Presidential Election of 2024

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      For Some G.O.P. Voters, Fatigue Slows the Rush to Defend Trump

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      The Republicans who will pick their 2024 nominee expressed anger, defensiveness and also embarrassment about the indictment facing Donald J. Trump.Republican officials almost unanimously rallied around Donald J. Trump after his indictment, but the actual G.O.P. voters who will render a verdict on his political future next year weren’t nearly as solidly behind him.Some previous Trump voters said the indictment, the first ever of a former president, was the latest shattering of norms in a ledger already stuffed with chaos from the Trump years, and it was time for their party to move on in seeking a 2024 nominee.In Hawthorne, N.Y., Scott Gray, a land surveyor who voted for Mr. Trump in two elections, said he had wearied of him.“I think he did a lot of things right,” Mr. Gray said, then immediately darted in the other direction: “I think he’s completely unpresidential. I can’t believe he’s still running for office.”As an alternative, Mr. Gray said he was interested in “that guy down in Florida who’s governor — DeSantis.” (Ron DeSantis, who is expected to run but has not yet announced a campaign, is Mr. Trump’s closest rival for the G.O.P. nomination in recent polling of primary voters.)In conversations with Republican-leaning voters around the country, Mr. Trump’s indictment brought out much anger, occasional embarrassment and a swirl of contradictory reactions, not unlike every other twist in the yearslong high drama of Donald Trump.As expected, many rallied around the former president, calling the indictment by a Democratic prosecutor in New York a sham — a provocation they said would only cement their allegiance to Mr. Trump, who for years has encouraged supporters to see attacks on him as also attacks on them.Vendors selling Trump merchandise on Friday near the White House.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBut for some the rush to defend was weighed down by scandal fatigue and a sense that Mr. Trump’s time has passed.Outside Wild Cherry Nail and Hair Studio in Port Richey, Fla., on Friday, Ilyse Internicola and Meghan Seltman, both Trump supporters, discussed the indictment during a smoke break.“How far are they going to go?” Ms. Internicola, a hair stylist in the salon, demanded.Ms. Seltman, a manicurist, said she would “always stay loyal” to Mr. Trump. “But for the presidency, I’d like to see DeSantis have his chance,” she said. “He’s done well with Florida, and I’d like to see what he does with the nation. Get it back to how it used to be.”Mr. Trump was charged by a grand jury on Thursday with more than two dozen counts, with an arraignment expected on Tuesday, when specific charges will be unsealed.The news of the day on Thursday in Times Square in Manhattan.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesPolling has shown a marked shift toward Mr. Trump among Republicans in recent months, primarily at Mr. DeSantis’s expense, which may partly reflect the highly anticipated indictment, on charges stemming from a $130,000 payment to a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election. Nearly two weeks ago, Mr. Trump incorrectly predicted the day of his arrest and called for protests, seeking to energize supporters. His provocations have included posting a picture of himself wielding a baseball bat beside a picture of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.William Stelling, a real estate agent in Jacksonville, Fla., once kept his options open about the 2024 Republican primary. But the indictment goaded him to stand up for the former president.“I am dusting off my Trump flags and hanging them proudly,” Mr. Stelling said. “This proves to me that he’s the right candidate. Because they’re throwing the kitchen sink at him on a trumped-up charge that we all know is basically a misdemeanor at best.”Debbie Dooley, a staunch Trump loyalist who helped found the Atlanta Tea Party, went so far as to organize a demonstration for Mr. Trump during a DeSantis visit to suburban Atlanta on Thursday. She said the indictment bolstered her faith that he would win the presidency in his third campaign.“I’m going to go ahead and make reservations for a hotel in D.C. for the inauguration because Trump is going to be the next president of the United States,” she said. “The prosecutor’s not doing anything but helping him.”And Allan Terry, a Trump supporter in Charleston, S.C., who has Trump flags flying in his front and back yard, plans to add a new one to his truck, he said.“If he messed around, so what?” Mr. Terry said of the payment to the former porn star, Stormy Daniels, which prosecutors say underlies violations of campaign finance and business records laws. “It’s immoral. It’s wrong. He shouldn’t have done it. If he did, so what does that have to do with his presidency?”But not all previous Trump backers share such loyalty. In a Quinnipiac University poll released this week before the indictment, one in four Republicans and one in three independents said criminal charges should disqualify Mr. Trump as a presidential candidate.A Fox News poll of the potential Republican field this week showed Mr. Trump with 54 percent of support from primary voters, followed by Mr. DeSantis at 24 percent and others, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador and South Carolina governor, in single digits.In Iowa, which will hold the first Republican nominating contest early next year, Gypsy Russ, who lives in Iowa City, said she once supported Mr. Trump but doubted he could win the party’s embrace yet again.“There’s not enough Republicans supporting him,” she said.Gypsy Russ, of Iowa City, who identifies as a moderate Republican, on Thursday evening.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesMs. Russ said Mr. Trump had shown over and over that he is not presidential. “He’s just very rude,” she said. “And he doesn’t talk like a president is supposed to.” Although he has many fans, including her parents, she added, “He didn’t gain any more followers because of the way he carries himself.”Jim Alden, a Republican businessman from Franconia, N.H., who is no particular fan of Mr. Trump’s, nonetheless predicted that the indictment would strengthen his support because Republicans find the behavior underlying the charges to be inconsequential, and they believe politics were driving Mr. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, in his inquiry.“Unfortunately, it will embolden Trump’s core supporters because he has cultivated this persecution complex, and being indicted on what may be a questionably strong case is only going to strengthen the persecution complex,” said Mr. Alden.Outside Mar-a-Lago on Friday. Josh Ritchie for The New York TimesOne of those core supporters was Keith Marcus, who owns a wholesale beauty supply business in New York City.“I’m shocked and I’m upset,” he said. The indictment “is setting a really bad precedent for the future,” he added. “It’s just a witch hunt. The D.A. is a joke — a total joke.”But the indictment also seemed to have shaken at least some Trump voters’ willingness to back him in a bid for another four years in the White House.In Hawthorne, N.Y., a red island of Republican voters in the otherwise liberal northern suburbs of New York, Palmy Vocaturo said he twice voted for Mr. Trump, but his confidence in him has eroded in light of the criminal investigations, not just in Manhattan but in cases pursued by a Georgia prosecutor and a special counsel for the Justice Department.“I’m getting mixed feelings,” said Mr. Vocaturo, a retired construction worker. “If he is as bad as I think he is, go ahead and do something,” he said of the indictment.Jon Hurdle More

