad, para los posibles jurados y testigos, así como para el proceso judicial.A continuación, Conroy repartió copias impresas de los mensajes de Trump al juez y al equipo de la defensa. El expresidente le dio su copia a Tacopina, pero un minuto después se la pidió de vuelta, haciéndole señas con la mano derecha. Otro de sus abogados, Todd Blanche, se opuso enérgicamente a los comentarios de Conroy sobre las publicaciones en las redes sociales.SR. BLANCHE: Es cierto que el expresidente Trump ha respondido y que lo ha hecho con contundencia. Es cierto que, como parte de esa respuesta, está absolutamente frustrado, molesto y cree que su presencia en esta sala del tribunal es una grave injusticia.Blanche afirmó que Trump “tiene derechos y se le permite pronunciarse públicamente”.Eso pareció incitar a Merchan, quien habló con calma y seriedad, cuando respondió que no tenía la intención inmediata de imponerle una “orden de mordaza” a Trump, en contra de las preocupaciones expresadas recientemente por el equipo jurídico del expresidente. Los fiscales no han solicitado una orden de mordaza.EL TRIBUNAL: Ciertamente, el tribunal no impondría una orden de mordaza en este momento aunque se solicitara. Esas restricciones son las más serias y menos intolerables sobre los derechos de la Primera Enmienda. Eso aplica por partida doble al señor Trump, porque es candidato a la presidencia de Estados Unidos. Así que es evidente que esos derechos de la Primera Enmienda tienen una importancia crítica.Pero Merchan, quien es juez de la Corte Suprema estatal desde 2009, le advirtió a la defensa que hablara con Trump “y cualquier otra persona con la que sea necesario y les recuerden que, por favor, se abstengan de hacer declaraciones que puedan incitar a la violencia o a los disturbios civiles”.La fiscalía detalla las posibles restricciones a TrumpSRA. MCCAW: El acusado no puede proporcionar los materiales que recibe a través del proceso de presentación de pruebas a terceros, lo que incluye a la prensa, y no puede publicarlos en las redes sociales.Mientras Trump seguía sentado en silencio, Catherine McCaw, otra fiscal, le dijo al juez que su equipo estaba trabajando con los abogados de Trump para redactar una orden de protección, un documento que le pondría ciertas restricciones al exmandatario.La fiscal explicó que una de esas restricciones le prohibiría al expresidente publicar material específico del caso en las redes sociales o compartirlo con los reporteros. Si Trump viola alguna de las restricciones establecidas, Merchan decidiría si lo sanciona y cómo hacerlo.Trump vuelve a hablarA medida que se desarrollaba su audiencia de instrucción, Trump se mostraba cada vez más inquieto. Entrelazaba y desentrelazaba los dedos una y otra vez. Cruzaba y descruzaba los brazos. Golpeó la mesa con los nudillos. En una ocasión, infló las mejillas en un suspiro impaciente.Por último, más de media hora después de que hizo su declaración de inocencia, habló de nuevo —tras la indicación de sus abogados—, pero solo para responderle al juez cuando informó sobre su derecho a estar presente en el proceso y de las formas en que podía perder ese derecho.EL TRIBUNAL: Si perturba hasta tal punto que afecte a mi capacidad para presidir este caso y mi capacidad para garantizar que el caso se juzgue de la manera que debe juzgarse para ambas partes, tengo la autoridad para sacarlo de la sala y continuar en su ausencia, ¿comprende?ACUSADO SR. TRUMP: Sí, comprendo.El juez solicita la presencia de TrumpEL TRIBUNAL: Espero que todos los demás acusados comparezcan ante el tribunal, incluso los acusados de alto perfil.Teniendo en cuenta que Trump estaba acusado de delitos no violentos, los fiscales tenían prohibido siquiera solicitar su encarcelamiento. Mientras Merchan se preparaba para dejar ir al expresidente, Blanche insinuó que Trump podría no comparecer a su próxima cita con el tribunal, prevista para el 4 de diciembre. Cuando se le preguntó por su razonamiento, Blanche citó “el increíble gasto y esfuerzo y los problemas de seguridad” que conllevó la comparecencia.El juez reconoció que había sido una empresa enorme para todos los implicados. Pero señaló que faltaba “bastante para diciembre”. Por último, señaló que “en aras de la transparencia y para garantizar la imparcialidad de las normas jurídicas”, iba a discrepar de Blanche. La implicación: en la medida de lo posible, el juez pretende tratar a Trump como a cualquier otro acusado.Cuando se levantó la sesión alrededor de las 03:25 p. m., Trump fue la persona de la mesa de la defensa que se levantó con más lentitud. Se alisó las solapas de la chaqueta de su traje azul, ordenó un montón de papeles que había frente a él y salió de la sala.Embed Only More

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      On Deadline, Decoding the Trump Indictment

