Presidential Election of 2024

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      Big Donors Rally Around Nikki Haley

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      The former governor of South Carolina is winning support from some Democrats and business-minded conservatives as the G.O.P. candidate who can beat Donald Trump.Nikki Haley is beginning to gain in the polls and has won financial backing from donors such as Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic donor, and the Koch brothers.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesA bipartisan boost for HaleyAs the four remaining prominent Republican presidential contenders not named Donald Trump assemble for the latest G.O.P. primary debate tonight, just one will arrive with any sort of positive momentum.Nikki Haley is gaining traction as the leading anti-Trump Republican, particularly among Democrats and business-minded conservatives alike. But growing support from elites may not be enough to help her catch the former president.Reid Hoffman recently donated $250,000 to a super PAC supporting Haley. The LinkedIn co-founder and a major Democratic donor has funded an array of anti-Trump initiatives. His donation, first reported by The Times, is the latest sign that some Democrats see bolstering Haley as the best way to beat Trump.News of Hoffman’s contribution came after Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s C.E.O., urged liberals to back Haley. “Get a choice on the Republican side that might be better than Trump,” he said at the DealBook Summit last week. That’s on top of growing support from business-minded Republicans. The political network founded by Charles and David Koch recently endorsed Haley, and deep-pocketed donors including Stanley Druckenmiller and Andy Sabin have attended fund-raising events for her.A reality check: Despite skipping all of the Republican primary debates and facing a staggering array of criminal and civil trials, Trump still leads Haley and the rest of the G.O.P. field in polls.And support from Democrats and corporate moguls may not endear Haley to the Republican base that will start voting on the G.O.P. candidate next month: A recent fund-raising email from Trump argued that “globalist special interest donors from both parties” are forging “an unholy alliance to beat us.”Other Republican contenders are faring even worse. The campaign of Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, is in turmoil. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, barely qualified for the debate and faces calls to drop out to avoid fracturing the anti-Trump opposition. And Vivek Ramaswamy, the outspoken “anti-woke” entrepreneur, is fading in the polls.Some donors are just throwing up their hands. Marc Rowan, the C.E.O. of Apollo Global Management, said that the 2024 race would come down to President Biden and Trump. “Personally, I’m disappointed,” he told Bloomberg on Tuesday.In other 2024 news: Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming representative who vehemently opposes Trump, is weighing a third-party presidential run. And Biden said “I’m not sure I’d be running” for re-election were Trump not in the race for the White House.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING The Supreme Court appears wary of broadly disrupting the U.S. tax code. In oral arguments for Moore v. United States, a majority of justices seemed to favor narrowly upholding a Trump-era one-time tax on foreign income. Legal experts warned that a broad ruling could lead to a redefinition of income, potentially requiring major portions of American tax law to be rewritten.CVS will change how its pharmacies are paid for drugs. The nation’s biggest pharmacy chain said it would move to a system based on how much it pays for medicines, rather than the current model that involves complex formulas. CVS said the new arrangement would give more insight into drug pricing, but skeptics argued that it may not lead to lower costs for consumers.The N.C.A.A.’s president proposes uncapped compensation for college athletes. Charlie Baker suggested that top schools set aside educational trust funds of a minimum of $30,000 annually for at least half of their athletes, and raise compensation for women. The plan — which would take a long time to put in effect — is aimed at helping protect the N.C.A.A. from antitrust inquiries.Patrick McHenry, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, will retire. The North Carolina Republican, the first interim speaker and a champion of the crypto industry, said he wouldn’t seek re-election. Because of term limits, he wouldn’t be able to hold onto his chairmanship anyway, though his district will most likely remain in Republican hands.Bank bosses head to the Hill The heads of America’s biggest banks, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and David Solomon of Goldman Sachs, are expected to go on the offensive on Wednesday at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, arguing that new regulation would help create further instability in the sector and harm borrowers.Capital rules will be in focus. Industry lobbying groups have pushed back in recent months against the so-called Basel III Endgame that would require banks to keep billions on their books as a backstop for potential losses. (Basel refers to the international banking standards committee.) The Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation are among the regulators seeking higher capital requirements after the regional banking crisis set off by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.The hearing may be the bankers’ last best chance to push their case that the Basel proposal should be watered down or scrapped. In prepared remarks, Dimon said the proposal “would unjustifiably and unnecessarily increase capital requirements by 20-25 percent for the largest banks.” That would force lenders to pull back, creating “a harmful ripple effect on the economy, markets, businesses of all sizes and American households,” he said.The proposal would have an