Presidential Election of 2024

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      Vivek Ramaswamy Loves Eminem. And He Doesn’t Care If the Feeling Is Mutual.

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      The Republican presidential candidate loves rap music, even if critics say his politics are at odds with its spirit. “There’s no such thing as one rap community,” he says.Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential candidate and biotech entrepreneur, rapped the song before a largely white crowd at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.Stefani Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFor some audiences, Vivek Ramaswamy is a biotech entrepreneur who pushed for pharmaceutical breakthroughs before he tried to break into politics. For others, he is a cultural warrior battling “woke” corporations or a crusader for his definition of “truth,” whether it be the sanctity of two genders or the perpetuation of fossil fuels.The identity that the entrepreneur and Republican candidate for president has kept more or less under wraps since his undergraduate days at Harvard is another thing entirely, Da Vek the Rapper.Yet there it was at the Iowa State Fair this month, the 38-year-old shape-shifting presidential candidate, microphone in hand, spitting Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” before a largely white crowd that appeared somewhere between amused and enthused. Beside him onstage was the Iowa governor, Kim Reynolds, who watched with the look of a mother baffled by her child’s latest science fair project.As breakout moments go, Mr. Ramaswamy’s impromptu performance may not rise to the level of Bill Clinton’s saxophone solo on “The Arsenio Hall Show.” But it did separate him culturally from his generally more awkward and older competitors in the still-early race for the presidency.The lyrics — “He opens his mouth, but the words won’t come out” — did not fit the fast-talking, quick-witted candidate in the slightest. The words “he knows when he goes back to this mobile home” do not exactly leap from a wellspring of personal experience for Mr. Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire entrepreneur with a middle-class upbringing, a $2 million mansion in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, and a largely self-funded presidential bid.But rap and hip-hop are part of the Ramaswamy story, back to Harvard when his alter ego Da Vek rapped libertarian lyrics in all-black outfits down to a Kangol cap. As a freshman, he performed at an open mic before a Busta Rhymes concert, a moment that has since been exaggerated to make him Busta’s opening act.He told The Harvard Crimson back in 2006 that “Lose Yourself” was his life’s theme song.In an interview on Friday, Mr. Ramaswamy seemed a little sheepish about his return to rap. Theme song? “There are parts of what you say in the past that you recoil from,” he admitted.But he did stick by his identification with Eminem, the unlikely white rapper from working-class Detroit who went on to become, by most measures, the best-selling hip-hop artist of all time.“I did not grow up in the circumstances he did,” said Mr. Ramaswamy, the son of a physician mother and engineer father. “But the idea of being an underdog, people having low expectations of you, that part speaks to me.”Eminem was, Mr. Ramaswamy said, “a guy in every sense who was not supposed to be doing what he did.”The candidate said he did not plan to rap at Iowa’s center stage. Responding to a question that Ms. Reynolds had asked every presidential hopeful at her “fair-side chats,” Mr. Ramaswamy said his favorite “walkout” song for the campaign trail would have to be “Lose Yourself,” an unusual answer in this Republican field but hardly counterculture.“Lose Yourself” was the centerpiece of “8 Mile,” the semi-autobiographical film in which Eminem plays an aspiring rapper struggling to prove himself in a largely Black subculture. The track took best original song at the Academy Awards in 2003, and the next year it won two Grammys, including for best rap song.After his chat with Ms. Reynolds ended, Mr. Ramaswamy was signing autographs when an enterprising sound technician put the song over the loud speaker. The candidate raised his fist, lifted the mic to his mouth, and the rest is, well, not quite history but a nice moment.Mr. Ramaswamy’s venture into hip-hop, a culture synonymous with Black struggle and triumphs, carried risks. Rhymefest, a Chicago rapper who defeated Eminem at a freestyle contest in 1997, noted that Mr. Ramaswamy had called Juneteenth a “useless” holiday and told CNN’s Don Lemon that Black Americans achieved equality only because they secured the right to bear arms, never mind that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached nonviolence and armed civil rights leaders like Fred Hampton were gunned down by law enforcement.“It’s the rewriting and manipulation of Black history for Republican talking points that gets me,” Rhymefest said, adding: “Everyone has a right to music. Everyone has a right to express themselves through the culture that helped formulate their passions, and hip-hop is a passionate calling.” But, he said, “he doesn’t understand the words or the meaning.”Soren Baker, a historian of rap, said such conflicts were nothing new for Republican politicians, who have tangled with artists since President Ronald Reagan drew the ire of Bruce Springsteen over “Born in the U.S.A.” in 1984.Mr. Springsteen made clear he didn’t think the president was listening closely to his music’s often bleak portraits of Reagan’s America. Eminem has not commented on Mr. Ramaswamy’s performance. A representative did not respond to a request on Friday.But it’s unlikely the rapper is a Ramaswamy fan. In 2017, Eminem famously performed a freestyle jeremiad against then-President Donald J. Trump, calling him “a kamikaze that’ll probably cause a nuclear holocaust.” Mr. Ramaswamy, in contrast, is steadfastly supportive of Mr. Trump, even as he runs against him for the 2024 G.O.P. nomination.“What Vivek is doing is trying to align himself with the struggle of overcoming adversity,” said Mr. Baker, author of “The History of Gangster Rap.” “From what I know of Vivek’s policies, objectives and goals, they’re not in alignment with Eminem at all.”Mr. Ramaswamy did not shy from the critique. “Is there a risk? There’s a risk in everything we do?” he said. But he added, “There’s no such thing as one rap community,” pointing to Ice Cube, the former leader of N.W.A who worked with the Trump campaign in 2020 on a Contract With Black America.Of course, “Lose Yourself” is hardly a political anthem. It has become more like a frat house pregame rallying cry, or, as Rhymefest put it, “the song that gets the team out on the field.”But Mr. Ramaswamy said it wouldn’t be blasting through his AirPods as he prepares to go onstage Wednesday at the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 cycle.“I’m an adult,” he quipped.Ben Sisario More

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      Inside Trump’s Decision to Skip the G.O.P. Debate