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      Democrats Absorb Trump’s Indictment With Joy, Vindication and Anxiety

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      In some ways, it was the turn of events Democratic voters had dreamed of and some of the party’s lawmakers had long demanded: After years of telling lies, shattering norms, inciting a riot at the Capitol and being impeached twice, Donald J. Trump on Thursday became the first former president to face criminal charges.“We’ve been waiting for the dam to break for six years,” declared Carter Hudgins, 73, a retired professor from Charleston, S.C. “It should have happened a long time ago,” added his wife, Donna Hudgins, 71, a retired librarian.But as the gravity of the moment sank in, Democratic voters, party officials and activists across the country absorbed the news of Mr. Trump’s extraordinary indictment with a more complex set of reactions. Their feelings ranged from jubilation and vindication to anxieties about the substance of the case, concerns that it could heighten Mr. Trump’s standing in his party and fears that in such a polarized environment, Republicans would struggle to muster basic respect for the rule of law as the facts unfolded.“They are going to treat him as if he is Jesus Christ himself on a cross being persecuted,” said Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat from Dallas who worked as a criminal defense lawyer before she was elected to Congress last year. She blasted Republican arguments that the charges were politically motivated, saying, “We knew the type of person Trump was when he got elected the first time.”Mr. Trump, who polls show is the leading Republican contender for the 2024 presidential nomination, was indicted on Thursday by a special grand jury in connection with his role in hush-money payments to a porn star. He was charged with more than two dozen counts, though the specifics are not yet known.It is one in a swirl of investigations Mr. Trump faces, on a range of explosive matters including his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving office and whether he and his allies criminally interfered with the 2020 presidential election. He could face multiple other indictments.But the one this week, centered on a tawdry episode that predates Mr. Trump’s time in the White House, struck some Democrats as a sharp contrast in substance with the other possible charges against the former president. Some felt conflicted between their view that no one is above the law, while wondering if this particular case will be worth the chaos for the country, especially when there may be other, bigger targets.“He isn’t above the law and anyone who suggests otherwise is un-American,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic organization. “The question is, is it worth it for this crime?”Bernd Weber, right, in Littleton, N.H., on Thursday evening. “There were any number of things that he could have been indicted for, and this was probably the least of them,” he said of Mr. Trump. John Tully for The New York TimesIn Littleton, N.H., Bernd Weber, 65, a dentist, said he was glad the grand jury had voted to indict Mr. Trump, but he worried about the former president’s ability to “spin it to make it look like a witch hunt, and there are people that are buying that.”“There were any number of things that he could have been indicted for, and this was probably the least of them,” he said.Other Democrats made clear that while they welcomed this indictment, they believed Mr. Trump should be held accountable for far more.“No one is above the law,” Representative Barbara Lee, a liberal California lawmaker now running for Senate, wrote on Twitter. “Now do the rest of his crimes.”Jon Hurdle More

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      The Indictment of Donald Trump

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      Jessica Cheung and Carlos Prieto and Rachel Quester and Dan Powell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicA Manhattan grand jury has indicted Donald J. Trump for his role in paying hush money to a porn star, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The precise charges are not yet known, but the case against him has kicked off a historic moment in American politics.The investigative reporter Ben Protess discusses the development — which will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark Mr. Trump as the nation’s first former president to face criminal charges — and what happens next.On today’s episodeBen Protess, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.For decades, Donald J. Trump avoided criminal charges despite persistent scrutiny and repeated investigations, creating an aura of legal invincibility that the indictment now threatens to puncture.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesBackground readingMr. Trump becomes the first former president to face criminal charges.Why was he indicted? These are the key events that led to this moment.This is what will happen when Mr. Trump is arrested.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Ben Protess More

