Presidential Election of 2024

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      Trump Stands by Defense Pick Who Says Encounter With Woman Was Not Sexual Assault

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      A detailed memo sent to the Trump transition team claims the incident occurred when Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for defense secretary, spoke in Monterey, Calif., in 2017.President-elect Donald J. Trump has told advisers he is standing by his nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, after the transition team was jolted by an allegation he had sexually assaulted a woman in an interaction he insists was consensual.Mr. Trump made his view plain to aides after a conversation with Mr. Hegseth days ago, after the team learned that a woman had accused him of assault in 2017, according to two people briefed on the discussion. They also learned that Mr. Hegseth had entered into a financial settlement with the woman that had a confidentiality clause.On Sunday, Steven Cheung, the president-elect’s communications director, did not address Mr. Trump’s thinking, but said, “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his administration.”He added, “Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation” by the Senate.Last week, the Monterey Police Department in California said it had investigated an allegation of sexual assault involving Mr. Hegseth in 2017 at the address of the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa. The statement released by the police said the department had filed no charges against Mr. Hegseth.Mr. Trump announced on Tuesday that Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, was his choice to lead the Pentagon, setting off a wave of resistance from many corners of Washington. Mr. Hegseth has criticized some in the Pentagon leadership as too “woke,” and he pushed for Mr. Trump to intervene when he was president on behalf of three members of the military accused or convicted of war crimes, which Mr. Trump did.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 Picks Brendan Carr to Lead F.C.C.

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump on Sunday chose Brendan Carr to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, naming a veteran Republican regulator who has publicly agreed with the incoming administration’s promises to slash regulation, go after Big Tech and punish TV networks for political bias.Mr. Carr, who currently sits on the commission, is expected to shake up a quiet agency that licenses airwaves for radio and TV, regulates phone costs, and promotes the spread of home internet. Before the election, Mr. Trump indicated he wanted the agency to strip broadcasters like NBC and CBS of their licensing for unfair coverage.Mr. Carr, 45, was the author of a chapter on the F.C.C. in the conservative Project 2025 planning document, in which he argued that the agency should also regulate the largest tech companies, such as Apple, Meta, Google and Microsoft.“The censorship cartel must be dismantled,” Mr. Carr said last week in a post on X.Mr. Carr could drastically reshape the independent agency, expanding its mandate and wielding it as a political weapon for the right, telecommunications attorneys and analysts said. They predicted Mr. Carr would test the legal limits of the agency’s power by pushing to oversee companies like Meta and Google, setting up a fierce battle with Silicon Valley.Mr. Carr has “proposed to do a lot of things he has no jurisdiction to do and in other cases he’s blatantly misreading the rules,” said Jessica Gonzalez, co-chief executive of the nonpartisan public interest group Free Press.“Commissioner Carr is a warrior for free speech, and has fought against the regulatory lawfare that has stifled Americans’ freedoms, and held back our economy,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.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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      Donald Trump Is Already Starting to Fail

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      That was quick.Donald Trump is planting the seeds of his own political demise. The corrupt, incompetent and extremist men and women he’s appointing to many of the most critical posts in his cabinet are direct threats to the well-being of the country, but they’re also political threats to Trump and to his populist allies.To understand why, it’s important to remember a cardinal reality about Trump’s political career. He has now won two general elections when he was the only alternative to an unsatisfactory status quo, and he lost the one when he was the unsatisfactory status quo. If he can’t govern well, his populist partisan realignment will come apart before it can truly begin.One of the most maddening aspects of the 2024 election is the extent to which so many voters viewed Trump as a mostly normal political candidate. MAGA Republicans see Trump as a singular figure, but an immense number of voters thought the talk about Trump was overheated, in both directions.If you’re like most Americans and don’t follow the news closely, it’s easy to see why you would see Trump in more conventional terms. A Politico analysis of the Trump campaign’s ads showed that “the single most-aired ad from his campaign since the start of October is all about inflation, Medicare and Social Security — arguing that” Kamala Harris “will make seniors already struggling with high prices ‘pay more Social Security taxes,’ while unauthorized’ immigrants receive benefits.”That is a normal, conventional political message. Trump’s ads attacking Harris’s past support for taxpayer-funded transition surgery for people in prison and immigration detention were also an appeal to the mainstream, an effort to label Harris as extreme.One of the challenging realities of American politics is that while vast numbers of Americans participate in presidential elections, only small minorities of voters actually stay engaged. And the priorities of the two groups are not the same, far from it.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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      Jared Polis Wants to Win Back the Hippies