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      Fox News leaned on the former president privately and publicly to join the debate. But all the while he was proceeding with a plan for his own counterprogramming.On a cool August night on the crowded patio of his private club in New Jersey, former President Donald J. Trump held up his phone to his dinner companions.The Republican front-runner was having dinner with a Fox News contributor and columnist, Charlie Hurt, when a call came in from another member of the Fox team. The man on the other end of the line, Mr. Trump was delighted to show his guests, was Bret Baier, one of the two moderators of the first Republican debate on Wednesday, according to two people with knowledge of the call.It was Mr. Trump’s second Fox dinner that week. The night before, he had hosted the Fox News president, Jay Wallace, and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, who had gone to Bedminster, N.J., hoping to persuade Mr. Trump to attend the debate. Mr. Baier was calling to get a feel for the former president’s latest thinking.For months, Fox had been working Mr. Trump privately and publicly. He was keeping them guessing, in his patented petulant way. But even as he behaved as if he was listening to entreaties, Mr. Trump was proceeding with a plan for his own counterprogramming to the debate.The former president has told aides that he has made up his mind not to participate in the debate and has decided to post an online interview with Tucker Carlson that night instead, according to people briefed on the matter.Upstaging Fox’s biggest event of the year would be provocation enough. But an interview with Mr. Carlson — who was Fox’s top-rated host and is at war with the network, which is still paying out his contract — amounts to a slap in the network’s face by Mr. Trump. The decision is a potential source of aggravation for the Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, who privately urged him to attend, including in her own visit to Bedminster last month.But Mr. Trump’s primary motive in skipping the debate is not personal animosity toward Ms. McDaniel but a crass political calculation: He doesn’t want to risk his giant lead in a Republican race that some close to him believe he must win to stay out of prison.But that’s not the only reason.‘They Purposely Show the Absolutely Worst Pictures of Me’Mr. Trump’s relationship with Fox — a long-running saga that has been both lucrative and, more recently, extremely costly for the network — is the other issue that looms large in his thinking about the debate, according to people familiar with the president’s conversations. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the campaign.His professed hatred of Fox — and the animus he often privately expresses about the chairman of Fox Corporation, Rupert Murdoch — is mixed with his recognition of Mr. Murdoch’s power and a grudging acknowledgment that the network can still affect his image with Republican voters.“Why doesn’t Fox and Friends show all of the Polls where I am beating Biden, by a lot,” Mr. Trump posted on his website, Truth Social, on Thursday morning, venting about the network’s morning show. He added: “Also, they purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not.”Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier are co-hosts of the first Republican primary debate, which will be held Wednesday evening in Milwaukee.Leah Millis/ReutersThe Fox team working on the debate has prepared two sets of plans for Wednesday night: One for if Mr. Trump shows up and another for if he doesn’t. Mr. Baier has spoken to Mr. Trump at least four times over the phone to make his case. Mr. Trump has explained his reluctance, but always left the door open to a late change of plans, according to the people familiar with the calls.Fox executives expect the audience for Wednesday’s debate to be lower than the record 25 million who watched the first Republican debate in August 2015, even if Mr. Trump shows up, though his presence would almost certainly boost interest.“President Trump is ratings gold, and everyone recognizes that,” said Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s communications director.Mr. Trump has tried to use his leverage to get friendlier coverage. During his dinner with the two Fox executives, Mr. Wallace and Ms. Scott, Mr. Trump needled them about the network’s coverage of him. He told them he was skeptical that Mr. Murdoch — whom Mr. Trump has known for decades — was not dictating the daytime political coverage that the former president found egregious.Mr. Trump, who has often complained about what he contends is Fox’s glowing coverage of Gov. Ron DeSantis, dismissed a recent interview Mr. Baier conducted with Mr. DeSantis as “soft.” Mr. Trump also told the Fox executives he couldn’t believe they had fired Mr. Carlson.Mr. Baier, who helped moderate Mr. Trump’s first-ever political debate in August 2015 and has golfed with him, has a complicated relationship with the former president.Mr. Baier, who will co-host Wednesday’s debate with Martha MacCallum, interviewed Mr. Trump in June, an encounter Mr. Trump first called “fair” but then complained was “unfriendly.” That change of heart came after news coverage pointed out the harm Mr. Trump may have caused himself legally with his answers about matters related to one of the federal cases against him.A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, said the network “looks forward to hosting the first debate of the Republican presidential primary season offering viewers an unmatched opportunity to learn more about the candidates’ positions on a variety of issues which is essential to the electoral process.”‘Maybe I Should Just Go’Mr. Trump’s top advisers oppose his participation in the debate to avoid giving his rivals a chance to elevate themselves at his expense and close the wide gap between them in the polls.But until earlier this past week, Mr. Trump was still privately toying with the idea of attending. In one conversation, Mr. Trump had said, “Maybe I should just go,” according to a person with knowledge of the call.The former president has been quizzing confidants lately about whether he should debate. He has fixated on former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is expected to be his harshest critic on the stage. And he has expressed a particularly intense disdain for the low-polling former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, suggesting privately that it would be almost insulting to share a stage with him, according to a person who spoke to Mr. Trump.Senior members of Mr. Trump’s team — Chris LaCivita, Jason Miller and Mr. Cheung — all plan to attend the debate. The Trump campaign has arranged for prominent surrogates, including members of Congress, to visit the “spin room” after the debate to make Mr. Trump’s case.But as of Friday, Mr. Trump appeared to have lost interest in attending the debate, according to people with knowledge of his thinking. And he is now planning to attempt to upstage the event by participating in the interview with Mr. Carlson, though the exact timing and online platform remain unclear.Trump’s Presence, Despite His AbsenceThe Fox News team is considering integrating video of Mr. Trump into their questioning on debate night. Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Baier and Ms. MacCallum plan to make Mr. Trump a major figure in the two-hour program — whether he shows up or not.The Fox team has prepared questions to ask Trump rivals about his most recent criminal indictment, which was handed down by a grand jury in Georgia. They are also considering integrating video of Mr. Trump into their questioning, according to people familiar with the planning.The questions will begin immediately. Candidates will not be allowed to make opening statements. They will, however, be allotted 45-second closing statements. Each answer will be limited to one minute, with a sound like a hotel front desk’s bell alerting candidates that their time has expired. (Fox has retired the doorbell-like chime it used in the last debates after it sent some dogs into barking fits.)Unlike when Mr. Trump skipped a Fox debate in Iowa in January 2016, just before the caucuses there, Fox has had more time to prepare for Mr. Trump’s absence.This year, the Republican National Committee updated its rules to require candidates to sign a pledge no later than 48 hours before the debate, including commitments to support the party’s nominee regardless of who it is and to not participate in any future debates not sanctioned by the R.N.C.Mr. Trump has not signed the pledge. R.N.C. officials have told people that no candidate, including Mr. Trump, will be allowed onstage without signing it. But Mr. Trump is far from principled on the matter. He has already signed a similar pledge vowing to “generally believe in” and “intend to support the nominees and platform” of the G.O.P. in 2024 in order to qualify for the South Carolina primary ballot, according to a party official in the state.In 2016, Fox did not know until the last minute possible that he was not going to show up. And even once the debate started, the hosts and producers were bracing for the possibility that he might arrive in the middle of the broadcast and demand to be allowed on the stage. More

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      How European Officials View a Possible Second Trump Term

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      The prospect of a second presidential term for Donald J. Trump has many officials worried about alliance cohesion, NATO and the war in Ukraine.For most European governments, it is almost too upsetting to think about, let alone debate in public. But the prospect that Donald J. Trump could win the Republican nomination for the presidency and return to the White House is a prime topic of private discussion.“It’s slightly terrifying, it’s fair to say,” said Steven Everts, a European Union diplomat who is soon to become the director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies. “We were relieved by President Biden and his response to Ukraine,” Mr. Everts said, “but now we’re forced to confront the Trump question again.”Given the enormous role the United States plays in European security,” he added, “we now have to think again about what this means for our own politics, for European defense and for Ukraine itself.”The talk is intensifying as Mr. Trump, despite the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his various indictments, is running well ahead of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination and is neck-and-neck with President Biden in early opinion polls.In general, Central Europeans are more convinced that they can manage a second Trump presidency, but Western Europeans are dreading the prospect, especially in Germany, about which Mr. Trump seems to feel significant antipathy.During his presidency, Mr. Trump threatened to pull out of NATO and withheld aid to Ukraine as it struggled with a Russian-backed insurgency, the subject of his first impeachment. He ordered the withdrawal of thousands of American troops from Germany, a move later overturned by Mr. Biden, and spoke with admiration of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Mr. Trump with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Osaka, Japan, in 2019. Mr. Trump, who has praised the Russian leader, said he would end the war in Ukraine in a day.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesToday, with Europe and Russia locked in conflict over Ukraine, and Mr. Putin making veiled threats about nuclear weapons and a wider war, the question of American commitment takes on even greater importance. Mr. Trump recently said that he would end the war in a day, presumably by forcing Ukraine to make territorial concessions.A second Trump term “would be different from the first, and much worse,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, a former German government official who is now with the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. “Trump has experience now and knows what levers to pull, and he’s angry,” he said.Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said he remembered talking with then-Chancellor Angela Merkel the night she returned from her first meeting with Mr. Trump as president. As usual, she was “all about managing the man as she had managed dozens of powerful men,” he said. “But no one will think” they can manage “Trump Two.”Several European officials declined to talk on the record about the prospect of another Trump presidency. They do not want to engage in American domestic politics, but they also may need to deal with Mr. Trump if he is elected, and some say they remember him as vindictive about criticism.Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany engaging with Mr. Trump during a Group of 7 summit in Canada in 2018. Many of their exchanges were notoriously frosty.Jesco Denzel/German Federal Government, via Associated PressFor many European officials, Mr. Biden restored the continuity of the United States’ commitment to Europe since World War II: a dependable, even indispensable, ally whose presence eased frictions among former European rivals and allowed the continent to cohere, while providing an ironclad security guarantee.In the view of Mr. Trump and his supporters, that relationship allowed Europe to shirk spending on its own defense, a resentment that fueled Mr. Trump’s threats to reduce or withdraw American commitments.“The NATO alliance is not a treaty commitment so much as a trust commitment,” said Ivo Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO. Given the doubts Mr. Trump raised in his first term, his return as president “could mean the end of the alliance, legally or not.”In conversations with Europeans, Mr. Daalder said, “they are deeply, deeply concerned about the 2024 election and how it will impact the alliance. No matter the topic, Ukraine or NATO cohesion, it’s the only question asked.”Jan Techau, a former German defense official now with Eurasia Group, said that in the worst case, a United States that turned its back would set off “an existential problem” for Europe at a moment when both China and Russia are working avidly to divide Europeans.President Biden delivering a speech in Lithuania during meetings with NATO leaders in July. In remarks, he affirmed his support for Ukraine in the war.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAbsent American engagement, “there would be a destructive scramble for influence,” he said.For Germany, Mr. Techau said, there would be the difficult question: Should Berlin be the backbone of a collective European defense without the Americans, or would it try to make its own deal with Russia and Mr. Putin?France would most likely try to step in, having long advocated European strategic autonomy, but few believe it can provide the same kind of nuclear and security guarantee for the continent, even together with Britain, that Washington does.President Emmanuel Macron of France has made it clear that he believes a politically polarized United States, more focused on China, will inevitably reduce its commitments to Europe. He has been pushing Europeans to do more for their own defense and interests, which are not perfectly aligned with Washington’s.So far he has largely failed in that ambition and, given the war in Ukraine, has instead embraced a stronger European pillar within NATO. But even Mr. Macron would not welcome an American withdrawal from the alliance.