inflationary side effect, driving up the cost of credit for its clients, Solomon warned in his prepared remarks, which in turn “will likely get passed on to consumers.”The pushback comes as America’s lenders contend with a slew of challenges. High interest rates and a slowing economy have put the crimp on their core lending business. Banking watchdogs, meanwhile, remain concerned about lenders’ exposure to the pandemic-hit commercial real estate sector.Don’t expect progressive senators to be swayed. In a statement, the committee wrote that “while Wall Street banks argue that stronger rules to protect the public will be too expensive, they are actually making trillions of dollars in profits every year and paying C.E.O.s several hundred times more than their median workers.”Europe races to regulate A.I. The first big regulatory regime for artificial intelligence could be signed as early as Wednesday, with European Union lawmakers in the final stages of debating the A.I. Act. The rules wouldn’t take effect for 18 months, but they represent an effort by governments to catch up with the development of a transformative technology that has exploded into the public consciousness since the introduction of ChatGPT a year ago.Europe has long been one of the most aggressive tech regulators. From data privacy to tech sector M&A, the E.U. has often been ahead of others. But the fast pace of A.I. development is testing regulators’ ability to keep up. The A.I. Act was introduced in 2021, but the tech has advanced significantly during that time. Other governments are deliberating their own rules. President Biden issued an executive order in October focused on A.I. and national security; Japan is drafting nonbinding guidelines for the technology and China has imposed restrictions on certain types of A.I. Last month, Britain hosted an A.I. safety summit for tech leaders and policymakers that included the U.S. and China.E.U. lawmakers are trying to impose guardrails without killing innovation. Some say the rules need to address the underlying technology, and are pushing to stop the use of A.I. in biometric surveillance.But some member states want opt-out options. Last month, France, Germany and Italy came out against strict regulation of general-purpose A.I. models for fear of hurting domestic start-ups. Some member states also want exceptions for national security, defense and military purposes.The latest draft of the A.I. Act focuses on “high risk” uses, including law enforcement, school admissions and hiring. Some applications, like chatbots and software that creates manipulated images, will have to make clear to people that they are A.I.-generated. Congress takes on campus battles The presidents of Harvard, M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania faced a congressional grilling on Tuesday over a growing wave of hate speech and antisemitism on their campuses that has angered some business leaders and prominent donors since the war in Gaza began in October.College leaders admitted to difficulties in confronting hate and preserving free speech. “I know that I have not always gotten it right,” Claudine Gay, Harvard’s president, told the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. She has come under intense pressure from influential professors, graduates and donors, including the former Treasury secretary Larry Summers and Pershing Square Capital Management’s Bill Ackman, to do more to protect students.After the hearing, Ackman called on all three to “resign in disgrace.” Summers said that Gay’s ideals were “just the right ones,” but that “there’s a lot of work to do.”Preserving students’ safety and civil rights has become a national focus. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights recently opened an investigation into complaints of antisemitism at Harvard. That came after a series of federal civil rights investigations into complaints of discrimination against students at some of America’s most prestigious universities, including Harvard, Penn and Columbia. Some schools have formed new task forces to address the growing concerns.The financial stakes are high. Schools that run afoul of civil rights laws could risk losing federal funding. Meanwhile, major university donors are using their clout to call attention to the rise of antisemitism on campus, pushing schools to do more to address the matter. These wealthy alumni are urging others to fight back, too.“We have our own war here in the U.S.,” Marc Rowan, the C.E.O. of Apollo Global Management, said at a recent fund-raiser. Rowan, who has criticized his alma mater, Penn, for its handling of antisemitism, renewed his call to hold the institutions accountable, “financially or otherwise.”THE SPEED READ DealsShares in British American Tobacco tumbled after the company announced a $31.5 billion write-down of its U.S. cigarette brands, six years after buying Reynolds American for $49 billion. (NYT)Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up, xAI, filed to raise up to $1 billion in new capital. (The Verge)How Jeff Ubben’s second act, as an environmentally minded activist investor, fell apart. (FT)PolicyChina’s leader, Xi Jinping, is conducting a purge of the top ranks of the country’s political system, a move that could have implications for the global economy and regional stability. (Politico)A group of nuns that owns a stake in Smith & Wesson sued the gun maker, arguing that its sales and marketing strategy for the AR-15 rifle is putting shareholders’ investments at risk. (WSJ)Best of the restHollywood actors ratified their union’s labor deal with movie and television studios, but some had reservations about its guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence. (NYT)Israeli securities regulators said they found no trading abnormalities ahead of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks, after researchers said they had found a spike in short-selling. (Bloomberg)Is it time to give up vinyl records in the name of climate change? (Guardian)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More