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      Michael Rothfeld had just hours to annotate 29 pages of documents related to the charges against Donald J. Trump.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Just after 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, a news release from the Manhattan district attorney’s office landed in the inbox of Michael Rothfeld, an investigative reporter on the Metro desk of The New York Times: The indictment of Donald J. Trump had been unsealed. It was go time.Over the next several hours, Mr. Rothfeld combed through the 16-page indictment charging Mr. Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, a low-level felony in New York State. The charges center on a hush-money deal with the porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. (Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty.) Mr. Rothfeld also scrutinized a 13-page “statement of facts” in which the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, outlined a larger scheme that he said Mr. Trump and others orchestrated during the 2016 campaign to avoid negative press.Mr. Rothfeld, who was part of the team at The Wall Street Journal that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for reporting on hush-money deals made on behalf of Mr. Trump, got to work annotating each document for an interactive Times piece, which allowed readers to see the files alongside expert context. The format was built by Charlie Smart, an editor on the Graphics desk; he started brainstorming for it in mid-March. “We weren’t sure when it would come,” Mr. Smart said of the indictment. “But we wanted to be ready.”As Mr. Rothfeld completed each annotation, Mr. Smart and Dagny Salas, a deputy Metro editor, reviewed it and added it to the article. In addition to the online display, the annotated document appeared in some print issues on Wednesday.In an interview, Mr. Rothfeld shared how he approached the annotation process and why it was beneficial for readers to see the actual documents.After receiving the documents, what was your first step?I skimmed the indictment first. It had a lot of echoes, so I didn’t read every word. All 34 counts were identical, but there were some differences in the types of records Trump was accused of falsifying.Once I had absorbed how the document was structured and what was repeated, I chose one example to annotate and pointed out how the context we were providing also applied to the other charges.Charlie had created a Google Doc, and that’s where I inputted my copy: the page number of the indictment, the section I wanted to highlight and the text of my annotation. The text was edited in the Google Doc before Charlie put it into the actual document.How long did it take you to get the first version of the article published?Not long after getting the documents, we posted them — without any annotations — just to get them up so people could see them. After that, I kept adding annotations. I’ve done a lot of reporting on legal issues and on the Trump hush-money payments, so I already had that knowledge base.Were you able to prewrite any annotations?We couldn’t prewrite anything without knowing what was in the indictment.How did you balance explaining general legal terminology with providing context on details specific to this indictment?I wanted to include some basic things like how this indictment came about, the fact it was voted on by a grand jury made up of regular New Yorkers who had been sitting for months. Then I highlighted the first instance of the particular crime Trump was charged with 34 times and explained that it’s more than a misdemeanor but the lowest felony you can have. I didn’t want to use technical jargon. I wanted people to understand the context and importance in the clearest possible terms.What is the benefit of readers’ being able to see the actual documents?It helps people trust what they’re looking at when they’re reading the actual document versus if they’re just relying on what I was choosing to highlight if I were writing a traditional article. It gives them a better window into the process of what’s happening in the case, with a little expertise to guide them through what they’re looking at.Were you surprised by anything?I was surprised that the second document, the statement of facts, contained a lot of color and narrative. That one was more fun to annotate because I could try to signpost the story being told by the district attorney of how hush money was paid by Trump throughout the 2016 election to various unnamed characters. I could go through the document and say, “OK, this begins the story of Stormy Daniels, who’s here referred to as Woman 2,” so you could follow along as you were reading the document. I felt like a narrator. More

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      How Fox Chased Its Audience Down the Rabbit Hole