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      Republicans Erupt in Outrage Over Trump Indictment, Defending the Defendant

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      Many in the party said Donald Trump could benefit from a wave of sympathy among Republicans, with his base of supporters likely to be energized by a belief in a weaponized justice system.Republican leaders in Congress lamented the moment as a sad day in the annals of United States history. Conservative news outlets issued a call to action for the party’s base. One prominent supporter of Donald J. Trump suggested that the former president’s mug shot should double as a 2024 campaign poster.Even Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, widely viewed as Mr. Trump’s leading potential presidential primary rival, rushed to condemn the prosecutor who brought the Manhattan case that led to the historic indictment of the former president on Thursday. While not naming Mr. Trump, Mr. DeSantis said Florida would not play a role in extraditing him.“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head,” Mr. DeSantis said on Twitter.Up and down the Republican Party, anger and accusations of injustice flowed from both backers and critics of the former president, even before the charges had been revealed. Many said Mr. Trump could benefit from a wave of sympathy from across the party, with a base of supporters likely to be energized by a belief that the justice system has been weaponized against him.“The unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States on a campaign finance issue is an outrage,” former Vice President Mike Pence told CNN.In some quarters, there was a darker reaction. On Fox News, the host Tucker Carlson said the ruling showed it was “probably not the best time to give up your AR-15s.”“The rule of law appears to be suspended tonight — not just for Trump, but for anyone who would consider voting for him,” Mr. Carlson said. One of his guests, the conservative media figure Glenn Beck, predicted that the indictment would cause chaos in the years ahead.How the indictment affects Mr. Trump’s bid to remain the nation’s top Republican and capture the party’s 2024 presidential nomination may remain unclear for weeks, if not months. The Manhattan inquiry is one of four criminal investigations involving Mr. Trump, and the outcomes and cumulative political effects of those cases remain to be seen.But David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group seeking a replacement for Mr. Trump as the face of the Republican Party, said the indictment had already generated sympathy for the former president. Mr. McIntosh compared the case to “the old Soviet show trials” and argued that many Americans would view it similarly.“We’re crossing the Rubicon here by mixing politics and law enforcement,” he said in an interview. “It’s a huge, huge mistake and a threat to our democratic process. People can disagree about who our leaders should be, but we have a long tradition of not turning it into a criminal process.”Mr. Trump and his allies also believe the criminal charges carry political upside, at least in a primary race. The former president has spent much of the past two weeks on social media — and his speech on Saturday in Texas at the first major rally of his 2024 campaign — trying to amplify the outrage among his supporters. He had also sought to influence the ultimate decision by Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, on whether to bring charges.“This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,” Mr. Trump said in a statement on Thursday.Mr. Trump’s protests of an unfair justice system come after he repeatedly threatened or sought to employ his presidential powers to pursue his real and perceived enemies. He has also long sought to use the existence of investigations into political rivals as a cudgel against them, including in 2016, when he ran television ads declaring Hillary Clinton “unfit to serve” after being “crippled” by the investigation into her emails.And he has spent years persuading supporters to internalize political and legal threats to him as deeply personal attacks on them.In the last month, Mr. Trump improved his standing by 11 percentage points in a hypothetical primary field, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. The poll found that Mr. Trump was favored by 54 percent of Republican voters, up from 43 percent last month.“It’s the craziest thing,” Mr. Trump said Saturday at his rally in Waco, Texas. “I got bad publicity and my poll numbers have gone through the roof. Would you explain this to me?”On CNN, Mr. Pence, who is considering a 2024 presidential bid, said the indictment had no bearing on his own decision about whether to run. He was one of the few prospective or official candidates to comment..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.But the political effects for Mr. Trump could be determined in part by his response to the charges. His recent attempt to fight his legal battle on a political playing field has reignited the kind of behavior that tends to turn off moderate Republicans and independents. The defection of these voters from Mr. Trump, and from his preferred candidates and causes, has resulted in three consecutive disappointing election cycles for the party.Some Republicans, including former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, have said there are limits to the political benefit of an indictment.A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday found that 57 percent of Americans said that criminal charges should disqualify Mr. Trump from seeking office again, while 38 percent disagreed.On Thursday, Mr. Trump absorbed the news from Mar-a-Lago, his South Florida resort, after being informed by his lawyers, according to two Trump associates briefed on the matter.Even though the former president had incorrectly predicted he would be arrested nine days ago, the indictment caught his team off guard, according to several people close to the former president.Trump aides had believed reports by some news outlets that the grand jury in Manhattan was not working on the case on Thursday. Some advisers had been confident that there would be no movement until the end of April at the earliest and were looking at the political implications for Mr. DeSantis, who has not yet announced a campaign.Mr. Trump’s allies see the New York case as the most trivial, and had spent several days adamant that it was falling apart, without explaining why they believed this beyond faith in a defense witness.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, had faced pressure from Trump allies not to bring charges. Dave Sanders for The New York TimesEven the indictment will become the kind of spectacle Mr. Trump often seeks. His legal travails are likely to further suck up media oxygen and blot out other coverage of the presidential race, at a time when his closest prospective rival, Mr. DeSantis, is still introducing himself to voters around the country.“I believe this will help President Trump politically — but it’s horrible for our country and the judicial system,” Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and Trump ally, said in an interview. Mr. Trump has been briefed on the process he will now go through, and is expected to surrender next week, according to people familiar with the discussions.Conservative news networks were brimming with conversations about the mechanics of the indictment after it was announced — and what it meant for the presidential campaign.Alan Dershowitz, an emeritus Harvard law professor, said during an interview on Newsmax that a mug shot of Mr. Trump could serve as a campaign poster.“He will be mug-shot and fingerprinted,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “There’s really no way around that.”On “War Room,” a podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist, Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump administration official, called for supporters to “peacefully protest.”Fox News and other conservative news networks were brimming with conversations about the mechanics of the indictment.Todd Heisler/The New York Times“We are going to see who are the politicians, who are the grifters, and who are the America First patriots,” Mr. Gorka said. “This is a time of sorting.”On Fox News, the host Jesse Watters said that “the country is not going to stand for it,” adding: “And people better be careful. And that’s all I’ll say about that.”Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia wrote on Twitter that “arresting a presidential candidate on a manufactured basis should not happen in America.”In Washington, Republicans continued to circle the wagons in defense of Mr. Trump.Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California said Mr. Bragg had “irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our presidential election.”“As he routinely frees violent criminals to terrorize the public, he weaponized our sacred system of justice against President Donald Trump,” Mr. McCarthy wrote on Twitter. “The American people will not tolerate this injustice, and the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account.”Representative Elise Stefanik, a top supporter of Mr. Trump and a member of the House Republican leadership, called for people to “peacefully organize,” a notable statement after Mr. Trump urged his supporters to protest ahead of an indictment. That call prompted concerns about echoes of the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by a pro-Trump mob.Mr. Trump did not reiterate his call for protests in his statement on Thursday.Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, took the extraordinary step last week to involve Congress in an open investigation by sending a letter, along with two other House Republican chairmen, demanding that Mr. Bragg provide communications, documents and testimony about his investigation.After the indictment was announced, Mr. Jordan tweeted one word in response to the news: “Outrageous.”Reporting was contributed by More