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      Alabama Is at the Center of the 4th Republican Presidential Debate

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      Republican presidential candidates will gather in Tuscaloosa on Wednesday, at a moment when the state’s politics have new resonance on the national stage.Tuscaloosa is used to having the eyes of the nation on it, especially toward the end of the year. (Suffice to say, there is no controversy in Alabama about who made the College Football Playoff, again.)Yet the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, held on the University of Alabama campus, offers the city of 113,000 a different kind of opportunity. The state has never before hosted a debate in a presidential election cycle, with organizers often eyeing swing states, early voting states or huge population centers as possible locations instead.“For a lot of people, this is going to be their rare opportunity to actually see a presidential candidate in person,” said Walt Maddox, the mayor of Tuscaloosa, adding that he had been fielding a number of ticket requests that rivaled that of a game day weekend. “In Iowa, New Hampshire, that’s a birthright,” Mr. Maddox, the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor, said of seeing numerous presidential candidates. “In Alabama, that’s something that’s pretty rare.”In some ways, it is not surprising that Republicans chose to descend upon Alabama, a conservative stronghold molded in part by hard-line politicians willing to leverage its grievances and divisions. (Former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner, has frequently reveled in the state’s loyal voter base, but he will not be a participant in the debate.)The third Republican presidential primary debate last month in Miami.Scott McIntyre for The New York Times“Alabama is getting more attention, especially on the conservative Republican side,” John Wahl, the chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, said. “If you look for a state across the country that kind of embodies Republican principles and the values of the Republican Party, we’re a good state,” he added.But beyond the outcome of Wednesday’s debate, there are reasons national political figures are paying close attention to Alabama this election cycle.At a moment when control of the House of Representatives hinges on just a couple seats, a congressional district in Alabama is suddenly competitive. In October, a federal court ordered Alabama to use a new map that creates a second district with close to a majority of Black voters.The order came after the Supreme Court ruled this summer that the congressional map drawn by the Republican-dominated state legislature violated the Voting Rights Act. The ruling has potentially paved the way for more equitable and competitive races across the region in 2024.This month Georgia lawmakers unveiled a proposed congressional map that would create an additional majority-Black district, while the Louisiana legislature has until late January to craft a new map that complies with the Voting Rights Act.And now in Alabama, nearly two dozen candidates are now vying for the Second Congressional District, designated as the newest district where Black voters have a valid opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. (In Alabama, Black voters tend to back Democrats, increasing the odds that the party can flip the seat.)The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala., will host the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday.Brian Snyder/ReutersSome Democrats said that Wednesday’s debate was a chance for them to tie criticism of Alabama’s hard-line leadership and policies to Mr. Trump and the other candidates. Democrats have already spent months hammering the state’s senior senator, Tommy Tuberville, over a monthslong, single-handed blockade of senior military promotions; on Tuesday, he agreed to drop his blockade for all but the most senior generals.“We’re a conservative state, yes, but I don’t think that we are that state where we are extreme the way that we’re seeing this with Donald Trump and so many of the other Republican leaders,” Doug Jones, a former Democratic senator and Biden ally, said. He argued that policies championed by top Republicans in Alabama — its strict abortion ban, a push to restrict certain books in libraries and an effort to curb rights for L.G.B.T.Q. youth — would make the case against Mr. Trump and other Republican candidates.But, he added, “even as a as a partisan Democrat, I am happy to see a major debate of the Republican Party coming into this state.”“It’s always good for Tuscaloosa, for the state, for the University of Alabama,” he said.Mr. Wahl said that he, too, was pleased that the debate was happening on the campus, where the Republican Party could make inroads with younger voters.“I think it gives the party a tremendous opportunity to reach out to young people to talk about the issues that are important to them and how these issues affect their lives,” he said.He also noted that the university’s own, apolitical imagery — crimson red with an elephant mascot — were fitting for a Republican debate. More

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      Megyn Kelly Returning to Debate Spotlight on NewsNation