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      Listen to This ArticleAudio Recording by AudmOn the evening of Nov. 19, 2020, Rupert Murdoch was watching TV and crawling the walls of his 18th-century mansion in the British countryside while under strict pandemic lockdown. The television hosts at Murdoch’s top cable network, Fox News, might have scoffed at such unyielding adherence to Covid protocols. But Jerry Hall, his soon-to-be fourth ex-wife and no fan of Fox or its conservative hosts, was insisting that Murdoch, approaching his 90th birthday, remain cautious.The big story that day, as it had been every day in the two weeks since the election, was election theft, and now Rudolph W. Giuliani was giving a news conference at the Republican National Committee. With Sidney Powell, the right-wing attorney and conspiracy theorist, at his side, Giuliani, sweating profusely, black hair dye dripping down the side of his face, spun a wild fantasy about Joe Biden’s stealing the election from President Donald J. Trump. Dizzying in its delusional complexity, it centered on a supposed plot by the Clinton Foundation, George Soros and associates of Hugo Chávez to convert Trump votes into Biden votes by way of software from Smartmatic and voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems.Murdoch wasn’t pleased. He had built the most powerful media empire on the planet by understanding what his audience wanted and giving it to them without fear or judgment. But Trump now appeared to be making a serious bid to overturn a legitimate election, and his chaos agents — his personal lawyer Giuliani chief among them — were creating dangerous new appetites. Now Murdoch was faced with holding the line on reporting the facts or following his audience all the way into the land of conspiracy theories. Neither choice was necessarily good for business. At 5:01 p.m. London time, he sent an email to his friend Saad Mohseni — an Afghan Australian media mogul sometimes referred to as the Afghan Rupert Murdoch — from his iPhone. “Just watched Giuliani press conference,” he wrote. “Stupid and damaging.” Shortly after, he sent another email, this one to his Fox News chief executive, Suzanne Scott: “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear. Probably hurting us, too.”Murdoch had for weeks — for years, really — avoided making a choice. Trump and his supporters were already furious at Fox News for being the first network to call Biden the victor in Arizona, and two newer cable networks were offering them a version of reality more fully on Trump’s terms. One of them, Newsmax, was moving up in the ratings while refusing to call Biden the winner. When Murdoch’s own paper, The Wall Street Journal, reported a few days before Giuliani’s news conference that Trump allies were considering pouring money into Newsmax to help it mount a stiffer challenge to Fox, Murdoch alerted Scott to the piece. Fox would have to play this just right, he said in an email. Take Giuliani with “a large grain of salt,” he wrote, but also be careful not to “antagonize Trump further.”The network’s coverage of the Giuliani news conference showed just how impossible this balancing act would be. Immediately afterward, a Fox News White House correspondent, Kristin Fisher, went to the network’s camera position outside the West Wing and fact-checked the allegations. “So much of what he said was simply not true,” she told Fox viewers. Giuliani, she said, provided no hard proof for a claim that “really cuts to the core of our democratic process.” Fox’s opinion hosts, who had been broadcasting the Giuliani-Powell Dominion fantasies to varying degrees themselves — some appearing to endorse them outright — had been complaining internally that the news division’s debunking efforts were alienating the core audience. An executive at the Fox Corporation, the network’s parent company, had recently started a brand protection effort to, among other tasks, “defend the brand in real time.” After Fisher’s segment, the group sent an alert to top news executives. In a follow-up email, Scott vented to a deputy. “I can’t keep defending these reporters who don’t understand our viewers and how to handle stories,” she wrote. “We have damaged their trust and belief in us.” One of Fisher’s bosses told her that she needed to do a better job of “respecting our audience,” and Fisher later complained of feeling sidelined. More

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      Trump’s Indictment Is Karmic Justice, Regardless of the Verdict