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      Can Trump Still Run for President if He’s Charged? Here’s What We Know

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      The vote by a Manhattan grand jury to indict former President Donald J. Trump raises novel legal and political questions because he is running for the Republican nomination for president again.Any indictment or conviction would not bar Mr. Trump from running. A clean criminal record is not among the criteria the Constitution sets for who is eligible to be president. (Officials who have been impeached and convicted of “high crimes and misdemeanors” may be barred from future office, but the Senate acquitted Mr. Trump at both his impeachment trials.)Still, it would be extraordinary for a person who is under indictment, let alone convicted of a felony, to be a major party nominee.There are only a few historical examples of somewhat serious candidates who even come close. They include the unsuccessful run in the 2016 Republican primary by Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, after he was indicted on charges of abuse of power (the charges were dismissed months after he dropped out of the race), and the 1920 run by Eugene V. Debs as the Socialist Party nominee while he sat in prison for an Espionage Act conviction.If Mr. Trump were to be elected president while a felony case against him was pending or after any conviction, many complications would ensue.The Justice Department has taken the position since the Nixon administration that even indicting a president while in office would be unconstitutional because it would interfere with the president’s ability to perform duties as head of the executive branch. Mr. Trump would surely try to get the case dismissed on that basis. There is no definitive Supreme Court ruling because the issue has never arisen before.Notably, in 1997 the Supreme Court allowed a federal lawsuit against President Bill Clinton to proceed while he was in office. That was a civil case, however — not a criminal one — and it was in the federal system, not the state courts, as the indictment in Manhattan would be.In that opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in passing that a similar case brought in the state court system might raise “federalism and comity concerns, as well as the interest in protecting federal officials from possible local prejudice,” but he did not say whether those factors would change the outcome.Even more extraordinary complications would arise were Mr. Trump to be convicted and incarcerated and yet elected anyway. One possibility is that he could win a federal court order requiring his release from state prison as a result of a constitutional challenge. Another is that upon the commencement of his second term, he could be immediately removed from office under the 25th Amendment as “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” More

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      Ron DeSantis Reunites With a Key Adviser as Campaign Plans Unfold