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      Wednesday’s Trump-less debate is a breakthrough moment for a fledgling cable network — and a comeback of sorts for Ms. Kelly, a former Fox News star.Eight years ago, Megyn Kelly’s turn as a debate moderator made headlines around the world. Before an audience of 24 million Fox News viewers, she confronted Donald J. Trump about his history of misogynist remarks, setting off a well-publicized feud that helped her leap from cable news to NBC.This week, Ms. Kelly returns to television as a moderator of Wednesday’s Republican debate. A breakout moment may be harder to come by.For one thing, Mr. Trump is almost certainly not going to appear, despite Ms. Kelly’s warm entreaties. (“Mr. President,” she wrote on X, “you would be more than welcome and we would love to have you.”) And her appearance will be seen by a fraction of her old audience: The debate will air on NewsNation, an upstart cable network unfamiliar to many Americans.It is still a milestone for Ms. Kelly, whose career imploded when NBC canceled her show in 2018, after she mused on air about whether white people could wear blackface on Halloween. The ouster followed weak ratings and a series of incidents that suggested her punchy and confrontational style was a poor fit for the serene pastures of morning TV.Ms. Kelly, 53, gradually re-emerged as a conservative podcaster and radio host, stoking the culture war grievances that were her stock-in-trade at Fox. (Her recent posts on X refer to “mask fascists” and denounce the use of the term “pregnant person.”) She signed a deal with SiriusXM in 2021 and has since broken into Top 10 charts for news podcasts and booked big guests — including, in September, Mr. Trump.During that interview, Mr. Trump scolded Ms. Kelly for their famous debate moment, saying, “That was a bad question.” Ms. Kelly gamely replied: “That was a great question!” A few days later, at a rally in Iowa, Mr. Trump called her “nasty.”Ms. Kelly declined to speak for this article. In an interview with Real ClearPolitics, she admitted that she had doubted if Wednesday’s debate, with its undercard lineup, was even worth her time. “Does it matter at all?” she said she asked herself.Ultimately, she said, she decided to participate, suggesting that one of the candidates onstage — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy — could, in the event of a Trump criminal conviction or perhaps a health scare, end up as the nominee. “It’s not likely, but who am I to rule it out?” she said.Her attitude is something of a contrast to the unvarnished enthusiasm of anchors and executives at NewsNation, who consider Wednesday’s event, in Tuscaloosa, Ala., a breakthrough moment. NewsNation, which is owned by the Nexstar Media Group and airs 24-hour news coverage on weekdays, outflanked better-known outlets like ABC and Newsmax to secure the broadcast rights for this week’s debate.Elizabeth Vargas, a NewsNation anchor and former ABC News personality.John Lamparski/Getty ImagesEliana Johnson, editor in chief of The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site.Taylor Glascock for The New York Times“We’re a brand-new news network, and it’s a fantastic opportunity for us,” said Elizabeth Vargas, a NewsNation anchor and former ABC News personality. Ms. Vargas will serve as a moderator with Ms. Kelly and Eliana Johnson, editor in chief of The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site.NewsNation, which started in 2021, has fashioned itself as an independent alternative to more partisan, opinion-fueled channels. “The moderate middle may be quieter or may not make as much of a fuss, but they’re a powerful voting bloc,” Ms. Vargas said. “Those are the viewers we serve.” The network has hired prominent journalists like Dan Abrams, Ashleigh Banfield and Chris Cuomo, the former CNN anchor who was fired over ethics concerns and who now hosts NewsNation’s 8 p.m. hour.Ratings remain low. Year-to-date, NewsNation’s prime-time audience has averaged 109,000 viewers on weeknights, compared with 2.2 million for Fox News, 650,000 for CNN and 264,000 for Newsmax, according to Nielsen. The network says that it has a growing fan base — that prime-time figure is up 73 percent from a year before — and that Wednesday’s showcase can reel in new viewers. The debate, which begins at 8 p.m., will also be shown online and on local affiliates of the CW, a broadcast network owned by Nexstar.The stage for the December 2023 Republican presidential candidates debate, which will be shown on Wednesday on NewsNation.via NewsNationMs. Kelly is not the only Fox News veteran with a major role in the NewsNation debate.Cherie Grzech, who produced 15 primary debates for Fox News before leaving in 2021, now runs NewsNation’s news and political programming. Chris Stirewalt, best-known as the Fox News analyst who defended the 2020 election night call for Arizona — a projection that enraged Mr. Trump, alienated viewers and led to Mr. Stirewalt losing his job — is NewsNation’s political editor.Mr. Stirewalt said he believed in the mission of his new employer. “The shortest distance to securing a habituated audience is to cosset them and flatter them and to reinforce their prejudices,” he said. “The harder thing is to try to be aspirationally fair, and try to report and analyze honestly, not to reinforce existing opinions. It’s a substantially underserved market.”This may be a counterintuitive business model, given the nation’s polarized state, but NewsNation is not alone in trying it out. Jeff Zucker, the former president of CNN, is aiming to acquire The Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper, in hopes of expanding its reach to center-right consumers in the United States.Similar experiments have struggled. Shepard Smith, another anchor who left Fox News, created a straightforward newscast on the financial network CNBC in 2020; it was canceled after two years. Chris Licht, who succeeded Mr. Zucker at CNN, promised to dial back partisan opinion, but his programming efforts failed to jell and ratings plummeted.Ms. Kelly, who has no qualms about expressing strong views, is more opinionated than her temporary partners at NewsNation. Eric Bolling, a former Fox News colleague who is now an anchor on Newsmax, said that would work to her advantage.“She will be the biggest viewer draw of all Wednesday night,” Mr. Bolling wrote in a text message. “Unless Trump shows up!” More

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      Haley and DeSantis Face Off: What to Watch for in the GOP Debate