“It’s absolutely clear that Putin intends to continue the war, at least until the American elections, and hopes for Trump,” as does China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said Thomas Gomart, the director of the French Institute of International Relations. “It could be a big shock for Europeans.”A Trump victory, Mr. Gomart said, would most likely mean less American support for Ukraine, more pressure on Kyiv to settle, and more pressure on the Europeans to deal with Mr. Putin themselves, “which we are not ready to do militarily.”Ukrainian soldiers with an American tactical vehicle during training near Kyiv, Ukraine, in March. A Trump victory could mean less U.S. support for Ukraine.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesThere is also concern that a Trump victory could breathe new life into anti-democratic forces in Europe.Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016 gave a major boost to European populist politics, and another victory would almost surely do the same, a major worry in France, where Marine Le Pen, a far-right leader, could succeed Mr. Macron.Even in Mr. Trump’s absence, the far-right Alternative for Germany, which Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has under surveillance as a threat to the Constitution, is for the moment the country’s second-most popular party.Dominique Moïsi, a French analyst with Institut Montaigne, a research organization, said a second Trump term would be “catastrophic” for Europe’s resistance to populism.Mr. Trump is a prince of chaos, Mr. Moïsi said, and with a war raging in Europe, and China open about its ambitions, “the prospect of an America yielding to its isolationist instinct” and embracing populism “is simply scary.”Not everyone in Europe would be unwelcoming, to be sure.Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary has long celebrated ties to Mr. Trump and his wing of the Republican Party. Mr. Orban and his self-styled “illiberal democracy” is considered a sort of model by the hard right, especially his defense of what he considers traditional gender roles and of religion and his antipathy toward uncontrolled migration.Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary speaking at a Conservative Political Action Conference gathering last year in Texas. He is revered by a wing of the American political right.Emil Lippe for The New York TimesIn Poland, too, the governing Law and Justice party shares many of the same views and criticisms of established elites. It had excellent relations with Mr. Trump and succeeded in getting American troops sent to Poland.“The view in the government and in a large part of the strategic community here was that the worst didn’t happen — he didn’t sell us out to the Russians,” said Michal Baranowski of the German Marshall Fund in Warsaw. “There was a feeling that the West Europeans were freaking out a bit too much,” he said.The big question for Poland, which has been fiercely pro-Ukrainian, is what Mr. Trump and the Republicans would do about Ukraine.Mr. Baranowski said that recent discussions in Washington with officials from the conservative Heritage Foundation had given him the impression that there would be significant continuity on Ukraine.“But Trump is unpredictable to an uncomfortable degree for everyone,” he said. More

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      When the Law Is Not a Trump Card

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      The multiplying indictments of Donald Trump, I argued a couple of weeks ago, are putting an end to all attempts to simply practice normal politics in 2024. For both his Republican primary opponents and eventually President Biden, the ongoing efforts to put a former president in prison will shape and warp and shadow every effort to make more prosaic political arguments against a Trump restoration.But there is a corollary to this point, brought home by the conjunction of this week’s Georgia indictment and an argument from two conservative legal scholars that the 14th Amendment’s third article, aimed at excluding Confederates who had betrayed oaths to the Union from political office, should apply to Trump after the events of Jan 6. If the legal challenges against Trump have the power to shape the democratic politics of 2024, the shaping power also works the other way. As extraordinary judicial proceedings alter democratic politics, the legal arena is inevitably politicized as well, undermining its claim to standing some distance outside and above democratic realities.This isn’t a judgment on the legal merits of any of the Trump indictments. It doesn’t matter how scrupulous the prosecutor, how fair-minded the judge; to try a man, four times over, whom a sizable minority of Americans believe should be the next president, is an inherently political act. And it is an especially political act when the crimes themselves are intimately connected to the political process, as they are in the two most recent indictments.The prosecutions seek to demonstrate that not even a president is above the law. But if Trump is indeed the Republican nominee, the proceedings against him will potentially end by subjecting the judicial to the political, the law to raw politics, because millions of Americans can effectively veto the findings of the juries by simply putting Trump in the White House once again. And even if they do not make that choice (I think they probably won’t), even if the polls currently overestimate Trump’s strength (I think they probably do), the entire election will still be an object lesson in the supremacy of the political, because everyone will see that the court rulings aren’t actually final, that political combat is stronger than mere law.You can see all that and still support Trump’s prosecutions as a calculated but necessary risk — in the hopes that having him lose twice, in the courts and at the ballot box, will re-establish a political taboo against his kind of postelection behavior and on the theory that this outcome is worth the risk that the whole strategy will fail completely if he wins.If you see things that way, good; you see clearly, you are acting reasonably. My concern is that not enough people do clearly see what’s risked in these kinds of proceedings, that many of Trump’s opponents still regard some form of legal action as a trump card — that with the right mix of statutory interpretation and moral righteousness, you can simply bend political reality to your will.Certainly that’s my feeling reading the argument that the 14th Amendment already disqualifies Trump from the presidency and that indeed no further legal proceedings — no trial for rebellion or treason, no finding of guilt — are necessary for state officials to simply exclude him from their ballots.The authors of this notable argument, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, are serious conservative legal scholars of the originalist persuasion, and their claims are couched in close attention to the text of the amendment and its history. Since I am not a legal scholar, the fact that I