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      A central area of expertise for Dustin Carmack, who will leave his post at the Heritage Foundation, is national security, with a focus on cybersecurity.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida plans to install his former congressional chief of staff as a senior adviser specializing in national security when he formally begins his presidential campaign, according to three people briefed on the plans.Dustin Carmack served as a key aide to Mr. DeSantis, whose tenure in the House lasted from 2013 until 2018, and he was chief of staff for the director of national intelligence during the Trump administration. Now at the Heritage Foundation, Mr. Carmack intends to leave that post to join the DeSantis campaign-in-waiting on the payroll of the Republican Party of Florida, the people said.The party apparatus has become something of a staging ground for prospective DeSantis campaign staff while the governor waits to make an official announcement.The planned appointment makes Mr. Carmack the most significant prospective policy hire to date for a DeSantis campaign. It indicates the governor will continue his pattern of filling key roles with trusted loyalists. Traditional Republican foreign policy elites, who are monitoring Mr. DeSantis’s every move for clues about his intentions, will most likely be relieved that, in Mr. Carmack, Mr. DeSantis will have an adviser who leans more hawkish than the governor’s allies on the Tucker Carlson-adjacent New Right.Mr. Carmack’s portfolio with an eventual DeSantis campaign will be broadly focused on policy. But one of his key areas of expertise is national security, with a focus on cybersecurity.Mr. Carmack did not respond to requests for comment. An official with the Republican Party of Florida did not respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for Mr. DeSantis, Lindsey Curnutte, declined to comment.During his most recent stint at Heritage, Mr. Carmack took a hawkish approach to his foreign policy writings, especially as they related to cybersecurity and Russia and China.In an article in The Daily Signal on July 20, 2021, Mr. Carmack argued that President Biden should consider “offensive cyber reprisals” or tougher sanctions to hit back against Chinese cyberattacks.“As we move further into the digital age, we need to take the kid gloves off when dealing with China,” he wrote.And, while Mr. DeSantis has recently declared that defending Ukraine is not a vital national interest, Mr. Carmack is on the record as a Ukraine hawk. He has called on the Biden administration to include “offensive cyber operations in the package of military assistance to Ukraine.”“The United States has sent Ukraine a variety of military equipment, including killer drones, Stinger surface-to-air missiles, Javelin anti-tank missiles, small arms and ammunition,” he said in an April 2022 article co-written with Michael J. Ellis, the former senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council. “We should do more.”“If ordered,” Mr. Carmack and Mr. Ellis wrote, “U.S. Cyber Command could develop the ability to temporarily disable key Russian military, intelligence or logistics networks. This would be a tremendous boon to Ukrainian forces. Moreover, such cyber operations would not be clearly traceable back to the U.S. — reducing the possibility of escalating tensions with Russia.”When Mr. DeSantis previously supported a more hawkish posture toward Russia, as a congressman in 2015, Mr. Carmack was his chief of staff.As a sitting governor and undeclared candidate, Mr. DeSantis has no official campaign apparatus. Instead, a super PAC that is backing him has been making a number of hires, as has the Republican Party of Florida, from which staff members are expected to move to an eventual campaign.Mr. DeSantis, who is polling the closest to former President Donald J. Trump but is still trailing by a large margin in national polls of the Republican primary electorate, is not expected to declare a candidacy until after the Florida legislative session ends in May.That delay is giving Mr. Trump, who announced his candidacy in November, and his allies a window to try to define Mr. DeSantis and harden public opinion about him before he can formally enter the race. The dynamic of the 2024 campaign was upended on Thursday, however, when a grand jury in Manhattan voted to indict Mr. Trump in a hush-money case.Make America Great Again Inc., the super PAC supporting Mr. Trump’s candidacy, has begun running commercials for the first time, with a roughly $1.3 million ad buy on CNN and Fox News for a spot attacking Mr. DeSantis.As expected, the ad focuses on Mr. DeSantis’s votes on Social Security and Medicare while he was a congressman. He once vocally supported restructuring both programs and raising the retirement age when he was a budget hawk in 2012. It’s a position that Mr. Trump has attacked him for relentlessly, and with reason: Such votes have historically been unpopular with seniors, who make up a substantial chunk of the Republican voting base.“He’s just not ready to be president,” the ad narrator intones. More

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      Ron DeSantis Burnishes Tough-on-Crime Image to Run in ’24 and Take On Trump