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      It’s such a bother when politicians have to go and complicate your clean narrative about why they’re succeeding.Last week, I spoke to Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado. Polis’s state was, if not a bright spot for Democrats, a less-dark one. In New York, Democrats lost 11 points off their 2020 margin; in New Jersey, 10 points; in Massachusetts, nine and a half points; in California, nine points (though votes are still being counted); in Illinois, seven points. In Colorado, the difference was two and a half points. What is Polis, who won re-election in 2022 by a 19-point margin, doing right?One answer — and this, to be honest, was the answer I’d gone looking for — is focusing relentlessly on the cost of living. “You can’t just do one policy and expect, somehow, people will know it,” Polis told me. “But they generally understand the drumbeat of 30, 40 things you’re doing, each of which reduces costs in a different way. And so that’s been our strategy: to flood the zone with this work to reduce costs.”Polis points with pride to his successful efforts to expand pre-K and kindergarten and get a public insurance option onto the Colorado health exchanges — but also to his rejection of proposals to add benefits that would drive up costs. He’s happy to brag about reducing the tax rate for both businesses and individuals, walking me through every decimal-point reduction he achieved, and the many bills he’s signed to make it easier to build homes.“When you say something a lot, it means you generally believe it,” Polis said. “So here’s a line I often use: We want the best solutions from the left and the right to save people money.”But during our conversation, and in the days after, another answer emerged — and for Democrats this one is a little more challenging. Polis is a dissenter from the trends that swept through Democratic governance during the pandemic. He was unusual among Democratic governors for the emphasis he put on both personal responsibility and personal liberty. Colorado opened early, sparking a tourism boom, and Polis tried to rely more on information than compulsion.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 Attends U.F.C. Fight in New York

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump arrived at Madison Square Garden for an Ultimate Fighting Championship event, which for a brief moment resembled one of his campaign rallies.President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has made few public appearances since Election Day, returned on Saturday to Madison Square Garden, the site of an inflammatory campaign rally late last month, to face a warm welcome from tens of thousands of people at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event.Mr. Trump walked in to “American Bad Ass,” by Kid Rock, and was met with a chant of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”As the president-elect took his seat around 10 p.m. at the edge of the octagonal fighters’ cage, the arena for a few minutes could have been mistaken for one of his rallies. In an unusually political scene at a major sporting event, Mr. Trump was heralded on the Jumbotrons with a sleek video that began with Fox News calling the election for him and ended with the numbers 45 and 47 flashing red on a black screen.Joining Mr. Trump at the event were Elon Musk and the podcaster Joe Rogan, as well as several of the president-elect’s choices for high-ranking posts in his administration: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the would-be health secretary; Tulsi Gabbard, his pick for director of national intelligence; and Vivek Ramaswamy, who along with Mr. Musk has been tasked with leading the Department of Government Efficiency, intended to advise on cost-cutting. The group, which also included Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, looked incongruously formal in an arena filled with sweatshirts, U.F.C. gear and baseball caps.Also in Mr. Trump’s circle was Dana White, the U.F.C. chief executive and a longtime friend, who has become close enough to the political operation that Mr. Trump invited him onstage in West Palm Beach, Fla., after his victory speech on election night. Mr. White used the moment to thank a handful of bro-culture podcasters, including the enormously popular Mr. Rogan.Mr. Trump’s campaign aggressively courted young male voters, also a significant share of U.F.C.’s target audience, through podcast appearances, and the league’s cast of characters played a role in Mr. Trump’s campaign. Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s campaign spokesman and his pick for White House communications director, once worked in U.F.C.’s communications office.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’s Pick for Pentagon Paid an Accuser but Denies It Was Sexual Assault