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      Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie will also be onstage, but much of the attention will be on the two Republicans best positioned to become the top challenger to Donald Trump.The debate stage in Tuscaloosa, Ala., will be down to four Republican presidential hopefuls on Wednesday — with the front-runner, Donald J. Trump, still absent — as the imperative to break from the dwindling pack grows more intense less than six weeks before the Iowa caucuses.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, are in a slugfest to claim the mantle of Mr. Trump’s main alternative, and all that would come with that: campaign donations, late endorsements and the possible votes of independents and even Democrats alarmed by Mr. Trump’s authoritarian language and plans to enact a more radical agenda.But the two other candidates onstage, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, will do all they can to grab the spotlight in the hope of revitalizing their flagging campaigns.Here’s what to watch:Who will stand out on a less crowded stage?After the withdrawal from the presidential race of Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, there will be only four candidates on the debate stage on Wednesday night. Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesThe “will he or won’t he” speculation about whether Mr. Trump would participate in the previous debates in Wisconsin, California and Florida is gone ahead of the gathering in Alabama. The former president’s decision to sit out the events has not hurt his standing in the polls, and the question for many now is whether he would show up to a debate in the general election next fall.But as the field narrows by attrition, the final four will have more time to make an impression on Republican primary voters who have yet to decide.Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota on Monday became the latest candidate to drop from the race, although he had failed to make the stage for the last debate. The withdrawal of Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina will be felt more acutely, since he probably would have qualified for Wednesday’s event. His debate performances were largely unremarkable but he made a small splash in Miami last month when he showed up with his girlfriend.The most memorable lines of the last two debates involved Ms. Haley skewering Mr. Ramaswamy. In September, she told her younger rival, “Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber,” and last month she called him “just scum.”Those lines raise an important question for Mr. DeSantis as he tries to fend off Ms. Haley’s rise in the polls: Can he take her on more directly and win?Mr. Ramaswamy appears likely to continue his strategy of denigrating and baiting all of his opponents except for Mr. Trump, though the efficacy of his insult-driven blitzkrieg seems to have diminished since he shocked the field in Milwaukee in August. In Iowa City on Saturday, he said he had been “brutally frank in the last debate,” adding, “I don’t intend to stop doing that now.”Mr. Christie faces a loftier question: Is his stated goal of thwarting another Trump presidency better served by dropping out and letting a rival consolidate the anti-Trump vote?Can Haley keep her winning streak alive?The former South Carolina governor has parlayed her debate performances into a real sense of momentum. Yes, she remains far behind Mr. Trump, the man who made her his first United Nations ambassador, in national polling, but her trajectory is on a slow, steady climb, unlike those of her onstage rivals.Wednesday’s debate is the first since the political network founded by the billionaire conservatives Charles and David Koch endorsed Ms. Haley, promising to mobilize an army of grass-roots door knockers behind her. It is also the first since Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, began encouraging other major donors and Democrats to back her as the last hope of thwarting Mr. Trump’s nomination.She needs to reassure those new backers that they made a solid bet. To do that, she will have to find the zingers she used to dismantle Mr. Ramaswamy, and turn them on the candidate now in her sights, Mr. DeSantis.She still needs to figure out, however, whether she is the candidate for those inside her party and out who fear and loathe Mr. Trump, or whether she wants to appeal to Trump supporters as a fresh face to pick up his mantle. If she is the former, she may only get so far in a G.O.P. that still broadly approves of the former president. Appealing to Trump likers and loathers has been the trick that no Republican has solved.Can DeSantis wrest the mic from Ramaswamy?Mr. DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, though well-funded, have slipped in the polls.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesAfter taking glancing shots at Mr. Trump for months, Mr. DeSantis laid into him at length on Tuesday.He castigated Mr. Trump for bragging about the endorsement of a Black Lives Matter activist, for criticizing Mr. DeSantis’s strongly anti-abortion record, and for somehow blaming the Florida governor for the College Football Playoff selection committee’s snub of Florida State University, which was not selected to vie for the championship despite an undefeated season. (The University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, was the beneficiary of that snub, so watch for college football talk on Wednesday night.)But Mr. DeSantis’s main criticism was of Mr. Trump’s refusal to debate: “I don’t think he can stand there for two hours against me and come out on top,” he said. “I think they know that, and I think that’s why they’re not doing it.”Clashing with Mr. Trump is vital; after all, you can’t win the nomination without beating the front-runner. But Mr. DeSantis has to blunt Ms. Haley’s rise as well.In Tuscaloosa, Mr. DeSantis needs to take the microphone away from Mr. Ramaswamy, who has faded to fourth place in national polling averages. Ms. Haley, by contrast, is now solidly in second place in New Hampshire, neck and neck with Mr. DeSantis in Iowa and threatening him nationally.Mr. DeSantis’s pressing task is to reassert his status as the Trump alternative, and for him to do that, the debate cannot devolve again into a cage match between Ms. Haley and Mr. Ramaswamy.What is Chris Christie’s endgame?Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, barely qualified for Wednesday’s debate.John Tully for The New York TimesFor reasons of ego, unrelenting self-confidence or designs on his future, Mr. Ramaswamy, a political neophyte with nary an elected office to his name, is probably not leaving the primary race anytime soon. The money he is spending from his own bank accounts — $17 million as of Sept. 30 — can keep his campaign afloat as long as he wishes.Mr. Christie is, in many respects, Mr. Ramaswamy’s opposite, a career public servant without a vast fortune to tap, whose campaign’s raison d’être is to diminish Mr. Trump’s stature, not to lionize him as the 21st century’s greatest president. But the former New Jersey governor finds himself at a crossroads in Tuscaloosa.He barely made the debate stage, just qualifying under the Republican National Committee’s tightening requirements — polling at 6 percent or higher in national or early-state polling, and garnering 80,000 unique donors.And his third-place status in New Hampshire, with around 12 percent of the vote, could be seen either as a strength or as a spoiler for the aspirations of the candidate in second place, Ms. Haley, who needs a strong showing in the Granite State to slingshot her into the primary contest in her home state, South Carolina.Mr. Christie continues to denounce Mr. Trump’s fitness for office in ways his Republican rivals won’t, challenging the former president as a would-be dictator threatening to end democracy as we know it. But that line of attack has proved ineffective among Republican primary voters.Megyn Kelly is back. How will she handle the absent Trump?Megyn Kelly, right, preparing for a Republican presidential debate in Detroit during the 2016 campaign. Donald J. Trump attacked her during that cycle’s debates. Richard Perry/The New York TimesThe 2016 presidential campaign might seem like ancient history, but for many Americans, Mr. Trump’s treatment of Megyn Kelly, then a Fox News anchor, during the debates secured his reputation as a misogynist.After Ms. Kelly questioned him forcefully in one debate, he came back with, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” Ms. Kelly was defiant in the face of angry Trump supporters, declaring that she would “not apologize for doing good journalism.”Wednesday’s debate, which will be carried by a cable news newcomer, NewsNation, will have a considerably smaller audience than those Fox showdowns in 2015 and no Mr. Trump — but Ms. Kelly, who now hosts “The Megyn Kelly Show” on Sirius XM, will be back.No doubt, she will be tough on the four participants. The question is, how hard will she press them to take on Mr. Trump?Ms. Kelly will be sharing the moderators’ desk with Elizabeth Vargas of NewsNation and Eliana Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon, an all-female panel tilted to the right. The debate will be televised on the CW starting at 8 p.m. Eastern time, and streamed on the NewsNation website and the conservative social media site Rumble.Anjali Huynh More

