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    Potential Trump V.P. Picks Flock to CPAC, Auditioning for the Spot By His Side

    The South Carolina primary is tomorrow, and Nikki Haley, a former governor of the state, is approaching a critical juncture in her presidential campaign. She is locked in a seemingly desperate struggle against former President Donald J. Trump, the dominant Republican front-runner, facing long odds in her home state as well as in crucial contests on Super Tuesday, March 5.But away from the campaign trail, conservatives near Washington are celebrating Mr. Trump as if he has already secured the Republican presidential nomination. At the influential Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, which began on Wednesday, the question is not which Republican will face off against President Biden in November, but rather who will join Mr. Trump atop the ticket as his vice-presidential running mate.At least four people who will speak at CPAC today are widely seen as contenders in the made-for-television spectacle that Mr. Trump’s potential vice-presidential selection process has become: Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and the entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.And while the conference will conclude on Saturday with the group’s traditional straw poll, for the first time in at least a decade, the survey will include a question about vice-presidential preferences, asking attendees to pick the best running mate for Mr. Trump.The former president has sought to cast an air of inevitability around his candidacy, and pushing a conversation about who will be on the ticket with him in November is one way he has tried to steer attention away from Ms. Haley.Emulating a season of “The Apprentice,” the reality television show he hosted in his pre-presidential life, Mr. Trump and his campaign have for weeks stoked speculation about whom he will pick — highlighting different contenders at different campaign stops, gauging the reaction of his loyal rally attendees and scrutinizing the candidates’ performance as surrogates both on and off the campaign trail.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    DeSantis, in Private Call, Sounds Off on Trump and Conservative News Media

    Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida told supporters in a call on Wednesday that he would not want to be Donald J. Trump’s vice president, suggested it would be a “mistake” for Mr. Trump to consider “identity politics” in making his selection for a running mate and left wide open the door to a 2028 presidential run.“I haven’t ruled anything out,” Mr. DeSantis said of a 2028 presidential run, as he outlined plans to stay involved in politics beyond Florida.In a more than 30-minute call held to thank backers who had volunteered to serve as his presidential delegates, the governor was unusually candid in assessing his failed 2024 campaign a month after he dropped out of the race. He also sounded off on conservative news media outlets that he said had backed the former president over him.He also spoke about “all the baggage Trump has” as a concern for Republicans headed into the fall, but said that President Biden was “going to be the gift that keeps on giving.”And he expressed no regrets about his run for the party’s presidential nomination, though he was frustrated that “the race ended up being an incumbent race.”“The dynamics of the race were, he kept getting indicted, and he drew more support out of sympathy for that,” Mr. DeSantis said of Mr. Trump at one point.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Protesting Biden in Michigan, Gaza Supporters Warn, ‘Don’t Blame Us’ if You Lose

    About 100 people turned out on Tuesday at the University of Michigan to urge Democrats to reject President Biden in the state’s primary election, a political gathering that illustrated both the passion and the limits of the effort to pressure him into calling for Israel to stop waging war in Gaza.The rally, held by a group called Listen to Michigan that is urging voters to cast their ballots for “Uncommitted” against Mr. Biden in next week’s primary, called for Democrats to reject the president in the primary.The speakers in Ann Arbor and a crowd made up mostly of students displayed energy, pronouncing themselves livid at Mr. Biden’s stance on Israel, but when the event began there were so few attendees that they could, and did, all stand in a circle and hold hands.Former Representative Andy Levin of Michigan, a progressive Democrat who was at the gathering, said it would be Mr. Biden’s fault if his policies toward Israel and Gaza led him to lose the general election to former President Donald J. Trump, the likely Republican nominee. Mr. Levin nodded to Michigan’s large population of Arab Americans, whose frustration with Mr. Biden along with discontent among young voters and progressives has raised questions about the president’s standing in the state, a critical presidential battleground.President Biden “needs votes from Arab Americans, from people of color, from progressive Jews and from young people,” former Representative Andy Levin said on Tuesday.Nick Hagen for The New York Times“Don’t blame us,” said Mr. Levin, who along with Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan has become one of the most prominent supporters of the Uncommitted movement. “He needs votes from Arab Americans, from people of color, from progressive Jews and from young people. He only won Michigan by 150,000 votes in 2020, so politically we have a moment where we can raise our voices.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Again Compares Himself to Navalny While Discussing Legal Woes