do not find these arguments remotely plausible can be partially discounted, so I would direct you first to two different critiques: one from a conservative scholar and friend of the authors, Stanford’s Michael McConnell, and one from a critic of originalism, Georgia State’s Eric Segall.McConnell suggests that to avoid giving the 14th Amendment’s provisions a dangerously anti-democratic breadth, such that all manner of normal democratic dissent and rabble-rousing could be deemed disqualifying, we should assume that they refer to a large-scale insurrection, military rebellion or explicit civil war. Applying them to a political protest-turned-riot, even a riot that disrupted the transfer of presidential power, risks a serious abuse of power — “depriving voters of the ability to elect candidates of their choice” — without adequate limitations on its use.Meanwhile, Segall questions the authors’ claim that the amendment’s provisions are “self-executing,” that they can be applied to Trump or any other supposed insurrectionist immediately. He points out that this interpretation was already rejected in 1869 by Salmon Chase, then the chief justice of the United States, one year after the amendment’s ratification in the only ruling we have on this question. This is acknowledged by Baude and Paulsen, to be sure, who argue at length that Chase was wrong. But they are still in the dubious position of claiming that theirs is the true “original” reading of the amendment, seeking some way to deal with the problem of Donald Trump a century and a half later, rather than the reading offered at the time of ratification that has stood unchallenged since.Then here is the point that I, a non-scholar, want to make (though I should note that Segall makes it as well): Even if Baude and Paulsen were deemed correct on some pure empyrean level of constitutional debate, and Salmon Chase or anyone else deemed completely wrong, their correctness would be unavailing in reality, and their prescription as a political matter would be so disastrous and toxic and self-defeating that no responsible jurist or official should consider it.The idea that the best way to deal with a demagogic populist whose entire appeal is already based on disillusionment with the established order is for state officials — in practice, state officials of the opposing political party — to begin unilaterally excluding him from their ballots on the basis of their own private judgment of crimes that he has not been successfully prosecuted for … I’m sorry, the mind reels. It should not happen, it would not work if it did happen, John Roberts and four more justices would not uphold it, and it would license political chaos to no good purpose whatsoever. And if the legal theorist’s response is that this isn’t the “best” way to deal with Trump, it’s just the way that the Constitution requires, then so much the worse for their theory of the Constitution.There is an irony here, which is that a similar kind of legal mentality influenced Trump’s campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 election. John Eastman’s argument that Mike Pence could interpose himself between the official results of the election and Joe Biden’s inauguration was a much more fanciful constitutional argument than the one that Baude and Paulsen make. But it was similar in imagining a particular interpretation of the Constitution as something that can just be deemed correct and then imposed by a particular actor — the vice president in the Eastman case, state election officials in theirs — without regard to anything that would naturally follow in the realm of the political.What would have probably followed from the Pence maneuver, as his own lawyer advised him, would have been either a swift smackdown from the courts or the vice president standing alone against both houses of the legislative branch. (This seems like one reason Eastman’s crackbrained proposal was not a rebellion under 14th Amendment definitions; if Confederate secession could have been defeated through a quick appeal to the Supreme Court, it would not have been much of a rebellion either.)But imagine, if you will, a world where Eastman had uncovered, days before Jan. 6, some piece of historical evidence that raised his theory’s status from “desperate Trumpist motivated reasoning” to “an idea that merits some academic debate.” Suppose even that a few liberal legal scholars had been forced to concede a little ground to his position. Would this in any way have changed the total political folly of the Pence maneuver, the impossibility of levering a presidential outcome from the vice president’s supervisory position, the purposeless destabilization that such a gambit would entail?I say that it would not, that where legal theory touches politics in this way it must necessarily deal with political considerations, that appeals to law and legal text alone are not enough to settle matters if political realities are against you. That is the cold knowledge that all of us watching Trump’s extraordinary indictments converge with his extraordinary campaign need to carry into 2024.BreviaryNic Rowan on Bill WattersonJustin E.H. Smith sings a ballad of Generation XJohn Duggan on Sally Rooney and CatholicismAlex Tabarrok on the acts of Saint ThomasNotes for a Susannah Black Roberts essay on the post-Christian right More

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      U.S. Seals Security Pact With Japan and South Korea as Threats Loom

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      While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the communique issued by three leaders, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region.The new three-way security pact sealed by President Biden and the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David on Friday was forged with threats by China and North Korea in mind. But there was one other possible factor driving the diplomatic breakthrough: Donald J. Trump.While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the “Camp David Principles” that the leaders issued at the presidential retreat, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region.Both Japan and South Korea struggled for four years as Mr. Trump threatened to scale back longstanding U.S. security and economic commitments while wooing China, North Korea and Russia. In formalizing a three-way alliance that had long eluded the United States, Mr. Biden and his counterparts hoped to lock in a strategic architecture that will endure regardless of who is in the White House next.“This is not about a day, a week or month,” Mr. Biden said at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea. “This is about decades and decades of relationships that we’re building.” The goal, he added, was to “lay in place a long-term structure for a relationship that will last.”Asked by a reporter why Asia should be confident about American assurances given Mr. Trump’s campaign to recapture the presidency on a so-called America First platform, Mr. Biden offered a testimonial to the value of alliances in guaranteeing the nation’s security in dangerous times.