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      Trump Deflects Questions on Retribution and Law-Breaking at Town Hall

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      Pressed by Sean Hannity to promise not to abuse power, Donald Trump agreed he wouldn’t, “other than Day 1,” adding: “We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”Twice during a town hall on “Fox News” on Tuesday night, Sean Hannity asked former President Donald J. Trump to say categorically that he would not abuse presidential power and retaliate against his political opponents if elected next year.Both times, Mr. Trump declined to give an outright denial.First, Mr. Hannity, the moderator, asked Mr. Trump to respond to concerns raised by recent reporting that has detailed his violent rhetoric on the campaign trail and his vow to use the Justice Department against his political foes.“Do you in any way have any plans whatsoever, if re-elected president, to abuse power?” Mr. Hannity asked. “To break the law? To use the government to go after people?”Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, deflected. “You mean like they’re using right now?” he responded, an allusion to his claims that President Biden has weaponized the Justice Department against him. He then turned to his frequent campaign-trail lament that he has been indicted more times than the gangster Al Capone.But Mr. Hannity, a longtime Trump ally, was apparently unsatisfied, and five minutes later, he brought up the issue again. “You are promising America tonight, you would never abuse this power as retribution against anybody?” he said.“Except for Day 1,” Mr. Trump said breezily. There was the smallest silence. “Except for—” Mr. Hannity responded, sounding a bit flustered.“Look,” Mr. Trump joked to the crowd watching him in Davenport, Iowa. “He’s going crazy.”And even as Mr. Hannity tried to clarify that Mr. Trump had no intention of abusing his office, Mr. Trump did not state a clear aversion to the idea of authoritarian power.“This guy, he says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’” Mr. Trump said, referring to Mr. Hannity. “I said, ‘No, no, no — other than Day 1.’ We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”Both exchanges underscored a growing challenge for some on the Trump team who are privately aware that his comments are of growing concern to voters ahead of next year’s general election.The Biden campaign has sought to seize on recent reporting about plans being made by Mr. Trump and his allies that would reshape the American presidency, vastly expanding presidential power and upending central elements of American government and the rule of law.Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, said in a statement that Mr. Trump “has been telling us exactly what he will do if he’s re-elected, and tonight he said he will be a dictator on Day 1. Americans should believe him.”Mr. Trump’s comments were a stark break from an interview in which he was largely on friendly territory. He and Mr. Hannity have a long relationship, and both of them warmly recalled past conversations they had had over Mr. Trump’s political career.Mr. Hannity also did not ask Mr. Trump about his rivals in the Republican primary, who will face off in a debate on Wednesday that Mr. Trump is skipping to attend a fund-raiser in Florida.Still, Mr. Trump made brief mention of Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, criticizing her for taking donations from Democrats, and criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for votes in Congress he took that appeared to support changing Social Security benefits.Jonathan Swan More