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      The Florida governor, preparing for an all-but-declared campaign, is said to see an opening to take on the former president from the right.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has spent months shoring up a tough-on-crime image as he weighs a run for the White House, calling for stronger penalties against drug traffickers and using $5,000 bonuses to bolster law-enforcement recruitment to his state.Now, Mr. DeSantis and his allies plan to use that image to draw a contrast with the Republican front-runner in the 2024 race, former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. DeSantis and his backers see the signature criminal-justice law enacted by Mr. Trump in 2018 as an area of weakness with his base, and Mr. DeSantis has indicated that he would highlight it when the two men tussle for the Republican nomination, according to three people with knowledge of Mr. DeSantis’s thinking. That law, known as the First Step Act, reduced the sentences for thousands of prisoners.Mr. DeSantis has yet to officially announce his candidacy, but he has been quietly staffing a presidential campaign, and his allies have been building up a super PAC. Since at least his re-election in November, Mr. DeSantis has privately suggested that Mr. Trump’s record on crime is one of several policy issues on which Mr. Trump is vulnerable to attacks from the right.One potentially complicating factor for Mr. DeSantis: He voted for the initial House version of the First Step Act in May 2018, while still a congressman. He resigned his seat in September 2018 after winning the Republican primary for governor, and was not in the House to vote for the more expansive version of the sentencing reform bill that ultimately passed into law in December 2018.Other Trump vulnerabilities, in the view of Mr. DeSantis and some of his allies, include Mr. Trump’s deference to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci as the nation’s top infectious disease expert during his initial response to the coronavirus pandemic.In July 2020, President Donald J. Trump met with Mr. DeSantis to discuss storm preparedness in Florida and the pandemic.Al Drago for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis has already pushed that point publicly, contrasting his record on the pandemic with that of Mr. Trump. He recently told the interviewer Piers Morgan that he would have fired Dr. Fauci. In the early days of the pandemic, however, Mr. DeSantis did not call for Mr. Trump to fire Dr. Fauci.Mr. DeSantis has said nothing publicly to telegraph that he intends to directly hit Mr. Trump as soft on crime. Yet for months, he has been privately gearing up for such a contrast, whether it comes from him or his allies.Public safety was an issue in Mr. DeSantis’s 2022 campaign, as it was for a number of Republicans. A person familiar with Mr. DeSantis’s thinking, who was granted anonymity because the person was not allowed to discuss private deliberations, said the governor viewed public safety as encompassing other policy matters, such as immigration.In January, Mr. DeSantis announced a series of legislative measures for the coming session in Florida, which, among other actions, would toughen penalties against drug traffickers.“Other states endanger their citizens by making it easier to put criminals back on the street. Here, in Florida, we will continue to support and enact policies to protect our communities and keep Floridians safe,” Mr. DeSantis said in a statement at the time. “Florida will remain the law-and-order state.”He has also instituted a program to pay $5,000 bonuses to recruit new Florida law enforcement officers and has played up his success in inducing hundreds to relocate to Florida from other states, such as New York and California. And he made a mini-tour last month visiting law enforcement offices in major cities in Democratic-leaning states.Mr. Trump is aware of his vulnerability on the crime issue because of his record as president, according to people close to him. Shortly after leaving office he began trying to inoculate himself against attacks by promising an uncompromising law-and-order agenda, with especially harsh treatment of drug dealers.In a speech last year at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican who was a staunch supporter of most of Mr. Trump’s agenda but a critic of the First Step Act, called Mr. Trump’s moves on criminal justice reform the “worst mistake” of his term..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Since becoming a candidate for the third time in November, Mr. Trump has released a handful of direct-to-camera videos discussing policy. In one, he proposed strengthening police departments with additional hiring and criticized what he called “radical Marxist prosecutors who are abolishing cash bail, refusing to charge crimes and surrendering our cities to violent criminals.” He also called for deploying the National Guard into areas with high crime rates.But he did not address sentencing, the core of his surprisingly lenient approach in office — and one that was at odds with his law-and-order campaign talk.Asked to comment, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, described Mr. Trump as “the law-and-order president that cracked down on crime and put away violent offenders, resulting in the lowest crime rate in decades.” Mr. Cheung accused Mr. DeSantis of giving “a safe haven for violent felons” that has resulted “in rampant crime in Florida” and said that Mr. Trump had received support from law enforcement officials around the country. And Mr. Cheung pointed to an array of crime statistics in Florida that the Trump campaign planned to highlight as unfavorable for Mr. DeSantis.Lindsey Curnutte, a spokeswoman for Mr. DeSantis, declined to comment.As president, following the advice of his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, in December 2018, Mr. Trump signed the First Step Act, which resulted in more than 3,000 inmates being released early from federal prison.Mr. Trump promoting the First Step Act in November 2018. The law led to the early release of thousands of prisoners.Al Drago for The New York TimesA Republican official who is not affiliated with Mr. DeSantis and who has closely tracked criminal recidivism among people released from prison because of the First Step Act, said that the volume of those releases would provide fodder for attack ads against Mr. Trump.On Wednesday, Pedro L. Gonzalez, a conservative with a large online following who often attacks Mr. Trump from the right and defends Mr. DeSantis, tweeted that the man charged with assaulting a U.S. Senate staff member over the weekend was “released from prison thanks to Trump’s First Step Act” and linked to a Fox News story about the case.Many of those released under the First Step Act had been imprisoned for selling drugs — a crime that Mr. Trump now says publicly that he wants to punish with the death penalty because of the destruction wrought by illegal drugs.Mr. Trump, early on as president, mused admiringly in private about how dictators like Xi Jinping of China and former President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines executed drug dealers. At other times, he asked top officials whether it was feasible to shoot in the legs migrants who were illegally crossing the border.But for most of his term, Mr. Trump suppressed this instinct publicly. He came to believe that a more compassionate criminal justice policy would help him with African American voters, according to people familiar with his thinking.Because of this — and a competition in 2020 over spending with the billionaire candidate Michael R. Bloomberg — the Trump campaign paid millions of dollars to run a Super Bowl commercial highlighting his commutation of the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a Black woman convicted of leading a multimillion-dollar drug trafficking ring. Mr. Trump and his team hailed the First Step Act as a historic bipartisan achievement.“Did it for African Americans. Nobody else could have gotten it done,” Mr. Trump wrote in response to a reporter’s question in 2022, adding, “Got zero credit.” The word “zero” was underlined for emphasis.But in June 2020, as Americans massed on the streets to protest the police killing of George Floyd, Mr. Trump told his aides privately, according to Axios, that it was a mistake to have listened to Mr. Kushner.Mr. Trump had been paying close attention to the influential Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who flayed the president as abandoning his tough-on-crime platform.“In 2016, Donald Trump ran as a law-and-order candidate because he meant it,” Mr. Carlson said in a June 2020 monologue that was anxiously shared around Mr. Trump’s orbit. “But the president’s famously sharp instincts, the ones that won him the presidency almost four years ago, have been since subverted at every level by Jared Kushner.”Mr. Trump made a sharp turn away from Mr. Kushner’s criminal justice policies during that summer of Black Lives Matter protests, and he never looked back. He urged his military leaders to send troops into cities like Seattle to take out anybody involved in riots. Mark T. Esper, who served at the time as defense secretary and resisted those requests, wrote in his memoir that Mr. Trump asked, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”In his final six months in office, Mr. Trump was erratic in his criminal justice policies. He went on a historic federal execution spree. But he also went on a pardon spree — handing out many dubious pardons, including one to a drug smuggler with a history of violence, through a process heavily influenced by Mr. Kushner.And by the time Mr. Trump was plainly looking for a future in politics again in 2021, he began talking publicly about executing drug dealers. More