“There’s not much, if anything, I agree on with my predecessor on foreign policy,” Mr. Biden said, adding that “walking away from the rest of the world leaves us weaker, not stronger. America is strong with our allies and our alliances and that’s why we will endure.”The meeting at the getaway in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland was a milestone in Mr. Biden’s efforts to stitch together a network of partnerships to counter Chinese aggression in the region. While the United States has long been close to Japan and South Korea individually, the two Asian powers have nursed generations of grievances that kept them at a distance from one another.The alignment at Camp David was made possible by Mr. Yoon’s decision to try to put the past behind the two countries. His rapprochement with Tokyo has not been universally popular at home with a public that harbors long memories of the Japanese occupation in the first half of the 20th century, but both sides made clear they are dedicated to a fresh start.“That’s a long, bitter colonial wound that President Yoon has to jump over, and Kishida as well,” said Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. “That I think is a consonant expression of the degree to which China’s rather belligerent, punitive behavior has driven together allies, partners and friends within Asia.”Mr. Biden hoped to capitalize on that by bringing the Japanese and South Korean leaders together for the first stand-alone meeting between the three nations that was not on the sidelines of a larger international summit. He repeatedly praised Mr. Yoon and Mr. Kishida for “the political courage” they were demonstrating.He chose the resonant setting of Camp David for the talks to emphasize the importance he attaches to the initiative, inviting the leaders to the storied retreat that has been the site of momentous events over the decades, including most memorably Jimmy Carter’s 13-day negotiation in 1978 brokering peace between Israel and Egypt.“This is a big deal,” Mr. Biden said, noting that it was the first time he had invited foreign leaders to the camp since taking office. “This is a historic meeting.”The others echoed the sentiments. “Today will be remembered as a historic day,” Mr. Yoon said. Mr. Kishida agreed, saying the fact that the three could get together “means that we are indeed making a new history as of today.”A stronger collaboration with Japan and South Korea could be a significant pillar in Mr. Biden’s strategy to counter China.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesThe leaders agreed to establish a three-way hotline for crisis communications, enhance ballistic missile cooperation and expand joint military exercises. They issued a written “commitment to consult” in which they resolved “to coordinate our responses to regional challenges, provocations, and threats affecting our collective interests and security.”The commitment is not as far-reaching as NATO’s mutual security pact, which deems an attack on one member to be an attack on all, nor does it go as far as the defense treaties that the United States has separately with Japan and South Korea. But it cements the idea that the three powers share a special bond and expect to coordinate strategies where possible.China has derided the idea of a “mini-NATO” in Asia, accusing Washington of being provocative, but aides to Mr. Biden stressed the difference from the Atlantic alliance. “It’s explicitly not a NATO for the Pacific,” said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser.Mr. Biden and his aides maintained that the collaboration sealed at Camp David should not be seen as aimed at China or any other country. “This summit was not about China. This was not the purpose,” the president said. “But obviously China came up.” Instead, he said, “this summit was really about our relationship with each other and defining cooperation across an entire range of issues.”Still, no one had any doubt about the context against which the meeting was taking place. The Camp David Principles issued by the leaders did not directly mention China, but it did “reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” a warning against aggressive military actions by Beijing.The documents released were more explicit about nuclear-armed North Korea and the joint efforts they will take to counter its military, cyber and cryptocurrency money laundering threats.Looming in the backdrop was Mr. Trump, whose mercurial actions and bursts of hostility while president flummoxed Japanese and South Korean leaders accustomed to more stable interactions with Washington.At various points, he threatened to withdraw from the U.S. defense treaty with Japan and to pull all American troops out of South Korea. He abruptly canceled joint military exercises with South Korea at the request of North Korea and told interviewers after leaving office that if he had a second term he would force Seoul to pay billions of dollars to maintain the United States military presence.The summit at Camp David was aimed at ending decades of friction between the two Asian countries.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesThe Asian leaders hope that the three-way accord fashioned by Mr. Biden will help avoid wild swings in the future. The president and his guests sought to institutionalize their new collaboration by committing to annual three-way meetings in the future by whoever holds their offices.“There’s definitely risk-hedging when it comes to political leadership,” said Shihoko Goto, acting director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.”By deepening the cooperation below the leader level through various new mechanisms, she said, the governments may be able to maintain functional ties even if a volatile president occupies the White House.“If a new U.S. president were to avoid going to international conferences or had no interest in engaging, the trilateral institutionalization of ties should be strong enough so that working relations between the three countries would continue,” she said. “So it won’t matter if a president didn’t show up since the working-level military or economic cooperation would be well-established.”It is not the first time allies have questioned the United States’ commitment to its partners. Despite Mr. Biden’s promise at the NATO summit last month that Washington would “not waver” in its support for Ukraine and western allies, some leaders openly asked whether the U.S. foreign policy agenda would be upended by the outcome of the next election.Ukraine needed to make military progress more or less “by the end of this year” because of the coming elections in the United States, President Petr Pavel of the Czech Republic warned on the first day of the summit.Mr. Biden in Finland was also asked about whether the U.S. support of NATO would endure. “No one can guarantee the future, but this is the best bet anyone could make,” Mr. Biden said then.At Camp David on Friday, neither Mr. Yoon nor Mr. Kishida mentioned Mr. Trump directly in their public comments, but they seemed intent on ensuring that their agreement persists beyond their tenures. Mr. Yoon said the nations were focused on building an alliance that could last for years to come. The three nations will hold a “global leadership youth summit to strengthen ties between our future generations,” he said.Endurance was a running theme throughout the day. “We’re opening a new era,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters shortly before the meetings opened, “and we’re making sure that era has staying power.”Ana Swanson More

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      What Trump’s Debate Stunt Says to Republican Voters