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      The Trump transition team was only recently alerted to the payment by Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for secretary of defense.President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, paid a woman who had accused him of sexual assault as part of a settlement agreement with a confidentiality clause, but Mr. Hegseth insists it was a consensual encounter, his lawyer said on Saturday.The Trump transition team was only recently alerted to the payment by Mr. Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The payment was reported earlier by The Washington Post.Mr. Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said that his client had done nothing wrong.“Mr. Hegseth is completely innocent,” he said. “Not only did she take advantage of him, but we believe she then extorted him knowing that at the height of the #MeToo movement the mere public allegation would likely result in his immediate termination from Fox News.”Mr. Parlatore said the woman began making statements about Mr. Hegseth that he said were false about two years after the alleged incident and that she had suggested to people that she might file a lawsuit against Mr. Hegseth. He sent the woman a cease-and-desist letter in early 2020. The settlement came months after that letter, although the amount was unclear.Mr. Trump shocked much of Washington with the pick of Mr. Hegseth earlier this week. The president-elect had leaned toward the selection a few days before it was announced, according to multiple people briefed on the matter.The Trump team was rocked earlier this week when a woman sent a memo to the transition claiming her friend had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Hegseth.Late on Thursday the Monterey Police Department in California said it had investigated an allegation of sexual assault involving Mr. Hegseth in 2017 at the address of the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa. No charges were filed.Mr. Hegseth was a speaker at a conference of the California Federation of Republican Women at the Monterey hotel in early October 2017 when the encounter that led to the investigation occurred. The woman had been with the Republican women’s group.According to the police statement, the complaint was filed four days after the encounter, and the complainant had bruises to her thigh. The police report itself was not released.Mr. Trump has not moved off supporting Mr. Hegseth, despite claims that his team was reassessing the pick, according to several people close to the incoming president. Mr. Hegseth has been a favorite of Mr. Trump going back to his first term, when the president wanted to name him as secretary for Veteran Affairs.But when he received pushback, Mr. Trump looked elsewhere. More

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      Biden and Xi Meet, Delivering Messages Seemingly Intended for Trump

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      Donald J. Trump has promised a more aggressive approach, after the Biden administration worked to avoid open conflict with Beijing.When President Biden and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, met on Saturday in Peru, they spoke directly to each other for perhaps the last time about a fierce superpower rivalry that Mr. Biden has sought to keep from spiraling into open conflict.But both men also seemed to be addressing someone not in the room: Donald J. Trump, who has promised to take a more aggressive approach to Beijing when he becomes president again in January.Mr. Xi, in his opening remarks, offered what appeared to be a stern warning as U.S.-China relations enter a new period of uncertainty after the American election.“Make the wise choice,” he said in a conference hall at a hotel in Lima where the Chinese delegation was staying. “Keep exploring the right way for two major countries to get along well with each other.”In his own opening comments, Mr. Biden seemed to try to make the case for maintaining a relationship with Beijing, as Mr. Trump talks about imposing more punishing tariffs on China and picks hard-liners for top administration posts.“These conversations prevent miscalculations, and they ensure the competition between our two countries will not veer into conflict — be competition, not conflict,” he said.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’s Cabinet Picks, Panned in Washington, Thrill Many of His Voters

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      Where Donald J. Trump’s critics see underqualified nominees with questionable judgment, his voters described them as mavericks recruited to shake up Washington.To his detractors, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet looks like a rogues’ gallery of people with dubious credentials and questionable judgment.His supporters see something different.“It’s a masterpiece,’’ Eileen Margolis, 58, who lives in Weston, Fla., and owns a tattoo business, said of Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks unveiled over the past week. “If it was a painting, it would be a Picasso.”A “brilliant alliance,’’ is how Joanne Warwick, 60, a former Democrat from Detroit, described many of the nominees.“It’s pretty much a star cast,’’ said Judy Kanoui of Flat Rock, N.C., a retiree and lifelong Democrat who voted for Mr. Trump for the first time this month.Democrats, and even some Republicans, worry that these nominees for top positions in government are inexperienced, conflicted and potentially reckless. But in interviews with almost two dozen Trump voters around the country, his supporters were more likely to describe them as mavericks and reformers recruited to deliver on Mr. Trump’s promise to shake up Washington.In Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee for health and human services secretary, Mr. Trump’s supporters see a crusader searching for new solutions to chronic illnesses, not a conspiracy theorist promoting questionable and debunked ideas about vaccines and fluoride.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