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      Biden Says ‘I’m Not Sure I’d Be Running’ if Not for Trump

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      President Biden has portrayed a second term for Donald Trump as an existential threat to American democracy.President Biden suggested on Tuesday that he might have been content to serve only a single term if his predecessor, former President Donald J. Trump, were not attempting to recapture the White House.At a campaign fund-raiser in the Boston area, Mr. Biden presented his decision to run for re-election as driven largely by his determination to defeat Mr. Trump a second time and prevent him from returning to power. Mr. Biden has at times portrayed a second term for Mr. Trump as an existential threat to American democracy.“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” he told donors at the Weston, Mass., home of Alan Solomont, a longtime Democratic financial backer who served as ambassador to Spain. “But we cannot let him win.”The president’s remark came at a time when polls show that most Democrats would prefer someone other than Mr. Biden, who turned 81 last month, to represent the party in next year’s election. A survey by CNN in August found that 67 percent of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic wanted another nominee, and 70 percent listed Mr. Biden’s age, health, mental competence or ability to handle the job as their main concern about him.Although he described himself as “a bridge” to the next generation during his 2020 campaign, a comment that some interpreted as a hint that he would serve only one term, Mr. Biden has concluded that he is best positioned to beat Mr. Trump again, justifying a re-election campaign. He faces only long-shot challengers in the Democratic primaries in the form of Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota and Marianne Williamson, the author.Mr. Trump, who is 77 and has demonstrated his own cognitive issues lately, has outpaced his rivals for the Republican nomination by double digits in the polls and appears poised to steamroller to his third general election. That is despite four criminal indictments on 91 felony counts of illegally trying to overthrow an election, endangering national security and other charges. Despite his political liabilities, surveys show he is either tied with Mr. Biden or leading slightly both nationally and in the battleground states that will decide the Electoral College.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?  More

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      Top Democratic Donor Gave $250,000 to a Nikki Haley Super PAC

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      Mr. Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, has funded an array of anti-Trump candidates and causes.When Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, urged Democratic donors last week to rally behind Nikki Haley to provide Republican voters an alternative to former President Donald J. Trump, it seemed a far-fetched plea.But at least one of the Democratic Party’s biggest financiers has already done exactly that.Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn and a major Democratic donor, recently gave $250,000 to a super PAC supporting Ms. Haley, the former South Carolina governor who has gained momentum in recent weeks in the 2024 Republican primary race. The donation, which has not been previously reported, was confirmed by Dmitri Mehlhorn, a political adviser to Mr. Hoffman.The pro-Haley super PAC, SFA Fund Inc., was asked specifically by Mr. Hoffman’s political team if it would take money from Mr. Hoffman, given that he is a Democrat who actively supports President Biden, Mr. Mehlhorn said. The super PAC, he added, said yes.The pro-Haley super PAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.SFA Fund Inc. has been one of the biggest players in the 2024 Republican primary race, spending more than $33 million on advertising and other expenses. Its biggest contributors in the first half of the year were Jan Koum, a co-founder of WhatsApp, who gave $5 million, and the venture capitalist Tim Draper, who gave $1.25 million. Mr. Koum has since given an additional $5 million, which Puck News first reported.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?  More

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      A New Trump Administration Will ‘Come After’ the Media, Says Kash Patel