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      It’s hard to think of a more childishly on-brand stunt than Donald Trump’s effort to sabotage the first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential race.The MAGA king refusing to put on his big-boy pants and share the stage with his opponents is one thing. But counterprogramming some sad sideshow to siphon attention away from the first major candidate forum of the cycle — and with Tucker Carlson, no less? That’s a whole different level of petulant and needy, and it speaks to his staggering disregard for voters and their right to accurately assess the field. The electorate, especially Trump-skeptical Republicans, should demand better.I get why Mr. Trump isn’t eager to climb into this sandbox. Debating is hard, and he is out of practice. He participated in only two debates during the 2020 cycle, the first of which was the stuff of campaign legend — but in a bad way. (Proud boys, stand back and stand by!) At some point during Wednesday’s two-hour event he would need to talk about something other than his grievances. He hates doing that, and has always been kind of lousy at it. Much of the primary field he is now facing is younger, sharper, hungrier and actually cares about policy and governance. And while few people have Mr. Trump’s razzle-dazzle, at least a couple of his opponents have solid media chops. (Ramaswamy, baby!)Mr. Trump may well be correct to assume he has more to lose than gain from these matchups. But it bears remembering that debates aren’t supposed to be primarily for the benefit of the candidates strutting and fretting upon the stage. They are meant to provide voters with a meaty opportunity to judge their options side-by-side, to listen to them field tough questions, to compare their policies and priorities and visions of leadership. The point is to help the electorate make an informed choice.This is the case for every presidential hopeful. It is all the truer for Mr. Trump, who is dominating the Republican herd. Sure, he’s done the job before. But his performance was … well, unsettling enough that he lost re-election — and then handled the loss rather poorly. Some Republican voters, especially all those suburban women he needs to win back, might care to hear why he thinks they should give him another chance, especially now that he is up to his comb-over in legal trouble. His high-handed decision to skip this debate risks underscoring to these voters how unserious he is about winning their support and expanding his base even a whit, versus staying comfortably focused on his MAGA fans.Mr. Trump’s participation would reveal much about the other candidates as well. How would the field handle it when he started spewing his conspiracy nonsense? Who would call him out? (If these debate strategy memos are any indication, not Pudding Fingers DeSantis.) Would anyone be able to wrest the spotlight from him?Even with Mr. Trump missing, there will be much awkward talk of him. (Or so Fox News’s debate moderators promise.) You would think that, if he were in fighting form, he would want to be on hand to keep the pretenders to his throne in line — or, more precisely, to humiliate his critics face-to-face. I mean, lobbing fat jokes at Chris Christie from afar can provide Mr. Trump only so much satisfaction, particularly since Mr. Christie has been calling him a liar, a coward, and a con artist of late.Instead, the former president is taking the cheap and entitled way out, fulfilling at least one of Mr. Christie’s critiques. After weeks of being tiresomely coy about his debate-night plans, he has decided to sit down with the disgraced pundit Tucker Carlson, The Times reported on Friday. The man is notoriously fickle, so who knows when — or even if — this will actually happen. Let’s hope it doesn’t. I’m sorry, but we already watched Mr. Carlson give Mr. Trump a thorough bootlicking back in April, not long before Fox News gave Mr. Carlson the boot, in fact, and it was sad. Worse than watching Don Jr.’s videos-for-hire on Cameo. No one needs to see more of that.The Republican debaters, meanwhile, will be left to struggle with the thorny challenge of how to prevent Mr. Trump from hijacking the event in absentia. His antidemocratic inclinations and parade of indictments will have to be addressed. But then everyone really should move on to other issues, leaving the attention-thirsty former president in the shadows. If a Trumpless debate winds up being all about Mr. Trump anyway, he is the winner.This election cycle is still young, and there will be other debates. The next one, in fact, was announced just last week. (Mark your calendars for Sept. 27!) Republican voters who are feeling even slightly ambivalent about a Trump nomination/coronation should make clear that they expect him to start showing up — and soon, before the field has been whittled way down.Sure, the MAGA faithful don’t care about such niceties as accountability. But they do not constitute the majority of the Republican Party. The non-MAGA masses can take this primary in another direction if they choose. Many of those voters have reservations about Mr. Trump’s fitness for office — or at least about his electability. (The guy has been responsible for an awful lot of losing since 2016.) They deserve to take his measure directly against the field’s alternatives. And they are in a position to punish him if he cannot be bothered to even try.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: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      If DeSantis Defends Trump At Debate, He Should Drop Out, Christie Says

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      Mr. Christie needled his higher-polling rivals while campaigning in their home state of Florida.If Gov. Ron DeSantis follows political consultants’ advice to defend former President Donald J. Trump during the first Republican presidential debate next week, then he should “get the hell out of the race,” former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Friday, poking Mr. DeSantis from his home state of Florida.“He should do Donald Trump a favor and do our party a favor, come back to Tallahassee and endorse Donald Trump,” Mr. Christie said to applause before a friendly crowd in South Miami. “The only way to beat someone,” he added, “is to beat him.”Mr. Christie mocked a strategy memo, internal polling and other data published online by a firm associated with a super PAC that has effectively taken over Mr. DeSantis’s campaign. With unusual bluntness, the documents suggested that Mr. DeSantis defend Mr. Trump against Mr. Christie’s expected debate attacks. The documents advised Mr. DeSantis to credit Mr. Trump for his accomplishments, but add that it is time for a new standard-bearer.Mr. Christie stepped up his criticisms of Mr. DeSantis in a pair of South Florida campaign appearances, as it seemed increasingly likely that he would not get the debate-stage confrontation with Mr. Trump he had been spoiling for — and that he would instead have to settle for the next highest-polling rival. Mr. DeSantis, though leading Mr. Christie and the rest of the field, has appeared weakened heading into Wednesday.When asked by a reporter about the memo on Friday, Mr. Christie said the guidance showed that Mr. DeSantis lacked the authenticity and principles to be president.