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      Michigan Democrats Rise, and Try to Turn a Battleground Blue

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      With a strong governor, a Legislature passing a raft of liberal measures and a looming early presidential primary, Democrats are testing the promise and pitfalls of complete control of the state.The governor of Michigan is considered one of her party’s brightest stars. Her state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature is rapidly approving a raft of ambitious priorities. The Democratic Party is planning to host one of its earliest presidential primaries in Michigan, while the state’s Republican Party is in chaos.Seven years after Michigan helped cement Donald J. Trump’s presidential victory, the state has transformed into a new — if fragile — focal point of Democratic power, testing the promise and pitfalls of complete Democratic governance in one of the nation’s pre-eminent political battlegrounds.Michigan’s Democratic leaders, however, recoil at the idea that their state — once a reliable stronghold for the party in presidential years — is turning blue once more.“No! Michigan’s not a blue state,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer insisted in an interview last week in Bay City, nestled in a windy, working-class county near Saginaw Bay that Mr. Trump won twice. Ms. Whitmer captured it too, prevailing there and across the state in Democrats’ November sweep.“It would be a mistake for anyone to look at that and think Michigan is not still a tossup, very competitive, very diverse state that’s going to decide the outcome of the next national election again,” she said.“Everybody thinks, Oh, Michigan’s done, it’s a blue state,” added Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat. “Tenuous is the operative word.”Against that backdrop — significant victories last fall, in a state that is still closely divided — state Democrats are pursuing a flood of liberal legislation, while measuring the durability of an unwieldy coalition that defeated Republicans in the last three elections.Democratic triumphs were fueled by both moderate suburbanites and liberal city dwellers, left-wing college students and even some onetime Trump voters who thought their party had gone too far.“The state Republican Party is not reflective of the average Republican in Michigan,” Ms. Whitmer said, nodding to the hard-right turn of the Michigan G.O.P. “I don’t think that everyone’s all of a sudden become Democrats.”In November, Michigan voters decided to enshrine abortion protections in the State Constitution. Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesMs. Whitmer has cautioned against claiming political “mandates.”But Democrats have moved assertively to act on their power, which includes full control of the Legislature and governor’s mansion for the first time in 40 years, focusing on both pocketbook priorities and cultural issues.They have shepherded through a major tax package, and, to the consternation of some in the business community, made Michigan the first state in nearly 60 years to repeal right-to-work rules, which had weakened organized labor. They have expanded L.G.B.T.Q. protections and pursued anti-gun violence measures, and have moved to repeal a now-unenforceable abortion ban from 1931.Ms. Whitmer has also signed a measure moving up Michigan’s presidential primary, a move blessed by national Democrats, though it is unclear how Republicans will proceed.If that calendar change takes hold, voters around the country who were once made intimately familiar with the Iowa State Fair may soon become acquainted with the Posen Potato Festival and a Michigan cheeseburger festival, as the state moves into a position of greater prominence in the Democratic nominating process.Ms. Whitmer’s victory margin of nearly 11 percentage points — on par or ahead of governors in several more liberal states — has only encouraged a perception among many Democrats that she is possible presidential material.But she insisted she would not run for president in 2024, regardless of President Biden’s re-election plans. He is expected to run and would have strong support from party leaders including Ms. Whitmer, but has not yet announced a bid.Ms. Whitmer holding a discussion with students and faculty members at a career center in Bay City, Mich., this month. Many Democrats see her as a potential presidential candidate one day, but she has insisted she will not run in 2024.Emily Elconin for The New York Times“I have made a commitment to the people of Michigan, I’m going to do this job till the end of this term,” Ms. Whitmer said. Pressed on whether there was anything about the presidency that appealed down the road, she first demurred — “no, not at the moment” — before allowing, “I think that this country is long overdue for a strong female chief executive.”Republicans, for their part, who as recently as 2018 controlled the state levers of power, are now adrift and divided. Ahead of what should be a marquee Senate race to succeed Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat who is retiring, the challenge of nominating someone who would both survive a primary contest and thrive in a general election is growing more apparent by the week.The state Republican Party is now helmed by an election denier, Kristina Karamo, who lost her November race for secretary of state by 14 points and has stoked doubts about her ability to run a serious operation.