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      Donald Trump, who has already promised to use the Justice Department to “go after” his political adversaries, is expected to install Mr. Patel in a senior role if he returns to power.A confidant of Donald J. Trump who is likely to serve in a senior national security role in any new Trump administration threatened on Tuesday to target journalists for prosecution if the former president regains the White House.The confidant, Kash Patel, who served as Mr. Trump’s counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council and also as chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense, made the remarks on a podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former strategist, during a discussion about a potential second Trump presidency beginning in 2025.“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” Mr. Patel said. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.” He added: “We’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have.”Earlier in the interview, when asked by Mr. Bannon whether a new administration would “deliver the goods” to “get rolling on prosecutions” early in a second term, Mr. Patel noted that the Trump team had a “bench” of “all-America patriots,” but he said he did not want to name any names “so the radical left-wing media can terrorize them.”A spokeswoman for Mr. Patel, Erica Knight, pointed out that in the same conversation with Mr. Bannon, Mr. Patel said they would “follow the facts and the law.” She also sent The New York Times a statement from Mr. Patel, reading, “When President Trump takes office in 2025, we will prosecute anyone that broke the law and end the weaponized, two tier system of justice.”But Mr. Trump, who is facing 91 felony charges in four separate cases, has already promised to use the Justice Department to “go after” his political adversaries — signaling that a second Trump term would build on the ways it opened investigations into his enemies during his first term and fully abandon the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence.“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said in June.Mr. Patel was a relatively unknown Capitol Hill staffer in the early days of the Trump administration, in 2017, but he became an aggressive defender of Mr. Trump against the investigation into whether the president’s 2016 campaign conspired with Russians to affect the outcome. Over the next four years, he rose to become one of Mr. Trump’s most trusted aides and among the most powerful national security officials in the federal government.In late 2020, Mr. Trump trusted Mr. Patel to such a degree that he asked for him to be installed as a deputy director of either the C.I.A. or the F.B.I. Mr. Trump jettisoned this plan only after senior officials, including the former C.I.A. director Gina Haspel and former Attorney General William P. Barr, argued forcefully against the move. Mr. Barr wrote in his memoir that he told Mark Meadows, then the chief of staff, that having Mr. Patel become deputy F.B.I. director would only happen “over my dead body.”Over the past three years, since leaving government, Mr. Patel has capitalized on his fame as a Trump insider. He has sold “Kash” merchandise on an online store and wrote a children’s book about the Russia investigation in which a “King Donald” is persecuted by a wicked “Hillary Queenton.” The story’s hero is a wizard named “Kash” who exposes a conspiracy to tear down King Donald. Mr. Trump declared that he wanted to “put this amazing book in every school in America.”Mr. Patel himself has filed defamation suits against The New York Times, CNN and Politico. And since leaving government he has set up a fund-raising entity to “fight the deep state” and finance lawsuits on behalf of the “everyday Americans” who he says have been “defamed” by what he calls “the fake news mafia.”Mr. Patel’s threats against the news media echo warnings from Mr. Trump himself.In a Truth Social post in September, the former president wrote: “I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events.” He added: “Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE?”In the same post, Mr. Trump wrote that “Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC,” should be “investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason.’”Earlier this year, Mr. Trump recorded a video for his campaign website in which he promised that in a second term he would bring the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates broadcast licenses, “back under presidential authority as the Constitution demands.”A spokesman for Mr. Trump, Steven Cheung, was asked if the former president disavowed Mr. Patel’s comments. Mr. Cheung did not answer the question directly, instead referring to a recent public statement from Mr. Trump’s top two campaign advisers that read, “Any personnel lists, policy agendas, or government plans published anywhere are merely suggestions. Likewise, all 2024 campaign policy announcements will be made by President Trump or members of his campaign team. Policy recommendations from external allies are just that — recommendations.”Mr. Patel is among a small number of former senior national security officials from Mr. Trump’s first term who have stayed close to him. He was appointed by Mr. Trump in June 2022 to be one of his representatives to interact with the National Archives, whose officials had spent months the previous year trying to retrieve reams of presidential records that left the White House when Mr. Trump did, including classified material.Mr. Patel told Breitbart News during an interview in 2022 that he had been on hand when Mr. Trump declassified documents before leaving office.That interview attracted interest from federal investigators, who in May 2022 had subpoenaed any remaining classified documents that he hadn’t turned over. Three months later, the F.B.I. executed a search warrant to locate additional classified material at Mr. Trump’s Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Trump’s office claimed shortly after the search of the club that he had a standing order in place as president by which materials that left the Oval Office for the White House residence were considered declassified.Several former senior officials, including former Vice President Mike Pence, said they knew of no such order.Despite Mr. Trump’s obsession with news coverage and his need to stay in the headlines dating back to the 1980s, he has grown increasingly threatening toward the press throughout his life and particularly since his political campaigns began in 2015.He has talked about changing libel laws to make it easier to sue over coverage. He repeatedly encouraged crowds at his rallies to antagonize the reporters gathered at the back covering the events. Once in office, he began referring to the press in public as “the enemy of the people,” language often used by despots globally to justify anti-press crackdowns.He was obsessed with leaks. He wanted aides to interfere with the merger between AT&T and CNN, which covered him rigorously. And he told advisers he wanted officials to obtain phone records of a journalist covering him, a request that apparently was never fulfilled.But Mr. Trump is suggesting there will be results next time.“They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” Mr. Trump wrote in September on Truth Social. “The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!” More