    Former President Donald J. Trump continued to liken himself to the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny during a town hall in South Carolina on Tuesday, at one point directly comparing a civil fraud judgment against him to the case of an anticorruption activist who died in a Russian prison last week.Halfway through the town hall, the host, Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, asked Mr. Trump how he would come up with the $450 million penalty issued by a New York judge last week.“It is a form of — Navalny,” Mr. Trump said. “It is a form of communism or fascism.”The remark came after a prolonged discussion in which Mr. Trump continued to suggest that his legal travails were somehow equivalent to those of Mr. Navalny, a staunch opponent of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia who was politically persecuted and imprisoned on charges that supporters believed were fabricated in an attempt to silence him.Mr. Trump did not specifically address Mr. Navalny’s death until Monday, when he posted on social media that the situation was reminiscent of his legal problems. The former president faces four criminal cases, all of which he has attributed to President Biden, although Mr. Biden has no oversight over them.During the town hall, Ms. Ingraham asked Mr. Trump to expand on those comments. The former president commended Mr. Navalny for his courage, calling his death “very sad” and saying that Mr. Navalny “was a very brave guy.” He also expressed his belief that Mr. Navalny — who returned to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had been recovering from being poisoned — would have been better served by “staying away and talking from outside of the country.”But Mr. Trump then said that what had happened to Mr. Navalny was happening “in our country too.” He went on to mention his four indictments, which he said were “all because of the fact that I am in politics.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Ex-FBI Informant, Accused of Biden Lies, Said He Had Russian Contacts

    Federal prosecutors portrayed the former informant, Alexander Smirnov, 43, as a serial liar incapable of telling the truth about even the most basic details of his own life.A former F.B.I. informant accused of making false bribery claims about President Biden and his son Hunter — which were widely publicized by Republicans — claimed to have been fed information by Russian intelligence, according to a court filing on Tuesday.In the memo, prosecutors portrayed the former informant, Alexander Smirnov, 43, as a serial liar incapable of telling the truth about even the most basic details of his own life. But Mr. Smirnov told federal investigators that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden.Those disclosures, including Mr. Smirnov’s unverifiable claim that he met with Russian intelligence officials as recently as three months ago, made him a flight risk and endangered national security, Justice Department officials said. Mr. Smirnov had been held in custody in Las Vegas, where he has lived since 2022, since his arrest last week.He was released from custody on Tuesday on a personal recognizance bond after a detention hearing, said his lawyers, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld.Prosecutors did not specify which story Russian intelligence is said to have been fed to Mr. Smirnov, an Israeli citizen. But they suggested they could not believe anything he said. And they had many tales to choose from.The memo describes Mr. Smirnov as a human hall of mirrors: He fed the F.B.I. bogus information about the Bidens and misled prosecutors about his wealth, estimated at $6 million, while telling them he worked in the security business, even though the government could find no proof that was true.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Breaks Silence on Navalny Death, but Doesn’t Condemn Putin

    His winding social media post on Monday contained no reference to Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, who has been widely condemned after the death of one of his most vocal critics, Aleksei A. Navalny.Days after the death of the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny was first reported, Donald J. Trump broke his silence in a social media post on Monday that barely mentioned Mr. Navalny and that did not condemn President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Instead, he used Mr. Navalny’s death to suggest that his own legal battles amounted to political persecution.It was a note he hit first on Sunday, when he shared screenshots of an opinion essay that compared his relationship with President Biden to the one between Mr. Navalny and Mr. Putin.“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” the former president wrote on Truth Social on Monday, using an alternative spelling of Mr. Navalny’s given name. He pointed to what he called “CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction.”But the winding social media post contained no reference to Mr. Putin, who has drawn widespread condemnation from politicians in the United States and abroad amid speculation that he or the Russian government had a hand in Mr. Navalny’s death. Instead, Mr. Trump cited “Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions” in casting the U.S., in all capital letters, as a “nation in decline, a failing nation.”Mr. Trump, who has been indicted in four criminal cases and is facing 91 felony counts, was ordered on Friday to pay about $450 million, after a New York judge found in his civil fraud case that he had conspired to manipulate his net worth. He has repeatedly tried to blame Mr. Biden for his legal problems, though Mr. Biden has no purview over the cases.Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s rival in the Republican presidential primary and his former ambassador to the United Nations, attacked him over his response.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Con su línea de zapatillas doradas, Trump vende algo más que calzado