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      Finally, here we are: Donald Trump’s first indictment. The 34 felony counts unsealed at his arraignment this week focus on the falsification of business records in the first degree, a low-level felony charge. This indictment may not prove to be the rock-solid legal case one might hope it to be. It neither addresses the gravest allegations leveled at Trump — subverting the vote, attempted coup, rape — nor is it the most potentially persuasive case against him under consideration. Whether the evidence proves strong enough to convict him will be up to legal analysts to parse and ultimately, a jury to decide months from now.But for the moment, let’s appreciate the karmic justice of these particular charges — no matter the outcome. Falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star, brings us full circle to the sleaziness we knew about well before Trump ever set foot in office. In the indictment’s focus on Trump’s financial malfeasance and his flagrant misogyny, the charges recall two pivotal events that took place before his election: his failure to disclose his tax returns and the contemptuous behavior revealed in the “Access Hollywood” tape.Both told us everything we could have expected from a Trump presidency. Both should have stopped Trump from becoming president. And the fact that they didn’t — that roughly half of American voters were willing to overlook Trump’s moral failings in the service of politics — shows why the country is still so intractably polarized. But neither side can claim it didn’t know exactly the kind of person who was elected in the first place.Let’s step back, then, to Trump’s emergence as a presidential candidate in the 2016 election. Anyone who’d been following his antics for decades assumed, wrongly, that nobody would take seriously the prospect of a corrupt businessman, third-tier reality TV showman and object of tabloid ridicule as president.That many Americans nonetheless did take the prospect seriously seemed bound to be undone by those two pre-election events. First, Trump’s refusal to release his tax records was a departure from years of accepted practice. If he had nothing to hide, he would have shared his returns. If he had been telling the truth, he wouldn’t have repeatedly said he intended to share his returns. And if he couldn’t abide by this seemingly innocuous precedent, we knew he would not follow others. And that’s what we got: the blatant graft that marked his term in office, whether it was his rampant financial conflicts of interest, his frequent self-dealings and misuse of the Trump International Hotel and other properties or the taxpayer-funded excesses and shady profit-seeking by members of his extended family.The second event was the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, which revealed a man with such disdain for women that he would respect neither their humanity nor their bodily autonomy. To anyone paying attention, Trump’s vocal contempt for women had been on display in New York and on “The Howard Stern Show” for decades. But “Access Hollywood” made it plain to everyone, immediately before the election, exactly what kind of man they were getting: one who would callously separate mothers from their children at the border and deliberately appoint people to the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade.Perhaps Trump himself recognized the parallel. As The Times reporter Maggie Haberman noted on the day he pleaded not guilty to the charges, “One of the few times Trump has looked as angry as he just did was when he was at the second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton two days after the infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ tape became public in October 2016.”Lying. Cheating, personally and professionally. Financial misdeeds. Sexism. Whatever the eventual outcome of this trial, the moral and political case against Trump now echoes the case against Trump back then.Last Thursday night at the end of a Broadway performance of “Parade,” a musical about the wrongful murder conviction of Leo Frank in Georgia in 1913, the star Ben Platt addressed the audience after the ovations to contrast that woeful history with the rightful indictment of Donald Trump that day. The audience’s resounding cheers in response may have surpassed the considerable applause for the performance itself.Some say the indictment of a former president, however justified, is no cause for celebration. That we should not be happy that a former American president has been charged with a crime. That it sets a dangerous precedent on the road to banana republic-dom.But we should be happy that this president was indicted.Too many years of knowing that Trump’s time in office would deliver on the sleaziness of its promise. Too many years of an endless cycle of revelations and accusations met with impunity have felt like an inconceivable injustice to those of us who continue to believe — against often crushing evidence to the contrary — in the existence of any kind of justice at all. There is, it must be said, a deep satisfaction in knowing that after too many years of suffering through the Trump we got, Trump himself finally has been gotten.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