“If you’re running for president of the United States, are you really going to let some other group of people tell you what to say?” he said. “This campaign of his has gone from up here to down here because people are really beginning to wonder what the hell he stands for.”Mr. DeSantis has been cautious about upsetting Trump supporters for fear of alienating the Republican primary base, a strategy that has hampered the Florida governor’s ability to contrast himself with Mr. Trump, the party’s front-runner.On Friday, over more than 90 minutes of remarks and answers to questions, sprinkled with colorful language and jokes, Mr. Christie repeatedly jabbed Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump, the two Floridians who have dominated the state’s politics and rarely faced criticism from anyone in their own party.The receptive, bipartisan crowd sipping Cuban coffee and nibbling on pastries seemed a throwback to Republican politics before the Trump era.One man, a self-described “liberal Democrat,” said he would be open to supporting Mr. Christie. Another woman who said she was a lifelong Democrat said that she was dissatisfied with her party’s direction and unhappy with the possibility of having to choose between Mr. Trump and President Biden again, an opinion shared by many voters on the campaign trail.Mr. Christie, who trails Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis in the polls, said that was why he was “not conceding” the political conversation to his rivals.“Some people would say, ‘Why bother coming to Florida if two of the other candidates already live here?’” Mr. Christie said. “I’m here because we need to talk about these things.”At first, his criticism of Mr. DeSantis was indirect: He did not refer to Mr. DeSantis by name when he mentioned an opponent who had dismissed the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute.” (Mr. DeSantis later walked back that comment.) But then Mr. Christie brought up concerns about Mr. DeSantis’s zeal for divisive cultural issues involving transgender people and Disney.“I don’t understand your governor,” he said, also name-checking Mr. Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy, another Republican presidential hopeful who has also campaigned against “woke” policies. “Maybe today you like what they’re going after, but tomorrow maybe they’re going to go after something you like.”Andrew Romeo, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign manager, said in a statement Friday that it had no knowledge of the memo before it was reported publicly.“We are well accustomed to the attacks from all sides as the media and other candidates realize Ron DeSantis is the strongest candidate best positioned to take down Joe Biden,” he added.Later, Mr. Christie swung by Versailles, Miami’s famous Cuban restaurant and a frequent stop for politicians, where he did not order anything but instead worked the lunch crowd, shaking hands and posing for selfies, especially with tourists from New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia. “We’re having fun,” he told one group.In a gaggle with reporters, Mr. Christie dismissed polls that showed negative ratings for him among Republican voters — “Those numbers change,” he said — as well as Mr. Trump’s rising popularity with the G.O.P. base after each of the four criminal indictments against him.“Whether you believe what he did was criminal or not is much less important than the idea that the conduct is awful,” he said, “and beneath, in my view, the office of the president.”Mr. Trump’s decision to skip the debate, he added, is insulting to voters.“Not showing up is completely disrespectful to the Republican Party, who has made you their nominee twice,” he said. 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      Trump Plans to Skip GOP Debate for Interview With Tucker Carlson

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      The former president’s apparent decision to skip the first debate is a major affront both to the Republican National Committee and to Fox News, which is hosting the event. Former President Donald J. Trump plans to upstage the first Republican primary debate on Wednesday by sitting for an online interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, according to multiple people briefed on the matter.In the past 24 hours, Mr. Trump has told people close to him that he has made up his mind and will skip the debate in Milwaukee, according to two of the people briefed on the matter. Mr. Trump is notoriously mercurial, and left himself something of an out to change his mind with an ambiguous post on his website, Truth Social, on Thursday. He wrote that he’s polling well ahead of his rivals and added, “Reagan didn’t do it, and neither did others. People know my Record, one of the BEST EVER, so why would I Debate?”For weeks, the former president has been quizzing aides, associates and rally crowds about what he should do. Until earlier this week, Mr. Trump had been giving people the impression he was considering a last-minute surprise appearance on Wednesday.Still, people close to him had said for months that he was unlikely to take part in the first two Republican debates, both of which are sponsored by the Republican National Committee. And Mr. Trump’s apparent decision to skip the first debate of the presidential nominating contest is a major affront to both the R.N.C. and Fox News, which is hosting the event. The exact timing and platform of the interview with Mr. Carlson remain unclear, but if it goes ahead as currently planned, the debate-night counterprogramming would serve as an act of open hostility.The chairwoman of the R.N.C., Ronna McDaniel, has privately urged Mr. Trump to attend the debate, even traveling to his private club in Bedminster, N.J., last month to make her pitch in person. And Fox News has been drawn into a public battle not only with Mr. Trump but with Mr. Carlson, who is still on contract and being paid by Fox despite having his show taken off the air. Fox sent Mr. Carlson a cease-and-desist letter after he aired a series of videos on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The Trump campaign’s conversations with Mr. Carlson — and the possibility of counterprogramming — have previously been reported by multiple news organizations.Spokesmen for the Trump campaign, the R.N.C. and Fox News did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Carlson also did not respond to requests for comment.Fox News executives and personalities have been lobbying the former president, both publicly and privately, to participate in the debate. But Mr. Trump has been openly attacking Fox and has privately vented his animosity for the chairman of Fox Corporation, Rupert Murdoch.Even so, Mr. Trump has privately also given top executives and anchors at Fox the impression that he was open to and even seriously considering their entreaties.Earlier this month, Mr. Trump hosted for dinner the Fox News president Jay Wallace and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, who had gone to Bedminster hoping to persuade Mr. Trump to come to the debate. They left the dinner believing there was a decent chance he would show up, according to two people familiar with the dinner.Mr. Trump’s apparent decision to skip the debate comes on the heels of his fourth criminal indictment. The latest indictment came from the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney, who accused Mr. Trump of taking part in a criminal conspiracy to subvert the transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election in the state. More