    ¿Qué gana el expresidente Donald Trump cuando vende tenis a 399 dólares?¿Hay algo más trumpiano que las zapatillas Never Surrender de 399 dólares presentadas el fin de semana en la Sneaker Con de Filadelfia? De toda la mercadería promocionada por el expresidente y actual candidato a la presidencia Donald Trump y otras entidades relacionadas con él en los últimos meses —las barras de oro (de chocolate), los vinos, las NFT de superhéroes—, los tenis son como una hoja de ruta del sistema de valores y la estrategia electoral de Trump en forma sartorial.Son unos tenis altos dorados tan brillantes como las lámparas de araña de Mar-a-Lago, con una bandera estadounidense que envuelve el tobillo, algo así como el bosque de banderas que surge detrás de Trump cada vez que sube a un escenario. Tienen las suelas rojas a juego con sus características corbatas rojas (y con la bandera) y quizá como guiño socarrón a los tacones Christian Louboutin y a la semiología del calzado de lujo. Además, tienen una gran “T” en relieve en el costado y en la lengüeta.Aunque son “atrevidas, doradas y resistentes, como el presidente Trump”, según el sitio web de las zapatillas Trump, y permiten a sus posibles propietarios “formar parte de la historia”, no ofrecen ningún atributo técnico de rendimiento. Aunque tienen una forma similar a las Nike Air Force 1 (¿lo entendiste? ¡Air Force One!), son imitaciones descaradas del original.Resulta tentador desestimar la oferta por considerarla pura ostentación y publicidad con poca sustancia. Eso es lo que hizo Michael Tyler, vocero de la campaña de Biden, que dijo: “Que Donald Trump aparezca para pregonar unas Off-Whites piratas es lo más cerca que volverá a estar del Air Force One en lo que le queda de vida”.También es tentador pensar en ellas como la respuesta de Trump a la presencia en TikTok de la campaña de Biden: un esfuerzo por asociarse con lo cool a través de la cultura de las zapatillas deportivas, por no mencionar la energía y el atletismo del modelo “Just Do It”. Pese a que al propio Trump casi nunca se le ve llevando calzado deportivo, ni haciendo mucho ejercicio.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Gold Trump Sneakers Are About More Than Shoes

    What is Trump really selling when he is selling footwear?Of all the merch hawked by the former president and current presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and related entities over the past few months — the gold (chocolate) bars, the wines, the superhero NFTs — is any of it more Trumpian than the $399 Never Surrender sneakers unveiled over the weekend at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia? They are like a road map to Mr. Trump’s value system and electoral strategy in sartorial form.Gilded hightops as shiny as the chandeliers at Mar-a-Lago, they have an American flag wrapping the ankle like the forest of flags that spring up behind Mr. Trump whenever he takes a stage. They have red soles made to match his trademark red ties (and the flag) and perhaps as a sly nod to Christian Louboutins and the semiology of luxury footwear. Also, there’s a large embossed “T” on the side and on the tongue.While they are “bold, gold and tough, just like President Trump,” according to the Trump sneakers website, allowing potential owners to “be a part of history,” they boast zero technical performance attributes. While they have a shape similar to Nike Air Force 1s (get it? Air Force One!), they are unabashed imitations of the original.It’s tempting to dismiss the offering as all flash and marketing with little substance. That’s what Michael Tyler, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, did, saying, “Donald Trump showing up to hawk bootleg Off-Whites is the closest he’ll get to any Air Force Ones ever again for the rest of his life.”Or to think of them as Mr. Trump’s answer to the Biden campaign’s TikTok presence: an effort to associate himself with the cool embedded in the whole idea of sneaker culture, not to mention the energy and athleticism implied by the “Just Do It” model. Despite the fact that Mr. Trump himself is almost never seen wearing a sneaker, or doing much exercise.Yet the merching of the moment is more dangerous than it may initially appear.There has been a lot of eye-rolling since the sneakers’ debut, and jokes about the fact that, given the millions of dollars in penalties levied on Mr. Trump in his various civil cases, he has to make more money somewhere. And there was a lot of focus on the boos that met his appearance at Sneaker Con. (To be fair, the sneakerhead community is not the market for the kicks since there’s nothing original about them; it’s the MAGA market.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More