“People have concerns that the incumbent will have trouble raising money when she openly maligns the same donors she needs to bring in to help win the Senate race,” said Gustavo Portela, a former spokesman for the Michigan Republican Party. “She’ll have a challenge being able to balance the grass roots and donors.”Former President Donald J. Trump endorsing Kristina Karamo, left, who would go on to lose Michigan’s race for secretary of state in November. She is now the leader of the state Republican Party. Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesMs. Karamo did not respond to requests for comment.Just last week, the Michigan G.O.P. promoted an image on social media that compared efforts to curb gun violence with the Nazis’ theft of wedding rings from Holocaust victims, then defended the posts amid a backlash.“The Republican Party in Michigan is dead for the foreseeable future,” said former Representative Dave Trott, who represented a suburban Detroit district as a Republican but now considers himself an independent, supporting Mr. Biden in 2020. “Even if the right people were in charge, the MAGA movement is such that any candidate that would be more acceptable to a general electorate can’t win the primary.”“If I’m Elissa Slotkin,” he added, “I’m already trying to figure out which Senate building I want my office in.”The primary and the general elections for Senate are political lifetimes away, but Ms. Slotkin, a Democratic congresswoman from a competitive district, is currently in a commanding position in the race.Several of the state’s highest-profile Democrats have passed on a Senate run, giving her running room in the primary, though a number of other Democrats — hoping to see more representation of Black voters, Detroit voters, or both in the race — could still get in. Among Republicans, former Representative Peter Meijer, who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, is perhaps the best-known potential candidate. Kevin Rinke, who ran a largely self-funded Republican primary campaign for governor, has also been seen as a possible contender, among others. Both men lost primaries last year to far-right candidates who were then defeated in general elections.Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, joined Michigan State students at the State Capitol who were protesting gun violence two days after a deadly shooting on the university’s campus. Nick Hagen for The New York TimesMaggie Abboud, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the committee had seen “a number of strong potential candidates reach out.”Certainly, it is difficult to predict how the Democratic strength on display last fall will translate in 2024. The contests were defined in part by an extraordinary backlash to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and a major, successful initiative to enshrine abortion protections in the State Constitution — and it is far too early to say what issues will be galvanizing next year.Democrats benefited from a redistricting process. And party leaders freely acknowledge how quickly the political environment in the state can shift.“We were looking into the brink and decided to work our backsides off,” Ms. Slotkin said. “The minute you sleep on Michigan, it can go the other direction.”There were also warning signs in Wayne County, which is home to Detroit and the state’s largest population of Black Americans. Turnout was lower in 2022 than it was in the 2018 midterms.“We have an opportunity to do more,” said Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, himself a Detroiter. “I certainly spent a lot of time with Black voters and particularly our younger voters and our Black male voters who we’ve got to make sure are deeply engaged, and that we invest in that engagement.”Still, the party’s gains were significant, including signs of new inroads in white working-class territory that has become exceedingly difficult for Democrats around the country.“In my district, folks were outraged by Jan. 6, but if that’s all you talk to them about, you’re not going to win their vote,” said State Senator Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat whose seat includes parts of Bay County, and who emphasized both kitchen-table economic issues and abortion rights in her race.Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democratic state senator, said her party was mobilized “in a way that I haven’t seen in a really long time.”Emily Elconin for The New York Times“By demonstrating that we are moving on real issues that people care about and doing it very aggressively with Democratic power,” she said, she hoped Michiganders would believe that “voting for a Democrat means things are going to get better.”Democrats “were really demoralized after the Trump victory, and suddenly we are seeing people coming to party meetings again,” she added. “The Democratic trifecta in Michigan has mobilized Democrats in a way that I haven’t seen in a really long time.”But Ms. Dingell, the Democratic congresswoman, remains keenly focused on pro-Trump sentiment in the state, and she is already warning of another challenging election cycle, arguing that races up and down the ballot will be highly competitive.“We will be ground zero for every race,” she said. 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